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cover of episode What Wrestling Taught Me About Pain, Purpose & Pushing Through | #Success - Ep. 21

What Wrestling Taught Me About Pain, Purpose & Pushing Through | #Success - Ep. 21

2025/3/26
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Russell Brunson: 我每年都参加摔跤比赛,因为它让我重拾活力,并积极影响我生活的方方面面。即使在受伤的情况下,例如颈部受伤、两次手臂脱臼和两次肱二头肌撕裂,我也坚持参加比赛。这不仅仅是关于摔跤,更是关于做那些让你感觉活着的事情。 我被一位70多岁、做过两次膝盖和两次髋关节置换手术的摔跤手激励,承诺每年都参加比赛直到去世。在一次比赛中,我看到一位身患绝症的70多岁裁判完成了他的第一次也是最后一次摔跤比赛,这再次坚定了我的决心。 我希望我的故事能激励大家重新拾起儿时热爱的事物,即使它意味着挑战和风险。今年的摔跤比赛更具挑战性,因为我选择参加了大学风格的比赛,并且需要在家庭度假期间抽出时间参赛。 在比赛前两周,我左前臂受伤,肘关节脱臼,但我的理疗师帮我复位了。为了能够参加比赛,我使用了肽疗法和绷带固定受伤的胳膊,并坚持训练。为了参加比赛,我进行了为期五天的严格减重,减掉了23磅。我经历了极端的减重过程,包括在桑拿房里锻炼和使用冰疗法,最终成功减重,并在赛后迅速恢复体重。 尽管减重过程痛苦,但它让我感觉充满活力,这对我来说非常重要。在比赛中,我的左肘再次脱臼,右肱二头肌也撕裂了,但我坚持完成了比赛,然后飞往夏威夷与家人团聚。 尽管身受重伤,我仍然保持积极乐观的态度,让我的夏威夷之旅充满快乐。我分享我的经历是为了激励人们勇敢追逐梦想,不要害怕受伤,因为即使受伤,也能从中获得宝贵的经验和快乐。

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Russell Brunson shares his experience of returning to wrestling after a long break, highlighting the importance of pursuing passions and overcoming challenges. He emphasizes that it's about pushing boundaries and feeling alive, even if it means getting hurt.
  • Importance of pursuing passions and reconnecting with childhood hobbies
  • Overcoming fears and challenges
  • The value of pushing boundaries and feeling alive

Shownotes Transcript

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What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the show. Excited to be hanging out with you guys today. And this is like an old school show. For those who are newer to the podcast, you probably don't know this, but the podcast has taken a couple of different changes over the years. When I first launched, it was called the Marketing in Your Car podcast.

uh then it shifted to marketing secrets podcast now it's just a russell runson show because i'm talking about all sorts of stuff not just marketing uh all the fun things so um but when i first started the podcast i literally would uh i had a four minute commute to my from my house to the office every day and i would hold my phone up to my mouth like i'm doing right now and i would talk while i was driving anyway today um i have a 30 minute commute to the doctor and so i thought i would jump on and record an episode with you guys right now while we're hanging out in traffic like the good old days so

Um, and, uh, just to give you context. So, um, the, the time I'm recording this right now, um, last, last 30 days, my life's been a little crazy, but it's always a little crazy as you, as you know, but, uh, twice a year or once a year, I basically, uh, I try to get back in shape and relive my glory days by going out and wrestling. And there's a tournament every single year, uh, for, uh,

for basically all age groups, all the way up to veterans, which are like the really old, like 70, 80-year-old guys who wrestle in this tournament. And it's funny because I remember when I was wrestling in college, I remember going to an open tournament and there were these guys that were like in their 70s wrestling. And I was like, that's so cool. And I forgot about it. And for almost 20 years, I didn't wrestle. I was just...

to do my thing, do my business. And then when I moved into our house I'm in now, about 10 years ago, I built a wrestling room. And so I just built it to be able to wrestle. It's like, invited much of my friends over, started wrestling. And it was kind of fun. Like, we'd get together three or four times a year and beat each other up. And it was just like, ah, reliving the glory days. It was so great. And then after...

