The Russell Brunson Show

Late night rant. It’s time for the leaders to lead and to start actually making decisions. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Hey, what's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I'm here today on a little bit of a rant. All right, everyone, normally I do these episodes in the morning when I'm driving to the office, things like that. But tonight it's late ... Later, not super late yet, but just got home from wrestling practice with the kids. Anyway, just because of three or four things happened today, it's top of my mind. And so I probably won't give all the exact examples because I don't want to point people out, but I want to point the concept out, because it's something that I think you, as a leader, me as a leader, we need to become better at. And so I think the best way to pre-frame this ... Actually, I'm going to step back to the book, Atlas Shrugged. So hopefully you guys had a chance to listen to the Atlas Shrugged interview that Josh Forti and I did, I posted it here on the podcast. And hopefully for a lot of you guys it got you into the book and got you reading. That was my goal, if I can get you guys reading it, that's more important. But one of the themes that happens a lot throughout the book ... Dagny Taggart, who's the main character in the book, she basically ran the railroad. And there was all these people that worked for her, and all these people. And not just people who worked for her, but the whole society as a whole, and nobody wants to make a decision. Nobody wants to be the person who gets in trouble. They don't want to have their neck on the lines. The train would be stuck or something and they can't get it going. And she comes out and she's like, "Why isn't it moving?" And it's like, "Well, because no one's told us to." And, "Well, just do it." "I can't, because then I'm going to be held responsible, I don't want to get in trouble." And she's like, "Do your job. We need to get this thing moving." "I don't want to because I don't want to get in trouble." And then they'd be like, "Well, will you take responsibility if I have a go, if I ... " Whatever it is. She's like, "Yes, I'll take responsibility." She was willing to take responsibility, and then because of that the train would go. But it was her coming in and taking responsibility. And one of the themes throughout the book is that ... That's the big thing is that nobody wants to take responsibility. Nobody will do something because they want somebody else to like, "Oh, well who's responsible if this goes wrong?" And they want to point to somebody else. And so that's a big thing. I'm not going to get political, but right now we're in this weird thing, this whole COVID season, which is annoying for so many reasons. But one of the things, I'm one of the wrestling coaches and my kids are wrestling and trying to be part of that. And there's these decisions that they're supposed to be making be made. Whatever the decision is, I will follow it and respect it and whatever. But the problem is nobody wants to make decisions. That's the problem, because nobody wants to be held responsible if this happens or this happens or whatever happens. And so even school starting here in Idaho this year, at least in the county that we're in, it got passed three or four times. School started two weeks later than they're supposed to, because nobody wanted to make a decision. No one wanted to be on their clock, "I don't want to be willing to get in trouble. I don't want to be ... " So you keep pushing it, pushing it, pushing it. And now we're seeing the same thing with athletics. These meetings were just like, "Make a decision," but nobody wants to make decisions. You can just pass another date, another date, another person. Nobody wants to just be like, "I'm going to be the one who's going to take responsibility for this decision." We see it in our lives, we see it in government, we see it in school, we see it everywhere. And I just want to pass this to you guys. This is the leaders, this the entrepreneurs, this the people who are trying to be the ones standing up and helping and serving people. The reason why you are called to do those things, because you have to be the ones to make decisions. You have to decide, you have to be willing to take responsibility for a choice. And so many people are scared. In fact, I see it so many times, even people that I coach. And so this is for you who I coach, who you're listening to me, I'm telling you this, because this is a pattern you have to become better at. A lot of people will sign up for coaching and they sign up for you because they want ... If it's going to fail, they want to be able to blame someone else. Let's say you sign for my coaching program. And you're in it and you're like, "Okay, I'm going to do Russell says, I'm going to follow it." And I have people who all time, "Hey, review my funnel. I don't want to launch, look at my funnel first. I want to make sure, I want to get your opinion. I want you to look at ... " They don't want to decide their own. They don't want to take the lead themselves. They always want to have somebody else look at it. So that way if it fails, they go, "Oh, well, Russell told me it was good, it wasn't. So it's his fault not mine." Knock that off. That's the reason why people aren't having more success in life, because you're trying to find somebody else to pass the blame onto. That's the problem. I want to make sure this is very, very clear. That is the problem. And so if you want to be successful in life, you've got to be willing to make a decision and stick with the consequences that happen with it. And sometimes it's hard, because sometimes you make the wrong decision. Many times in my life I've made the wrong decision. Many times in my business I've made the wrong decision. Many times inside of ClickFunnels I made the wrong decision. Many times with my family, with my parenting, I make bad decisions sometimes. I'm not perfect, but I'm willing to make the decision. That's the key, that's what makes you a leader, is being the one who's willing to make the decision and then you're the ones who's ultimately responsible with the consequences of that decision. And so that's the key you have to understand. That's what makes a leader great, not someone who gets the right decision right every single time. Someone who's willing to make decision and then be held accountable, that's the other side of it. I did an episode one time about Extreme Ownership, that book, Extreme Ownership, which is insanely good. But it comes back down to that thing, everyone wants to pass the buck and, "Well this is his fault or her fault, everyone else's fault." We have to stop that. We have to be willing ... Especially us, the people who are hearing the sound of my voice. You are the leaders, you are the entrepreneurs, you're the change makers, you're the people who are going to be changing this world. You have to be ones who are willing to say, "I'm going to make a decision, and I may be wrong but I'm going to make the decision. I'm not going to pass the buck. I'm not going to try to put it on somebody else, I'm going to take extreme ownership. This is the decision I'm going to make. These are the reasons why. And then I'm going to deal with the consequences and then go." And I know it's hard, it is really, really hard. I'm not perfect, I'm not saying that I am. But I see it, I understand. I see it so many times with people who join a coaching program or buy a product or whatever, because they're trying to be able to figure out, "Who can I pass the buck ... Who can I pass the blame on if this thing fails?" And it's like, "No, no, no, no, it's all on you." You have to understand, when all is said and done, it's all on you, a hundred percent of the time. So you can call it extreme ownership, you can call it making ... I don't care what it is, but you have to understand that it's on you. As soon as you're willing to take that on that's when you start on success. I look at the people in our community who are the most successful. They're the ones who are not looking ... They're not the ones who ... They seek after coaching. They are people who have been in my inner circle, they've been in my coaching programs, they've been in things. They're seeking that thing, not so they can, "If it fails, I have someone else to blame," which is why a lot of people do it. It's the opposite, it's like, "I want to come and make myself better and better and better so I can make the correct decisions. But ultimately the decision is mine, it's not Russell's, it's not somebody else's, it's my decision." And so you have to be the one. And so it's good if you're stepping into these things, coaching or whatever else, to be able to become better at making decisions by understanding the lay of the land better, understanding the strategies and the tactics so you can make the correct decision. But ultimately it is your decision. Until you the one willing to risk that and say that and do it, you are going to struggle. And so I just I want to put that out there because, man, I wish I could go and talk to the leaders, the government, the school system and all these kind of things. I don't, I don't have their voice. They're not my people, you're my people. And so while I'm angry and frustrated at other things, I want to bring this back to you. The same thing, and I see this inside companies, my own company, I see it in other people's companies, where there's this thing where they try to get buy-in by committee. So they come in and they have an idea and they get all their team together, "This is my idea, what do you guys think? Give me some feedback, I want to know." And they try to get feedback by committee. Oh, and I hate that, it drives me nuts. You as the leader should have the vision, you're not coming in getting feedback on a vision. This vision is yours, you are ultimately responsible for it. You come to your team, not with, "Hey, I think I have a vision, what do you guys think? Do you like this or not?" No. You come and say, "This is the vision. This is what I have decided." And everyone can line up and help me figure how to make this better and how to execute it correctly, but you're not having them figure out the vision and for you. That is your job, that is your calling, that is your responsibility. You understand that? And that's why I'm not a big believer in marketing by committee, it drives me nuts. Everyone someone's like, "Hey, let's get on a call, lets map out the strategy together to try and figure things out." It's like, "No, no, no. You have the strategy, come to me." I want to see your vision and I'll give you tweaks or changes, things like that, but this is not vision by committee, marketing by committee, product design by committee. No, no, no. That's not how it can work on how it should work. It's coming down to you as the leader setting the vision. You can take direction, you can learn, you can ask for feedback and get all the things you need to be able to make the correct decision, the best decision possible. But you have to understand, as a leader you're not coming in by committee trying to get everybody to decide on the vision or the direction or the marketing thing. You've got to be a leader, flat out. And so this is my calling to you. Leaders,, it's time to step up and lead. It's time to stop trying to outsource your decision-making to a committee or to a coach or to a whatever. Or just hiding from the commitment, trying to move it on, or like people inside Atlas Shrugged just sitting there waiting for Dagny, waiting for somebody who's willing to take the heat if it goes wrong. You got to be the ones willing to take that heat or else nothing's going to change. Sometimes it's going to happen. You're going to make a stupid decision, it happens. I made so many stupid decisions. I can walk you through them all, one day we will. But I'm still here. Why? Because I was willing to take the personal responsibility, "That was my mess up. I messed up. I'm dumb." I get it, but I learned from it and I figured out I kept going forward. It's not like, oh, the fear of, "Oh, I don't want to get in trouble. I don't want to get yelled at. I don't want this, I don't want this." And, "Who can I blame? I got to make someone else make a decision," or this or that or whatever. That's what most people want to do. That's not what we can or should be doing. And so that was the message for tonight. I guess that I've just a little mini rant. I was thinking about tonight and getting frustrated and it's like, "Ah, I got to vent somewhere." So you are my people, so you're the ones who understand what I'm talking about. And I think you can implement this and apply it for yourselves, for your team, for your people. It's time for the leaders to step up and become deciders and make decisions. And so this is my calling to you. No longer are you allowed to push blame on anybody else except for yourself. Don't try to position in a way where you're able to, don't try to blame it on anything else, it's always your fault. And that's the key, be willing to do that. And if you are that's how you're going to be able to make the changes in your own life and the people's lives you can call to serve. So that said, thank you guys. I appreciate you, thanks for listening. Got any value out of this, please, take a screenshot on your phone right now of the app as you're listening to it, so I can see which episode you are. And go on Facebook, Instagram, wherever you're at, tag me. I see all those, I love it. It's fun for me to see what your guys' biggest takeaways were, and hopefully this one resonated with you. For those of you guys who this episode was offensive, for some reason, I'm guaranteed there's always a percentage that what I say offends, there's a scripture that says, "The guilty taketh the truth to be hard because it cuts them to the very center." So instead, if this triggers you for some reason, it's probably because you passing the blame on other people. That's it. So the guilty take the truth to be hard, listen to that. Be like, "If this was hard for me, maybe this is where I'm struggling. Maybe I need to step back and figure this out for myself." Be coachable. It's a hard skill set to learn, but sit back and be coachable. If this felt weird for you, if you didn't enjoy it, if you felt whatever, I would recommend pausing for a second, sitting back and being coachable. Look at yourself, "Man, am I doing this? Is that why it bothered me? Is that why I'm struggling with this?" And so, look at yourself. And maybe I'm wrong, which is totally, totally possible. But from my experiences and I understand what I've done. What I've experienced in my life, this is what I believe is true, therefore I will share it with you and hopefully it'll resonate and serve you. So that said, appreciate you all. Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you guys all soon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As you watch your Christmas movies and think about your relationship with God, I hope that this will give you something interesting to think about. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Hey everybody. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. And actually we're like a couple of days before Christmas. Instead of "Hey", maybe I should say, "Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas." And welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. All right, everybody, we are getting ready for the holidays. I hope you are as well. I know this year has been nuts for pretty much everybody. And so I hope that we are, like me, looking forward to a time where we get to stop thinking and stressing and just think about our families for a little bit. I'm looking forward to it, and hopefully you are as well. Anyway, I'm telling you a story happened last night. It was kind of interesting. So I was, we were going to, my wife was actually, we were with the kids, it was after church and we're kind of getting the kids settled in. And we had a Christmas program at church, which was really nice, but kind of the tone in the house, hasn't been Christmasy and my wife, Colette, was just like, we need to do something so it feels like Christmas in here. And so she went and put in The Polar Express, which, obviously we've seen that a million times. It was kind of fun as a family to sit and watch it. And it was interesting as I was watching this, the whole concept is believe, and it's talking about believing in Santa and things like that. And I'm not going to talk too much about that, but I think that obviously all the things that are happening in the Christmas holiday are symbolic, right? It's the symbolism of gifts. And Christmas is representing Christ and him coming and him bringing the ultimate gift of his life to us and how amazing it is. And then our job is to believe in him and believe in that gift to believe in these things. And again, I know that there are different faiths and denominations listening to this, and if you're not Christian, that's okay. This is, if you were telling me some of your beliefs and no matter what you had, I would respect that and listen, and it wouldn't be offensive to me. So hopefully it's not to you either, but as a Christian, as someone who believes in Christ, I think that Christmas is all symbolic, obviously of him and this gift he brought and our job is to believe in him and then having a belief that our belief actually leads into actions, right? Like if you do believe him, then what does that mean about you? How are you going to try to change your life? How do you become a better person? How are you going to try to live? And it's interesting, as I was thinking about that, I was thinking, Christmas is such a type and shadow of Christ. And I started thinking about just how many other things throughout life are types and shadows of that, right? For those who read the Old Testament, you have the story of Abraham and Isaac and how he had to sacrifice his son. Right. And that is the type and shadow of when our heavenly Father had to sacrifice his son Christ. And throughout the Bible and through other scriptures, like there's all these types and shadows where things are happening and it's foreshadowing events that are happening later in time. Right. And it's so interesting. And I think that, I feel like we have this consistent, I don't know how to explain this correctly. Hopefully I don't mess this up too bad, but throughout our lives, there's these patterns that repeat themselves for us to see and to notice. Right. And it's interesting because my goal is not to get sacrilegious with it. So hopefully I'm not, but it's interesting, you guys are here listening to this podcast because you're entrepreneurs and you're trying to figure out how to market your business and things like that. And so what's the correlation for us, right? And you think about that, in the movie, The Polar Express, these kids are getting on a train and the train's moving forward. And one of the lines of the end is your job is not to think of the train, try to decide if the train's real or not, your job is just to get on the train. Right? And they go through the whole process and talk about how important is to believe. And you've got to believe in this thing you can't see yet and there's kind of the guy in the top of the Polar Express, who's like the opposite. He's the naysayer. He's like, if you can't see it, you can't believe it. You know? And there's kind of the light and the dark and a pulling in both directions. Right? And so obviously there's the spiritual journey that that's symbolizing, right? This is life. We're on this train. We're going towards something... You believe, you don't believe, there's people holding you away and all those kinds of things as you were going to this destination. But I think about it with business, how similar it is too. We come on this business and it's like, okay, the train's moving, right? All you guys were here, either you're on the train now, or you're watching the train go by. You're seeing stories of a person after person after person having success. And you're like, "I don't know what to do. I'd get on the train ride. I get off the train. Is that train even real? Like, is this stuff real what Russell's talking about? Is a fake? Are people actually having success? There's all these things, right. And the first step is your goal is not to try to believe that the trains real or not, it's just to get on the train, right. And so if you're not on the train, that's the first step. Then you get on the train and then it's like, I still think there's so many people that are skeptical. Oh, is this real? Is it not real? Like, do I believe, do I not believe? And it's like, you've got to believe, because if you don't believe, if you don't have faith first then your actions aren't going to follow. I think this might be real but I'm not really sure. The way that you pursue that is going to change, right. It's a reason why when we have faith in God, or in Christ, wherever you have faith in, right? If you have faith and you actually believe, you're going to do things differently. You're going to live differently. You can become someone different because you have belief in it. And if you're like, "Ah, this may or may not be." You're more skeptical, you're not going to take the steps you need to do. And the same thing is true in business. Like in business, if you're getting on this train and you're, "I think it's true, but I'm not really sure. I'm kind of going back and forth. Maybe it's a scam. Maybe it's not, maybe I'm successful, I'm not going to be able to be successful." All the things, right. If you don't have belief, you're not going to take the steps necessary to be successful. That's just, it's an eternal principle in anything, and it's true in... Obviously this is a business podcast, but is true in all aspects of life, right? With marriage. When you meet your spouse, your significant other, the person that you're going to marry, it's like, "Ah, do I get on the train? Do I not going on the train. Is this the right person?" It's like no, like you have to believe this is the right person. Right. You have to have belief in it. And then if you believe like this is your person that you're going to marry, this is my spouse, you do things differently. Right. You become someone different. And so it's true in all aspects of life, same with if you're going to school, if you're going into, I don't care what it is. And so I just, as I was watching, I was just like thinking how interesting it is. How we have these types and these shadows, that the process is the same though over and over and over again. Right? And so in this Christmas season, I just, I don't know, this is kind of a weird podcast to do, and I'm just nervous recording it. Maybe it makes no sense to you. But I think that these principles, as we use them in the Christmas thing, they're kind of funny and they're cute. We watched all the cartoons and the TV shows and there's that version of it. But if you look at it through the lens of like, this is a type and a shadow of my beliefs in God, or my beliefs in my business, or my beliefs in my spouse, my beliefs in myself, my own identity, my own... I can start looking at that. There's these really cool patterns that happen consistently over and over and over and over and over again. And maybe the movies talking about belief in something that may not actually be real, but it's, again, it's a fable, it's a story to illustrate something differently. Right. And so, I don't know, that's kind of been my interesting thing for me as I've been watching this and just looking at... I used to watch Christmas movies just for an enjoying thing, but I'm trying to look at them now, at least as of yesterday, like as a personal development seminar, right? Like what are the principles here? They're talking about belief, they're talking about faith, they're talking about, if you do have belief, like how does that change? If you have real faith, how does that change your actions? And then what's the fruits of that? Like what happens because of it? Right. And so, anyway, it's kind of interesting. So my challenge for you guys in this Christmas season, you guys are watching these things and having fun with your family is just start looking at it because it's something that you can use in different areas of your life, again, from your business, to your spiritual life, to your family life, to relationships. The pattern is there and it repeats itself over and over and over again. It's interesting. It's like when I was geeking out and doing all this study on the hero's two journeys, if I've done some episodes on that, but if you read the book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, right, he talks about Joseph Campbell in that book, talks about if you look at all a story from like the beginning of time, until now, it doesn't matter what society, what language, what time, what era, the story frameworks are the same. And you see them over and over and over again, right? Almost all successful movie, book, folklore, myth, story, like they all follow the same pattern. I think for a lot of us, at least for me, I look and I'm like, that's really cool. I'm going to, this is the pattern that George Lucas used to build Star Wars. Like, it's really cool. There's the pattern. I see it. I'm going to go back and replicate it. But it's like, why is that pattern everywhere? Why has it been in our DNA as a society from the beginning of time till now? It doesn't matter what language, what society, what time, what era you live in that, that thing is there. And say, maybe it's just not a storyline that someone invented and taught everybody back way back in the day. Maybe it's a framework. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's something there. In fact, if you start looking at just The Hero With a Thousand Faces, right. That book or that framework, it's like, oh my gosh, like the reason why this storyline has been used so many times, it's because it's our storyline, it's your storyline. Right. You start looking at that and that's why we really connect with those movies, because we start seeing this over and over and over again, it's like, this is my story. And so, I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking things. Maybe it's out of place when we talk about this on a marketing podcast. But I just want you guys to, as you're watching movies and things, is just try to put yourself in that, how does this relate to your business, how does it relate to your life, how does it relate to your spirituality? How does really through relationship with a God? Because it does. And even though the stories may be goofy, maybe a reindeer with a red nose and maybe, whatever, the frameworks, the stories that you guys are hearing are based on true principles and there's there's truth in all these things. So anyway, there you go. I'm sure it offends someone. For you, I apologize. For everybody else, hope you enjoyed it. And if you got nothing from this, then just skip through it and listen to next episode after Christmas. But that said, Merry Christmas. I appreciate you guys all. I'm grateful to be here. Grateful, honestly, for your attention. The fact that you listen in this podcast means the world to me, hopefully you get value from it. And we have some new things coming up in the new year and moving forward to make the podcast even better, more exciting. So I'll keep you guys loop on that. With that said, if I don't talk to you before the end of the holidays, have a great holiday and we'll talk to you all again later. Bye, everybody. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marley Jaxx recently asked me if I was to create one last piece of content to establish my legacy, what would it be? I hope you love it. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Hey, everybody. It's Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. All right. I got a short one for you today, but it's one that I think you're going to love. Marley Jaxx had me speak at her live event and for my presentation, she did a QA, which was really fun. She asked a lot of really, really cool questions, but the very last question she asked me, I thought was really cool. The way I answered it was different than I think I would have in a normal situation, but for whatever reason, it came up. It's only, what, three and a half minutes long, but the question she asked me is, "If you were to create one last piece of content, one thing that your friends, your family, your followers, your legacy, that you could tell them, if you tell them anything, what would be the last piece of content you would create?" I gave her this response. I'm going to cue up the theme song. When we come back, you have a chance to hear my thoughts on what the last piece of content I would create would be if I was about to leave this earth. Marley Jaxx: Your one last piece of content, what would you want to share with people? Russell: That's a really cool question. I think I wish I would have understood this when I started my journey because I didn't at all. In fact, it wasn't until probably two or three years ago that I started realizing it, but just how tied our businesses are to an actual mission from God. I always thought those were separate. I'm like, "There's God, and faith, and bleat, whatever, and then there's our careers." In my mind, it was always these separate things. It wasn't until two or three years in the ClickFunnels where I had an amazing coach who sat me down and was just like, "Do you not understand how these things are related?" I'm like, "No, they're separate. God doesn't care about how much money you make. God doesn't care about my business or whatever." She's an amazing coach. She sat me down and was just like, "I want you to understand. Look at this thing. These things you're creating, that you're doing, that you're making, as cool as we all think you are, you're not that smart. These are coming. You're getting inspiration from God that's leading you on a way because you've been called to change people's lives. You've been called the serve a group of people and you're coming out and you're serving them. Then when they bump into you, and you give them the shift, then their life changes, and this person's life changes. This is literally a calling from God who's taking you to help shift other people's lives." I was like, "It never crossed my mind." She's like, "Why in the world do you think 20 years ago you got excited about business. Were you excited about any kind of learning?" I'm like, "No, I hated reading." "Why do you have the biggest library I know?" I'm like, "Because for some reason this thing excited me and it became this insatiable desire. I couldn't stop. I was going to events, speaking in front of no people because I loved it so much and all these things." She helped me understand how tight those things are together. I know some people don't believe in God and that's okay. You can believe in whatever you want, but conceptually, those things are tied together. I think if I could sit down with myself 20 years ago or sit down to any entrepreneur and help them sit down and say, "Look, this is the deal. You think you're starting a business right now, but it's not that. You've been called to serve a group of entrepreneurs," or group of people or a group. We all have stewardship over somebody. We've been called. While most people, they get the calling and they freak out. They walk away and don't do anything with it, which is devastating, but for those who are doing it, you have this calling and it's scary. You will never feel worthy. You're like, "I'm not ready. I'm not worthy. I got imposter syndrome." Marley: Right. Russell: "Who am I to help these people? I'm struggling as much as they are, worse in some situations." All those things, right? You don't feel worthy, but all you know is that, "I've been called and I got to figure this out because if I don't do that, that stewardship will be taken away from me and it will be given someone else. Hopefully, that person will, but this is my calling. I need to figure this out." You look at that lens. It's like, "Oh my gosh. I have stewardship of these people. I need to serve them. I got to figure it out." That's when you start looking at all of the stuff differently, right? The content you're creating, it's like as scary as it is for you, how awkward you feel, it doesn't matter. This is your calling. You were called to serve some people, so get that thing out there. Put it out there and your people are going to hear you. In the New Testament, Christ talks about this. He says, "My sheep will hear my voice and they will come to me," right? It's the same thing for all of us. That's a true principle. I don't care what faith you are or what belief. That is a true principle. Your sheep will hear your voice. Marley: Yeah. Russell: Your job is not to convert the world of your way of thinking or anything. Your job is to get your message out there. If you do it consistently, your sheep will hear your voice. They'll come to you and you'll have a chance to change their life. I think if I could tell every entrepreneur, you are literally changing the lives of people you've been called to serve and this is not just your career versus whatever, but those things are interrelated, that's what I tell them all because then you'd care more. You'd work harder. You'd be more passionate because you realize that this is more than just me trying to make money. This is me changing people's lives. It would be that. Marley: That was a great way to end that. Mic drop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We were lucky enough to have Nick Santonastasso come to my house and wrestle with me, and give my kids a private workshop. Listen in behind the scenes and hopefully it will change your life like it did ours. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. And Oh boy, do I have a treat for you guys today. So the guest for the podcast is my new friend and wrestling partner, Nick Santonastasso. And he's someone who I had a chance to... I've seen him online a whole bunch of times and a whole bunch of different places. And then he reached out to me out of the blue and said, "Hey, Russell, come out and interview for my podcast." And I knew that he wrestled, and I was like, "Dude. Yes." And I was excited. I'm like, "Yeah, I love your message. Love who you are. I love what you stand for." And he's like, "If you want I'll actually fly out to Boise." And at the time I was just sitting in my wrestling room, I knew he's a wrestler. And I was like, "Dude, how about this? You come out and then you can interview me for your podcast. And then I'll actually wrestle you in my wrestling room?" And he was like, "Yeah, that'd be amazing." And so we planned this whole thing out. And the week before Thanksgiving, he flew out here to Boise and I did an interview for his podcast. And then we came back to my wrestling room and wrestled. And obviously, my entire family wanted to meet him and to see him. If you haven't met Nick before, he has no legs and he only has one arm, and his story is amazing. And the fact that he was a wrestler is even cooler. And so me and him wrestled. And after we got into wrestling, we had so much fun, then everyone, my kids and my wife and my parents were there and everybody had a million questions for him. So I said, "How about this? Let's do a little mini seminar with my kids to be willing to." And he's like, "Sure." And so we pulled up the mats and the crash pads and the box jumps, and we had everybody sit on them, and then Nick had a chance to tell us some of the story and talk to the kids at a really cool level. And it was really fun. One of my kids was really nervous asking questions. He thought I was going to get mad at him. Anyway, it's fun. You have a chance to hear from kids, you ask him questions and hear Nick's story. And I hope that you love it. It was one of the highlights of my year, super special opportunity for me and for my family to have a chance to meet someone like Nick and to hear his story. And it's just a huge blessing that I think he gave me to be able to have him talk to my kids. And so I wanted to share this with you guys, because a lot of you guys have kids, a lot of you guys are kids and a lot of you guys have different situations. And I hope that some of the things that Nick shared with me and my family, it'll mean a lot to you as well. So with that said, we're going to cue the theme song. And we come back, you have a chance to sit in, into a private discussion with my kids and Nick as they talk about life, motivation about doing your best, a whole bunch of other cool things. So with that said, we'll cue the theme song. We'll be right back. Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. I'm here in our wrestling room right now with a bunch of my kids and cousins and friends, because we've got a special guest in town, in Boise today who I just got done wrestling, which was so much fun. And this is Nick. We had a great time. And thanks for coming and hanging out with us here in Boise and talking to all the kids. Nick Santonastasso: You got it. Russell: So kind of the game plan we want to do is I wanted my kids to get to know him and hear some of his stories and stuff for so many reasons. And so I'd love to begin with, if you want to tell them little about your story, about your life, growing up wrestling, and just some of the background. And then I got some cool questions about other stuff I want to talk about too. Nick: Yeah. Great. It's pretty open-ended when he said share your story. I got a long story. And so I'll give you a little context of why I was born like this. And yes, I was born like this. I didn't wrestle no sharks or anything. I see we got some laughs. I'm 24 years old. In 1996, my mom went in for a late ultrasound, and a ultrasound is where they see the baby inside the stomach. And they sat my parents down and said, "Something's really wrong." And they said, "From the looks of it, it doesn't look like your baby's limbs are being developed. It looks like he's missing his legs, his arm, and his face might be messed up." Clearly, my face isn't messed up. Right? And so what they did was they classified me with what they call Hanhart syndrome. And Hanhart syndrome is a super rare genetic disorder that either leaves the babies with undeveloped limbs or undeveloped organs. And so that means the babies are either born with a heart that can't beat on its own or their stomach can't process food on its own, and they later on pass away. And so they told my parents that their baby boy has about a 30% chance to live. And so I was born and the test of my organs came back 100% healthy, and the only thing that was affected were my limbs. And so I was born in this unicorn body of no legs and one arm. And all my organs are 100% healthy. Always the lesson behind that is the doctor said it had about a 30% chance to live. And my parents made a massive promise. And that promise was that they were going to focus on the 30% chance of me living rather than the what? Dallin: You dying. Nick: Exactly. You dying. Exactly. The aggressive way to say it. And so the 70% of me dying. Exactly. And so in life, that's the... Ooh, careful. I know you beat me up earlier, but stay on here. And so the little lesson is, would you agree that in your life, there's always something bad that you can focus on? Would you agree? And would you agree that there's always something good that you can focus on? And so the majority of humans, and you can agree, the majority of adults always focus on the negative stuff. And so if we can train our brain to always focus on the good things, then we always win. And so that was how I was born. And then getting into wrestling, when I got into middle school and high school, which some of you, when you get into middle school and high school, at that time, a big portion of life was boyfriends and girlfriends. Awkward phase, getting into middle school and high school. I see people getting awkward. It's awkward. And so I felt like I stood out. Well, I clearly stood out because I have no legs, one arm. And there was a specific moment where I was on the bus and there was a girl to the left of me and she was making fun of everyone on the bus. And I'm like, "Oh my God, she's going to have a field day with me." And she looked over to me and she said, "Nick, I don't even have to start with you. You're already too messed up anyway. Look at you." And I'm only a 14, 15 year old kid. And the first question that pops in my head is, why me? Have you ever asked yourself, like, "Why is this happening to me?" And so I asked myself, "Why is this happening to me?" And from that moment of one girl making fun of me, I thought things like, "Oh, I'm disgusting. I'll never have a girlfriend. I'll never go to a school dance. I'll never be able to walk my girlfriend to her locker because I can't walk. And she want to hold my finger. Is that weird?" I just started thinking about all these negative things. And so for the majority of my life, I felt my body, my no legs and one arm was the most disgusting thing, the biggest curse that life could give me. And then I was able to reframe it. And what reframing is, is say you have a bad event happen in your life. And I had the same thing happen to me. You could see all the good and I could see all the bad, it's what we focus on, yes? And so I realized a couple of years later that if a girl doesn't want to be my girlfriend, or if someone doesn't want to do business with me because of my no legs, one arm, well, wait, maybe this disability or whatever you want to call it is actually working for me and it's filtering out the type of human and womens that I don't want in my life anyway. And so when you show up authentic, when you show up transparent and you show up yourself, would you agree that the universe makes it very easy to see who's your friend and who's not your friend? I mean, have you ever had a situation in school where you thought someone was your friend and they no longer was? Has that ever happened? And that means that we don't want those people in our life. And then you also have people in your life that love on you. Anyone have good friends here? I hope. Raise your hands. That's because you show up yourself. And so I have a quote on my arm. It says, "You laugh at me because I'm different. I laugh at you because you're all the same." And that's not me making fun of people with legs and arms, but what I'm saying is the best thing you could be, the most authentic thing you could be as who? Who do you think? Were you listening? You. You. You show up, Norah, and you're the greatest Norah that the world has ever seen, because you are you. And so we're going to grow up and people are going to like us and people are not going to like us. Who agrees with that? But as long as you show up yourself, the universe makes it really easy to find out who loves you for you and who doesn't love you for you. Russell: That's awesome. Nick: Facilitator, where else would you like to go? Russell: So now we're in high school, struggling with high school stuff. And you told me your older brother's a wrestler, and you wanted to do that. I'd love to hear the story about wrestling, why you got involved in that. Nick: Yeah. So my older brother was a wrestler. He's a really good wrestler and I thought wrestlers were the coolest thing on earth. And so when I got into high school, I was looking for a way to build more confidence in myself, because I didn't have much confidence. And so I wanted to do something that was going to make me feel really good about myself. And so I wanted to become an athlete after my whole life people said, "Nick, you can't be an athlete. You can't do sports. You have no legs, one arm." And so, one day I came into school, my friend said, "Nick, you should try wrestling." And I said, "I can't my arm." And this, we call it the potato. It looks like a potato now. But it used to look like a chicken wing. You believe it? Do you believe it? And the reason why it looked like a chicken wing is because this arm was five inches longer than it is now. And my bone was going faster than my skin. So it was super sensitive. And the bottom line is if I would have hit my arm hard enough, my bone would've came through my skin. Yeah, crazy. Right. And so I couldn't do any physical activities with it. And so one day I came home and I said, "Mom and dad, I want to become a wrestler." And they said, "You can't, your arm." And then I looked at my parents and I said, "Can we cut my arm off?" And they said, "What?" And I said, "Yeah, I'm not joking. Can we cut my arm off? Can we do something about it?" And they said, "Is this something that you really want to do?" And I said, "It's going to make me an athlete. I'll be able to wrestle. I'll have more confidence in myself." And so my sophomore year of high school, my parents scheduled the appointment for the doctors to amputate my arm. And so I have these scars here, but what they did was, I didn't know they could do this, but they lasered five inches of my bone off. And then they pulled extra skin. Now you're taller than me. Then they pulled extra skin from my shoulder over my bone so I could beat people up with it. I remember right before I went into surgery, I said, "Doc, if I can't beat someone over the head with my arm when I come back, we're going to have a problem. I need to be able to do some physical activities with this thing." And so I went throughout the surgery and I go back to school. I had 17 stitches in my arm and I was the happiest kid that just cut his arm off. I go back to school, smiling. And people are like, "Nick, what'd you do?" I'm like, "I cut my arm off. It's great." And they said, "Why?" And I said, "I'm going to become a wrestler." And people made fun of me. They said, "Nick, how are you going to become a wrestler? You have no legs and one arm." And so I went out and I became a wrestler. My junior year, I got my butt kicked. And then my senior year, I was able to come out as the 106 pound varsity wrestler from my high school. And would you agree that that would probably instilled confidence in me and I'd probably feel a little bit better about myself, I'm an athlete, maybe the girls would like me? That's my thought process as a 16, 17 year old kid. And then the app, Vine came out. Y'all know what Vine is? You remember Vine? You remember Vine? Vine was an app that you could post six second videos. Raise your hand if you know what Vine is. Adults, raise your hand if you know what Vine is. All right, I'm going to educate you. So Vine was an app in 2014. I was a senior in high school where you can post six second videos. You had to be as creative as you can in six seconds. And so I wanted to create a way where I could make people laugh, but inspire them at the same time. And I wanted to do something that has never been done before. And so I was with my friends like this, and we're thinking of an idea. And I said, "I got an idea." I said, "How many legless guys do you see crawling around Walmart, pretending to be a zombie?" Bowen: Propped up just like that and siting in a elevator or something? Nick: That was me. And so I said, "That's a great idea." And so I'm a senior in high school and I put fake blood on my face and I put fake blood on my clothes, and I set out to my local Walmart in New Jersey, which Nick's not allowed in that Walmart anymore. And I go down the aisles and I'm looking for my victim, and I see this guy, he's heavily invested in the paper towels. And I looked at my camera guy, I go, "Record this. I'm going to try to scare him." And so I came around the corner as fast as I could like this. And he goes, "Oh," he threw the paper towels at my face. And I looked at my camera guy. I go, "Was that six seconds?" He goes, "Yes." I'm like, "Yes, this is just what the internet needs." And so I apologized to the guy. I told him I wasn't a zombie and that I'm really alive. And, "Thanks for letting me prank you." And I told my friends, "Pick me up and carry me out of Walmart before we get kicked out." And so I posted the video and I wanted 500 kids to see the video. I wanted to get 500 views. I posted the video and I went to sleep. And when I woke up for school, the next morning, the video had over 80,000 likes and over 80,000 reposts. I go back to school, my friends were like, "Dude, you're the zombie king." And I'm like, "What did I get myself into?" And so in under a year, my senior year I gained a million followers on Vine and the owners of The Walking Dead, the TV show hired me to fly out to Tokyo, Japan, to scare the main actor of The Walking Dead as a zombie. And so, the lesson in this, don't try to crawl around Walmart. It probably won't work for you, but would you agree that we all have unique gifts, unique ways, unique ways to make people laugh, inspire them? For me it was crawling around Walmart at the time, but we all have unique gifts. As you said, God gives us unique gifts and we have to use those. And so I use my unique body to scare people and make them laugh at the same time, which led me into going out on the internet and gaining a bunch of followers. And then I realized at one point that when I have kids and grandkids, that I want them to know me for much more than crawling around a Walmart. So I did what every kid with no legs and one arm kid would do, is I tried out for bodybuilding, said, no one ever. A lot of the times in bodybuilding, they say you have to focus on your legs, but most bodybuilders skip leg day anyway. And so I fit right in. Where do you want to go from here? But that's my zombie prank story. And so some of you may have seen my zombie pranks. You've seen them? Ryker: I've seen the one where you crawl in Walmart. Nick: Yeah. So that was high school Nick. I've evolved. I've come a long way from scaring people in Walmart. Russell: That's cool. So you got into bodybuilding and then I just wonder, because one of things I think a lot of us people don't do is we dabble in things. Like, "Oh, we'll try this. I'm going to try this and try this." But when you decided, "I'm going to be a bodybuilder," it wasn't just dabbling, right? You shifted your environment, shifted everything. You want to talk about the process there and what you did to be successful? Nick: Yeah. What humans have, we all have it is shiny objects into syndrome, kind of like Norah. You like shiny objects, right? Stars and bells and whistles and all humans like that. And so we try to do one thing and we're like, "Oh, maybe I want to try this over here." And so when I wanted to become a bodybuilder, I was living in New Jersey and it's very cold in New Jersey most of the time. And so I moved to Florida because it's... Have you ever been to Florida, anyone? We got to get you to Florida. I know Boise is great, but I mean, Florida is great too. And so I moved to Florida and I wanted to become a bodybuilder. And the first thing I did was found a really big muscle dude. And I said, "Will you teach me how to body build? You look like you know what you're doing." And that's what we do in business, is if we want to do something, we find out someone who's successful and we model them. And the reason being is because we don't have to reinvent the wheel, we don't have to recreate something. We just find someone who's successful and we learn from them. And so I attempted to become a bodybuilder. And when I moved to Florida, I told everyone, over a million people that followed me that before 2017 was over, I was going to step or hop on the competitive bodybuilding stage before the year was over. And so I did a 12 week preparation and I dedicated 12 weeks of my life to training and health and fitness. And I was 10 weeks into my prep, and I went to Vegas for an expo. And one of the days I went to the gym. Do you guys know The Rock? Everyone: Yeah. Nick: So The Rock was in the gym when I was at the gym and I've been blowing him up with bodybuilding videos for years. And so he already knew who I was. And so I go in the gym and low behold, there's Dwayne, The Rock Johnson. And he's surrounded by four security guards. And he's working out. I'm like, "Oh my God, it's The Rock." And I told my friends, I said, "Let's not bother this man." I stick out like a sore thumb. If he sees me, he's going to know who Nick is. And so after about 45 minutes of lifting, his security guard comes over and taps me on my shoulder and says, "You're Nick, right?" I said, "Not many people look like this. I'm Nick." And he goes, "Can Dwayne meet you?" I was like, "Dude, bring him on. I've been waiting all this time." And so they bring me over into the corner and they bring The Rock over and The Rock gets on my level or tries his best to get on my level. And he goes, "Dude, I'm such a big fan. Can I have a picture with you?" And on the outside, I'm like, "Sure, bro." But on the inside and I'm like, "Oh my God, it's Dwayne The Rock Johnson." Fangirling. And so we took a picture and I blurted out all my goals to him. I said, "I'm going to be the first Calvin Klein model with no legs. I'm going to write a book. I'm going to speak all over the world." And he said, "Nick, you're right, because people like you and I, they put us in any industry and we adapt and overcome." And all of us, would you agree with COVID and during this weird time, we've all adapted? We do school differently. We hang out with friends differently. Would you agree, we all have adapted? And so the more that we exercise the muscle of doing things differently, the more successful we'll be when we're adults. And so after that, I went back to Florida and I competed in bodybuilding against full-bodied guys. And I took third. I beat full body guys in bodybuilding, but I was telling Russell that I competed in the category where they don't judge your legs. That was important, because I don't got legs, I don't want them to judge my legs. And so I competed and I took third and I was the first man with no legs, one arm to jump on a bodybuilding stage. And the quote that I use is, "Over the 24 years of my life, I realized it's not the physical body that holds us back. But the biggest disability you can have," what do you think it is? "Your mindset." Great job. You guys rock. Russell: Awesome. The next thing we'll talk to you about is I know in your company you have a program that goes over a year long, Victorious, right? Nick: Yep. Russell: And each month covers a different letter. So I'd love just today and then probably out of time after that, but talking about the V and what that is in victorious. Victorious, right? Nick: Yeah. Junior Victorious. Russell: Yeah. And just talk about that for these guys because I think that's the first step for a lot of these guys when they're planning goals in sports or school, or any of their things they're trying to become. Nick: Yeah. So Junior Victorious, I created it because people like me and Russell, if we have all the knowledge and we don't give it to kids, then what's the use of it? Because we're not going to be around forever. That's just reality. And so we have to teach young people like you, so you can come, go and take over the world when you grow up. And so Victorious, basically the first month is V which stands for vision. And what vision is, is getting really clear on what you want in life. I think you can agree that the majority of humans don't really know what they want in life. They go to work or they go to school and don't really know why. Their first answer is, "I have to," but there's a deeper reason why you go to school. You probably want to be something, you want to do something with your life. And so V is getting clear. Say, you're an athlete. It's like, how many wins do you want to have? How many hours a day do you want to drill? What grades do you want to get? Does anyone know what they want to be when they're older? Curious. No idea. You got something, in the pink? Dallin: I would say it, but I don't think my dad would like it though. Nick: Got it. Maybe we'll skip over that one. But a vision. Are you okay? So vision basically is just getting very clear on what you want. And the reason why... Do you like cars? Dallin: Yeah. Nick: What kind of cars do you like? What kind of car do you want? You don't know? Dallin: Just one that goes fast. Nick: Yeah, exactly. So if he says, "I want a car and the one that goes fast," he's not going to get it because he doesn't know what car he wants. so the more clear that he can get on what car he wants, who agrees that he'll get the car faster because he knows exactly what he wants? That's a perfect example of all human beings. They want things, but they don't really know what they want. Right? Dallin: Yeah. Nick: And so next time I come back to Boise, I want you to have a specific car that you want so we can go get that car. Is that cool? I'm not buying it. Russ will buy it. But so getting very clear on what you want. And so it's like, who do you want to be? What kind of job do you want to work? What kind of college do you want to go to? What kind of school do you want to be? And the more clear that you can get on things, the faster that you'll get them. That's why, for example, if you wanted a specific car, adults help me out here because kids are a little bit difficult. Have you ever wanted a specific car and you were driving down the road and it was the only car you saw? I don't wear dresses, but women, have you ever wanted a specific dress and you finally got that dress and then you saw a bunch of other women that had the same dress? It's because your brain will go to what you want. That's why people who are depressed or people who are sad, they'll always be sad because they're always focused on the bad in their life. They're not focused on the good. And so our brain is extremely powerful because say you and I were very heavily invested in real estate, and they were whispering a conversation about real estate, we would hear it because our brain would pick up on it because that's where our focus is. That's why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The poor always focus on all the bad in their life, and the rich are focused on the opportunities. And so your brain is a computer. What you focus on, you will get more of. And so if you're always focused on, why me, or why is this happening to me? Or why does my life suck? Your brain will always come up with answers of why your life sucks. Who sees that? But if you ask yourself the question of, why am I amazing? Why did I get beat by Norah during the wrestling match? Or why is my life amazing? Your brain will always find the answer. And that's the thing. Our brain is a problem solving computer. And so it always looks for problems to solve. And you know this, if you're sitting around in your house and you don't have a problem, your brain will think of a problem and you'll try to solve it just because that's the way the brain works. And so I'll give you an easy example. If I woke up every single day, a man with no legs, one arm, and I focused on the fact that I'll never become a professional soccer player, will I be happy or sad? Quick. Everyone: Sad. Nick: Sad, right? I'm never become a professional soccer player. That's reality. But if I focus on what are my unique strengths, how can I make people laugh? How can I inspire them? What does my life look like then? It's better, right? That's where my focus is. Like Tony says where focus goes... Russell: Energy flows. Nick: Energy flows. They're a tough crowd. Russell: Okay. Next one. What questions do you guys have for Nick? Ryker? Ryker: How do you drive a car? Nick: That's a great question. So I drive a car, regular wheel. He's probably laughing because he doesn't think I could drive a car. So he just got proved wrong real quick. That's like teenage years, they try to test people. And so I drive a car with a regular wheel. That's why he's getting embarrassed. That's why you drive a car with a regular wheel. And then I have a little lever and I push the lever for brake and I push the level over for gas. And actually I have videos of me drifting my race car around the parking lot. Great question. Russell: There's another question here. Nick: You got one? Dallin: No. Nick: Okay. I'm just making sure. Aiden? Aiden: What's your favorite food? Nick: Great question. You want to guess? Aiden: I don't know. Nick: I like spaghetti. I'm Italian. My parents gave me a lot of spaghetti as a kid. You like spaghetti? What to go eat spaghetti after this? We can ditch this thing, get some spaghetti. That was a great question. Russell: Any other questions you guys have? We're super lucky to have him here. Bradley: I've got a question. How do you battle the fear of when you're trying to start something new or try something? How do you overcome the fear of trying something new? Nick: That's a great question. I'll give you a little story to help paint the picture. So they'd done a study on skydivers. And basically, they hooked the heart monitor up to skydivers. And so when they fly them up in the plane, their heart is going really fast. They're getting super nervous. "Oh my God." And then the moment that they jump out of the plane, their heart goes back to the normal speed. And so how do we eliminate fear? We take action. And so a lot of the times Russell and I are probably scared to do new things. Well, you're not scared to launch new funnels. You're a master at it. But launching new things, we're very scared. But I'd much rather attempt at my dreams and my goals and be on the sideline, hoping, wishing and regretting. Because at the end of the day, we only have one life for all we know. And there's so many people that are sitting on the sideline of life, making fun of people, bashing them. "You can't do this, you can't do that." But I'd much rather be on the mat rather than on the sideline. And also, realizing that failure is just feedback. A lot of the times we get programmed as kids that failure is bad. "I don't want to fail," but actually failure's our greatest lesson, our teaching. And so I failed a lot at life. Everything was hard for me, getting my clothes on, feeding myself, you name it, it was hard. And that's why I've been so successful is because I'm not afraid of failure. And so if we learn early on that failure is amazing and failure is our best friend, we'll have a better life. And so a little quote for you to remember, if you want to remember it, is, "If failure is a foe, you will never grow. If failure is a friend, you'll