The Biggest Lesson I'd Tell 2017 Me (If I Could Go Back)

I've told this story a handful of times — mostly one-on-one over coffee, or on a call with someone who's three months into their first funnel and already wondering if they should quit. Today I'm telling it to whoever's reading, because if even one person hears it the way I wish I'd heard it in 2017, it's worth putting on paper.

The Story

Back in 2017, I found Steve Larsen. Then I found Russell. And I thought, okay, this is it — I've got the guides, I've got the people who actually did it before me, I'm going to go build the business of my dreams.

What actually happened was I spent the next however-many months buying programs. I bought the certifications. I bought the masterminds. I bought the stacks and the bundles and the one-pagers about the bundles. If I just had a bit better guidance back then, I should be really pumping it seriously by now — I spent so much money on so many different programs and so many different pieces to get to where I am, and that's the honest truth.

One of our community members put the pattern better than I ever could. She told us: "I gave Russell $10,000 when I got my payout from work to do the certification program so that I could become a certified funnel builder. And I went hard into it to start, and then I got overwhelmed and I just started with that false beliefs and all that kind of stuff in myself." She sat on that $10,000 program for months. Didn't launch. Didn't take the first step.

That was me too. Not the exact dollar amount, but the exact pattern. Program after program, telling myself, one more piece, one more lesson, and then I'll be ready. It felt like a labyrinth of marketing failures — missed targets, wasted investments, the quiet echo of nothing clicking.

What finally pulled me out wasn't more content. It was a single framework. For me it was the Fishbowl Funnel. Not because it was magical, but because it was one thing. One decision. One page. One goal. I shipped it. And once that existed in the real world, everything else started to move.

The Lesson

If I could send a message back to 2017 me, it wouldn't be "buy different programs" or even "buy fewer programs." It would be this:

The hardest step is genuinely the first step. Not the twelfth. Not the one where you finally feel ready. The first one.

And every dollar you spend buying a feeling of almost-ready is a dollar you're using to avoid launching. I see this pattern in myself, in our Monster Marketing Academy members, in every Gold Certified Funnel Builder I've ever coached. The ones who win aren't the ones with the fanciest stack of courses. They're the ones who pick one funnel, one audience, one offer, and ship a first version this week — ugly, incomplete, unfinished, whatever.

That community member I mentioned? Two weeks after she finally launched, she hit 100 founding members in her Facebook group by the end of day one. Not the end of week one. Day one. The same version of her who sat on a $10,000 program for months — the only thing that changed was that she actually started.

If you're stuck in the "one more course" trap right now, you already know everything you need to start. You just haven't admitted it yet. And you're never going to admit it from inside another program. That clarity only shows up after you ship.

The Takeaway

This week, pick one funnel — bridge funnel, fishbowl funnel, webinar funnel, whatever you already know enough about to draw on a napkin. Don't watch a new video about it. Don't buy a new template. Draw it on a napkin. Then build the first page tonight.

The ugly, unfinished version of your funnel that actually exists in reality is worth infinitely more than the perfect version that only lives in your next $2,000 program.

That's the lesson I'd send 2017 me. It's the lesson I'd give you too, if we were sitting across from each other right now.

— Madison