One time, one of the wrestling guys was wrestling became one day. He's like, yeah, I competed in trim this weekend. I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, there's a tournament every year. I went and wrestled it. I'm like, why didn't you tell me? And so the next year I was like, I'm going to go wrestle in this tournament. So,

I remember we start, I was going to, I was going to try and get in shape, but right out of time. And so the week before the tournament, we started working out and then my very first practice, it was like Monday morning. We got to, you know, had a practice to get prepared for the tournament that weekend. And the very first practice, I tore my neck and like could barely walk and had a chiropractor coming over like every single day, tried putting back together, but like I couldn't, it hurt so bad. And so I literally had half of a practice before we went to the tournament.

show up at the tournament. I'm on, sores can be, and there's two styles. There's two Olympic styles. There's a freestyle and a Greco. And so I went and anyway, did the freestyle tournament. Or so it was Greco first. And I can't remember. I think I took third place in that tournament with a stiff neck. And then I did freestyle. I think I took second or something like that. But anyway, I placed in both the tournaments and had so much fun. But there was a moment that was like really cool. I remember

Uh, what happened is, um, we were warming up before and there was this old guy came over to me. There was Tony, I think from, from London and he's probably 70, 70 to 80 years old, somewhere in that window. Right. Older guy. And he came up and we were warming up and he walked over and he's just wearing like a wrestling singlet and knee pads. It's an old guy. And like, you know, we're nowadays like we don't want to walk around in our singles. We're, we're all wearing shorts and t-shirts and there's singlet underneath, but like, we're not just walking around. This guy's walking around it. It was his knee pads on. He walks over. He's like, Hey, you want to wrestle?

I was like, I guess. And so I was like, cool. He's like, I've had two knees and two hips replaced. So just don't shoot on me. And I was like, what? Like wrestling is all about shooting on people. So anyway, so we warmed up and we drilled together.

And it was just so funny. And then I remember watching him and he went out there and he won one or two matches. And I was like, okay, if this dude who's in his seventies, has got double knee replacements, double hip replacements is still competing at this age. I'm like, I'm making a commitment to myself right now. I'm going to do this every single year until I die. And so that was kind of the, that was the promise myself. Right. And so I did that year to the next year and then COVID year hit. And so we, during that year, we went and, um,

It's actually down in Florida, which was usually these are in Vegas. This was in Florida. There's a beach wrestling tournament we got to do, which was like insanely cool. Uh, so we're wrestling on the beach and then they had the regular tournament and this tournament, there was this old guy and, um,

And he was terminal. In fact, if you watch my YouTube channel from back there, we did a whole vlog about it, but he's a, he was a judge and he'd never wrestled his whole life. But for some reason, like 10 years earlier, he decided he wanted to become a wrestler. And, um, and he told, and anyway, um, I pulled him aside. I wanted to interview him a little bit. He said that, you know, he's like,

he's like when i was a as a judge he's like it's tough because he's like there's people that love me or they hate me and there's there's always this this politics these things like my shoulder as a as a wrestler he's like i'm a wrestler he's like he's like there's no judging he's like i'm part of a community and like that's why i'm here and he was not good like he walked out on crutches and then he put the crutches down he'd hobble out in the middle he started wrestling um and so we watched these matches it was just like crazy watching this old guy do it and i remember um at the end of it

over the speaker, they made an announcement. And basically, and somebody has heard me tell the story before, but in wrestling, when you retire, if you're good, I mean, not for most people, but you know, you retire, you take your shoes off and you leave them on the side of the mat. So Funnel Hacking Live this year, by the way, that's something that I did is that when the event ended, me and Todd took off our shoes, made Dave Woodward's shoes and we left them on the stage and we walked off stage to kind of symbolize like the ending of an era.

But at this wrestling tournament, they announced sort of a speaker that this judge said he has a terminal illness. And this was his last time having a chance to wrestle. And I remember he took his shoes off and let it on side of the mat and everyone clapped for him.

And I was like, man, I'm looking at this guy who had never wrestled till 10 years prior. He's in his 70s and he just wanted to wrestle. You know, like it wasn't even something he was doing his whole life. He just wanted to be a wrestler and he and he was dying all the way till, you know, to the end. Anyway, so for me, it's like kind of recommitted, like this is something I do every single year till I die.