learn to the end." Super easy. I had to make it super dumb proof for adults as well. Do you want to ask a question? Dallin: Yeah. It's like, I don't know. It's just like talking about dropping out. Russell: Do you want me to ask it for you? Dallin: Yeah. Russell: So Dallin wants to be successful in life, but he focuses on he wants to drop out of high school. All he ever talks about is, "I want to drop out. I want to drop out." That's his vision and his goal, which is interesting, because I think he's got the right mindset. He wants to be successful, but he focuses on that all the time. So the question he wants to ask you is about him dropping out of school. Nick: Now you can ask it. Dallin: Oh. How do I say it? Nick: How do you drop out? Dallin: Yeah. Or, I don't know. Should I do it? Nick: Let me ask you a question. Do you individually pay for your school? Dallin: Nope. Nick: So why not get the knowledge if it's free? Dallin: I didn't think of it like that. Nick: Because when you're an adult, you're going to have to pay for knowledge. So if you're getting it for free why not take an advantage? Dallin: Because it's boring. Not boring, because I'm positive. Nick: Great takeaway. But would you agree if something's free, you might as well leverage it? Dallin: Yeah. Nick: So if you're a teenager and you're stuck in school, why not learn as much as you can because it's free and you're not paying for it? You probably don't take it serious enough because you don't pay for it. So maybe you need a little bit more skin in the game. Dallin: Maybe. I don't know. Nick: So I'd say get the knowledge while it's there. Dallin: All right. Nick: Who's the O.G? He says broke and stupid. Who's that? Zig Ziglar. Is it Zig or Jim Rohn? Russell: I think it's Jim. Nick: One of them. "The worst thing you could be is broke and stupid." And on top of that broke, stupid and ugly. You can't fix ugly. You might as well get the knowledge while it's there. I'm not calling you ugly, but I'm saying is you don't want to be broke or stupid. So get the knowledge while it's there. You're not paying for it. It's free knowledge. You'd be stupid not to take the knowledge. Dude, once you get out of high school, do you want. If you can't make it through high school, you ain't going to make it through business. Good luck. Good luck. High school is easy. Real world's way harder than high school. If you want to quit and tap out in high school, good luck, brother. Dallin: Oh boy. Nick: Let's keep that in there. That's a great lesson. That's a great lesson. That's a great lesson. I'm going to post it on my Instagram. What do you think? Russell: Do you have any questions? No. All right. Anybody else? Nick: That was a good question. It takes a lot to ask a question like that. Want to know why? Because most people wouldn't ask that question. I like it. I like the question. Great. You want to drop out too? Oh, okay. Just making sure. Just making sure. Russell: The good news for all your kids is everybody wants to drop out. It doesn't mean we do. I want to drop out of business lots of times. It gets hard. I got angry, I got people suing me. I got all sorts of stuff and it's tons of times I'm like, "Oh, it's so much easier to drop out." But it's like, well, I have a vision, we talked about it earlier. What's the vision? What are you trying to accomplish in life. You got to through a lot of hard stuff to get the good stuff. If you're not willing to go through the hard stuff, you never get the good stuff. Nick: You want a family one day? Dallin: Maybe. Nick: Okay. Do you want a girlfriend one day? Dallin: Yeah. Nick: Maybe. Or a boyfriend? Dallin: No. Nick: Okay. I don't know, whatever you go. But imagine your kid coming up to you one day and said, "My dad's a dropout." Dallin: I'd be proud. Nick: Dude, I like it. As long as you're proud of your decision and you made something of it, but I'm not your dad. I'm just a coach. Russell: He tells a story you told in lunchtime about your motivations that anchors you back to keep working out hard in the hard times. Nick: Yeah. So a lot of people ask me like, "How do you say so motivated to say so healthy with no legs, one arm?" And the reality is that there's a lot of kids that are paralyzed in wheelchairs. There's a lot of adults that are paralyzed in wheelchairs that look outside every day and say, "I wish I could go outside. Or I wish I could go to the gym," and they can't. But the one little visualization that I was going in with him is whenever I feel myself falling off track, I picture me, I'm 24, so I picture myself like 30, 35 and maybe I have a kid or two and I'm in my office. And that kid walks in and says, "Dad, why'd you get so fat? Dad, why did you let yourself go? Dad, you used to be a great speaker. Why did you give up on your dreams?" It makes me feel some type of way. If I really went into it, I'd probably start crying, because I never want my kid to look at me as a disappointment. And so I may not have kids now, but it's a motivation for me to keep going, because at one point I'm not going to be building a business for myself. Who am I going to be building a business for? My family. So it's way deeper than us as we get old. But you're young, so you've got time. Don't worry about kids calling you fat or anything. But what I'm saying is I visualize my kids looking at me and I want them to look at me proud, not as a fat dad that gave up on his dreams. Who agrees? Or a fat mom that gave up on their dreams. That's a bit aggressive. It works for me. Russell: That's awesome. Very cool. Anything else you've got? Nick: You guys are full of energy. I love it. Russell: I appreciate you, man. Thanks for coming, spending time with us and the kids. Nick: You got it. Norah, thanks for beating me up today. Russell: This is awesome. All right. Let's give Nick a huge round of applause. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After doing UPW Virtual, it was really interesting to notice Tony’s use of his frameworks. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Hey, what's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. So today I want to talk about a whole bunch of cool stuff. I want to talk about Tony Robbins, UPW frameworks, teaching, stories, the one chip challenge, and a whole bunch more. Hey everyone, I hope you guys are awesome. So I'm recording this as Tony Robbins is about to start day number two of Unleash the Power Within, and those who don't know the story about Unleash the Power Within, is Tony's big flagship event that I've been to twice by myself, Collette's been to it twice, and I was excited someday to take my kids to it, but we haven't been able to because of the coronavirus, so they're doing virtual and the live event, you have a chance to walk across fire, but at the virtual one, they don't obviously have the fire walk. So that's kind of sad, but we got to do breaking boards. So that's what's happening today. That's kind of where in the timeline of the world I'm at. But first I want to tell you guys about something horrible that I experienced. So some of the best marketing ever, but probably one the worst experiences of my life. One of my friends called me up, one of my trainers, and he said, "Hey, do you want to do the one chip challenge?" I'm like, "What's that?" He's like, "It's this chip that comes in a box that looks like a coffin, and it's the hottest chip in the world and you try to eat it." And I was like, "Heck yeah!" And so he bought them for me and for Dave and for our kids and for everyone. So they, actually the night before UPW, they all came over and we did the one chip challenge. And so you throw this chip in your mouth, you chew it up, and then you try to see how long you can not drink water for. So of the four people that did it, I wussed out the fastest. I was in less, I think it was a minute 30 when I was about to die and I had to get water, but it burned for the next, it burned bad for like 30 minutes. Dave made it for 10 minutes without taking any water. Jackson did it for the longest. He was a little over 10 minutes. Dallin, my son, he did it like three minutes. So I was by far the worst and it hurt so bad, but what was even worse, is not only did it hurt going in, after it was in my body, it hurt so bad for probably 45 minutes or so I was going to die, and then I went into the bathroom and I puked probably about 20 times, which was the greatest gift in the world. It felt so good to get it out of me. Anyway. So, but it was amazing marketing. Think about this. So one chip for eight bucks comes in a coffin. It's this big contest, this viral thing where everyone tries to do it. They post their pictures and their videos online and it's this horrible, horrible experience. And then on the backside of it, they sell their bags of chips, which are hot and not as hot as the crazy ones. So anyway, I had a chance to participate in that and it was horrible, but we survived it and the next day was UPW and I was so excited because when I first went you to UPW, my twins were probably three years old. I remember thinking someday when they're teenagers, I want to bring them to it and have them experience this because imagine how different your life would be if you experienced this up front. It's funny because in your head, you get this picture what it's going to look like, and your kid's going to be there taking notes and loving it, and the actual reality... So yesterday was a 15 hour day and I got to give it to them, they lasted for six hours. Six hours of them watching it and then you could tell, it was pretty tough and they were ready to be done. So they, we let them leave, and then they came back, we did the board break with them that night, which was really fun. And then I think today they're taking off. So, but they got some of it in, but it's just one of those things where in your head, you have this visualization of what it's going to look like and how amazing it's going to be and how excited. Anyway, one of those things I was a little frustrated last night because I'm just like, "Oh, I wanted my kids to experience this," and they kind of experienced a little bit of it, but anyway, maybe they're not old enough yet. Maybe, I don't know. It's hard. Being a parent is hard because you have these things in your mind that you want to do for your kids. You want them to experience. You want to help them, all these things. Like, "If I could, if someone had given me this and this and this, these tools ahead of time, I'd be so much more successful today," and it's tough when... I don't know. I'd probably have been the same way when I was their age. So anyway, someday maybe when they're 30, they're going to listen to this podcast episode, and be like, "Oh my dad actually did really care about me. He wasn't just frustrated. He really wanted me to learn something." Oh, anyway. All right. So let me change subjects, not subjects, but the reason I wanted to do this podcast. So I've talked a lot about creating your own frameworks. Talked a lot about telling stories, about teaching, all sorts of stuff like that. So yesterday was really fun. As UPW started, I took out my notebook and as Tony was teaching, and he taught 15 hours yesterday, so it was a long session, right? But as he was teaching, I noticed he started teaching different frameworks. And so as he started teaching each framework, I started writing them down and from yesterday alone, I probably missed some, but I got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13. 13 frameworks that Tony taught in 15 hours. So basically he was averaging one framework per hour. And if you watch Tony, he gets up there with no notes, no slides, no nothing. He just starts teaching. And then when he starts into a framework, his team will throw up slides and the slides are usually like, they have a title, right? So the first framework he talked about was the three levels of mastery, and it's like, "One, two, three." That's his framework. So he starts getting close to the three levels of mastery, his team throws up the slides, and he's got part one, or step one, step two, step three. If you notice the way he teaches, he's got a story for each thing. Story for step one, story for step two, story for step three. So he tells all the stories around this framework, it takes like, an hour. They shift to the second framework, which the second one was the three mandates to leadership. And as he starts getting into that topic that his team throws the slides up, it's got three mandates, one, two and three. So he teaches number one, tells a story about it. Teaches number two, tells a story. Teaches number three, tells a story, boom, you're an hour in. Then he's like, "Next framework, success cycle," right? He never calls them frameworks. But if you watch what he's doing, that's all he's literally doing. He's just, he has a framework that he throws up and he tells a bunch of stories to teach the concept of the framework. So here's the frameworks I got yesterday. And again, I may have missed some, but the three levels of mastery, the three mandates of leadership, the success cycle, the three decisions that change your life, the three patterns of fear or focus and meaning, the two primary fears, the three ways to grow a business, the two master skills, three forces of creation, the three chunks of practical psychology, the three things that cause suffering, the triad, the three molders of meaning, and the six human needs. Okay? So those are all the frameworks he taught on day number one at UPW. Tony has taught UPW, I don't know, four or five, six times a year, every year for like, 40 years. And so what's interesting is that I went to UPW the first time, 12 or 13 years ago, and guess what's interesting? These were the same frameworks he taught then. Most of the stories were the same stories, okay? So Tony can go to UPW and I'm sure he plans and prepares, but he doesn't really have to. He just shows up. He's like, "Hey, here's my," what'd I say? "My 15 frameworks, I'm going to be teaching on day number one." And so he gets up there, welcomes everybody, starts telling stories. And then he's like, "Hey, I know the very first one's going to be three levels of mastery." So he starts talking about mastery, team pops up the slides, he sees the thing, "Oh, three levels of mastery, step number one," teaches the thing. Step number two, tell the story. Number three, he tells the story. Okay. And then goes to the next one, and the next one. He's just got a process, and he goes through all these frameworks and that's day number one at UPW, right? And day number two, I haven't taken notes yet, but I'm sure day number two's the same thing. Here's the 22 frameworks we're covering. Day three, here's the 13 frameworks we're covering. Day number four, here's the 12 frameworks we're covering, right? It's just these frameworks. And then how do you do it for 15 hours? You just tell stories in every single step of the framework. Okay. And notice these frameworks aren't insanely complex, right? I think sometimes people hear me talk about frameworks and they're like, "Russell, your Perfect Webinar is intense." I'm like, "Yeah, I know I had to write a whole book to explain it." Your Expert Secrets book is my whole framework on the Perfect Webinar, right? But it's like, you don't have to have complex frameworks. Listen to Tony's. The three levels of mastery, the three mandates of leadership, the three decisions to change your life, the three patterns of focus, the two primary fears, the three ways to grow a business, the two masters skills, they're all a thing. They're all finite. There are three things, two things. The biggest one is the six human needs, which is the six things. Everything else is either three or two steps, right? But each of them are a framework. And then as he teaches them, again, it's not this huge complex thing. It's like, "Here's the framework. The three levels of mastery, step number one," right? Says what it is. Number two, tells the story. It helps illustrate his point, and then probably shared a success story to tie it back in, right? It's very similar to my framework and how to teach the framework, right? And so you look at that, this is the concept. This is what he does. If you guys are like, "How does Tony Robbins teach a 50 hour seminar in a weekend?" This is it. He wrote down probably 50 frameworks, and he breaks down over four days. "How does he teach A Date with Destiny? His second one that's five days?" Okay, it's the next set of frameworks. "How does he teach life mastery?" It's the next set of frameworks. "How does he's business mastery?" It's his business frameworks. "How's he teach wealth mastery?" It's his investing frameworks. "How does he teach?" Right? That's it. And so for you guys, I hope you're starting to get this, right? We keep talking about this. What are your frameworks? You need to start creating your frameworks and give them proprietary names, right? So you create your framework for losing weight, for making money, for being successful, for running faster, for jumping higher, for whatever, just start creating frameworks, right? And again, they're not super complex, right? The two primary fears, that's a framework. The three ways to grow a business, that's a framework, the two master skills, that's a framework, right? Do you have two master skills of jumping? The two master skills of stock investing, the two master skills of how to get bigger biceps, the two master skills of getting your calf bigger? I don't know, whatever it is. You've just got to create your frameworks, right? If you dive deep into the Perfect Webinar script, all I do is the Perfect Webinar is number one, you tell your origin story about how you discovered the framework. Then secret number one, you reveal the first framework, right? Which is your framework about the vehicle. So for me, my first framework is funnel hacking, right? So there's my funnel hacking framework. And then secret number two is your framework for the internal fear. So my framework for internal fears is called funnel cloning. If you're scared of making a funnel, let me show you a clone inside of Click Funnels, and there's my framework for that, right? And number three is my external framework. So for me, the external framework is how to get traffic. So the title of my third framework is my number one traffic hack, right? And there's a framework for my number one traffic hacking. "Well how do you do it?" Step number one, you go to similarweb.com. Step number two, you type in your domain url. Step number three, you see all the websites that are driving traffic. Step number four, you might have some the same, on the same websites, right? Anyway, I'm going fast for those who are in my world. If you're new to my world, you probably, "What is he talking about?" If you go watch my webinar, you can see my webinar. My webinar is literally just me teaching my frameworks with one minute change, and then the minute change is that we pull out one step of how we teach them. Anyway, ah, that's a whole podcast for another day. I'm not going to go into that. But if you are excited about that, depending on when you get, because I'm not sure when this episode will be going live, but during black Friday this year, we are relaunching perfectwebinarsecrets.com, and I just recorded a two hour training on how I do my webinars showing this concept of how we weave the frameworks in. So if you want to go deeper and you want to understand how to use this for webinars, go to perfectwebinarsecrets.com after Thanksgiving 2020. So whenever, depending when you're listening to it, you can get there, it's going to be seven bucks and it's super cheap and amazing. But anyway, I digress. I wanted to share this with you guys because this is the secret to being a teacher, a guru, an expert, whatever you want to call it, is developing your own frameworks, giving them a proprietary name so it becomes your framework, right? And then learning how to teach them, and teaching's literally here's the three steps. Let me tell you a story about step number, story about number two, story about number three. So it ingrains into their brains and their understanding, and then they have that tool, that framework, they can then look back on and use over and over again. I still remember the very first UPW I went to 10, 12, however many years ago it was, but I remember going through all this and I didn't realize he was doing it and understanding their frameworks, but there were a couple that really had a big impact on me. The ones that had the biggest impact on me, the three mandates of leadership. I still remember that one to this day because it was like, "Step number one is look at things as they are not worse than they are. Step number two, look at things better than they are. Step number three, work to make them that way," right? That's the three mandates of leadership. I learned that 12 years ago. And I still remember it to this day, because that framework, the way he told the stories, whatever it was, integrated in my brain, and I could recycle that 12 years later because I remembered it. I don't remember all the frameworks, but that one meant something to me. The other one was the triad, the three molders of meaning. I've taught that one a ton of times, because that was one that had such a big, profound impact on me. When he taught it, I remember the stories whatever resonated with me, was like how to get into state. And I remember I've used that every day of my life since then, right? It was such a powerful framework. And the third one that still to this day is a part of my favorite of all the Tony's teachings is the six human needs. That one had such a profound impact on me. And it was funny, I watched the video last night of him reteaching it, and I was like, "I've taught this so many times now," because it had such a profound impact on me, but I've all of these are frameworks, those were the three that stuck with me, that became part of me, right? And that's what I think all of us teachers want. We want to be able to teach stuff that becomes part of our students, that they understand it, they learn it, they integrate it, it becomes part of them. And so for UPW, for me, I went through his whole thing and those three stuck with me for a decade now, and this time going through it again, I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's a cool one. Ah, I don't remember that one. Oh yeah, I forgot about that one," and those things keep coming back. Okay? But for you, it’s just creating these frameworks, and sometimes you're like, "I got to create new frameworks, new frameworks." Tony hasn't been creating new frameworks. These are the frameworks, literally these are the same frameworks. If I went back to my notebook from 12 years ago, the first UPW I went to, these were the same ones taught then, exact same ones, nothing different, right? Some of the stories might be a little different, but most of them weren't. In fact, it was funny, there's this one story he tells and Collette's like, "Oh, this is the red square story," and I was like, "What?" And then all of a sudden he gets into it and I was like, "Oh yeah, I remember that story." And yeah, it's the same story from 15 years ago, right? And so it becomes really, really cool when you start looking at it that way, right? If you think about it, it's like... Like my Two Comma Club LIVE event or any of the events that I've done consistently, I could show up and teach them without any advanced notice needed, right? I have my frameworks, I know the stories. I just teach them, and I'm good to go. In fact, if you look at most of the stuff I do nowadays, it's interesting because like the dotcom secrets book, like I was on the road teaching those principles for a decade before I wrote the book, right? And so the value ladder's one of my frameworks, and all these things are my frameworks that I taught forever and I know the stories behind them. I know what stories I'm going to tell. When I tell the value ladder framework, I still tell the same story about my dentist and getting a postcard and showing up and getting my teeth cleaned. And he's like, "Ah, your teeth are yellow," And, "Do you drink coffee?" "No, I don't." Oh, learn about tooth whitening. I know the stories, right? I tell them so many times over and over and over and over again. So I can show up and say, "Hey, the framework someone needs is the value ladder, and what story am I going to tell?" And I just pull it out of my pocket because I've told that story a million times. I know exactly where it goes, how it fits and it's easy, right? So that's the key. I did a podcast a couple of weeks ago that was kind of another distinction on top of this. We talked about publishing and for years I told everyone you've got to publish every single day for a year and you'll be successful. And the big realization that I got from Dave Woodward, actually his son Parker, was that it's not just publishing to publish, it's publishing around your framework, right? You're telling stories and showing examples, and you're talking about the practical examples of your framework. So if you guys are misunderstanding that, you got to create these frameworks, and these frameworks become the foundation of everything. It's the foundation of your content, the foundation of your courses, your seminars, your events, your products, your YouTube videos. These things get weaved in and out over and over and over and over and over again. And so anyway, I just wanted to kind of, I don't know, just keep drilling deep on this. What are your frameworks? Start developing them and start watching as you go and you start learning from other people. Take notes. Again, I just, all my notes this time, were just writing down the names of Tony's frameworks. I just wanted to see them written out, right? And so when you watch me teach, or Tony, or anyone who's an amazing teacher, go watch and notice, and notice how they use their frameworks over and over and over and over again. Anyway, I hope that helps. With that said it's time. It's time to end this podcast, and for you guys to go sit down and figure out a framework. Make one that's easy, go make one right now. Again at Two Comma Club LIVE, I have everyone go and make a framework for how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, right. Which is a fun one. But what could be your framework? Make a framework on how to eat a hot chip, right? How to win the one chip challenge. Or make a framework on, again, whatever your product, your service is, pick something and it doesn't have to be hard, right? Just pick something, title it, give it its own proprietary name, where it's your name, have it be the three steps of whatever. The three levels of whatever. The three mandates of, the three decisions blank, the three patterns of, the two primary, the three ways to, the two master of something, the three, four... Anyway, just make it, and then start teaching it, and start talking about it, start sharing it. Start figuring out what stories you can tell to make that framework stick in people's minds better and be able to bring back and remember it and recall it so they can actually use it and integrate into their own lives. Anyway, I hope that helps and gives you guys a glimpse of how Tony teaches, how I teach, and how the greats all do it. Thanks so much, guys. I appreciate you all for listening and we'll talk to you soon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever wondered why I’m always creating new offers and products when it would just be so much easier to sit back and relax? Enjoy this episode from the archives explaining why I keep throwing out so many hooks! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I learned something really interesting about myself tonight and I wanted to share it with you guys. Hey everyone, I hope everything is going amazing for you guys. Friday, I did a training. So the training was for everybody who had gone to the 10x Growth Con event, Grant Cardone’s event. If you guys were there you saw at the event, I did a presentation and made 90 million, excuse me, not 90 million, that’d be cool, 3 million dollars in 90 minutes, setting all sorts of records and it was really, really cool. Then the next day I got up onstage and we did a bonus where if anyone signed up before I left, basically we were going to let them, I was going to do a workshop where I walked them through exactly what I did and how I did it and all that kind of stuff. So that workshop I actually did on Friday, which was really cool. I thought it was going to be about 3 hours long, I ended up going for 6 ½ hours. I don’t know, I just get excited and I can’t stop talking and sharing and it’s just a lot of fun. Hopefully you guys are okay if I over deliver. But it was cool. And then obviously, immediately afterwards I’m all excited to go and try to turn this into an offer and to sell it, and I bought 10xsecrets.com, and I’m like, “I’m going to put this in the offer, and this and this, and the training….” And my whole brain is going crazy with this whole process. And then part of me is like, why am I doing this? Why am I creating another offer, a new front end, another product? Maybe it’s because I have a problem, I got a funnel addiction, maybe a little of all those things, I don’t know. But what was interesting, I actually this weekend thought a lot about that. It’s fun, I love reading the Facebook comments of people in our groups and especially just hearing people’s success stories and stuff. And there’s this really interesting pattern this weekend for me, as I was just scrolling through stuff. So many people told me, “Oh for me Russell, it was when I read the Dotcom Secrets book, that’s when it clicked.” Or “Oh for me it was when I was at this event and you said this, and that’s when everything clicked.” And “For me it was when…” people are sharing what it was for them that made it all click for them, and when it clicked the business took off. And it made me start thinking, what were the pivotal parts in my journey where something clicked and it was like, transitional shift and shift and shift and shift. Twice this week I did trainings for the Two Comma Club X coaching program, where I shared something that had been shared other places, just had been shared differently and had different stories around it and stuff like that. And the same thing, people were like, “Oh that time it clicked. Now I understand where I’m going.” So you never know when, like when you’re sharing message which one’s going to click with which people. That’s why I keep telling my stories and my things over and over and over and over again, because you never know when it’s going to click for that person who’s there. Sometimes it’s repetitive for some people and sometimes it’s like the thing that makes it click. And I started thinking about this, I’m so excited to create this offer and then I was bummed about it because I was like, why am I doing this? The last thing in the world I really need right now is more money. I’m like, what is the reason? Why am I so excited about doing this? And then it kind of hit me, I think the reason why is that I know that, that training was the newest one I’d done. It was 6 ½ hours, I put my heart and soul into it because I wanted to over deliver. It was really cool actually. I actually went through and I taught the foundation of offer creating, because that’s the key to the webinar. Then I taught the Perfect Webinar, and then I went through the actual presentation from 10x and then I pushed play and watched and paused, “This is why I did that.” Push play, pause, “This is why I did this.” Just kind of went through the whole thing. It was interesting, I even found out a couple of new nuances to the Perfect Webinar that I didn’t ever realize until I was like pausing myself and I was like, “oh wow, I did that thing. I didn’t even realize that.” So I was sharing those things, talked about the price marinade, a whole bunch of cool things I’ve never really talked about before. But I was thinking about this, between our email lists and everything, there’s over a million entrepreneurs that follow me, right. And when I put something out, my job as a marketer is like, re-engage them, and then re-commit them, and hopefully this time give them that aha. So I re-engage them by making a new hook. I talked in the last podcast about hook, story, offer. So I need a new hook to get them re-engaged. Because if I just keep selling them the exact same thing, it’s going to be hard to keep them in. But if you look at this, think about this. I have perfectwebinarsecrets.com, which is like the script and the cd of me teaching the Perfect Webinar right. Expert Secrets is me teaching the Perfect Webinar in way more detail.  