SFR 67: My "Healthy" Obsession...

Not to blame my childhood, but a few early circumstances set me on quite the path. Here's a Mantra of mine...

Hey what's going on everyone this is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio and real quick I just want to ask, how did you get started doing what you're doing?

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 Larsen.

Alright now I know that that's kind of a ... that should be somewhat of an introspective question alright, there should be something that causes you to go like "How did I get here?"

And I hope that that's a question that you continue to ask yourself over and over it's actually been one that my wife and I funny enough have actually been asking about what I've been doing and why I have funnels that I've been working on my own and why is it that I work where I do and why is it ... it's been really cool to kind of work backwards and go "Woah, like if we hadn't made that one choice like we'd not be here" you know or "If we didn't do that one thing" you know or you know what, "if we didn't go down that path which totally failed but even though it failed it still led us here" you know what I mean?

And what was interesting is that's actually been a topic of conversation for us rather frequently over the last little bit here, it's been really really cool to look back and be like "Holy crap, I graduated like a year ago from college" I'm a bit older than the standard graduate okay but I did, I graduated a little bit over a year ago and like holy, man what happened, how did that happen?

What was the big difference, like why is it that I feel like I am just ... Guys I love my life, I love life and I love everything that's going on, I get so excited about everything that's out there, all the opportunity...

Whenever somebody says "Hey I need someone to go do this" or whenever this ... my knee jerk reaction is just to raise my hand because I want to try everything and I'm not trying to just talk about myself here on this podcast, I'm trying to show you guys how I have built successful sales funnels and how I continue to do it both personally and obviously with Russel where I work.

You know what it's been, as my wife and I started going and started dissecting right and going through all these things, this common theme started to bubble up and it's a theme, it's an attitude funny enough. I actually didn't realize ever that this is what I was doing ever but it's turned out to be this really really powerful ... it's turned out to be somewhat of a gift and it actually started when I was really really young.

My dad, and I've told this story a little bit before it's like the second episode ever of this podcast, if you've never heard it that's totally fine but you can go back and listen to it, but my dad had me be what he called the yard manager and we didn't have a small yard, it wasn't massive but I mean it was a good size though, there was a garden, there was a whole bunch of places to weed, there's a whole bunch of ... and it was really really ... anyway, it was a big task.

He said, I'm the oldest of six kids, and he said "Stephen, you're the oldest, I get it, but you are the oldest and you're the only one that I can ..." anyways I was deemed as the yard manager first obviously being the eldest and what that meant is he would have me go hire my siblings, he didn't tell me how to do it but I literally would write hiring contracts, I think I was 14 and I would write these contracts to hire my siblings for certain jobs, hey sibling number two would you please mow the lawn every week, that job is contracted at $13 every week or something like that, you know what I mean?

Then I'd go to the next sibling, could I contract you to do this? And they would sign it and there's literally an interview and it sounds so cheesy but oh my gosh like think about what that did.

Then I'd go to the next sibling and I'd do it and the work would get done, or if it didn't get done I'd have to pick up the slack, I was the contractor so to speak and that's how we set it up and my dads only point of contact for the yard was me and so when something happened or something didn't happen or if there was something out of whack he would come to me and then I would go to my hirees you know and I would go to my employees so to speak and I'd go talk to them and I'd say "Hey do this better, do this better" and obviously the sibling environment came around and said at times that we would fight about it you know and there was many renegotiations of contacts but whenever I wanted to get paid I had to go create an actual invoice and I'd turn it into my dad and then he would write it back and it was really, it was interesting, because while that story is cool the main point of it is that I would come to him and I would say "Dad, I don't know what kind of fertilizer to get"

And he would go "Oh interesting, yeah what do you think?" And I wasn't expecting that, I was not expecting that question at all, guys 100% I promise that this relates 100 and a bazillion percent to building sales funnels to please stick with me what I'm saying here okay, this thread after like months of introspection, this is what it came down to.

My dad would say "Well hey what do you think" and I'd go "I don't know" he's like "Huh, guess you gotta go find that out huh?" And it'd be like "Crap, are you serious that's all the help I get?"

And I remember feeling a little bit frustrated and annoyed and totally vulnerable and I would go and I'd just kind of get on google or I'd ride my bike over to home depot and I would price out stuff and shovels and whatever the yard needed and I'd go back to him and I'd say "Hey I think we should get this one because of this" and he'd go "Great, sounds good" and like no contest it'd be like wow okay.

Sometimes he'd ask "Does that fit within the bounds of the budget I've given you for the yard?"

And I'd be like "Well I think so". Repeatedly, over and over again, he stopped giving me answers and it was something that started very young in my life and I know that it's one of the major reasons for what has transpired since I was 14 and very very young he stopped answering all sorts of questions, he never got me a job, and I started working very very young, with actual jobs and I'd go, I would be the one going at the job and I did a crap ton of labor jobs and I'm so thankful that I did them, they taught me to work in crappy environments and make the best of it and bloom where I was planted which is huge.

Holy crap it's huge and then I'd go onto the next thing, and repeatedly over and over and over again this whole, you know I would ask my dad "Hey, I want to get a car, how should I get it?"

And he'd go "How do you think you should get it?" You know, it wasn't condescending at all he was truly asking okay cool, what's your plan?

He would have me being the one going through like hey, look at the different cars here you go so which one do you think you should get? I'd be like "Probably this one?" "Cool, go for it" you know and that was it, there was no other warm fuzzies yeah great job, or ...