Um, it's been fun. Like, since I've been doing this, I've had a lot of people message me who were like, Oh, like I used to do karate when I was a kid. Now I'm new karate. I used to do this when I was a kid now, because you're doing, you're chasing these dreams of yours. I'm doing it as well. So one of my main goals of sharing any of this is just to hopefully, um, for most of you guys to think back, like when you were a kid, what was the thing that brought you the most happiness?

For me, 100%, it was wrestling, right? And then we get done wrestling, our career ends, and we stop doing it. And I think other sports are probably better. I have friends who play basketball, and they still go find, pick up games here or there and stuff. But in wrestling, it's hard. There's not really stuff happening. Other than jiu-jitsu. Jiu-jitsu is like the...

that drug for, you know, for wrestlers to get to, to do something similar. So you just use a big one out there. But anyway, hoping that by sharing some of these stories and get you guys to figure out what was the thing that you loved when you were a kid, that that was like, that meant the most in the world. And I could go start doing that thing again, go,

go into a wrestling tournament go play soccer go um go act in a play like whatever your thing is because like man i can't tell you how much life and excitement it brings so for me it's like once a year i have this thing it's like i've you know for me to compete i gotta i have to get back in shape i gotta wrestle like i get my cardio up i get my strength training back up uh but it means the world to me like it's it's it's the best right and so this year was interesting because

So there's freestyle and grack or Olympic styles, but there's a third style, which is, you know, called a collegiate style or folk style, which is the only style that we wrestle here in America. And so I was so excited because I wanted to, there's every single year they have it, but it's like during spring break. So every year I'm with my family on a cruise ships, like,

I can't do it, right? Because the cruise ship leaves at a certain time and you just can't make it. And so this year, our family decided for spring break not to go on a cruise, but just to go on a vacation. And so I was like, wait, based on that, I don't have to be at the vacation spot like where I would happen. So I told Claire, I'm like, hey, you're going to take the kids to Hawaii and then I'm going to go wrestle and I'll fly there a day late. I think she was a little annoyed with me because, you know, yeah. Especially this year, it was the first spring break where

our twins down the bone weren't with us like down was home working bones on a mission so it's already like a smaller family anyway but I told Claire I want to do this I need to wrestle in this tournament like it's a collegiate style which I better I better that style the other ones I'm so excited to go and so anyway long story short

I'm, I'm prepared for this tournament. I start wrestling and things went well. I'm like, I'm doing well. I'm getting back in shape. And then the Sunday was March 2nd, I believe. So it's like two weeks before I was out cleaning up the restroom, getting ready to like turn on where we're going to be doing like, you know, at least one, maybe two practices a day, getting ready for the tournament. And I have this big tire, like it's a big tire that you can flip and you can hit. And it's, it's a, it's a really big tire. Like it's hard for me to lift. In fact, usually takes two people to actually be able to lift the tire and flip it.

But I was cleaning the restroom and I was like, I want to move the tire. So I went to the lift to try to pick it up. I'm like, I can't pick it up. I'm gonna hurt my back. And so I didn't. And then a few minutes later, I'm like, I just want to move it. So I walked over, I started lifting it again. And what's crazy is I had, I had, um, I had like my noise canceling headphones on so that, um,

because I was listening to music and stuff. And so I couldn't hear anything in the room. And so I started lifting it. As I'm lifting the tire, I get underneath it. I have both my hands underneath it. And all of a sudden I hear a pop in my left forearm. Like I could hear it through the noise canceling. It's like pop. I'm like, what the crap? I'm like, what was that? And I'm like, oh, well. And it's like, you got kind of readjust. Start lifting in and it pops again. And I was like, oh no. So I dropped the tire. I looked down at my arm and my arm looks like it's broken. Like it's, it does not look good.