Secrets Master Class, which is part of Two Comma Club X, the old FHAT event was me teaching the Perfect Webinar. This was me teaching the Perfect webinar. It’s me teaching it, but it’s like the concepts, the contents not the same, but it’s similar. But it’s repackaged in different ways. Where it’s like, The Perfect Webinar, that was the thing, that was the hook that will get them. Expert Secrets, I talk about that way, that’s the hook that will get somebody. 10x Secrets, we talk about how Russell made 3 million in 90 minutes, that hook will get a lot of people. It’s sexy, it’s interesting, it’s unique. The hook will grab a different segment, or re-engage people. Then, I honestly wish I could, that six hour thing, I wish I could stream it to everybody for free. The problem is I know that if people get it for free, they won’t do anything with it. So that’s why we make an offer, that’s why we make a funnel. Because then I’m hooking them first, then I’m charging them, and the physical act of them pulling out a credit card recommits to themselves that they’re going to go down this path again. So I hook them, recommit them, and then hopefully this time I give them the aha, the thing, that’s the one that…how many times have you gone and studied somebody’s stuff two or three or four times? Like you go to church every Sunday for 20 years of your life and all the sudden that Sunday, that person, whatever it was, you were ready right then. So for me I feel like that, that’s really part of this business. The money, and if you guys aren’t to this point yet, I’m just going to break it to you, the money is not that exciting, moving forward. There comes a point where your house is paid off, everything is taken care of, it’s just not exciting, the money part. But the impact fires you up. So it’s like, I’m hooking them. I have a million plus entrepreneurs, plus everyone else on Facebook, plus the entire world, throwing these offers out trying to hook them and get them to make a commitment. They commit themselves by actually paying for something, and my goal is for this time to give them the aha, the thing where they’re like, “Ah, this is the one.” And I know that 10x Secrets is going to do that for some people and I’m excited. The only reason why we charge and do funnels is because we can get to more people. We can pay for advertizing and that hook gets out to more people, which hopefully grabs people, gets them in, get’s them to commit to themselves and hopefully that will be the one that gets them. It re-engages people, re-ignites people. People who have been on and off, on and off, on and off, hopefully this will be the one for them. Anyway, that’s why. It was kind of cool. It gave me comfort, oh it’s okay for me to do this. I’m doing it for that reason. I want more people to be like, “10x Secrets, that was the one that gave me the clarity that I needed and the permission to do my thing.” Or maybe it’s Ignite Your Funnels, that’s coming out later this year. Or maybe it’s the next thing. That’s why I keep doing it. In case you’re wondering. Why I keep putting out offers, because I’m trying to hook people, get them to recommit to themselves and hopefully have that one be the one that gives them the aha that makes them move. So I’m curious for you guys, when was it? Which was the thing, the product, the idea, the thing that gave you the aha where you’re like, “That was the thing.” Or have you had it yet, are you still looking for that? Was it a video, a YouTube video, a podcast, a product you bought? There’s a reason why I’m preaching like crazy around the clock to you guys, it’s because I’m hoping and waiting and wishing that each of you guys will get that aha from one of these things. Give you the thing you need to like, “that was the piece. That was the piece I was missing.” So if you wonder why I publish so much, that’s why. I love it, and the feedback. I literally just scroll through the Facebook feed and I’m just liking everything, it just makes me so happy to see all the positive stuff. Anyway, appreciate you all thanks so much. Talk to you guys soon. Bye. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A really cool strategy to meet your Dream 100 and get their customers to flow into your funnels. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you guys are pumped and excited for today. Today, I'm going to bring you some charisma, some hacking, some excitement, and a whole bunch of fun stuff. All right, everybody. I wanted to funnel hack somebody today because what they're doing is really, really cool, and I think it would behoove you all to watch what she is doing. The person I'm talking about, her name is McCall Jones. The story, as I know it, and I probably don't know all the details, but she is related to Kathryn Jones, who is our resident design hacker who spoke at Funnel Hacking Live this year about design hacking. She was so excited that she was going to speak on stage. She invited her friends and her family to all come watch her crush it, and she did crush it. She did an amazing job. One of her... I think it's her sister-in-law, came not knowing anything about what in the world we do, and she sat there and watched Kathryn do her thing. Then she watched the entire event, and she was like, "This is amazing. I want to do something related to this." Now, McCall's background... Actually, I don't know all her background. I do know that she was on... What's that show? I keep thinking it's So You Think You Can Dance. That's not it. She's was on High School Musical, part two, I believe. I may quote that wrong. Maybe it's part one. I've never seen either of them, I'm not going to lie, but I think she was on High School Musical, part two. So, she's got an acting career and a bunch of stuff like that. But she's watching this, and she's like, "Oh my gosh. Kathryn's teaching design hacking. Russell's teaching funnel hacking. I could teach how to hack what I do," which is, she's, as an actress or actor... I don't know what they call themselves nowadays. I don't know what's politically correct, so I apologize to all the actors who I just offended with my unknowingness of how to say it right. But anyway, she was like, "I can teach people how to hack charisma. How is Russell able to get on stage, and what is he doing and why is he doing it?" and all that sorts of stuff. So, she decided that she was going to become the person who is going to teach people who want to become speakers or authors or selling from stage or do webinars or Facebook Lives how to actually get charisma, because a lot of people don't have that, right? They come on like, "Hi. I'm Russell," and they're all nervous, like I was 15 years ago, right? It's scary at first. So, she's like, "I'm going to teach a framework for how people can do charisma hacking." So, that began her journey. She said, "This is my thing. This is the spot in the market that I'm going to claim. I'm going to teach people this process. I'm going to call it charisma hacking, and this is my thing." Right? First off, everything so far what she's done is awesome, right? Same thing for you, right? You should be in your marketplace looking around like, "Where's the gap? Where are people not talking about? What can I do that can be unique? What is something that my gifts bring to the market that's going to be different than anybody else?" For her, because of her acting career and her understanding of these things, she thought, "This is the segment of the market I can carve out that can become my own, where I can become the category king in it." So, that's the first lesson. Second lesson. Then she went out there and she created a framework and she started a coaching program. She started training people how to do it. I'm sure she did a lot of it for free. She started going into Kathryn's groups and teaching this concept called charisma hacking, where she was testing out her process and testing things out. She came in to mine. I had her do a training for our Two Comma Club X members, because so many of I'm teaching them to publish, and they're scared to death to publish. I'm like, "Hey, McCall. Can you do a training for my people, teaching them the basics of charisma hacking and looking around and finding people who are successful and modeling them?" So, she made an amazing video for our members. So then, now, all Kathryn's members, they're my members, and other people are learning from her. She's going out there working for free, right, getting her content out there, plugging it strategically into people's coaching programs, where she has a chance to, first off, practice her material, practice her framework, essentially learning it better, and basically did all that stuff for free for everybody, right? Now, she's learning it. Now, from there, she's able to go and she's created a whole value ladder, right? She's got a core. She's got live one-on-one trainings. She's got things where she can help you, and she has a business related to that, right? Now, this is where most people mess up. They create the framework, they create the product, and then they're like, "How do I sell this thing? Ah." And they're like, "I don't know how to sell it." Obviously, there's a ton of funnels they can sell. I'm not going to talk about that, but I do want to talk about is what McCall is doing now. I just keep being more impressed with her every time I'm watching what she's doing. What she started doing three weeks ago is this thing where, as a way to get lead gen, to get people in the door, and also as a way to connect with her Dream 100. So, I'm assuming... Again, I'm not behind the scenes of all this, but I'm assuming she built out the list of like, "Okay, who are my Dream 100? Who are the people?" And by definition of the Dream 100, the Dream 100 is somebody who has your existing customers on their list, on their social profile, their following, whatever that might be, right? They have the attention of your potential dream customers. So, I'm assuming that McCall made a list, and she put me on the list, she put Dave Woodward, she put Steve Larson, and I'm not sure who else, because she's done it for three weeks now, but I'm sure there are more on there, right? So, what she's been doing is what she calls her charisma hacking weeks or charisma live or something like that, right, where basically what she's doing is each week she picks someone who's on her Dream 100. The first week was me, and she said, "I'm going to charisma hack Russell every single day for this next week." So, every day she went live on her Facebook page and said, "Okay, here's one of Russell's videos. Let me charisma hack him." So, she pushes play on my video and she pauses and talks about what I did and why did it and goes through that. First, she broke down one of my Facebook Lives. The next day she broke down one of my ads. The next day she broke down another thing. And she did that for five days, showing people how I use charisma and how they can model what I'm doing to be successful with theirs, right? Now, what's cool about it is she's tagging me in all these, so I keep seeing it. As her Dream 100, I keep being aware of the fact that she's talking about me, which is flattering, like, "Oh, this is cool." So, I watched a bunch of them, but then also, by tagging it, a lot of my people started seeing it. A lot of my people who are watching started tagging my customers and tagging people and bringing them over. So, by doing this, she's getting my attention, but she's also getting the attention of a lot of people that follow me, right? Now, obviously, right now I'm doing a podcast talking about it, so it's bringing more people to it, right? But it's smart. She's splintering off the market and saying, "Let me do five videos breaking down Russell, what he's doing, and that's going to bring his people in." Right? And the next week she picks Steven Larson, same thing. Me, Chris next, Steven Larson, and she did a Facebook Live he did, and then an ad he did, and then this and that. She broke that down and she tagged Steven on it and brought people from Steven's world into her world. Now, this week, she's doing Dave Woodward. Next week she'll do someone else, right? So, each week she has this consistent publishing process where she's out there publishing, bringing people into her world. Now they can come in, they can get into her value ladder, then they can start sending up through the products and services that she's selling. Okay, what she's doing, is she's taking this thing that she's teaching, taking her framework, and showing how it applies to other people. What's interesting is, I did something very, very similar when I launched ClickFunnels. Okay? I did the same thing, where I was out there and I started showing... It's funny, I still remember this because Lewis Howes, I used to love his website. I still love it, but I used to love his... I remember seeing his site and being so jealous of it, and I found out the company who built it is Digital Telephony,I think. Anyway, I can't say their name, but the company, and I went to try to hire them to build a website for me because Lewis's looked so freaking cool. They wanted to charge me... It was 30-something thousand dollars for them to design a webpage for me, and I was like, "Oh." I'm like, "You guys are good, but you're not that good." Right? So, when ClickFunnels came out, I wanted to show people... I was like, "I want to show you this process." So, I took Lewis's page. I remember I had my monitor. I had Lewis's page on the left-hand side and ClickFunnels on the right-hand side, and I said, "I want to show you how I can build Lewis's $30,000 webpage inside of ClickFunnels in less than 10 minutes." I went through and I literally built his webpage side-by-side until it was done. And I was like, "It looks just like his, right? It didn't cost me nothing. I did it in 10 minutes because I understand these concepts of funnel hacking." And if you were to ask Kathryn, it would be designed hacking, right? How do you model something that's already successful? So, that's what I became really, really good at doing. There's the first practical... The thing that I was doing, I was doing that for a lot of people. I would go onto to Tony Robbins pages and other pages. We used to do Facebook Lives every single week. We called them the Did You Know Show, like, "Did you know you can do this on ClickFunnels, and this and this?" And we'd show off features while I would be basically rebuilding other people's funnels inside of ClickFunnels to show them how we could... and anything else we could build in ClickFunnels as well. And that's initially how I got so much of my momentum off the ground, is by doing that, right? Anyways, I was watching McCall do this. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is brilliant." So, for you, I want you to think about this, think about your framework, right? What is the thing that you're teaching, right? Look at that. You've obviously got your product and your courses, and I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about, how do we fill our funnel with people who are potentially going to buy that thing from us, right? How do you get the attention of your Dream 100? How do you start getting the traffic and the leads and the people coming in, right? This is all the traffic secret stuff we talk about. It's coming back and thinking about that, and then say, "Okay, how can I apply my framework to show how my Dream 100 is doing something correctly," right? "Here's how some of my Dream 100 is building a funnel. Let me show off their funnel. Here's how somebody over here is doing this, is using charisma. Let me show it. Here's how someone over here is using design hacking. Here, someone over here is using..." Fill in the blank, whatever your product is, okay? The nice thing that's... I had to talk with Dana Derricks about this one time. The coolest thing is, when you create a framework, but you name it, it becomes yours, right? So, for example, Dana is big. He teaches everyone the Dream 100, and Dana didn't come up with that. I didn't come up it. Chet Holmes was the one that introduced it to me and to Dana, but Dana's made that... His business is the Dream, the Dream 100, right? And he says, "What's cool about it," he's like, "I can now go, and when I see anybody doing any version of the Dream 100, even if they don't call it that, I can go and say, 'Hey, let me show you how Rachel Hollis used the Dream 100 to make her book the best selling book of all time...'" or of last year, right? And then he can go show that and like, "This is her process, how she did it." And even though she didn't call it the Dream 100 and didn't know, but he was able to say, "This is my framework, how she applied it. It was the Dream 100." And all of a sudden it gives all the credibility now to his framework, even though she didn't exactly know what it was, but she was still doing it, right? Or, "Here's how Tom Bilyeu uses the Dream 100. Here's how so-and-so, how so-and-so..." and start showing people using the tool, the thing that you're trying to do, right? And that is the strategy. That's the big aha, the big secret. Anyway, so think about that. What's your framework? Who are the people, either your Dream 100 or people in the media or whoever, who are unknowingly using your framework or parts of your framework that you can show and you can case study, and putting those out there as videos, as Facebook Lives, breaking them down and showing people, and people start seeing it over and over and over again. That's going to get their attention. That's going to increase the desire, and it's going to make them want the thing that you've got. Okay? Like I said, McCall Jones is doing such a cool job of it. If you go follow her on Facebook, you can see it. You can start seeing what she's doing and why she's doing it, and watch the process. Again, I'm a nerd, where I spend more time watching what people are doing than actually listening to the thing they're teaching me, right? So, with this, with McCall, I'm watching what she's doing, and I'm like, "Ah, this is brilliant. This is so smart," and I hope you guys are watching as well. Anyway, with that said, I'm at the office, I got some fun stuff to do today. I'm pumped. A lot of exciting things are happening. I can't tell you about them all right now, but the next three to six months inside ClickFunnels is going to be crazy, and I cannot wait to show you guys all the stuff we're doing. I'll reveal as much as I can behind the scenes here on the podcast, but with that said, appreciate you all. Thanks for paying attention and listening, and I'll talk to guys all soon. Bye, everybody. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the final segment of this special interview! In this episode you get to hear Russell answer all these interesting questions: Who do you look up to? What is Tony Robbins like? How do you “deal” when things get heavy? What do you sacrifice for success? Is there closure as an entrepreneur? What do you want to be known or remembered for? Russell and Josh chat about all this and much more in the exciting conclusion to this “Atlas Shrugged” interview series. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson, and I want to welcome you, first off, to the Marketing Secrets podcast; and, second off, to the last part of our five-part Atlas Shrugged interview series. The exciting conclusion. At this time, we'd been going for three-plus hours. I was really, really tired. If I sound like I am kind of out of it, it's because I was probably a little bit out of it. We started the interview at 8:00 or 9:00 at night, so this is probably midnight or so. The night before, I had slept three hours. Or, two nights before, it was three-and-a-half... Three hours and 12 minutes. I remember. I wear an aura ring, so I track my sleep cycle. So, the night before, I slept three hours and 12 minutes. The night before this was, like, five hours. So I was tired. I was worn out. But I still had a lot of fun with it. I think Josh is a great interviewer. And I think that we had a lot of fun talking about all this stuff. So, with that said, you guys, hope you enjoyed this interview series. And, when we come back from the theme song, you have a chance to jump right into the exciting conclusion. Part five of the Atlas Shrugged interview. Josh Forti: So, one of the things you talk about in... Well, actually, expert secrets. But I think they mention it... She kind of mentions it in this book, too... is creating belief by looking up to somebody. And, if you can't see it, if nobody else has done it, then it's hard for people to kind of imagine it and ingrain it. Like, for me, I look up at... I'm like, "Who do I want to be like? What business do I want?" I'm like, "Okay, cool." Like you and your books, I want to be like that type of bit here. And then Katie Richards is another one. Being a powerful person, just in general. Okay, like, these are the people that I look up to, and I'm like, "Okay. That's what I'm going towards." So, for you, who are those people? Like, in your life. That you look up to, and you're like, "Okay, that's it." Because I feel like, the higher you get... And, I mean, you're not all the way up the ladder, right? There's still plenty more. But you're way above where the average person is going to get to. The average person has a lot of people they can look up to. You, there's a lot less options, I feel like. Who are those people that you look up to and go, "Okay, that's who I'm trying to be more like," or, "That's where I learned my lessons from." Russell Brunson: Yeah. There's different parts of my life for different people, too. You know? Josh: Yeah. Russell: I look at the business side, I know the companies I aspire to be like. Salesforce, Shopify, HubSpot. Those are companies that are just like the next tier, but from where we are. That they've crossed the chasm, where we're still trying to figure out how to... That next tier. Right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: I think watching them has been... That's when we said we'd go to DreamForce two years in a row, just because I wanted to... And I talked about it, actually, on my podcast. Because when I was out there, it was like... And you need to see it to understand it. Because I remember, when I was wrestling, my dad, my freshman year, took us to the... I had just started wrestling. He took us to the state tournament. I saw this guy on my team win state. And I was like, "That's what I want." Exactly what it was. That'd be my goal. And you see it to do it. So I think for me, those are kind of the businesses that I look up to. People, I mean, Tony... From an influence... Like, people speaking, Tony still, to me, is like... Who's bigger than him, right? Josh: Right, right. Russell: Or better. And the fact I've had a chance to build a friendship with him is really cool, because it's been interesting to see him not on stage. You know what I mean? Like, everyone has a chance to see him on stage, and he's the best in the world on there. But then you see him offstage, and see who he really is. And it's just cool to see that, I don't know, someone who's been doing this for that long, consistently, who still cares, who's still doing this. He doesn't need money, but he still is doing events almost every day of the year, because he wants that. So I think that- Josh: He can stop. Russell: Yeah. And I get it. I have so much respect for that. So I think that's a big thing. Yeah. Just, different areas of life, there's different people. But- Josh: What's it like- Russell: I've tried harder and harder to get closer and closer to him, because I like seeing... I like understanding them, not just from the outside, but understanding from inside. Because it's just a different perspective that you don't get. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. What is it it like? What is Tony like? Russell: Honestly, he's like a little kid. We went to his house, and... I can't talk with details, but he had a slide in his house, and he went down the slide with us, and it just... It was really cool. And we had a chance to go with him and do the meditation thing. And the way he served us, when we were with him at his house, you can tell it's how he wishes he could serve everybody. You know? And that just is hard. Like, you saw him... He's in this room serving us, and he's crying, and you see this emotion. And you're just like, "Oh my gosh," like, "he would do this for everyone if he could." But he can't. So that's why you do these big scale things. But it's the best way he can do that. But I think, if he could, he would do that for every single human being he could. It's just really... I don't know. It's cool. There's been a lot of situations, when I've been around him, where he could have not... He could have easily, like, turned it off. You know, but it's sincere. He doesn't turn it off. You know what I mean? And I try to be that way as much as I can. And hopefully you've seen, now with me and my kids? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Russell: I try to. And obviously, there's Russell, who's a more introverted, more reserved, and then there’s Russell who’s gonna be like, "Ahh!" But it's still the same... Hopefully. I want to be growing like that. Like, I'd respect him, because he's... In every situation I've seen him, he's always been sincere. Which is not... I can't say that about most people in our industry, and our world. Josh: Yeah. For sure. Russell: Which is unfortunate, because it's just like, "You are..." I remember one time I was in an event, and I heard this guy speak. He was awesome. And he just breaks down crying in the middle of this event, in the middle of the speech. And I was like, "This guy is great." And he got offstage. And he looks at me, and he's like... He said something like, "I pulled out the fake tears again." And I was like, "What?" I remember just feeling like... Ugh. I just felt so sick. How does someone do that and not... He was all proud of it. Like, "Ha," like, "I got them with my..." I just remember feeling so... Just dirty. And I just didn't like that. I was like, "I don't want to be that way. I want to be..." I don't want people saying, like, "Oh, yeah, Russell's different here than here." I don't want people saying that. Josh: Yeah. Like, one consistent person. The same person on and off stage. Russell: Yeah. Josh: There's certain people that... You just know. You meet them, and they're just genuine all the way through. Right? Russell: Mm-hmm Josh: I'm trying to think... Like Catherine Jones, right? For example. She's awesome, right? We had dinner. I had dinner with her, and... Well, God. I had dinner with her, and some friends... Russell: "What am I allowed to say in the podcast?" Josh: Yeah. No, her and some friends, when I was in Utah last. And I've had her as a client. I've watched her speak on stage, in front of... Live. I've had dinner with her. And it's like, it is the same person. Right? Russell: So cool. Josh: And there are people like that. And they're rare. I really do think- Russell: That's what people say. Like, "You never want to meet your mentors, because they're going to disappoint you." Josh: Yeah. Russell: Because of that. Because it's like, "Oh, you put them on this pedestal, and you see them in real life, and you're like... 'Huh. Well. That's disappointing.'" And then it negates all the stuff... That's my biggest thing, is that I don't want somebody who... I gave them something, to help them, and they see me in real life, and it's like, "Oh." It negates- Josh: Yeah! Russell: All you just gave them. Which it does, right? Josh: It really does. Because it takes away the trust factor. Russell: Yeah. And so it's just like... I don't know. Because I think I was nervous meeting Tony the first time. I was like, "What if..." Josh: Yeah, no kidding. Russell: You know? And you see him multiple times, over and over and over, and you're just like, "Cool." It's just neat to see that. Josh: So, what's interesting is, one of my biggest reservations about Tony before... You, and Funnel Hacking Live, was actually the thing that warmed me up to Tony. Because I didn't really know a whole lot... I'd never experienced Tony like I have at Funnel Hacking Live, or anything like that. It's so crazy. You walk into the room when he's talking, and it's like you feel the energy shift. Russell: Nobody on earth has presence like that. Josh: It is insane. Like, everyone tells you about it, but then you don't really believe it until you experience it. And I remember, actually, it was in Orlando. The first time, when he was down there or whatever. And I remember, he came... He was in the room... I was in the room when he entered. And energy, obviously, just like when anybody walks on stage, was quite ramped up. But then he just went into his normal talking. And I remember leaving the room. And, most people, you walk in and you feel it? And I remember opening that door, and shutting it, and like... My whole body shifted. Out of this high energy state, into the low energy state. And I felt like, if I was in that room, I could literally go forever. Right? It was just this nonstop source of energy. But what was interesting about Tony is, Tony doesn't really talk about God. Which is super interesting. Like, I don't know what faith Tony is. And maybe he's talked about it in something about that. And so, for me, one of the biggest struggles that I had... Because, well, growing up, and when I first the house, and when I first got into the entrepreneurship, I, like, really wrestled with God. Right? Especially, you know, going through the death of my brother was actually, ironically, the thing that brought me back to God. But I really, really wrestled with that. And so, for Tony, it was like, he's got all this energy, and he's connecting to this higher source, and he's talking about all these things, but he never... He never ties it to anything. He never gives credit to... Well, in this story I'm telling myself at the time, he's never giving credit to this higher... thing. Like, where does that all come from? And then, the more I got to know Tony... Not personally, but through his work, and through watching his videos, and seeing him at Funnel Hacking Live... I'm like, "I don't know what it is that he believes." I've never sat down... And if I ever get to interview him, I'm absolutely asking him that question. But, whatever that is, I don't think it's possible to be incongruent. Because it's... I don't know! It's not of Earth, almost. It's like you're tapping into something that isn't... In in order to operate at that level, you can't be selfish. Like, you know what I mean? Do you sense that with him at all? Like- Russell: Yeah. And he is, I think... And I'm sure you've seen it before. You talk political, and your audience is cut in half, right? Josh Forti: Yeah. Russell: I think for him, he's traveling such a world-global thing. I mean, Tony is Christian. But it's tough because half the world he speaks to are not Christians. Josh: Right. Russell: And so he... He draws that line, because he doesn't want to alienate people. Because he's like, "I'm here to serve God, and..." Josh: Right. Russell: “God didn’t send me to serve a certain group, it’s to serve everybody.” I think... That's my guess, as to why he doesn't anchor that in as a hard thing. Because his audience is so massive. But he definitely, if you ask him, he definitely knows where it's coming from. You know what I mean? Because, wherever he talks about it, he's... You know, the first time he told me, he's like... It's funny, because I'd experienced this myself, and didn't have words to put to it. Because I come on stage, I have a plan, everything's there. I start talking, and all of the sudden, like, something comes through me? And he's like, "It never comes out the way that I plan, but it always comes out perfect." And he's like, "As long as I follow that, it always just works out perfect." Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I've had so many times where I... Again, I start talking about something, I don't know where I'm going. I'm like, "Why am I talking about this?" And then all of the sudden, it's like, "Oh, wow." And there's somebody... Like, that was the thing that- Josh: Connected it. Russell: Shifted it for them. You know what I mean? And I think the more that you tap into that, the more... Again, it comes back to what I talked about before, like, where you do that... God's giving you this thing, and if you have stewardship over it, and you use it, he'll give it to you more and more. And Tony, now, who's been doing it for 40 years... Josh: It's actually super interesting you say that. So, literally, every Tuesday, I meet with Katie. Right? And we have our one-on-one call, and we talk for an hour. And one of the topics of conversation was, I was like, "Katie..." We were actually talking about getting ready for this interview. I was like, "I don't feel nervous. At all." Right? And I'm like, "And I'm getting so many texts and DMS or whatever, like, 'Oh my gosh, are you nervous? What if you mess up?'” And, so many… So many different things, right? And I'm like, "I don't feel any of that. I feel like this is just like, 'All right, cool. I'm flying out to Russell. We're gonna hang out. It's gonna be great. We're gonna go.'" And I'm like, "So, why is everybody else telling me I should be nervous? Right? Like, why is that a thing?" One of the things that she said was like, "Being who you are, being your person, knowing yourself, and, like, doing this..." But one of the things that we talked about was some of the things that you have to accept by faith. And I was really wrestling with this idea of, like, "Am I supposed to be prepared?" Am I? Russell voxed me and was like, "This is the first interview he's ever prepared for." I'm like, "I just read the book. I don't have any notes prepared for him! I'm just gonna show up and talk, right? That's what I do." And she's like, "But that's your superpower. That-" And sometimes you have to just have faith. And she's like, "You prepare 80% of the way, and leave the 20% up to God." And she's like, "And most people are not going to understand that. And, for a lot of people, that's going to freak it out." But she's like, "How many times have you prepared something 100%, you knew every word you were going to say?" And I'm like, "Very little." She's like, "Well, think back to one of the times that you did." I'm like, "Okay," and she's like, "How'd it go? I was like, "Well, terrible! Literally. It was some of my worst presentations. The most prepared I come, the biggest it'll flop." Right? And she's like, "And the least you prepare sometimes, you just walk in confidently and you do your best, turns out amazing." Yeah. Because that's what Tony's talking about, like, "It just comes over you." It's like, if you have faith that, when you show up and become... You are the best version of yourself. You show up the most prepared you can be. And you just fully embrace that, and have faith in the rest? God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, I feel like it just works the rest of it out. You know what I mean? Russell: Understood. Yeah. That's why, before I do anything, I pray before. I prayed before this call. Or, what's it called? Before this interview, before I step on stage every single time. Because a big part of it's like... Without that, what good are your words? You know what I mean? If you're doing it with the Spirit, with God... Whatever you want to call it, you know? For me, it's the Spirit. If you're with the Spirit, then it'll touch people, in a way that you can't just by your words alone. And so I always ask that, and I look for help. And I remember, I think Steven Larson, the first time he was working for me, we did our first event in the room over here. And I remember, before I would do the events myself, he started working for me. And I was in the back here. And I was saying a prayer, and he walked in. He's like, "Oh, sorry!" He's like, "That's cool." I'm like, "What?" He's like, "You pray before you go out there." I was like, "Oh, yeah. I'm not going out there by myself!" Like, you know? I'm not that good. So, I need help, and it shows up when you... pray. Josh: All right, I have two questions that I want to ask you, before we kind of go to rapid-fire, to kind of bring this to a close. I don't know. We could probably go all night, but... Russell: You just want us to keep going all night? Or you want us to go to bed? Josh: How much longer do we go for? Are you guys liking this? Comment down below. Let us know. Give some feedback. Do you like it? Do you not like it? What are your thoughts? We've been going for about three hours. And I figured, at least, it was going to go at least this long. Russell: I guarantee there's going to be some of you guys who are like, "I agree with everything," to be like, "I agree with half," or to be like, "I don't understand what they're saying. I agree with nothing." So- That's okay. There's nothing... Again, our goal was not to motivate, was not to try to convince you guys of anything. That's not my goal. Our goal was to flesh out these ideas, and hopefully you guys come on the journey, and get some cool ideas from it, and see how perceive life. I think what's fascinating is everybody has such a different perspective on life. And so many times, when we hear somebody else's perspective, we get offended. And it's like, "What if you didn't get offended, and just listened to their perspective?" And maybe you don't listen to everything, but you're like, "Oh. I'm going to take that, and that. Those are two things that were really cool for me." Just don't pay attention to the rest of it. Right? Because I'm sure, if you paid attention to everything that we both said, you probably got offended at least 12 times. But if you're just like, "I'm just going to take the gold that's good for me, and then leave everything else on the side," you got a dozen amazing things that you can use, hopefully. So. Josh: All right. And so my next question is, who are you voting for? No, I'm just kidding. Russell: Ugh. Actually, last year, I don't... Four years ago... So, I'm a big Jack Bauer fan, and I bought "Jack Bauer for president" shirts. And then, that whole day, I was Instagramming and Facebooking, "I'm writing in Jack Bauer! I'm writing in Jack Bauer!" And I would have if he was a real human. But, anyway. Josh: That's funny. Who was I just... Oh, Leah, I was talking to her on the way, as we were driving to the airport. We were talking about Joe Rogan. And, because Joe Rogan is... It's so funny, because people... Like, Trump retweeted one of his tweets. And Joe Rogan's a big liberal, right? Like, he even said he was going to vote for Bernie, before Biden became the nominee. And so I feel like a lot of Trump supporters, are like, "Yeah, Joe Rogan's a Trump fan!" Like, Joe Rogan is not a Trump fan. That's not at all what it is. And so we were like, "Well, who do you think he's going to vote for?" And I was like, "If I was a betting man, I would bet that he votes for Kanye. That he wrote him in." Because he does this three-hour interview. And Kanye answers... If you watch the interview... I mean, I know it's three hours of your time, and you'll probably never get to it. But it is a fascinating interview. And he asked... Because he keeps trying to bring Kanye back to like, "If you were president, what would you do?" Because Kanye is like, "I'm going to be president. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when," right? Like, "If I don't win this year, I'm going to for sure win in 2024." Kanye, I love your confidence. But anyway, so, Kanye answers these questions completely differently. And so, anyway. I don't want to run with that. But, my real question for you... So, you can go long on these, or we can go rapid-fire questions on them. Either way. Atlas Shrugged. Got the world on his shoulders. You feel that. How do you deal with that responsibility? Because I'm sure there's been times, I know in my own life, with my three to five little people that I'm managing, and some contractors, I'm like, "Oh my gosh! If I have to take one more thing, I'm just going to explode!" Right? Like, if we don't... So how do you, how do you deal with that pressure, and not... One of the things that I've had to learn how to do is, I don't know if anger is the right word, but deal with not taking out my frustration on somebody else. Right? Like, God bless Leah. She knows me super, super well. And like she knows the moods where it's like, "Don't ask him a question." Like, "Avoid it, and let him cool off," because if you say the wrong thing right now, I'm just going to inadvertently take it out on her. And I've had to learn how to balance that and communicate that. How do you deal with all that pressure, and still... You've got 400 people looking up to you. I know you don't talk to them everyday, but that's a lot. Russell: Yeah. That's just employees. And you have the community, and... Josh: Right. Russell: Yeah, it gets heavy. A lot. And I think it's funny, because, as you read the book, you know, Atlas Shrugged and walked away from the thing... Josh: Right. Russell: And I think for me, I don't want to walk away. You know what I mean? I don't think... That's a big thing. And I think, because the first part is, I was thinking about it, that... Because I'm a big believer that this, for me, is a calling. It's a mantle. This is what I've been called to do at this time in my life. And since, as heavy as it gets... Like, man, think about other people in a different time who had to carry a burden they didn't want to lift, right? There's tons of them. So I think about that a lot. I reached out to other people who were producers, who I know have heavy... You can ask Garrett White. Every time I'm stressing out to the max, I text Garrett, and I'm like, "Hey, man. Life's heavy. Just thinking about you." And he always sends back something about, like, "Dude, do you realize how you've changed my..." just things like that, that just... It's just like, "Okay, it's worth it. Thank you." And then, in Voxer, whenever someone voxes me something, it's like, this success story of, like, "Dude, just so you know, blah, blah, blah." And on Voxer, you can star things. So I have a whole starred menu of all the people that have told me how the fact that I'm carrying this has changed their life. So I'll listen to those, and I'll listen to four or five or six of them. And eventually, when I hear those things, it gets lighter. And so that's a big thing, for me, is just that... Dave, one of my... I'm not sure if Dave's still here or not. But Dave's one of my best friends. Josh: Is he still here? Russell: No. Josh: Dave. Russell: One of my favorite humans. Yeah. And now he's... Anyway. You know, he's carrying a lot of pressure, now, too. Dave... I don't know if you knew this... Dave is the CEO now of ClickFunnels. He's taking over a huge part of my responsibility. And he's carrying out- Josh: Oh, he's into the CEO role? Russell: Yeah. Josh: Or, is he? Or he's moving into it? Russell: He is. Officially, now, yeah. Internally. And he's... Josh: Congratulations, Dave. Russell: And, looking back now, something I should have done five years ago. He's so much better than me at... Than I am. But I see him, I see Todd, I see that people on our team who are carrying weight. And having other people that you're doing this with, besides yourself, helps a lot. So I think that's a big part of it, too, is just... I don't know. If it was just me, like that, eventually I think I'd shrug and walk away. But I know that there's a dozen other people all holding that up as well, and that helps a lot as well, because you know you're not in it alone. I always tell Dave, I'm like, "Man, if I was going to war, I would bring you. Just because I want you in the trenches with me. You know what I mean?" And knowing that I'm not in it alone helps a lot. So I think a lot of times, it's those things. When you're where, when you're doing it by yourself, that's when it gets hard. I try to not... And I think our default human thing is to isolate, and take the pressure and pain. And just for me, as an introvert, I'd rather isolate. But I try, specifically when it gets heavy, just to, like, "Okay, I can't isolate, or I'm going to just get crushed." Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I reach out, and that helps me a lot to be able to sustain stuff. Josh: Next rapid-fire question, if you will. Success takes sacrifice. So, in managing ClickFunnels, obviously you love it. But what things are you not able to do, or do you wish you were able to do more of, that you are not able to because of the role that you play in ClickFunnels? Russell: Yeah. Stuff like this. I feel bad. There's so many people who ask for podcast interviews and things like that. People that I would love to do it with, but just there's not enough time. I miss... When we were first growing ClickFunnels, and starting it, I just remember coming in in the mornings, and being like, "What should we do today?" And thinking about it, and brainstorming. I miss that part. Now you come in, and it's like, "All right, there's 8,000 things you got to do." And it's like, "Okay," and I miss those parts of it. I don't know, I miss... Not being able to turn it off, but I think... I don't know, it would be nice... I think it's Alex Charfen, I'm thinking about. Like, "You don't want to run off into the white wood." There's times where... And this is dorky. This is the cheesiest thing. Remember watching the last... Endgame? Avengers Endgame. Josh: Oh, yeah. Russell: And, at the end, when Iron Man dies, and... What's her name? Pepper Potts. When she's like, "You can rest now." I remember hearing that, and I was just like... I actually started crying. I was just like, "I feel like I want to rest sometime. I don't know how, or when, or-" I desire that. I don't know how, because there's so much stuff and so many things. And I think, I don't know, I long for that moment. Where it's just like, whatever the... Like at the end of the Bootstrap book. I don't know where or when that happens, but- Josh: Right, yeah. Russell: If there's ever a time where it's just like, "Oh. We did it." Like, it's weird, because in wrestling, there was a thing where you get your hand raised, and then you get to rest. Business, I haven't found that. Like, it's just this constant thing. Where you have victories and stuff, but you never... Again, wrestling is like, you'd cut weight a week, you'd train, you'd practice, and you'd go out there, head-to-head. You wrestle. You get a hand-raise, you go out to eat, and you relax. You sleep that weekend. Monday, you get back to work. I don't feel like, in business, there's ever been that. Like, "Ah." Josh: Do you think it exists? Russell: I don't know. I assume when people sell a business there's some of that, but most people I know that have sold a business... It's harder. Because it's like someone else is taking your thing that your identity is tied to. So that scares me too. And so I don't know. That's something, I don't know if it's like... Is it when I die that I'm like, "Ah." Like Iron Man? I don't know... I don't know. Some day. I desire that. I don't know how to get it, but that's something I'm looking at. How do you get that? How do you get that release you get, where you're just like, "Ah, I did a good job." I think Funnel Hacking Live is probably the closest to that? Josh: Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Russell: Right after it ends? But then also, sometimes... Like two years ago, and it's semi-controversial, and I got blown up for, like, three or four days. And I remember I was like, "This sucks!" Like, "I just killed myself, and now I'm defending myself for three days because of some other speaker who said something that I wish they wouldn't have, but they did, and..." And, yeah. Some of the things like that are hard, but, huh. Anyway. Josh: Are we having Funnel Hacking Live this year? Or, next year, I guess? Russell: Some version of it, yeah. We're in a contract battle with Nashville, where we've done it the last two years. I was just to go there again this year. It typically takes us nine months, for Funnel Hacking Live. Obviously, because of everything, we haven't. We're three months out from when it was supposed to be, and there's no way I can fill it in time. Plus, I don't think we were going to come do there. And so we're trying to push that contract for another year, and then doing a hybrid, something in between. So far, we haven't even got the contract, which is... Anyway. So, something will happen. And I'm dying to not announce it yet, because I don't have finality yet. But some version of Funnel Hacking Live- Josh: What? You mean you can't break something right here, live, at- Russell: I've tried my best! To- Josh: 1:00 in the morning, Eastern time? Russell: We'd love to do some kind of hybrid... Something. Essentially, because I spoke at Tony's thing, where he had the big internet… Josh: Yeah. How was that? Russell: It was really cool. And hard. Because, at first, you come out, and you're in this room, and there's faces everywhere, like, "Ah! That's amazing!" But you're speaking at an event. You shift, and you're looking at different people, which is fun. Here, if you look at people, it looks like you're talking like this. So you have to look at the camera. So, you have a million faces everywhere, and you have to look right here? And you can't- Josh: Oh my God! Russell: And everyone's doing weird things, and so it's kind of hard. Because you're like, I have to look here, or else it looks like I'm not connected to you. But there's so much happening that I want to... It was- Josh: Oh. That's crazy. Russell: It was almost... I don't know if "Dizzy" is the right word, but something that we were just like... It was different. It was hard to get used to. But, anyway, he's building a new place that's three times as big. We're just going to have a hybrid, where half is at... half's the stadium. He said something interesting. He's like, "This year is the year of virtual. Next year is the year of hybrid." So I'm trying to figure out our version of that. And I don't know what that is yet. Josh: Hybrid being part live, part... Russell: Yeah. Yeah. Because I never wanted to make Funnel Hacking Live virtual, ever. Because… it’s this thing. But I also want to make it... Yeah, anyway. So, I'm hoping. I'm hoping the next couple weeks have some finality on that contract, so we can start the next... Whatever the process looks like. So it'll be some version of 2021, for sure. Josh: Cool. Russell: Where people who want to travel will be able to travel. Josh: All right. Awesome. Two more questions. Russell: Okay. Josh: One: what is one thing that people don't know about you? What's a Russell Brunson thing that is a pretty defined part of who you are that people don't really know? Russell: I'm public about everything... Josh: Are you, though? Russell: I don't know. That's a good question. Have you learned anything by me since you've been here in our... Josh: Yeah, a couple of things. Russell: Really? Josh: Yeah. A couple of things. Yeah. More from your wife, though. Yeah. She's told... Russell: She's telling you all the good stuff. Josh: Also, your kids are fascinating. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Yeah. I talked to them for probably 10, 15 minutes. Russell: My kids are the coolest. I think my biggest fear in life is that I am not going to be the dad that they need. You know what I mean? I don't know. He's going to be like... I don't know. Being a parent's way harder than I thought I was going to be. I thought I was going to be amazing at it. I'm like, "I can influence thousands of people at once," but the person you care about and love the most? And same to my wife. I think those are my biggest fears. I don't want to mess up the family. And it's weird because, again, it's like all my super powers are like my kryptonite in a family. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And so I think I struggle with that a lot of times, where it's just like, "Nah, I'm such a good communicator." I think. Communicating messages. And I struggle communicating with people I love the most. So I think that's it, I think. I am scared to death of cats and dogs. I will not touch them. Josh: Really? Russell: Yeah. I won't touch any animal. They're disgusting to me. And I'm allergic to cats, but the way it came about is, when I was in high school, the girl I was dating, she had a cat, and they went out of town. She's like, "You can watch my cat." And I was like, "Okay." So I came in, and the cat's rubbing against me, so I was petting it, because I'm like... I'd never had an animal before, right? And I'm petting it. And my eyes swole shut. For three days. Three days later, they finally opened again, and the white part was all blood-red. And I don't trust animals since then. You can watch me. My in-laws have cats. I walk in the house, and I stand there. I won't sit on the couches, because I'm like... Because I break out an allergies. If like a dog runs up to me, everyone... You'll see I've kind of turned my... Like, "Don't touch me." Anyway, I don't like animals. Unless you can eat them. So there's something people probably don't know about me. Josh: There you go! Who would've guessed, who would've guessed. All right. Last question. Final question. And I asked this to you... I think I have asked this to you before, but now we're here. We're in person. And we're going to talk. I want you to fast-forward to the end of your life, when you are on your deathbed, and I want you to... All your money, and success, and fame, and influence it's all gone. But you've influenced a lot of people. And you get to leave them with a final message that kind of defines... not what you took away from life, but like the message that you feel like you should put on to some... Pass on, for generations to come. What would you want to be defined by? What would you want that message to be, for people to remember you by? Russell: Cool... And I'm hoping... Honestly, my biggest hope. I'm hoping that when we die, we go to our maker. I'm hoping that we get a glimpse of what our life actually did. You know, like the ripple effect? Josh: Fascinating. Russell: You know It's A Wonderful Life? Josh: Yeah. Russell: When he sees what it was like, before and after? I'm hoping all of us get that experience. Because you have no idea what you're actually doing with it. But I'm sure what we're all doing is... Anyway, I'm praying that we get that moment, because that would be... Anyway. I think my message that I- Josh: That would be so cool. Russell: Yeah. Can you imagine that? Josh: Yeah. That'd be wild. Russell: Yeah. Josh: We need to do a podcast just about our faith. That'd be cool. That'll be our next one. Russell: Okay. That'd be fun. Josh: Next one, I'll fly out here for, and we'll just do it, just about- Russell: That'd be fun. Josh: Just about God, and faith. All right. Russell: That'd be fun. But I think for my message, I would leave it as, I think that... Again, just to tie back to what we talked about initially, I think a lot of us start these businesses, or start whatever we're trying to do, whatever we're called to do, you start initially out of greed, right? It's natural, man. We have these desires that make us want to do stuff, right? And I think for me, when I first got started in this business, I just thought it was to make money, and all these kind of things. And I saw, even when it started having an impact, I mean, "This is cool, this is cool." But it wasn't until... I had a coach a few years ago. She's amazing. And I remember she asked me about what I think God thinks about my business. I'm like, "Why would He care about this?" He cares about how I'm living my life, and I'm keeping to the Commandments and stuff, but why would He care about this?" She's like, "Don't you see it?" And I'm like, "See what?" She's like, "You don't see what He's... Who you've become? His hand in your life?" And it never had crossed my mind. And she started helping me understand, like, "This thing that you're doing is not just to make money. This is a calling. This is literal... This is a calling. You were called of God to do this thing, and the ripple effect, and people's lives you're changing... Even though you're helping people to start businesses, build funnels, it seems like it doesn't matter, but it does. Because it frees people, and then they can change people's lives. And the ripple effect is huge." And she helped me understand that day, in such a profound way, that just these things that we're doing, it's a literal calling from God. I think if I was on my deathbed, I would want people to know, like, when you feel that tug, or that nudge, that thing that starts you on this journey, that's not just like, "Oh, it'll be fun. Oh, I'll make some money," or whatever. It's literally God giving you something. This is your stewardship. Do something with it. See what it is. I think, if you realize that... Since I've realized that, it's been different. Now that I know that, it's like, "Okay, I'm going to run as hard as I can. Because this is not just an idea I had. This is a gift." And it's like these tests, like, "What am I going to do with this?" And then when you look at it from that lens, it's like, man, you can do and create... You have more faith in yourself, because it's not yourself, right? I get scared every time I get on stage. I got nervous before this. Like I get... "You're probably confident, because you're on the stage in front of 35,000 people." No! I freak out in front of, like, 20 people! I get so nervous. But I'm like, "I know that I can do it, because this is a calling that was given. And He's not going to give me something that I can't do." And so I think that, if I could help people understand that... I don't know the right way to articulate it, but I think if everybody understood that, how real that actually is, it'd make you run harder, make you work harder, and make you braver, and make you have more courage, more... All the things you need to get that message out. Because you were called. It is a literal calling. And you're probably not worthy of it yet? Like, when you get it, you're not worthy. Like they say, "He qualifies, so he calls," right? You're not qualified right now, but the act of you moving forward is what qualifies you, and what prepares you for the calling. And I think that, if people understood that, man, people would focus so much less on themselves and on their situation and just, like, "All right. Here's the baton. Run." Right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: You're now gonna start running. And you would do it with perfect faith, because you know it's from somebody beside yourself. And I think if people understood that and believed, it would change everything. Josh: Russell. Thank you so much, man. Russell: Yeah, man. Josh: This was so much fun. Russell: It is fun. Josh: I'm so glad we were able to make this happen. Russell: How long do we have to do... Where are we at? Josh: We're at three hours and 18 minutes. Russell: Dang. And we're still here? Josh: Three hours 20 minutes. Yeah. Russell: Dang, a lot of people still here. Josh: Yeah. I've got... Yeah. Quite a bit. Russell: Thanks for having me, man. Thanks for coming all the way out here for this. It was cool. Josh: Yeah. Of course. Yeah. And- Russell: Oh, and we have the comments now. Josh: What do you guys think of the interview? Yes? Good, bad? Thumbs up? Rate it! On a scale from 1 to 10. On a scale from 1 to 10, give us a rating. 1 to 10. Russell: "I used to think Russell was cool, but now I think he's crazy," or, "I used to think Russell was crazy, now I think he's cool." I'm good with all those things. I'm just curious. Josh: Russell, God bless you. God bless your wisdom and mission. Look at this. Thank you so much. This is amazing. Russell: Smileys are here. What's up, Smileys? Josh: Let's go, let's go. What's up, James Smiley? Great stuff. Awesome. I love it, I love it. I could do... A 1000. We got a 1000 out of 10. Russell: Dang! Josh: That's pretty darn good. Russell: It is really good. Josh: 12? 