And I try to like, I'm like, like, what's wrong with that? Try to pick something up. I couldn't pick anything up. I'm like, oh no. So I called one of my friends, Ty Ogata, who lives in the neighborhood next to me. He's like, he's a chiropractor. He's awesome.

and he raced over and he's like dude your ulna popped out of your elbow or whatever or something like that and so because he snaps it back in oh and it was hurt um but then like the muscles looked weird my arm looked deformed i was like what's happening it's like he's like your muscles all freaking out because you know the bone moved and so he spent like an hour like massaging my form to get it back to like so it looked like a normal arm and then i started doing some basic pressure i pressured my hand over up and then as soon as i put some pressure up my ulna popped out again and i'm like oh no so you gotta reset it back in there

And I was like, dang it. And so close, so happy. She's like, all right, you know, cancel wrestling. You're going to come. And I'm like, like, we don't cancel yet. Cause like maybe there's a way we can heal. And so then in true Russell Brunson fashion, I was like, all right,

How do we solve this problem? There's got to be a way. So I'm calling everyone I know, trying to figure out the right things, right? So the guy who does my, Doug Grant, who does my blood work and does my supplements, I tell him, so he's like, okay, there's this, these peptides, it's called the Wolverine Protocol. So he ships me out, overnights me, these peptides, they're supposed to make you heal super fast. So twice a day, I'm giving myself peptide shots directly into my arm, right? I'm doing all sorts of stuff, trying to get this thing healed as fast as I can. And it just hurts. Every time I try to do anything, it hurts.

And so I was about to spot where I was going to give up. And then Ty, my chiropractor came over and he's like, I have an idea. So when he taped my wrist really tight on that side, he taped about three inches deep on my wrist and,

And by taping it, it kept the two bones together closer. And so I could actually move my wrist. I'm like, oh my gosh, like it still hurts, but not like, I think I could actually wrestle this way. And so I was like, I'm going to test tomorrow morning. I called Mike Vanbrill, who's my, one of my wrestling partners. I was like, hey, come out tomorrow. Let's wrestle. I want to see if I can do it. So we came out the next morning and it wrestled. And yeah, it hurts a lot, but I was able to, I was able to do a whole wrestling practice. I'm like, okay, I'm back in. Told my wife, I was like, sorry, Colette, I'm going to go wrestle. She's like, what? You like, you literally, like,

dislocated your arm like two days ago I'm like I know but I'm gonna do it anyway and so I committed to doing it again right um at this point some guys are like Russell's insane um and remember I posted on social something because everyone's like oh sorry you're gonna miss your wrestling I was like I don't think you guys understand I was like if I was missing a leg I would still go to wrestling like this has nothing to do with like oh I'm healthy or am I healthy like like this is something I committed to that I'm gonna do um every year till I die like I'm going to this tournament um

And so that was kind of planned. So then fast forward now a couple of days. Now it's like, okay, now as I get close to the tournament, there's two weight classes and in old guy wrestling, the weight classes are bigger gap, right? When you're competing as a younger guy, like every eight to 10 pounds or different weight class. So you're kind of in there. But with my age group, there's like a,

There's like a 20 pound gaps. Like there's one, I think kilos, but if you're, if you were to put it into like pounds, there's like 194 pound weight class, which is what I normally weigh about. And then there's one down below, which is 172, which is a huge gap, right? That's like a 22 pound gap. But the problem is everyone's cutting weight. So if I wrestle 194, I'm going to be wrestling people who are cutting down from 220. If I wrestle 172, I'm wrestling people my same size. And so I'm like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to cut down weight for this. And so I decided and committed to actually cutting weight.

And so that was kind of the game plan. And so I got to lose. I was coming down from, I was actually 195 pounds on Sunday and I'd weigh in that Friday, which I weigh 171.9 technically. So yeah, that's a lot of weights. 20, what? 23 pounds.

And so I started the way cut.

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um and so we lost five or six pounds from there and then i did the next thing and then we flew out to iowa the tournament sat and then the night before we put our plastics went out there we started wrestling again to lose some weight and in that wrestling practice i'm wrestling and my arms hurting a little bit but in one of our scrambles um mike is spinning around to get behind me to get points i went and lifted my right arm so the other arm to kind of block him and as i do that it like he's spinning behind and it pops my other my right forearm i was like what

the heck so now i've got my left elbow thing jacked up my right forearm's hurting so bad but i'm still cutting weight right so we get done that night i go in i'm like 13 pounds over i'm like okay at 13 pounds weigh-ins are tomorrow um and normally one of the ways we cut weight is we fill the bathtub up with like scalding hot water and you sit in it it makes you lose a lot of weight you can lose like two or three pounds every 15 minutes so i'm like okay here's the plan

So we go to that. We got an Airbnb. We fill up the bathtub with water. And two things happen. Number one, the hot water heater does not have enough hot water to fill the bathtub. So it's like halfway filled. I get in. I'm like, it's not covering my whole body. And number two is the bathtub is draining. So then like two minutes of me getting in, the bathtub's half empty and I'm not covering the water. I'm like, oh no, this is my catch-all to be able to lose weight. And now I can't do it. And so...

And yeah, so that, and again, some of you guys are like, Russell, I thought this was a podcast about marketing or sales. Like, yeah, some days, but today's is about, about you doing what it takes for you to go live the life you want to live. So there, there's the theme for today is we're going to go, cause this is all I want to do, right? I want to go wrestle. I want to go compete. Uh, anyway, so, um, so we go to bed that night. I'm still 13 awake in the morning. I'm 12 over and I'm like, okay, where am I going to do at least 12 pounds in the next like 12 hours.

and so uh we went and we started looking for saunas we go to this first place we find a sauna they let us go in there and um you know i'm like hey i'm like we have like two hours in here they're like no you're capped at one session today and each session is 40 minutes so like okay so we go in there for first sauna session we do 40 minutes uh come back out go check our weight i lost three pounds like now i'm nine over i'm like okay that's

that's not enough so we find a different sauna place this place had like saunas with bikes in the saunas so we go there throw the plastics ride bikes for an hour straight come out lost four pounds now i'm within five pounds right so then we go back we need another sauna so we went another place as a sauna but they also have a cryo um a cryotherapy chamber and so we went there got cryotherapy froze it off just because not to lose weight just because it felt good we were so beat up at this time hadn't drinking anything in like two or three days um

completely dehydrated. So we go do cryosana, go back home, check our weight. It's still, I can't remember, four or five pounds over. So we go back, do that sauna session, get down to like right on weight, go back, check my weight at the hotel I'm right on. So we race over to the place to go do our weigh-ins. I get the weigh-ins and the way weigh-ins work is there's an hour for weigh-ins, right? But as soon as you step on the scale, like, like,

Like that's your time. You can't go and like leave afterwards. So I go, go get in line, get on the scale again at the hotel. I checked, I was right, right on weight. I get on scale and every scale is a little different. So I get on scale and they're like, you're 0.2 pounds over. And I'm like, what?

And he's like, yeah, sorry. And then he's like, you have two challenges. If you want, you can challenge, but like, you can't leave. They can't go lose any more weight. Like you're done. And so I'm like, yes, let's do the other check scale. So we go out to this other check scale. I check on that one. I'm still on 0.1 over on that one. And I'm like, if I don't do this, I've dressed a 194. I just lost 25 pounds in the last five days. It was all for nothing. And I'm like almost in tears, which would have been nice if I could cry. I could lose some weight. But unfortunately, I completely dehydrated my body. So I had no tears left.

So I'm kind of freaking out. You know, the last scale I jump on and sure enough, I'm at 78 kilos. Exactly. I jump off and he's like, they count. So I'm like, oh my gosh. And so we do that. We go back. And then again, this is not like weight cutting, like smart weight cutting where you're like losing calories. This is just purely you're dehydrating your body, right? So a gallon of water weighs eight pounds. So basically it was three gallons of water I had to suck out of my body to lose the weight, right? And so you're so dehydrated and like,

Like it's funny. I looked, my abs looked awesome. Like you could actually see I had a six pack and I had like no love handles. It was amazing. But my face is like sunken and my eyes are sunken in like there's just dehydrating your body. So you get done and you start drinking like crazy, but actually hurts to drink because

you haven't drinking or eating anything. So I'm just drinking as much as I can, as fast as I can. And then the place we'd gone into the cryotherapy, they also do IV drips. And so when they went over back, back to there and we did an IV drip, rehydrated through IVs and then water. And what's crazy that night we got back and, um, I already gained 14 pounds of water weight by the time we got back to our hotel that night. Um, so all the water we'd sucked out in the prior, the previous 24 hours was back just by drinking and doing the IV drip. But,