12 out of 10. Russell: Oh, so fun. Josh: Brent? what's up, man? All right, we're going to have to do this again. Sometime when we can sit down and talk about God. That one, we're really gonna have to get prepped for it. Oh, do you know Nick Robbins? Russell: Not off the top of my head. Josh: All right. He's kind of in the ClickFunnels world? He ran an agency, sold it, but still remained a partner, and then got bored, and then came back into it? Anyway. So he and I had, I think, a three-and-a-half-hour conversation about God. So, it's interesting, because he and I actually have a lot of similar beliefs, but he doesn't believe in God. So he's like, "Yeah, I think there's something out there, and it's something intelligent," or whatever. And so we had a... He uses language. And I don't, typically. And so we had all this big, long, huge debate. So, and we've gone there and said that. Russell: That's fun. Josh: Yeah. So. Russell: I think one of the most fascinating conversations I ever had was with Howard Berg, the world's fastest reader? That guy's, like, 30,000... Josh: Yeah. Oh, that's right! He came here, didn't he? Russell: Yeah. A couple of times, since we've hung out. He's read 30,000 books. I was like, "I can ask this guy any question I want." And so I asked him. I was like, "What's your opinion on God?" And I remember he told me, he said... Because, again, religion usually causes fights. Because, like, "Well, I believe-" you know, and it's so cool, because he's like, "Well, most people read one book, and then they base their belief in God on this one book." He's like, "I've read..." I can't remember what it was... "Like, 1,200 books on God, from every perspective." And he's like, "Based on that, this is what I believe." It was just so cool to see that, I think. And I feel like all of us, instead of us being like, "This is my way, this is my way." It's like, just hear... Even if you completely... I completely disagree with so many people's opinion, but I still hear it. Because, again, why do they believe that? There's something. There's a reason why they believe that. I want to understand that. And, anyway. And it's just so interesting. Josh: That's my big thing. My big thing is like... And that's one of the hardest things, for mem is figuring out... My beliefs are always changing. That's probably reason I started the podcast. I just wanted to talk to people. Right? Like, if I'm wrong... I'm so excited whenever someone comes in and is like, "You're wrong, and here's why!" And I'm like- Russell: "Sweet!" Josh: "Oh my gosh! Thank you so much! I know what I'm onto next! Yes!" Right? Where everybody else is like, "I don't want to be wrong. What are they-" I'm like, "If somebody comes in and proves my idea wrong..." Like, my ideas are pretty thought-through. And I'm a really thought-through person. I know why I believe what I believe, not just what I believe. Right? So if somebody can come along and challenge that? That's one of the things that is so attractive to me about Leah. Leah was smart. She challenged even beliefs that she maybe even agreed with. She'd play the devil's advocate, and change, and challenge it. And I'm like, "that's what I like. I want to grow and expand like that." So, anyway. Russell: Yeah. That's awesome. Josh: We'll have to come back and do that, so. All right. Russell. Thank you so much, man. Super, super appreciate it. Guys, as always. Hustle, hustle. God bless. Don't be afraid to think different. And who knows? You might just end up in a chair next to Russell Brunson. So, that'd be awesome. Guys, as always, hustle, hustle. God bless. Don't be afraid to think different. Those of us that think different are going to change the world. By using funnels! And other stuff. Russell: Yeah! Josh: I love you all. And I will see you on the next live stream episode. Take it easy, man. Russell: Bye everybody. Josh: Peace! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the 4th part of this interview series. We are getting near the end and the topics keep getting more interesting. In this episode you hear them talk about the influence their parents had on their lives in business. If they feel misunderstood as entrepreneurs and how their ability to communicate might be able to change that. Russell explains how he realizes that Clickfunnels is a team effort and that’s what help him stay so grounded. Then they discuss what each liked most about the Atlas Shrugged book and what character they each associate with most. So tune into part 4 of this exciting interview! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up everybody, this is Russell. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. All right. I hope you guys have enjoyed the first three. We are moving into the fourth episode of our interview. My interview with Josh Forti talking about Atlas Shrugged. Again, during this series, we've been talking about religion and politics and all the things you're not supposed to talk about, but we've done it all through the lens of Atlas Shrugged, which I hope you've enjoyed and had a lot of fun with it. Hopefully it's made you want to go and actually read the Atlas Shrugged book, which I think would be really, really cool. With that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song. When we come back, you have a chance to start listening to part four of my interview with Josh Forti. Josh Forti: So, what did your parents do right for you? One of the things that I try to say, I try to say it a lot but I don't even say it enough. My parents have played a absolutely tremendous... I owe so much of who I am today to my parents indirectly in a lot of ways. My parents didn't teach me about money or things like that. That wasn't their gift, but the principles of hard work and family values, biting your tongue, even though it doesn't seem like I bite my tongue. Oh my gosh. Every day, right? Russell Brunson: It could be worse guys. Josh: Right. It could be way worse. Some people would love that, but you know, deescalating situations and having those... I owe so much of who I am to those. Yeah, they messed up in a lot of ways like you said, but what were some of the things that your parents did right? What are the things that you remember from your parents? Russell: Yeah. I love my parents. I was very blessed with my parents, for sure. I don't think my dad was super engaged when we were younger just because he was in the phase where, like trying to figure things out and make money. It was different back then. Josh: Is he an entrepreneur? Russell: Yeah. He also had a job, but he did side business so he was always trying to figure things out. I saw him doing these things. I saw the job he didn't love and then I saw him doing stuff he did love and I watched him work really hard. Then when I started wrestling, I saw my dad... That became the thing that me and him connected with which meant the world to me and it was so important to him. What's cool was that my dad showed up to every wrestling practice. He came to every single match. His day job was State Farm insurance, he built up his book of business where by the time I was wrestling, he was able to take off as much as he wanted. It ran itself and he was making money and had residual income. I remember my dad was the only one, as soon as wrestling practice got done, my dad would walk in and we would do practice afterwards. Never missed a match. He was always there. I remember just thinking, I want to make sure I have a business or something like my dad was for me. That was so important to me. Like I said, he wasn't super around when we were younger and I think he struggled because of the younger kids, which I understand. That phase in my life, he was there and my best friend and it was just, it was awesome. I love that and I've been trying to have my kids now. Especially at times where maybe I wasn't as good of a dad, I was too busy. I'm trying to connect more. That was my dad for sure. Then my mom, for me she was just... I wouldn't say I'm a people pleaser but I'm very much an achiever. I think when I started wrestling and I saw my dad got closer to me and then I got a win and I saw him get excited, I wanted to win because I wanted to impress my dad. To this day, I think I still have that. Part of the reason I'm in this business and I'm doing stuff is I love when my dad sees it. There's something, I love impressing him. To this day I love that win. With my mom, she loved me even when I didn't win. that was something that was so foreign to me. I remember I'd be cutting away for wrestling, I hadn't eaten for three days. I'd be so tired, so miserable. She'd come down and sneak in my room, bringing me food. I'm like, "Mom, I can't eat. I'm not going to make weight." She's like, "Why don't you just quit then? You don't need to do this." She was the opposite of my dad. She loved me no matter what and didn't care that I was trying to win or succeed. Couldn't care less. She loved me just because I was me. That was weird but so cool as well. It's both those principles, it's something I've tried to weave in. I've got two different sides I'm trying to weave that into my kids. Again, so far from perfect, but I think those are the two things that meant the world to me, that I'm super grateful for them those things for me because I still remember those things now. Josh: So there is... Which by the way, that's awesome. There's a lot of people in this world that are growing up without a dad, without a mom. It's interesting because I think a lot of my social media posts, I kind of come across sometimes like the heartless a-hole, you know what I mean? A little bit, they're like, "Josh!" You know what I mean? You talk about, take personal responsibility for your life, everybody can do anything. If you're broke it's your fault, that's one of my favorite sayings. If you're broke in America it's your fault, right? They're like, "Josh, you don't understand. You grew up and your parents are still married. Not only do you have parents, they're still together and they still actually love each other." It's not even necessarily they're still together. You're like a percentage of the percentage of the percentage in a lot of ways. I don't even know what question I'm asking you, but what would you do? Where could somebody find that? What can we do as a society or just as entrepreneurs, as producers to help those people? I feel like that's a really big need. Russell: For sure. Josh: One of my big struggles with this is I always want to point it back to the church. I had a really awakening, come-to-Jesus moment back when I posted, this is probably a month ago or so. I posted it on Instagram actually. I think you liked it, actually, so I know you saw it. I said, "Defund the media, defund fear, defund career politicians. Fund orphanages, churches and schools." I posted it on Facebook and I posted it on Instagram, and I was shocked at how many people were like, "Dude. Fund the churches? They're a bunch of pedophile people there too." So many people had such this negative view of the church. I grew up in the church, that's what I knew. How I knew how family works is because I saw our own family and then I saw the church family and I saw the community and how the church was involved in the community. The church that I went to, after I moved out Grable, Indiana, I worked three doors down from it and that's where people went to vote was in their gym. And the fair, that's where people parked. The church was such an integral part... that word, a part of the community. So when I saw all these people that had this negative view of the church, that broke my heart because that was my solution. There are so many things. Like, if you don't have a dad, you can go to the church. If you don't have this, you can go to the church. Said, "What?" If that's your answer, that's cool, but how can we as producers of society and the people that are going out there and making the money, how can we help those that don't have what you and I had? Russell: It's interesting. What Mormons believe is the family is the central everything. That's God's plan. Husband and wife starts a family. That's an eternal principle, right? If you look at the adversary, Satan, whatever you want to call him, his job, if he can destroy the family, everything falls apart. That's the war we're in right now. We think we're in a lot of different wars. The war we are in is, Satan is attacking families. That's it. Josh: Okay. I want you to finish this, I have to say this though. Guys, and this is not Russell saying this, this is me. This is why I hate the Black Lives Matter organization. Not movement, the organization so much. Because, their whole principle is bragging about the traditional family values. Anyway, I'm not speaking for Russell. Russell: Yeah, if you Google "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," you'll see my beliefs on family. We have it printed out eight foot on my wall in my house. That's my belief. Family is central, everything. So, Satan, the way he destroys societies and nations and this world is, destroy the family. So when you see families are broken, they're single mothers and single fathers, it's heartbreaking. I think it's the saddest thing in the world. I don't know the right way to solve it. I do know that it's vitally important. I remember first time I met Tony Robbins and started learning from him, one of the principles he talked about in relationships is masculine, feminine energy. The masculine and feminine is key to a relationship. I could go on for four hours just on masculine and feminine. Oh, that's the most fascinating topic in the world. If you ever see how Tony fixes relationships, you look at the traditional view of traditional counseling, there's a problem. They're like, "What's the symptom of the problem?" They try to solve the symptom of the problem and counseling takes years because it's a symptom of the problem. All the issues, they're all symptoms of problems. The real problem is when there's a masculine and a feminine, and it doesn't matter. Again, this is true with gay, straight, doesn't matter. Feminine, masculine energy. You take a masculine and a feminine and that polar opposite, that magnetism, magnetize together, right? That's what creates attraction, passion, everything. What happens is you have a masculine and feminine, they're attracted together. That's how you start. That's how any relationship starts. Right? Then you look at people getting married. It was interesting because what Tony talked about, he said you look at typically in a relationship, there's what they call the seven-year itch, and why is that? He talks about the way the feminine causes change is... Some day I want to write a book on this. I don't know perfectly enough to- Josh: Russell needs to become a writer. My word… Russell: Yeah, I've got a lot of books to write. But, this is how it works in traditional marriage. Masculine and feminine. What happens is one of the ways that feminine causes change is they criticize, right? I see this with my wife, with friends, with girls. If they want their friend to change their hair they don't say, "Hey, you should get a haircut." They'll criticize to try to cause change. Right? What happens is that a feminine- Josh: Yo, wow. That's so true. Interesting stuff. Russell: Yeah. That's just one example of- Josh: Dave! Russell: Feminine… Josh: Right, right. Russell: So, feminine and masculine come together. This is just an example. They'll start criticizing the man, but a masculine man doesn't care, it bounces off him. Like, "Okay. Okay." Right? What happens after seven years of that happening? Eventually instead of it balancing off of you, which is the masculine response, you start taking it personally. Like, "Oh." As soon as you take it personally, guess what happens? You are shifting physically from your masculine into a feminine. You start shifting and what happens is you shift from masculine to feminine and boom, the attraction breaks, and it starts falling apart. And then all the other problems start happening. The problem isn't solving the fact that you leave the toilet seat up or that you don't communicate well. The problem is that the masculine-feminine attraction is broken. If you fix the masculine and feminine, you can make men become men and women become women. Attraction comes back, all the other symptoms disappear. It's fascinating. That's from a marriage, family, relationship standpoint. Josh: Okay. I want to- Russell: I'm telling this because I want to talk about this from the family with kids in a minute, but yes. Josh: Okay. But I want you to now give me another example that Tony Robbins has said, because what you made it sound like there is that the way the woman does something is the thing that's causing the bond. I know that's not what you meant. Russell: Oh, it could be, yeah. That's- Josh: I just wanted to do that clarification. Russell: It's the same thing with the men where the men are responding over and over, where women now become defensive and they become more masculine and it's the other way. Yeah. Sorry. That's not the only example. I was just- Josh: Right. Russell: The one- Josh: I just wanted to make sure we clarify that because I know thing's have been taken out of context before. Russell: Somebody is going to be angry at me. I apologize. I'm stupid. I get it. But conceptually, does that make sense? It's the break of the masculine and feminine that causes the split, which causes the disharmony. And if you bring the masculine and feminine together, I think that's what causes attraction and causes passion and causes all these things. I look at my life when we were struggling in our marriage, it's because I'm showing up feminine. When I show masculine, everything's great. Where my wife comes in masculine and I'm masculine, we butt heads, it's fascinating. Anyway, I don't want to get deep into this because there's so much stuff. There's another show on this, because you look at this thing. You've got a family and the mother and father split and then there's kids who go with either the mother or the father, and now what they have is they've got either a very masculine person they're learning from or feminine, but they don't see both. And so it shifts them and it shifts their relationship. So many problems. I think the way we help the most, or can help the most is... Hormozi does this. Alex Hormozi does this. He donates his money to... Do you remember the name of the charity? He got our first Two Heart award. It's afterschool kids. These kids, like men who... There's these kids trying to play basketball or lift weights or whatever, who don't have masculine energy in their life. They come and they donate their time and they help the kids to brig masculinity. All of us, we need male and female perspectives. Josh: Right. Russell: It's designed to have those things together. When you lose one of them, it's a tragedy. I think the way we can start helping is, how do we bring programs where they can see masculine energy and see the way to make it a positive and not a negative thing? A lot of times, all they know is masculine energy left and oftentimes there's a lot of anger between the people. They hear talking trash about the spouse and talking trash about these traits which are traits that are essential for them to develop. I don't know. I don't know if that's the right answer or not, but I feel like that's how we could help those things. Help them understand, like the kids who don't have a father or a mother. They need that energy in their life to understand it, to be able to... I don't know. Josh: Okay. This is seemingly unrelated to this, but I think that I can tie it back in because it's a question that I think fits in here. I'm going to start with a super-basic question, which I think the answer is obvious, but we'll go down this road. Do you feel misunderstood as an entrepreneur? Russell: I did early on, less so now. Josh: Why is that? Russell: When I was got started... Entrepreneurship has become more of a cool thing in the last decades. Since Shark Tank and stuff. Back when I first started it wasn't. Everyone was confused. Like, "Why would you do that?" It is cooler. Also, I think the more you talk, the more you either alienate people or you attract people, and I think a lot of the people who I have alienated have been alienated and I think they are attracted by attractive. So my bubble of people around me are people who understand this lingo, who relate to it. So it's less hard now than it was initially. Josh: I believe that one of my superpower... Your superpower, your art, your format is marketing and funnels, funnels specifically. That's what you do. I feel you could just sit there for hours and hours and days and forever for the rest of, all of time. Russell: Yes. I love it. Josh: My superpower thing that I like to do is this. Communication. I love constructing words in a way that people can understand. I'm sure not, but the Kanye West interview that Joe Rogan just did three days ago. Russell: I've heard about him… Josh: This has been a long awaited episode. No one thought it was ever going to happen because it was teased and it wasn't, didn't happen. Finally happens. So I see this, I had no idea what's coming. It drops and I'm a huge fan of Joe Rogan and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing!" I sit down and I look online and all these people are like, "Terrible interview. Not worth your time. Couldn't get past the first 20 minutes." Anything like that. I'm like, what? So I go and the first 20 minutes are kind of like, eh whatever. I get done with this three-hour interview. It was like, top three interviews of all time. What's interesting is... Do you know Kanye? Like, how Kanye communicates at all?   Russell: No.   Josh: Okay, there's so many references that I want to use that you won't get. Kanye sees the world fundamentally differently and how Joe describes it in there and the way that I described it is... You wouldn't know this, like I said, because it's psychedelic, it's like a drug or whatever. But imagine being on a psychedelic drug in a small format at all times. That's how his mind works. He sees everything, it's like expanded. So even Kanye said, "The reason I have such a hard time communicating sometimes is because I see things in three-dimensional and then I have to put them into a two-dimensional conversation." I'm not trying to compare myself the way I think to the way that Kanye thinks, ubt this concept of people think he's beating around the bush when really he's just trying to explain something. One of the things I love doing is taking a concept that and figuring out how to describe it in a way that the average person can understand. I live in a different world, just like you live in a different world than the average person does. I live in a different world and that is by choice. I do not see the world the way that most people do. I intentionally do not want to see the world the way that other people do. Everything that I do, I will intentionally engineer where my life is different than the average person because I want to see the world differently, but I want to be able to communicate that in a way that they can understand. My question is, do you think that there's a lot of great ideas stuck inside of producer's heads that if more people understood them and thought like that, we could change the world for the better? But because they're stuck in their head and that person doesn't know how to communicate it well, or is not focused on that, that that effect never happens. Russell: Gotcha. Yes. That's why I think for me the study, this art of funnels and copywriting and story does, is so fascinating. That's what it is, right? I always pitch, like when we have an idea, in my head it's like this big granite block, right? It's like, this is the idea and give it to somebody, like, "This is the idea." You're like, "I don't get it." Right? Josh: Right. Russell: Then you start thinking about, who is it? Start chiseling away at the stone. You start chiseling, chiseling, and eventually you have this amazing statue. This thing that people can see and they can understand and they gravitate towards. I feel it's the same thing with communication or with any kind of idea you're trying to sell. The funnel is one thing. Right now, like, "Hey, you should buy my coaching programs." Why? Like, "Ah, it's too big." I need to take them to a path, simplify that. So there's a step-by-step process which is like chiseling away. Then inside each step of the process, there's the words and the stories, the things you communicate to simplify it to get more and more fine tuned. That's why for me, when we create a funnel and we launch it, it's like taking this big granite block and chiseling it down to now something that somebody can come in on the side of it go through a process. By the time they're done at the end, they're going to get some money, they're going to get a product and something's going to change for them. I think that's what marketing is. it's that process of trying to simplify the message. I think a hundred percent, that's why most ideas don't get out. I don't know, how many times have you had... This kind of comes back to talking about, who knows, an hour or two ago too, but four or five people get the same idea, but then one person executes on it. It's like the person who understands the communication the best is the one typically who gets it out, right? How much of your life or my life has been focused on the communication? I don't necessarily like that part as much. It's not my favorite part, but it's such an essential tool. I remember when I got in this game and I was trying to sell my very first product, Zip Brander. I put it up, I had a picture of it, Buy Now button and tried to send traffic, and nobody bought it. Someone's like, "Well, you need a headline," so I'm like, okay. So I put a headline. "Tell us what this does." So I found some sites that kind of modeled what they did and the people started buying it. It was learning that process of, how do you communicate? I remember thinking, I never want to learn how to write copy. That's what we all thought back then. "I don't want to write copy, I don't want to do that. That sounds horrible." I wanted to hire someone, but the people I tried to hire was expensive, it was 10 to $20,000 for a sales letter. I couldn't afford it, so I'm like, I have to learn this art and how to communicate. I'm so grateful because that's how everything we built has been, off the communication of an idea, and doing it in a way that gets people to move. Josh: How do you decide what you're going to communicate? You have a lot of ideas in your head and you have a lot of different thoughts on everything and you choose to share funnels and marketing primarily. Then you have some religion in there, which I would say probably is number two, maybe ish, of what you communicate. But that's it. How do you decide... Russell: The battles I want to choose? Josh: Yeah. Russell: What battles? That's a good question. I think part of what's interesting, like why did I want to do this interview? I read the book, it was fascinating. I don't know the answers and I thought this would be a fun way to talk it out loud. This is fascinating. Funnels are fascinating to me because I can apply it to so many things. You know when I talk a lot about wrestling, but not the community you bump into but for wrestling, I talk about that. I think it's just the ideas that fascinate me that I feel have the most fluidity and can do the most. Again, as an introverted person, I'll typically go out and have conversations with people as much as I can, but when I find something that does cause and effect, that's why I practice telling my story so many times and I'll do a podcast. I know now when I'm on stage in front of 9,000 people, the stories can get people to move because I practice it. So I think it's putting a lot of things out in the water and then seeing what things people relate to, and then I go deeper on the ones that are like, "Okay, this one had an impact." There's a lot of stuff. I remember in first version Dotcom Secrets, there were seven or eight chapters more that never got published. I was going to publish… Josh: Do you have copies of this? Russell: Yeah. It was like, all my best stuff at the time that I knew that I was going to publish it and it was all in the book. I remember I heard an interview with Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday... Ryan Holiday at the time and they were both talking... Anyway, they were talking about their books. Both of them said that when they write a typical book... You know, Tim Ferris's books are like this fat… My first draft was like, twice as big. It's like, to make your book go from good to great, it's not adding more. It's cutting. Like, I cut two thirds of my book to give you this one. I think it was Ryan said the same thing. The first draft is usually twice as big as the final one. Then the next section, it's cut, cut, cut, cut. I remember going back to Dotcom Secrets that night and I was like, "Okay, based on that, what would I cut and how would that do?" I cut seven chapters out and after I was done, I was so scared because I love these things, but those things aren't that important to get people what they need to actually be successful. Some of those things ended up being in Dotcom Secrets and Expert Secrets, and different places, but yeah. I wonder how that first version- Josh: I was going to say, I wonder if she just published the first day or if she had a 2,700 page book and cut something out of it. That's crazy. Okay. Back to the question in the car, and I want to tie this back to the book. How has growing a multi-hundred million dollar, making hundreds of millions of dollars having a roughly billion-dollar company, being the CEO of 400 employees, how has that changed your perspective of the world? Russell: So many things I could respond. I think there was a season of my life where I thought that if I was going to create something, if I was going to do something, the way I was going to do it, by me. Does that makes sense? Josh: Yeah. Russell: In fact, if you look at my history, the first decade of business, the businesses were about me. They were me. I was the sole owner, the sole person. On this journey, when we started, it was so different. It was like, what's the team look like? Todd was my first time I had a partner. That was so scary for me. Then it's been the greatest thing I possibly could have done. Right? Then we brought in other partners and then employees and stuff. I don't know. It's been fascinating just realizing that to build this, it wasn't about me. It was about... I don't know, just that whole thing. I think anything great, a lot of times there's a person that gets credit for it. Like, Elon Musk gets credit because whatever or Bill Gates or whoever the people are, they get the credit for it. You start really seeing how many people are involved to make something amazing. You know what I mean? I think that's the biggest thing for me as I started growing it. It's frustrating. Not frustrating for me. I enjoy it. People are always asking, "Russell invented ClickFunnels." I literally don't know how to code anything. There's not one dot of code in that word. Maybe once I leaned over Todd's shoulder, put a button in that and he had to delete it. I think it's cool that you see how many... Before Funnel Hacking Live, every time we start we bring our whole team together. I'm the one who's on stage, but I am fully aware that it is not me. This is us. If it wasn't for this team and these people, all you guys, all your contribution, this was impossible. I want to always ground that because I think sometimes the leader or whoever gets a big head where they think it's them. I see that with a lot of people who are on big stages where they still drink their own Kool-Aid so they think it's them. That's my shift in the world, just understanding the great things, the things that we remember. The things that are legacies that go on and on and on. There may be a head or a person that the branding tied too, but there's this group of people that created