Anyway, so that's what got me to the spot, right? And a lot of you guys are like, Russell, why would you? It's like, this seems insane. This is like torture. And the answer and the reality is, yes, it is torture. It is insane. But also like, I don't know, like for me as a wrestler who used to do this every single week for a decade of my life, like it's,

It was so much fun. It was, it was like making me feel alive again to like go through the pressure and the pain and the sweating and the cutting weight and the deprivation and all the stuff all to like, to be able to have the opportunity to compete was just anyway.

Yeah, it was horrible and amazing at the same time. So then we fast forward next day. We go to the tournament to wrestle. I strap up my arm and I'm so excited because we're doing collegiate style, which means I can do my favorite moves like a cheap tilt and leg rides, which you can't do in freestyle in Greco. My first match, I go out there, we're wrestling. I get the guy to cheap tilt my favorite move. I turn him and he starts spazzing out. And as soon as he does, he's like jumping, he's kicking back and forth. And I feel my arm pop. The ulna pops out again. I was like, oh crap. I heard it, felt it.

And literally, I can't even move my left arm. Like, that's how bad it was. And so I finished that match. I lose the match. I'm trying to like reset the arm myself. And it just, it hurts so bad. They call me for my second match. I go out there wrestling. I'm doing really, really well against him. I get on top. Same day, I'm trying to cheap tilt him. And it just, it hurts so bad.

And then we get back on our feet and he locks me in this weird throw and throws me right on that arm again. And so my left arm is just destroyed. I can't flex. There's no bicep. It's all like bruised. It just looked horrible. And so I lost two matches. It means you usually are two and out. And I was just like, man, that sucks. Oh, I lost both matches. And my left arm now is completely jagged. I can't flex my bicep. It's swollen. It looks bad. And so we're getting ready like,

you know, I'm about to leave the tournament. All of a sudden I hear him call my name again. I'm like, what? I run over like, yeah, you're up again. I'm like, okay. So I already like, I already like, I like undone my, my wrist wrap everything. So I go back. I rewrap my wrist while I'm running out there to wrestle. I see you guys hand, we start wrestling. And, and I shoot a shot on this guy with my right hand. So it's now the other arm, the one that I had kind of hurt a little bit during the practice when we're cutting weight. I shoot on that, that leg. He sprawls back and I hear my right bicep go pop. And I was like,

Oh my gosh. I had leg over his leg. And, um, and also I'm like, I have no arms, both my arms, the biceps are torn now. I don't even know what's happening. It's like, I start wrestling this guy and luckily I, I'm able to flip them over and pin him, get the match over with. I come off, I look down and both my arms look deformed. I was like, Oh no, this is not good.

And so, um, anyway, term is done. I go over, I have the trainers like wrap them in ice so that we're icing these, these, uh, my biceps. Um, I go back, you know, to our, to our Airbnb afterwards, I unwrap them and I look at my arms and like, they both look deformed. Like my bicep does not look normal. It doesn't go to like where it normally hooks. Like it looks, it looks really, really bad. Um,

And so I'm calling some of my doctors and friends. I'm like, what do I do? And they're like, if you have a torn bicep, like you need to get in surgery and stuff. I'm like, well, I'd love to do stuff. I'm flying in like five hours to Hawaii for my family spring break. I cannot miss that. Or my wife would literally destroy me. Um, I don't have an opportunity to do that. And, um, and so yeah, they, um,

basically my arms swell up. I take a bunch of ibuprofen and stuff and then I don't go to bed that night because my flight's like at 3 in the morning. I jump on the plane and I fly to Hawaii and both my arms, like I can't move them. I get hurt still lifting. I can't lift my backpack up. Like excruciating pain. And as I'm flying to Hawaii, I have this realization. I'm like, my wife did not want me to wrestle, number one. She wanted me to spend time with her and the kids. You know, she's got the, she definitely got like the I told you so attitude, you know, which is

rightfully so um but i was like i don't want to ruin this trip for her or for my family i was like i'm gonna go to this trip and i'm gonna have extreme annoying happiness and optimism to the point where yeah just to just because i don't want to ruin this trip my kids and i don't i don't care about myself like this is not about me this is about them and so i go to the um

I go to Hawaii and first off we're in Hawaii and I'm like, it's beautiful. And I was like, so happy to be there. And even though I couldn't lift my own bag up, I couldn't, I couldn't move both my arms at this point, um, are swollen. Like they're huge. It looks like Popeye arms. It's kind of cool. Other than it's just swollen with fluid on both. It's like from my wrist to my, to my armpit, like both arms are just completely swollen. I can't even bend them. Um, and it was crazy cause I was there at Hawaii and I was like,

Again, extreme happiness and optimism and like everything's positive. I'm trying to have no thought for my paid or for any of these things because this was about them. And anyway, the Hawaii trip was insane. It's so much fun. It was such a good time. So I'm almost at the doctor's, which leads me to why I'm doing this podcast. I'm actually now, we're back from Hawaii.

And I'm going to the doctors to have them check my arms and do MRIs. And I'm going to find out here a little bit if I tore both my biceps, which I have a weird inkling that I have. It's been over a week now. And again, from my wrist to my armpit, my arms are completely yellow and purple, just of pretty bad bruising. Both my biceps don't look normal, which sucks. I'm like, oh, these don't look like my arms. So we're about to find out. But I share this for a couple reasons. Number one, you guys probably think I'm crazy. Now you know I really am. Number two is...

I want to kind of go back. Like, like a lot of people don't, they don't want to do things. They don't want to get hurt. Right. Like what else do I have to do? Right. Like I have a desk job. I'm sitting all day making funnels and talking with my, like, I don't need my body, my arms, you know, like anyway, I think a lot of people are so scared of getting hurt or they're so scared of something happening. They don't do anything. Whereas for me, it's like, I don't care if I get hurt. Like that's the point of it. Like I want the soreness. I want that. Like I want to relive my glory as I wanted to have that, that fun experience again, you know?

And so it wasn't about like, I don't want to get hurt. It's like, I'm probably hurt. In fact, every year I've done these tournaments, I've gotten hurt consistently. There's not been a year that I haven't. Um, I always get hurt in them, but it's okay. Cause I have a year to heal. Right. Like, um, but it makes me feel alive and that's the key. Right. Um, and so the lessons I hope you get from this number one is, um, do things to make you feel alive. Don't be scared of getting hurt. Like worst case scenario, like, like,

like what else am I doing my life right like like this is such a fun exciting thing it made me feel alive like all the the pain the suffering the torture all those kind of things all made me feel alive so that's number one number two is I'm looking through the pain I was in and like

And by just mentally shifting, like I'm gonna have a positive attitude. I'm like, I'm not gonna let my wife or kids know how bad this is hurting me. I'm just going to be extremely optimistic and positive. And we made this Hawaii trip so much fun for everybody and nobody, I mean, I'm sure they kind of knew I was being, you know, being a wuss. Cause I heard I couldn't do zip lining with him, a couple of things like that. But, but like I brought my, my,

you know, happy is the most optimistic, um, attitude to it. And we made the trip amazing. Um, and now I have a chance to heal and figure it out. Probably have to get some surgery. Who knows what's going to happen. Um, but I don't regret it. I would do it again in a heartbeat because, um,

Just that reason to exist, that reason to work out, the reason to cut weight, the reason to be excited was worth everything. It added energy and excitement on every other piece of my life, my business, my writing, my everything. And so I didn't want to lose that. And it's worth the pain and the suffering. So there you go. I hope it helps you guys. Again, some of you guys are going to write this episode off like Russell's crazy. And some of you guys are going to be like,

I'm going to go and do the thing I want to do now. And hopefully you give yourself permission and then don't be afraid of being hurt because the worst case scenario, you get a surgery and you're back at it. Um, I got a year to heal before next year's tournament. So thanks guys. I appreciate you all. And I'll talk to y'all soon.

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