something amazing. That's… know what I mean? Josh: How do you stay grounded? I am a huge fan of Russell because for me, you're the person I look up to as not just, hey, you taught me how to make a lot of money, but I want to have the character that you have. I don't want to have... I look at Grant Cardone. You don't have to talk smack about Grant Cardone, but I can. Grant Cardone is really, really full of himself. Don't get me wrong. I learned a lot from Graham Cardone, especially about money. He's changed my perspective about a lot of things. I'm eternally grateful for that, but if I grew up to be Grant Cardone, where that was the focus.., I mean, I watched him, I was there at the stadium down in Miami or whatever. It was all about him. I think he even got up on stage and was like, "Oh yeah, everybody says Russell is the greatest salesman, but I'm the one that packed the house." I'm like, dude! You know what I'm saying? Why? Why is that necessary? How do you stay grounded? It's so fascinating to me to watch different types of people. I know Tai Lopez for example, for awhile there, it was all about Tai and now he's gone more behind the scenes, but each person that I watch whether it's Tai or Gary or Grant, they all have a different way about them. You have your way about them. The one that I see as the most grounded, humble... There's nobody that's looking at you. You get up on a stage and you're like, "Oh yeah, I'm Russell!" You know what I mean? Russell: Everyone awkwardly, like, "Yay." Josh: Right. Then you walk up and Grant's like... But you, it's just yeah, it's that awkward, "Hey, I'm just over here." How are you grounded in that? How do you not let it get to your head? Because it would be so easy for you to get wrapped up in your own head. Russell: Someone told me it's because of my wife. They said, "If you'd married anybody else, your head would be so big." Josh: I met your wife for the first time today. I mean, we had crossed paths, but I said when you were getting your haircut, "So what's it like being married to Russell?" She goes, "Hes just the sixth child of mine." I was like, oh boy. The big kid. Russell: That's awesome. I think I would say it's two things. We kind of talked about this earlier, but I'll tie back to it. The first one is that I am fully aware that these ideas are not mine. I didn't invent the funnel. I didn't invent any of this stuff. All I know is that I was on a path, in a journey. I was given the thing and the next thing, and I was freaking out and I was putting them together. That's part of it. This stuff's not mine. It's stuff that was given to me and tested and so I'm so grateful for that. It's never me like, "Oh, look what I invented." That's so annoying because it's not. Again, come back to these ideas, these thoughts, these desires and things that were given to us. I think that's the first part. The second part of it is, and I see this a lot in people in my world who, they had some success and then they're like, "This is my person. I made them a bajillion..." I hate that too. Like, you helped them in a piece but they did the work. I'm very careful to always when I'm talking about any of our success stories, I didn't make that person. We had this super-cool opportunity to be a piece to their journey. Right? We helped them give them some ideas and a tool, but they're the ones that killed. I don't know what it takes to build what they're building. I didn't do that. They did that. I'm grateful that they did and I'm even more grateful that I got to be a little piece of that. I got to be part of that journey. I got to see that and just have the impact of, oh my gosh. Because I killed myself and wrote those books and because Todd killed himself and wrote software and I was able to communicate it, they're able to do this thing and it's not all me. I'm fully aware it's not all me. I know what every entrepreneur has to go through to be successful and it's not a mentor who gives you everything. It's just a lot of people who are a piece. I've had mentors who gave me a piece that I'm so grateful for, but then they try to take all the credit, like, "Oh, this is when..." I hate that too. So I think those two sides. Number one is again, I don't think these ideas are something that I came up with. They were given to me and I was a good steward of them because I was able to aggregate and there's the thing. The number two is just my belief that I didn't help anyone. Even when you said, "You and Katie," I felt awkward. I didn't do anything. Josh: Right. Russell: Luckily some of the stuff resonated with you and it was a little piece of your journey. I'm so grateful for that. The fact, to see you do stuff now, it's so much fun for me to watch you. Just knowing, "Man, because he bumped into me, maybe something happened and now he's doing this stuff and this work and it's so cool seeing how you're impacting people." I think those are the reasons why I don’t think my head gets big, because I don't think it's me. I'm grateful that I get to be a piece of it, of the journey, but I'm not the creator of it. Josh: All right. I want to loop back to the book. Russell: Go ahead. Can we just read it? You guys want us to read it to you? Josh: Yeah. What was the thing that fascinated you about it though? When you've asked me, you were like, "Dude, I read it and I'm geeking out about it, I just want to geek out about it." What about it had you so fascinated? What did you want to geek out about it? I have a question that I want to ask later on about it, but what was the thing that just made you geek? Russell: There are a lot of things. I think the biggest thing that I was really excited, we talked about earlier was just… The biggest thing earlier was just this cons-... Again, for those of you who are tuning in late in here, there's the whole, it talks about greed. Right? And that concept of greed versus charity. Again, the book very much is like, greed is good, it's the thing that causes production and you should care about yourself and then good things will happen, it will create jobs and everything else will take care of as long as you're caring most about yourself. Which I thought was kind of cool but then also I had the other side with my beliefs in Christ and Christianity and all these things like that, where it's just like, how does that reconcile with faith, hope, charity and love, and serving everybody else? That's probably the thing that got me the most. I think about that a lot, especially in politics. Again, I'm not deep into politics, I'm not going to talk about who I'm voting for, not voting for, it doesn't matter. But I see that on both sides. I feel like on the Republican side you see a lot of this stuff, like this. Then on the Democrat side, you see a lot of the charity stuff. Again, in my notes I wrote this actually initially, because I wanted to talk about this. I'm a big believer that there's not a right and wrong. There's good in both sides. Josh: There's not a right or wrong side. Russell: Yeah. Things are messed up on both sides. It's how the world works. Satan, there's this eternal struggle between God and Satan and Christ, this is always happening. So there's two sides and there's God-like principles and things on the right that are amazing and then there's Satan that's twisting things and jacking them up. Same thing on both sides. I see everyone fighting tooth and nail and I bet you, if we all sat down, the majority of all issues we'd all agree on. But then it's these fringe things that causes so much hatred and fighting and just drives me crazy. I think that this book is the perfect example of what I believe so much in some of these principles, but there's also the opposite principles that I also believe in and they're both right. If you missed the beginning part of the interview, we talked more about that but the greed, the growth and contribution, that transition is the key that just fascinates me. Josh: Yeah. What parts of the book contradicted the most with your faith? What part of the books did you have the hardest time with because of your faith? Russell: Yeah. The producers in the book, the minds, the people that I connect with, because I self-identify as a producer, someone who's obsessed with production and creating. That’s why I relate with Hank Rearden, Dagny, all these people are cut from my same cloth. It's as they're growing this stuff that they didn't give back, that they didn't... That's the thing. I felt like they weren't rounded out characters and that's the biggest thing for me. The first half of the book, I want to be Hank Rearden. He's fricking the man. Like yes, that's all I want to be. I wanted to see him have that change of heart where he's Christ-like and he gives of his own free will. Not because the government came with the gun and told him he's got to pay taxes. I wanted to see his character develop and realize that, "Oh my gosh, I should be serving people because I love them. Not because of the government's force." That's the piece that I wish. Josh: It never took that turn. The book, you almost expected it and then it didn't happen. Russell: It got worse and worse and worse and then they waited until just everything... People were dying, everything collapses and then the lights in the yurt go out, wooh, and they're like, "Okay, now we can come back and build." Josh: Now we can go back and build, but even when they come back and build, it was built by our new law of basically... Actually, one of the things that's fascinating about that was... Gosh, it was towards the end. Was it Galt? I think it was Galt. Yeah, I think it was during his speech when he was like, "The minds society, we gave all this stuff to you guys basically." Trying to be like God there, but every day, we created all this stuff, we created these jobs, we created these resources. We gave it to you and all we wanted from you guys was for you to let us be in our own head. Let us, our minds be free and not be controlled by anything else. You took all that and not only did you take it all, then you said, "No, you're bad and we're going to take that away too. So we're all going on strike because of that." You relate to that so much and then it's like, yes! Then they explained how they live and it's like, you expect them to have that change of heart rather, but no. It's because we are amazing and because we are the great minds and we must live by this code. It has nothing to do with actually giving back or actually contributing to society. It was like they didn't care about contributing to society. It just happened to happen. Russell: Yeah. Which is cool, which is why again, governments should let producers produce because the byproduct is really good. Josh: Right. Russell: For everybody. So that part is so much I relate to. Part of this is probably because Ayn Rand didn't believe in God. You know what I mean? That wasn't part of her values and so it's tough because she weaved that... I just wish at the end of the book, it would have been like, and then Hank Rearden realized that he could help all these people himself and so he built orphanages and changed all these kids' lives. Like, yes! That would have been amazing. He found about OUR and he went and donated money to save all these children. Josh: Right. Russell: But he did it of his own free will because he had that change of heart. I don't want to die at the end of my days and... I produced some great jobs, but I didn't care about people. I feel like that missed the mark. Josh: Hank Rearden you say is the person you related to really most in the book? Russell: Yeah, I think so. I wanted to be Francisco though, he was pretty sweet. Josh: Who do you think I related to most in the book? Russell: Oh. Who was it? Josh: It was a relatively main one. You were close. Russell: Oh, was it Francisco? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah. Russell: He was cool. Josh: Right from the beginning he fascinated me. I knew right when, the plot twist of where he ran off and became the playboy or picture, he was obviously a playboy or whatever. I knew right then and there. I don't know what the plot, I don't know what the connection is but I know this is going to come back around and it's not going to be how it seems. The mind doesn't shift and then he stays in the scene or whatever. He fascinated me because, or he strikes me as someone... Hank Rearden didn't care about the crowds. He did not at all. He hated going to the wedding. It was by force that his wife drug him out there that one time. It was always, "I just want to work in my office." I'm actually not like that. I am actually much more the... I do like the crowds, but I don't like the crowds because I need praise. Don't get me wrong, I like being on stage and doing this type of stuff or whatever, but for me, I like the crowds because I love people. It's funny because I actually don't get along with a lot of people in real life. Whenever I go to the airport, I'm like, I will pay whatever it takes. Put me on a plane first, the least amount of people I have to deal with, whatever. I don't want to have to interact with people that I don't want to interact with. But I love studying and understanding people's minds. For me, one of the reasons I am so fascinated by Donald Trump is because of how he can control the crowds. You look at his rallies. Dude, you can't ignore them. They're just huge. My fiance's parents, or her mom and Kirby went yesterday, I think it was last night, to Omaha. 29,000 people showed up in the bitter cold of Omaha, a last-minute notice. That type of control or not even control, but that type of influence to be able to go through, what is it that makes people go and do that? So Francisco in the book, he was the partier guy and he went and he was with the crowds and he was very good with words and articulated, but he sold me at that wedding. I'm telling you. Russell: That was good. Josh: To me, there's more than two ways, but super simplified down, there's two ways to influence people. There's one, which is the indirect, which is build a software company, it's build a product, it's build an iPhone. You're not directly influencing them with your words or whatever, but it's influencing their behavior by creating a product, by creating a service that's going to go out and change the world. Then the other way is to actually go out there and change them with your words. That's why Jesus, for example, Jesus didn't build the product. He did it through His words kind of, sort of, but to me that's so fascinating. If I can figure out how to do that, that's how I can affect real change in the world. And it's funny because you've had had such a massive influence on my life, but probably a year and a half maybe ish into me knowing ClickFunnels, I was like, "Man, Russell's doing it all wrong." I had this thing of, if Russell would communicate more about stuff besides funnels, he would have a bigger impact. I had this limited belief of, this is the only way you can influence and impact people, is by going out there and actually speaking to them. But that's my superpower and my gift. In the book, Francisco was the one I think that best represents my style of trying to go out and do things. I find it interesting by Hank Rearden with you… Russell: I'm the same way. I would rather be in here building funnels, doing some stuff. There's scenes of Hank in the book where he's sitting there looking out over the factories at night and he sees, he watches the steel being poured, it's glowing. He's enjoying that. For me, it's similar where I do the stage thing and things like that. I get less value… interactions are hard, but I spend a lot of time on social media at night, just looking at the people that I know are in our world and watching what they're doing because that's me watching the steel. My mission is not to go teach people how to do what you do. I'm giving you a blow horn so you can go do it. That's more fascinating to me to sit back and explain to my wife. Events drive her crazy because then it'll happen and it'll get done and then I scurry off and I don't want to talk to anybody. I sit in the room and I just watch what people takeaways and then who they're talking to. I spend a lot of time just watching. That's for me like looking over the steel and being like, I gave them a trumpet or I gave them a blow horn and now their messages are going out there and I can just watch it. So for me, I don't want to teach personal development and this and that, but I want to empower or give tools or whatever tools there are so that you can and whoever all the other influencers are to be able to do those things. Does that makes sense? I'm an amplifier. I'm an amplifier of other people's messages and my message just happens to be, "Here's the amplification that you need to amplify your message," and then letting everybody else go and do it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to part 3 of this special episode series. Today Russell and Josh try to answer the question, “does everybody need to be an entrepreneur?” They also talk about celebrating other people’s success and how having kids has changed the way they work. So listen in and enjoy part 3 of this very special interview. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to Marketing Secrets podcast. We're about to start the third part of our five-part Atlas Shrugged interview series. I hope you guys enjoyed part one and part two. I'm sure there are things that you agreed with, I'm sure there are things you disagreed with, that's okay. This whole thing is not about me trying to force anything on you, it's more just to get us all thinking and open the conversations and help us look at things from both sides. With that said, we're going to move now into the third part of the interview series. Again, we broke down our three and a half hour interview into five podcasts episodes. I know these are long, but I hope you're enjoying them. And hopefully it's just getting the wheels spinning. Hopefully, you're enjoying it. And I really hope that it gives you the desire to go and read the Atlas Shrugged book and kind of see some of these principles through that lens. So, with that said, we'll queue up the theme song. When we get back, you'll have a chance to listen to part three of my interview with Josh Forti. Josh Forti: Okay. I want to circle back to one quick thing and then we can move on. Russell Brunson: Okay. Josh: So the question I was trying to ask was, when you were like, "Hey, there's the technician or there's the plumber, there's this, or there's that or then there's the person that comes in and makes it rain." There's only a few people in an organization that like, make it rain, right? Like you in ClickFunnels, you make it rain. You're the one that brings it in and, I'm sure there's other people to a certain extent, but you are that person. And you probably have what, 100, 200 people on the support team? That don't actually make the company any money, but they do play a critical role in the sense that the company couldn't function without them. And so, to those people there, how does somebody who... Two-part question. One, can you live your best life in a position like that? Can you be most alive and fulfilled and live a great life, doing something average like that? Number two, does that person need to go learn how to make it rain? Does everybody need to be an entrepreneur? Does everybody need to be... Like, you are so fascinating, you got this whole community of funnel hackers and like, "We're going to go out and choose a world. We think differently. We do it differently. We got all this stuff." Would it be good if the whole world thought that way? Or do we need people that don't think that way? Russell: There was a time in life where I thought everyone should think that way. I don't think so now. I have family members who love what they do and they're obsessed with the art, like the art is what they do. Some people... I've had good masseuses and bad masseuses. Some masseuses, that is their art, you can tell, you're just like, "Oh, my gosh. They're the best at their craft." And I think that's okay, I think if it brings fulfillment, that's more important. But people aren't fulfilled, that's the second question. If you're not fulfilled then why, you know? And I think one of the most powerful things, Myron Golden taught this at Funnel Hacking live, and he taught it at two comma club a couple times, he has a thing called the four levels of value. It's so fascinating because… Josh: Such a good one. Russell: Yeah, it's so good. The first level of value, for those who haven't heard this before, is it just talks about I'm going to not do it justice, Martin's the man. One of the greatest speakers of all- Josh: Tell YouTube. Actually I don't even know, if it's on YouTube. Russell: It's on my... Anyway, yes. So bottom level is, people work their hands, right? And this is the hardest work. Like, the person that's actually building the building. Or typing, you're doing support, or whatever the thing is, they're working with their hands. That's the lowest level of value, right? Like the most you make when you're, when you work with your hands is maybe 50, 60, $70,000 a year, but you're tapped out, you can't get higher than that. Now, if that's your calling and you're good at, and you love it, go all in. Become the best in the world at that thing, and that's totally cool. But you cap out on salary, you can't make more money at a certain point. Because that's the value of that tier value. The next tier value, if you move up one tier, is management. Somebody who can manage all of the workers. And there's people... One of the big mistakes we made inside of ClickFunnels, we took the people inside of our team who were the best workers and we upgraded them to management and they were horrible managers, amazing workers moved into management. And they weren't managers, this is a different mindset. They can go learn that, but that's not where they were gifted. And a lot of times it was irreparable, we couldn't move them back down because in their mind, like, "Oh I'm a manager now." It's like, "No." I think one of things we learned is someone can be a worker and make more money than the manager. Just because sometimes their skillset, like the programmers and developers, getting an amazing programmer to code something is, a lot of times, worth more than the managers managing that person. But in most businesses, most organizations, manager's next tier, right? Because you make more money as a manager because you're managing a lot of workers, as opposed to one. Then you go up the next tier value and it's the communicators. People learn how to talk and to sell, that's the next thing. You make more selling and you do managing, and you typically make more managing than you do actually doing the thing. And not everyone's going to be great salespeople. I think it's a teachable skill. I think you may have seen my early videos, everyone thinks this is a gift that I was born with. It is not, it is something that's been developed. Josh: Guys, you should go look at Russell's old videos, they're so embarrassing. Russell: They are the worst ever. Yeah, when I was your age I would not have been able to do this, it's crazy. So that tier is the communicators and the top tier are the visionaries. Imagining it, you're using your brain to make money. So your use your brain, your mouth, your management skills or your hands. Those are the four tiers of value. So I think wherever you fit in there, that's cool, we need people all the tiers, but like... I did a podcast about this the other day, I'm like, "Whatever you going to be, don't just be a person doing it, become the best in the world." We were in Oakville Tony's Event and we're in a hotel and it was kind of weird because there's a spa, so like, all excited to get massages, but it's also COVID right now. So the masseuses have masks on, they have plastic gloves, it was weird. And I got my very first massage, they paid for two massage it. So I was like, "It'll be fun." The first massage was so bad. I was like, "I never want to get a massage again, ever." It was so bad and I'm sitting there on the table, it was only an hour long massage, by the time it was done I was like, "I want to get out of here, this is just weird and horrible." I did not enjoy it. And I'm a massage person. Josh: Yeah. I love massage. Russell: And I was to the point I'd never want massage again, but they'd already booked us for the next day for the second one. And I was annoyed. I went to the second one and same thing. She's got plastic gloves on like we have to do and the mask. And I'm just kind of like, "Oh, I don't even want to be here." And then she puts her hands on me and it's just like, it was art, it was different. And both of them are doing the same job, right? But somebody was like, "I want to be the best the world." Versus, "Oh, I'm just doing the thing." And you see that in every area of life, the chiropractors, there's chiropractors, that are good and there's ones that are great. Doctors, dentists, business. I'm more, wherever you're at, don't just be mediocre, become the best in the world there. That's more important to me than... You know, if you can be a plumber, be the plumber who you walk in... Like we've had, our house, so many plumbers come in. We had some that come and they fix the leak and then something else breaks and they go “uh…” And other guys should come in to check everything, they make sure it's perfect. I want that person, I want the artists I want the person that this is their art and not just like, "Ugh, best job I could find." Josh: Yeah. All right, so now I'm about to ask you a question and I understand this is totally your opinion on it, maybe you have something to base it on. So, the person that is at those lower levels of value, the average worker that's out there, that's doing their thing, especially in today's super soft victim mentality America that wants to vote for free stuff. Makes me so mad. Anyway. The average person that's out there, looks up at people that make a lot of money and the general consensus, I think, or the way that America slash the world is going is, rich people are bad, right? Like, "You're so greedy, man. You got all his money and you're not giving any to me, you get to go sit in your massive house and your cars and you can do whatever you want." And so, even if they are doing what they are called to do, they'll look up to a millionaire, a billionaire, somebody that has all this stuff and they'll look at it as bad. Like that shouldn't happen. How do you create a society? And this is why... I know this is big picture type stuff, but how do you create a society that allows people to be okay with being the best version of themselves where they're at without looking at you and being like, "You're bad."? You know what I mean? Russell: Yeah. Well, it's not going to happen in our lifetime. It's not going to happen, my belief, till Christ comes again. And when he does, it'll be a perfect, you know, things will be great. But until then, it's not going to happen because humans are humans. Right? Josh: You mean Donald Trump's not going to just fix everything? Russell: Oh, if he does that'd be amazing but I'm not holding my breath. But I would say more so just, for anyone who feels that way, I would look at that more... And I did a podcast about this, if you're not someone who celebrates other people's successes, everybody, I don't care if you hate the person, if you're a big fan or you're not a big fan, if you don't celebrate their success, then you are going to struggle to ever be successful because you're going to be so scared of other people not celebrating your success. I remember... I am not a huge Gary Vee fan, you know this, for reasons I'll talk about in my next book. But- Josh: When I tweet this out on Twitter, Gary, when you follow me, shout out, by the way, The Patriots won the Superbowl more than The Jets. Just throw that out there. All right, continue. I just guaranteed he'd never come on my podcast. Russell: I do like Gary, I just, we had a thing, but whatever, he doesn't remember it, I'm sure. But anyway, he got the shoe deal with... Whatever the shoes. Josh: Adidas. Russell: And he's going to market and for half a second, I was like, "That sucks." And then I was like, "You freaking he's in our industry and he got a shoe deal!" And I ran to my computer. Josh: Or K-Swiss, yeah. Russell: The K-Swiss. I bought the shoes. I got them… And I did a podcast, celebrating the fact that someone in our community got a shoe deal and all these things. And most people that I know were like, "I thought you're not a big Gary fan." I'm like, "I'm not, but that's a huge success, we should celebrate success." Because if you don't, then what's going to automatically happen in your head. If you're Not celebrating people's successes then you have the subconscious fear that someone's not going to do yours. And so you're going to stifle yourself and be successful. So I try when anybody around me is having success. Whether I like them or I don't like them, I always am like, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to try to celebrate it." And then by doing that it changes your brain to the spot where you're okay having success, because you're assuming everyone's going to celebrate like you. And they're not going to, but it's different subconsciously. If you are not celebrating other people's successes it will stifle you from ever having your own. And so I think that's a big part of... If that's where you're at right now, it's something you got to change. And when you start making that little shift and start celebrating people's successes above you, it's freeing, it's amazing. Because then all of a sudden you're unlocking yourself, like I can succeed because they did and people are going to celebrate me. And it shifts those like psychological things that you do and it changes everything. It's weird. Josh: Do you think... You're not political, like hardly at all. Like, do you even pay attention? Russell: No, not too much. I was like, so those who read the book, Hank Rearden, and this is part of his demise, is he doesn't pay attention to it at all. So as I read the book, I'm like, Hank Rearden, doesn't pay attention, I don't pay attention. Real quick, can we do a shout out for these shirts again? You guys have seen them? By the way, how many of you guys would like one of these shirts? Josh: Ooh let's make them comment for this first. Russell Brunson: Okay. Josh: Guys, how many of you want to shirt? Yes or no. Comment yes or no down below. Russell: So this is the Rearden Steel one. And this is who is John Galt? One. Josh: Very dope. I'm not going to lie though. Like that was pretty dope, but this one wins for one reason. Russell: The quote is cool. We can put that quote on this one too and make it silver. Josh: Ooh. Ooh. Russell: Okay. This is my selfish pitch. Can I do- Josh: Hey guys, can Russel do a pitch real quick? Russell: Is it okay if I sell something? He says something to you. Keep in mind. I make no money off of this. I don't even know what he's doing. No, we have a little fun site we created just because that'd be fun called TshirtSmackdown.com where we have two shirts and then people vote with their wallets, which shirt they want better. So if you guys want these shirts, you could actually buy whichever one is your favorite, or both if you like them both. Just got to go to TshirtSmackdown.com and they're up there right now. And guess who was the models on TshirtSmackdown? I assume. Are we the models? Anyway, go to TshirtSmackdown.com, you can get one or two- Josh: Oh my gosh. Look at that big your team. Russell: We're super models! Josh: Your team's amazing, dude. They put it together that fast.. Okay. Let's geek out the book here for a second. Russell: Yeah. Josh: The audible door. That, the password that was audible. When I read that I was like, "Yes!" That's a brilliant mind at, it's like you have to say it. And the part that I thought was interesting was, it wasn't just the words he's like, and it's programmed to where it will not open unless the person that is saying it is actually like saying it with conviction or something to that effect. They actually have to like, mean it. Can't just be like, "Duh duh duh duh duh. Okay, I'm in." Like, now you guys want to read the book so bad. Okay. All right. We'll come back to the TshirtSmackdown, comment. down below. Let us know and let us know guys. Let's not go down the comments, if you're listening on audio you can go leave a rating and review and leave us in the comments. But like, if you're just listening, YouTube, Facebook, wherever, comment down below your favorite part of the conversation was so far. I think that'd be super cool. Okay. Let's geek out on the book for a second here. I actually have a lot of questions about the book, but I want to know, what was your favorite scene? Russell: Oh, Oh, so many good scenes. My favorite scene in the book. So it's kind of like the crescendo of the whole book. Because the whole book is asking, who's John Galt. Who's John Galt. Josh: Okay. Hold on. Sorry, David's sitting in the background. Have you read the book, Dave? Okay. So I'm just making sure that you're not just sitting over here, like freaking out. Dave's like I have to read it too. I was like, I need to talk to somebody. Dave, go read this. I'll see you in six months. Russell: So the whole books leader, who's John Galt, who's John Galt. We're kind of introduced to him a little bit when Dagny meets them. And then she leaves and goes back to the real world. And all of a sudden, there's this part where the looters and the government are trying to do this broadcast. And all of a sudden… (static noise) the broadcast is interrupted and they're trying figure how to fix it. But all of the people who would fix it have been taken- Josh: Because all the great minds as society are gone. Russell: And all of a sudden over the loud speaker comes John Galt and he starts the speech. And the speech I think is 80 pages in the book. It's four hours on the audio book, four hours. This is why you don't watch you to movie you by the way. Cause it's less than 30 seconds in the movie. Josh: How do you take out four hours? Russell: Oh, it's such a good... Anyway, he gets on this microphone broadcasting to the entire world, nobody can cut them off. And he gives this speech about… Josh: The entire book. Russell: I’m just freaking out… The set up. It was so crazy, all of a sudden it happened. I was like, "Whoa." And anyway, that was my- Josh: And he ends with this and he goes, and I'll say it one last time “I pledged my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man nor ask another man to live for mine.” Russell: Anyway, that was my favorite part. Josh: The 80 page. Four hour long version of it? Okay. Russell: Oh yeah. So good. Josh: Okay. I like that. My favorite part of the book, I read this and I was like... So, I like play my life on and act like I'm in a movie, right. Sometimes I'm like, do this. So do you remember what the wedding? Russell: Oh, Francisco speech. Dude! Josh: That might've been better. I promised Leah I would be done after this chapter. And it ends, and I'm like, "No!" Russell: The John Galt had a better buildup and then I didn't know it was coming, there's a wedding and everything. And then all of a sudden it starts happening. I was like- Josh: Out of freaking nowhere. Russell: Yeah. So Francisco, he gives a speech that was like, yeah, I wasn't expecting it. So I think it was less buildup, but it was amazing. Yeah. The John Galt buildup was like, this is like, I was waiting when you said movie. Because I was like, "It can be amazing." Then it's like, come on. Anyway. Yeah. Those are the two best parts. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. At that wedding... I'm reading this and it was like that moment I was like, "Okay. She finally made it all..." And that was relatively early on in the book. I was like, Oh, if the book follows anything like this, this is going to be such a good book. Right. Because he gets done with that and you're just... It's something you'd want to watch out in real life and know that somebody thought this up and they wrote down. You're just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was so good. That was, that was hands down my favorite part. Russell: I want to read the book again, I wish it wasn't 1200 pages because I want to go back to experience it but it's so big. Josh: Okay. Have you read the cliff notes version of the book? Russell: No. Josh: Okay. So yeah. So there is there's, I think there's the cliff notes, like the one that you buy. I think it's like a four-hour audio book, I haven't listened to that one. But usually on cliffsnotes.com, can like read the book. You can basically get a summary of the whole book in like, 30 to 45 minutes. I read it. Russell: It's still worth reading though, you guys. Josh: Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. But that's the reason I'm bring it up because I notice 1200 pages, but if you just read the Clifton, but you're like, "Oh, okay. Cool storyline." But you miss the effect of it all. Russell: One of the things that I thought was fascinating. Just because I'm working on my next book, which is not a how-to book, so I'm learning how to write differently. So I've been- Josh: Ooh, you want to tell us all about it? Russell: I'm really proud, excited for it. But one thing was interesting, if you look Ayn Rand did the dialogue in the book, she did all the dialogue, but it's just one person speaking. So it's fascinating. Every time you notice that, like when her partner was in the cafeteria with some guy we didn't know, you only hear his words, you never hear the other side. Josh: That's so true. Russell: Most of her dialogues were just, you heard the one person talking and you could get the gist of the conversation by reading one side, but they never had the other side and I'd never seen someone write that way before. And there's a lot of cool things like that where it's just like... Again, I've written three books now, but I wrote books with Google Docs, with editors and people. Like imagine writing a book in the fifties with a typewriter. Think how much forethought has to go to something like this. Josh: Yeah, that's wild. Russell: It is insane to think that. Yeah. So I have so much respect for people who wrote then. And especially, I'm trying to learn how to write as a story as opposed to how to, and the art of it is just fascinating. As a book, it's worth reading just to see how she wrote is fascinating as well. Josh: What was your biggest... Actually, I want to go down that rabbit hole a little bit further. So writing, is your next book fiction or not? Russell: No, it's just the next book is about bootstrap.com. Bootstrapping is the ClickFunnels story, but it's not like the how-to, it's telling the story as the story, which is going to be cool. Josh: Oh, that's going to be so good. Russell: First thing we're doing is all the core people who've been part of ClickFunnels story. We're flying them out and interviewing them for... I've been mapping out the entire timeline of events as close as I can remember and I'm going to interview... All the pieces from their point of view. Trying to get that from like 50 different people and then take all that stuff, think the timelines up and write the book as a story. So it's a different writing style I've never done before. Josh: That's interesting. Russell: Oh yeah. Dave wants to tell you the cool part. So I'm also like been re-geeking out on The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Hero's 2 Journeys and all that stuff. Because I want to make sure... Well someday I want to try to sell it to Hollywood or something. So who knows? I don't have the end of the story yet, but like- Josh: Which is by the way, super fascinating because of how the concept concept of going for a target and then going towards it. Like, you don't know the end now you're just like, that is so cool. Russell: Oh yeah, and so it's cool. But I was like- Josh: Russell's so much fun to watch. Russell: So I've been, I've been geeking out on the hero's journey. So I'm like, I'm trying to sync the timeline of the ClickFunnels startup story to the timeline of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, all the core things. To see if I can get it to fit inside that framework, which I think we'll be able to do. it's going to be amazing. Then what I'm trying to do in my new office is I'm going to build the rumors, like a timeline, so the entire room wraps in a huge chalkboard with a timeline that goes around and it has the dates and the years of the journey and stuff. And then writing in each core thing on the wall. And then, you know how in the spy movies, you have like a string that goes and you have the pieces of paper. Josh: Yeah. Russell: As I'm writing the book, I'm going to have the whole thing timed out in a square room. And so you see it all and they can see all the pieces, how they all fit together. And then when the book's done, in that room, that'll be the wallpaper on the room. Josh: Oh my gosh. Okay. All right. So here's deal. Here's a great idea. So you do that up until a certain point, like this is modern day, and then there's an end of the wall. And then from that point to there, that's when you're writing and when you get to the end of the wall you have to sell everything and go into hiding and become John Galt. Like that book's done, I’m out. That's fascinating. Russell: But I get to write a story that's way different. It's not, like all my other books are how-to books so they're written differently. And so it's just been fun- Josh: Which by the way is why when I first got into entrepreneurship I was like, "I don't know why anybody would write a book that's not like that." Like I'm like, "Why would anybody write a book like this? This is so lame." And now I'm reading it and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is so cool." Russell: I tend to respect the books I'm reading now, I just finished Shoe Dog, which is the story of- Josh: Oh that's a great book. Russell: American Kingpin, which is the story of the silk road and the dark web, one of my favorite stories I've ever read, I've read it twice already. And the writer is probably the best writers I've ever. I read it and I was so depressed. I was like, I'll never write... Because I tried to hire him to write my book for me. And he's too busy. Josh: I will give you a blank check, just write this book. You're so much better than I could ever dream of. Russell: So I had to go and learn how to do it. Josh: What was the most fascinating thing about Atlas Shrugged, to you? Like, the way it was written or the concepts of the character, anything. What was the overall, the most fascinating part for you? Russell: Character development was so cool. I think the coolest thing for me was... I'd love to see a sim diagram because I don't know it, but each of the characters each played, like they were a character, they played a role that is like this magnified society as a group, almost. Right? Josh: Yeah. That's actually super true. Russell: Like, you have Hank Rearden and Dagny, and then... Josh: James Taggart. Russell: Taggart's wife. All the people, they were humans, but they were personification of a segment of society, which is really cool. And so seeing that where you're getting this micro versions, macro problem. That was cool because I never, again I don't study politics, I'm not deep into it so I don't know all these things. And you hear this character and you hear the story, and all of a sudden you're like, "Oh my gosh, that represents this group of people that I..." And so for me, it was cool because I was able to understand things at a different level. And I'm not the best at this, I always try to put myself in other people's shoes. I try to understand... That's why I'm not super political, because they get so divisive and I see good on both sides. Like, I understand, I can love people on both sides of it. I think it was so cool for me because you see the pros and the cons of each thing. Right? You see the positives, negatives, each belief pattern. Josh: Yeah. Russell: I think Rearden, as much as I related to him, it was like, there's the good and evil, right? And all of them have that. So it was just cool because it gave me this perspective, I didn't know of so many different segments of society. It made this really cool tapestry and picture for me. Josh: Huh. All right. So now the polar opposite. What do you think the book lacked in? Or didn't communicate well or left out? Russell: I think, something we talked about today, I do feel like most of the producers in the book, they didn't have the other side of it. Right? The social stuff is important, helping other people is important and I get why she did it. Like I said, the Phil Donahue interview, she's like, "People should be social. They shouldn't do it with a gun." But she never showed that she, didn't show, Hank Rearden going in like, "Oh, this is a cause I care about like, let me go and..." Josh: At all, in any part. Russell: I think that stuff's important, that's why we talk about political. On the left side, what they're trying to do is good it's right, it's from God, it's so good things. Right? But there's ways that people twist and all sorts of stuff like that. And I wish they would have showed more of that because I felt like the characters were one sided where it's just, the people that are looters and the people that are producers. And I feel like there's more blend for all of us, we have blends of those things. And they did a good job as dissect- Josh: Super, yeah. Russell: You know? I think we all have all those things, I want to give, I want to serve, I want to do things, but I also want to produce, I want to do both those things. like how do I, what's the world look like where we do both of those things. And I don't know how to. In my little universe that I've created for myself and my family, I'm trying to produce. I'm trying to contribute and try and do my version of what I think is right. All we can do is what we think is right in our own little world that we create. And so this is my world I've created, I'm trying my best to do it. And I wish that they would have showed some of that side. But I think that that was a part, I feel, that the characters were missing just that part of it. Josh: So what's interesting- Russell: Christ-like, charity, love stuff. Josh: Okay. Well, and I'm so glad you brought this up, what I think is interesting, the thing that I felt like the book was lacking the most is nobody had kids. Russell: I didn't think about that. Josh: Think about this, none of them... Because one of my questions, she was going to be like, "How Was having a kid?" And I kind of asked her... Kind of changing perspective, but I'm like- Russell: Interesting. Josh: Nobody had kids. And I don't have kids. I'm not married, I don't have kids. I'm getting married. Russell: Yeah, woo hoo! Josh: By the way. Shout out to my beautiful fiance. All right. But for me, I'm so focused right now. So I grew up in a big family, right. Eight kids. I'm the oldest living. I had one other brother who passed away, but like six younger siblings. And like, my whole life changes once there's kids in it. And I know that even though I haven't experienced it, because I've seen it. And so for me, and Leah and I have talked about this like, "The twenties are for us, thirties are for kids." And so I'm like, "I got to make as much money as I possibly can before the because ah!" And I even told Colette this, I said, "If there's there was one thing that I would sacrifice my career for in order to be able to do, it'd be to homeschool my kids." I can't fathom sending my kids to public school, that's just me because I grew up homeschooled or whatnot. But as I was going through the book, I'm like, "I can relate to all of these people, but like they're leaving out like this key component." Imagine being Hank Rearden and living like he did, with your five kids. Or do you have? Russell: I have five. Josh: Yeah, I was going to say, before I was like, "Oh my gosh." So think about that. You know what I mean? And so I feel like one of the, because there's a lot of people I know that I've read Atlas Shrugged, like, "Heck yeah man, this is the greatest book ever, like for-profit blah, blah, blah." And I'm like, "Yeah. But like imagine living your life that way with a family." Imagine living your life like that with the kids and responsibilities, people that you actually like. How- Russell: I think about this. Because like our timeline, it comes back, we talk about growth and contribution. Right? So most of us, we get born. All of us, we get born right. Only way to get here, we're all born. Right? And from when you're born until you're, whatever, for me I got married at 22, I was 22. And so it's like the first 21 years, it's all about you. Right? It's selfish, it's growth. It's whatever it is, it's you, you, you. And everyone's very inward focused. And then all of a sudden you meet this beautiful person and then you fall in love, that's amazing. And also what happens is it shifts from you, you, you, to us. And you're giving, taking, giving taking, and it's cool because, all of a sudden all your focus isn't on you, it's on somebody else. But they're focused on you too and it's this amazing thing where like, I'm giving, but I'm also getting, it's this amazing thing. It's this transition that's easing you into kids because then kids come out and it flips now where it's like the opposite where you're just serving a hundred percent, especially the very beginning with kids. I was joking my kids about this one night when they're like, "Why are you guys so mean?" And I'm like, "Do you realize we get no value from this. We don't get paid a penny from this, there's nothing in parenting. We kill ourselves, we serve, we don't sleep. We work. We hate money." And that's not true, there's value. Josh: I'm just sitting here imagine Russel telling his kids, "We get no value, you do not pay us." Russell: I'm like, I'm killing myself. Josh: To be fair, you do get a tax break. Russell: Yeah. But especially when they're first born, they're cute and you get lots but they're in the selfish space now where you're giving a hundred percent and they're not giving back. Other than they giggle and cute and you're like, "Oh, so cute." But for the most part, you get this time where you're selfish and then it's like, "Oh, I'm serving someone else, but they're serving me." And amazing, then all of a sudden it's a hundred percent service there. And I think that that's a good point. Hank Rearden had only done this thing. And then, he never had a chance to like, a hundred percent serve somebody else and see what that's like. Because the value you get as a parent is when you serve a hundred percent of kids and you see like who they become, that's the value. But it doesn't come from the quid pro quo that you normally get with like, "I'm going to buy this thing or pay for this thing." Josh: Right. Russell: It's like, "I'm gonna serve, and serve, and serve." And eventually hope that someday they turn out to be cool. Josh: Yeah. And that's a super interesting point. And maybe that's why she left that part out of it because she was like, "None of these people would ever have kids-" Russell: And she didn't have kids, so that's a big… that might be the part, she's never seen that. At least not that I'm aware of, I'm pretty sure- Josh: That's crazy. Because going through I'm like, "This book I think would mean so much diff..." So when I first read it, like I said, whenever I first learned about this, back in high school, right. I read it. I hated reading. I publicly declared, and it's actually funny. When I graduated high school, I bought myself a pickup truck, I stood on the top of the pickup truck and I publicly declared to the world, I would never read another book ever again in life. I hated reading. So that's funny because now I'm reading 1200 page books and I've read every one of those books back there. It didn't really take on the same effect as now, being an entrepreneur, being someone at... Like at one point I had five employees and I'm 26 years old. So now I'm reading it and I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." But if I read it with kids, I feel like that would even give you a completely different perspective on like... How has having kids changed your... Because you're an entrepreneur basically from day one, right? You never really had a job. Right? Russell: I've served tables and stuff, I didn't have a job more than three months. Josh: Okay. So you're, you're a failure in the normal society, right? You can't hold a job, you get fired for... But how's having kids and having to balance... Because man, like, dude, you're running a... ClickFunnels is a billion dollar company. Right? We're allowed to say that? Like that's a thing, right? Like roughly, I'm not off on that. All right. Russell: The value is based what you will pay for so hopefully somebody pays that some day. Josh: So we're going to say a billion dollar company. So you're running this billion dollar company, you've made hundreds of millions of dollars, you've been payed a million dollars an hour from stage before... By the way, big props, congratulations. How has balancing work now with that, with the kids growing up, I feel like now they're at, because you're oldest is what, 12, 14 or 15. Right? So how has that changed the way that you view your work? Do you struggle with that? Like the balance. Russell: Yeah. Especially now with COVID stuff happening. Kids being homeschooled. Because before it was easy to separate because they're going to school, I'm going to here. Separation is easy. Now it's harder because it's they're still home. And it's like, "Oh, should I be there?" It's definitely tough. Yeah. It's interesting. I have so many entrepreneur friends, I always tease them because it's like, who don't have any kids and they're doing amazing things. I'm like, "Yeah. But I'm doing this stuff and I got five kids and a beautiful wife and I got callings in my church." And there's so many things. I hired a trainer, Dave knows a safe trainer. I remember when he started working with us, he said the biggest thing he knows me start working with me is that you'll be shocked what your body can actually endure. I think that most people don't understand what they could actually do. How do you run a company this big and have a family and have a successful marriage and have these... You can do it, and most people don't because they sedate. And like, I don't watch four hours of football a night because I have all these other things. Right. I don't know, it's just you take away the excuse of sedation you can produce so much more than people are able to understand. I don't know. So it's interesting. And then it's been such a weird thing too, with kids, because I think when you first start having kids, you assume they're all going to be like you. Like, "Oh, they're all going to be entrepreneurs." And then I had twins, it was crazy, our first two that came out are twins. Now they're 14, almost 15. It's crazy because I assumed they'd all be the same, the same as me or the same together. And they are so polar opposites. Josh: Yeah, I didn't even know, I just found out today that they were twins. I had no clue. Colette's like, "Yeah they're both turning 15." I'm like, "Wait, what?" Russell: Yeah. They don’t look like each other, they don’t act like each other. One's more entrepreneurial. One's more, if you look at disc profile, I have a DI and we have an SC. Josh: Oh my God. Russell: Introvert, extrovert. All the things are different. And I always thought, you know, my kids are going to be entrepreneurs like me and now I don't think they have to be. It goes back to what we talked about earlier. With my kids, I'm like, "What do you want to do?" And I think some of my kids are very entrepreneurial, a lot of them aren't. I think some of my kids are super smart, hard workers who are going to be amazing at the roles they play in something, they're going to be a huge part of changing somebody's world, but it's not going to be the front person of it. And so it's been interesting watching that and fulfilling and hard and it's all the things wrapped into one. It's an interesting experience, you're going to love it. You should start having kids right away. Josh: Yeah. That's not going to happen. But why though? Russell: Because you should know, it takes time. Josh: Okay. But how long did you go? How long did you wait? Russell: Uh, two? Let's see, we had our 18 year anniversary, the kids are turning 15. So almost three years. We tried earlier, but we had fertility drugs, stuff like that and everything, But yeah, so about probably two years and when started trying. Josh: Yeah. I can't... Kids scare me dude. But it's interesting because like I grew up with six younger siblings. So I was definitely old enough to remember the whole diaper phase and like, you know... Obviously I wasn't a parent with it. And the church that I went to, eight was like average to small amount of kids. A lot of them were like 13 kids, 12 kids, 14 kids, whatever. I think the smallest in our whole church was four, and they were the weird ones. Russell: "You only have four kids? What's wrong with you?" Josh: Right. And so everywhere we went, that's just what it was. So for me, I had that rebellion phase, if you will. I don't want to call it rebellion phase, but where I was like, "I don't want any of this. Why would you... They're expensive and they suck all the time. And I can't go do this." I'm like, "I want to be so filthy read before I go having kids." And I taught Sunday school and was very involved in the church growing up and things like that. So for me it was like, "I want to go build my business, doing that is more fun." The interesting thing about kids. And I told my parents this, I don't remember when it was, but my parents aren't super wealthy or successful when it comes to business or anything like that. But I look at my parents as some of the most successful people that I've ever met in my life, because my mom's favorite... There's little things that my mom told me over and over and over again. And one of her famous lines is, "The only thing I need to know in life is I just need to know that my children walk in truth." Right. And my mom, particularly, and my dad too, like both of them, but I relate it with my mom, cause she'd keep saying it, it's like my mom's definition of success and achievement was, "Do my children walk in truth?" That is what was success to her. And she's like, "Yeah, money would have been great, like all these different things." But that was kind of the pinnacle of success for her is, do my kids walk in truth. And so as I have gone through my own journey of faith, which has been, I mean, it has been rough at times, right? I've watched her struggle with it and freak out because she's like, "I just want..." But that's not her journey to bear, but it is at the same time. And so it's always been interesting, kids are this thing where I feel like once I have them, obviously I'm there for the rest of my life, but I feel like there's this stress or there's this new piece of my life that's unlocked that I've never explored before. I don't know anything about it. And I'm like, afraid isn't the right word, but I'm pushing that off as long as I possibly can because once that's opened then I never get to close it again. And that mystery is almost fun to like look forward to, but at the same time, I get to focus over here. Russell: Essentially I remember thinking about this a lot, especially for the first two years. I was like, "his is so much harder than I thought it was going to be." Flat out, way harder. But also remember feeling and thinking out loud, "This is so much cooler than I ever dreamt it was going to be." Like this double-edged sword. And I was like, "Man, I didn't realize how tired and worn out." And all these things. But then so much better than I thought. It's funny. Cause I had a lot of friends who are like, “well, I want to make money, and then I’ll have kids”. I don't think, I don't know. It's different. I would just have kids, you can do both. It's not impossible. Especially when they're first born, they just sit there. I would spend a year or two and just not- Josh: Right, right, right. Russell: But I wouldn't wait until like, "Oh, I need a million bucks in the bank." I get people all the time, I know people that are broke, that have eight kids. They're not that expensive. Like, Cheerios are not that expensive, if you need to. It's just being willing to be there and be loving and be being present for as much as you can. Another thing that's been interesting, especially now that our kids are going to be teenagers, it's like so much harder. That's harder. Josh: Really that's harder than when they're young. Russell: Oh, for sure. Yeah. Josh: Dave's over here just laughing. Russell: It's different- Josh: Oh gosh. What am I in for Dave? Oh no. Russell: Yeah. The young part is like, "I'm tired." That's a hard part when they're young. When they're older, it's just like, am I messing these kids up, I just want them to be successful. That's the bigger fear. I remember a little thing that gave me some grace, Tom Bilyeu, I heard of this Instagram post about him talking about being a parent, and it was so funny because he's like, "Who here is scared that you're going to eff up your kids?" That was how he would have said it. Josh: Right, yeah. Russell: I would say “mess up”. Who's gonna mess up your kids. And everyone's hands like, "Yeah. I'm scared." He's like, "Guess what?..." I got to make sure I gets right. He's like, "My parents messed me up. You're going to mess your kids up. But guess what? We turned out okay in the end. Just be okay with the fact that you're going to mess your kids up because you are." And I remember, I was like, "Okay, everyone messed up their kids, that's part of it." That's part of the whole journey, that's the journey. And it gave me some grace of just like, "Look, I'm going to do my best. I'm probably going to mess them up." But at the same time you have to have faith, they're going to do their thing and they're going to hopefully make the decisions. And if not, that's why we have God. That's why we have repentance. And just in the kind of leaving it to leave it to him and do your best. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices