The Russell Brunson Show

Welcome to the first episode in a special 5 part series. Over the course of these next 5 episodes, you’ll get to hear an interview between Russell Brunson and Josh Forti about the book “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. But this interview is much more than just them talking about the book, they are actually discussing business, religion, and politics (a subject Russell doesn’t talk about often) as they pertain to the concepts in the book. In this first section, you’ll get to hear the introduction and the basis for how the entire conversation will flow. The first main topic of the book, and the main concept for this episode is greed. Is it bad? Can it be good? Are we born with it? Can we change? So listen in to part one of this unique interview and start reading “Atlas Shrugged” (just read it, the movies aren’t great), so you can be ready for part 2! 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 right now, I have a treat for you. Over the next five episodes, I'm going to be taking you in behind the scenes of an interview that I did with Josh Forti about the book, Atlas Shrugged. And some of you guys have read Atlas Shrugged, some of you haven't. Some of you know the premise, some of you don't. And I want to preface this by saying I do not believe in everything taught in the Atlas Shrugged book. I love a lot of it. It talks about producers versus consumers, the looters and the takers versus those in society who are the creators. Right? And there's a lot of things I strongly align with. There's also things that I don't strongly align with. And so I love the book, one of my favorites I've ever read. And so that's the first thing. Number two is, as I finished the book, I remember Josh Forti, who's one of our funnel hackers, he wanted to do the interview with me and I was just like, "I don't have time for interviews." And we're getting closer and closer to the election, we talked on Facebook. We were posting some comments and I was like, "You know what? The interview that I would actually love to do would be about Atlas Shrugged, looking at the whole political thing as it's happening right now and the elections and everything, through the lens of Atlas Shrugged. That'd actually be fascinating for me," because I don't typically, as you know, talk about politics. Right? I do talk about religion, but I don't talk about politics. That's not something I typically go into, but I thought it'd be interesting to look at politics from the lens of Atlas Shrugged. And so in this interview series, it's a lot of fun. We talk about producers versus consumers. We talk about the left and the right. We talk about some political things. Now Josh, just so you know ahead of time, he's very pro-Trump, very much on that side of the discussions during this interview. And this interview, just so you know, took place before the elections. As of right now, I'm still not sure who won. You guys probably will know by the time you're listening to this, but as of when I'm recording this, we don't know, but he definitely leans on the Trump side. I don't really share much of my political beliefs, but you'll get kind of what I believe and why I believe it through the lens of Atlas Shrugged over this interview series. So I hope you enjoy it. It was a lot of fun to do, a lot of great feedback and comments. And again, we talk about stuff I don't typically talk about ever. So this may be a one-time shot to hear inside my mind when it comes to politics, religion, and all through the lens of Atlas Shrugged, the book. So with that said, I want to introduce you guys to the first part of this five-part interview series with me and Josh Forti, talking about Atlas Shrugged. Russell Brunson: Are we live? Josh Forti: We are live. Russell: What's up, everybody? Josh: Oh, my word, with the incredibly ... I don't know if long-waited. It hasn't really been that long. Two months ago. So much expected podcast with Mr. Russell Brunson, himself. How are you doing, dude? Russell: I'm doing amazing, man. Thanks for flying all the way to Boise just for this conversation. Josh: Yeah, absolutely. Dude, this is probably the conversation I'm looking forward to most, certainly in my life thus far, when it comes to business and philosophy and everything like that. Russell: No pressure at all. Josh: Well, it's funny. Your wife said, "Oh, thanks so much for coming out." I was like, "Yeah, it's certainly ... Yeah, because it's inconvenience to me to fly all the way out here." I will say, this is my first ever in-person interview like this. Russell: Oh, really? Josh: Yeah. Russell: We got the microphones set up. Josh: I know. We have- Russell: He’s a professional. I've never done this before. Josh: Literally, we have a soundboard down here. We've got Russell's mic. Can you guys hear us all right? By the way, guys, for all of you listening on audio, we apologize because we're going to answer some comments in the Facebook feed here because we've got everybody down here. By the way, you can see all the comments down here. Russell: What's up, everyone? Josh: All right, guys. If you are live, comment down below. Let us know where you're tuning in from. Let us know if you know Russell or if you know me or if you know both of us or what you're most looking forward to. And Russell, I'm going to be honest with you. We're just going to be super chill. Guys, we have a live audience back here. We've got Dave. Dave's over there. We've got Jake and Nick. Russell: What's up, Dave? Josh: Where'd Jake go? Russell: Jake's working. Josh: Oh, there we go. Jake's working late over there. Russell: Jake, by the way, designed these amazing shirts for this- Josh: Yeah, check us out. Russell: This is my Rearden Steel shirt. This is my Who Is John Galt shirt. Josh: Isn't this great? Okay, but I feel like the back- Russell: Yeah the back I’ll read what it says. It says, "I started my life with a single absolute, that the world was mine to shape and the image of my highest values never to be given to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle." So do you guys like these shirts? These are custom made for tonight. And you guys may have a chance to get one of these, but not yet. No, not yet. Josh: Not yet. Russell: We'll let you know when the ability ... If you guys ... Josh: Oh, man. Oh, man. Russell: Anyway, it's going to be fun, but these are custom ... We literally made these today. We needed some sweet shirts…for the show. Josh: Okay, Will says he got your text. Did you send my text to everybody? Russell: Yeah. Josh: Russell on top of it. I sent out a ManyChat, Russell sent out a text. All right, guys. Let's lay some ground rules here. So the quick backstory behind this ... And it's going to be weird. You've got to look in the camera here. Quick backstory behind this is I make a post on Facebook about, what, probably three months ago now or so? Russell: Yeah. Josh: Two, three months ago. And I go, "We need some epic people to interview for the podcast. Who do you know? Tag them all down below." And shout out, Georgie. Georgie comments and goes… "I coached Russell. You should totally interview me." And I was like, "You've got to be pretty gutsy to tag Russell in your comment and tell him you coached him," but then Russell comments back- Russell: And George is an Olympic wrestler. He was on the Bulgarian Olympic team. He wrestled at Boise State with me. He's the man. So yeah. Josh: I commented back. I go, "You coached Russel?" And then Russell goes, "Well, yeah. He coached me. He's awesome. You should totally interview him." And so I said, "Yeah, Georgie, of course, you can come on. We'll do an interview, but Russell, I've got an open invitation to you if you want to come back on." And then you were like, "Sure, if we can talk about…" or no, you didn't say sure. You said, "Can we do it about Atlas Shrugged?" Russell: Yes. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Because I interview a lot about business stuff and- Josh: I'll pull the microphone just slightly. Russell: Yes. I don't do a lot of interviews because ... I feel like I've said, but I don't want to say, but I just finished literally probably the fattest book in the history of books called Atlas Shrugged. And I was geeking out on it and I wanted to talk about it. I didn't have a way or someone to geek out with, other than some of my friends here. And I was like, "If you want to talk about Atlas Shrugged, I'm in." And then you started freaking out. Josh: The funny thing was is I go something to the effect of, "You want to talk about the fall of capitalism because of a boycott, because of a brilliant person and why socialism sucks? Yes, absolutely. I would love to do that," to which you don't give me a yes or no answer. You reply back and go, "Ha-ha. Oh, man. That'd be fun." I'm like, "Talk about an open loop, man. Come on." So anyway, I immediately messaged Russel and I'm like, "You better not be joking because that would just be rude." He goes, "No, I'm totally in." Josh: So about two months go by. You had a bunch of stuff. You had some fun stuff during that time, hanging out with- Russell: Lot of stuff is happening. Josh: Tony Robbins? Russell: Yeah, Tony, man. And it's been chaos the last couple months, not going to lie. And as we got closer and closer to the election, I'm like, "This is an interesting conversation, post-election, but I think it's more interesting before election." And so was it two days ago, three days ago, you're like, "I will fly to Boise to record this." Josh: Yeah. Russell: "What day do you have open?" I'm like, "Only Wednesday night." And now we're here. Josh: Yeah. It was Friday afternoon. We were Voxing back and forth and you're like, "Dude, we've got to get this done before the election." I'm like, "Before the election? Oh, my word." I said, "All right. Sounds good. What time do you have available?" And that's when I was like, "You know what? I was going to ask you creatively, but I'm just going to ask you. How about I fly out to you?" And you're like, "Heck, yeah." Josh: So guys, that's the backstory. That's how we got here. And so this is an open conversation about Atlas Shrugged and kind of everything that encapsulates. I think we'll talk about some religion, some politics, kind of both sides of the aisle there and open it up. Russell: Fun. Josh: Anything else you want to add to that? Russell: The only other thing I would add is, because this book, by the way, if you haven't read it yet, is very polarizing. There are people on both sides of it. Russell: And I think both of us wanted to stress ahead of time that I do not believe in everything in this book. A lot of things in this book, I do believe in. And it's interesting. One of the things I want to dive deeper in in this conversation, I'm excited for and I told you not to do Voxer. I was like, what's fascinating to me is not, "This is what we should believe." What was fascinating to me as I was reading this book, and we'll get into the premise of the book for those who haven't read it, but the big thing is producers and going out there and creating stuff and doing things, which is what entrepreneurs do. Right? And it gets in the part of greed is good. You should be greedy because it's going to create all these amazing things, which then the byproduct's really good. Russell: And part of me is like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes," and then part of me, as a believing Christian, I hear this message I believe in and then I hear in my mind ringing Christ, talking faith, hope, charity, and love. And I feel like they're these two polar opposite things, which by the way, we dive into politics a little bit. There are two polar opposite sides, one that believes one, one believes the other. Russell: And I think that there's a happy medium and that's what I want to dive deep into just because I don't want anyone thinking, "Oh, Russell and Josh just believe this," or whatever. It's like, no, there's sides of this and I empathize on both sides. I want to talk about both of them because they're fascinating. Anyway, I've toyed writing a boy about this concept, these two things. Anyway, I think it should be fun to first time verbally ever talk about this stuff. So I'm excited for it. Josh: Yeah. And I would just echo that, as well. I think one of the things that often happens with me, with my ... So funny. You, who never, ever talks about politics and me who doesn't know how to get on Facebook without arguing about politics, colliding here, but is that a lot of times I get grouped into, "Oh, you like this reading. Therefore, you believe with everything." "You read this book," or, "You support this person," whether it's a political figure or a book or something like that. It's like, by saying that you enjoyed that or that you learned a lot from it, that all of a sudden you suddenly believe everything in it. And that is not the case at all. And I've gotten a lot of criticism from people that are like, "How could you possibly like Atlas Shrugged?" And I'm like, "Well, this is the conversation that we're going to have." Josh: So real quick, before we dive in, I'd be curious ... I want to do a poll real quick. How many of you guys have actually read the book? I'm curious to know. Hold up here. There's two different versions of it, but if you've read the book, just comment below the number one if you have read the book, the number two if you have not read the book. I think that will just kind of give us a poll. We've got 200, 300 people. Russell: And if you listened to the audiobook, we'll count that as reading, too, either way. Josh: Yeah. Not if you know the premise of the book, but actually have read the book and have a deep understanding of it, or not deep understanding. But have like… Russell: Understand the stories them in. Josh: Yeah, things like that, because then it'll be interesting. Russell: One is read. Josh: One is read, two is not read. Oh, more ones than I thought was going to. Russell: Yeah. Me too. Josh: Russell's book is so underrated. Russell: We're 50/50. Josh: Ooh, yeah. I think we should take a poll at the end; what's better, Atlas Shrugged or Dotcom Secrets? That's the real question we should be asking right now. Russell: That would be good, that would be good. Josh: Okay. So we have a lot of people that have not read it, so we'll have to go into the premise of that. Okay. Russell: Are you ready to get started? Josh: Yeah. I'm ready to rock and roll with it. Russell: Oh I’m ready. Josh: Okay. Guys, we want to lay a couple ground rules. Okay? Because I don't know what it's like to be Russell, Russell doesn't know what it's like to be me, but I think we both have a mutual understanding that we could very easily be taken out of context here. Josh: I think the goal, and then I want you to kind of expand upon this, is we're not trying to take a side here. We're trying to have an open discussion about it. This could very easily turn into something that's like, "Why did you vote for Trump? Why Biden sucks, why Biden's great, why Trump sucks," something like that or certain religion. We're not trying to convince you of anything, really. In fact, this is honestly more of a conversation for us. And we're like, "We think it'd be cool to stream it out to a bunch of people because there's a reason for me to fly out here and do that," but the purpose of this is to have an open discussion about the book, the premise of the book, an understanding of it, and then honestly we're probably going to be in our own little world over here. Josh: And we want you guys to interact and comment and engage and push your questions. And we'll go back through it, obviously, but the purpose of this is not to try to convince anybody of anything. It's simple to, at least from my perspective, shed a new perspective and give the perspective of somebody who, for those of you that don't know who Russell is, the founder of a ... ClickFunnels is a billion-dollar company, SaaS company. You have 400 employees? Russell: Yeah. Josh: 400 employees. So from that perspective and from my perspective, to open your eyes to a new perspective of what we like, what we don't like and, like I said, more of a conversation for us. Russell: Yeah. I think that's good. And I think a big thing that we will talk about ... Our goal is not to convince you of anything. In fact, I think I'm still convincing myself of both sides. I believe both these two things that seem contradictory, but I think there's a middle ground and I'm excited to explore it. So it'll be fun. Josh: Cool. So I think we got to- Russell: Talk about the premise of the book? Josh: Yeah, we've got to talk about the premise of the book. Russell: I might have a little mini statue behind me that might help. Can I grab that? Josh: Ooh, yeah. Russell: Okay. So folks that have not read Atlas Shrugged, I didn't know what the premise was at first, but this is the story of Atlas. Some of you guys know Atlas was cursed to have to carry the entire weight of the universe, entire weight of the world upon his shoulders for forever. Right? And so this is where the premise of the book ... All of us, people who are listening to this might guess that you are a producer. Right? Otherwise, you probably wouldn't be listening to me or to Josh. I attract, I teach, I coach, I help producers, entrepreneurs, people who are trying to change the world. Right? Russell: I'm curious, how many of you guys have ever felt this pressure. Right? When you feel like you literally have the entire weight of the world upon your shoulders. And if you haven't, it's time to become a producer. That's first off. Second off, I can empathize, though. There's so many times, you can ask Dave or any guys on my team, there's days I come in, I was like, "I feel like I'm going to crack." There is so much weight to carry this around. And I'm guessing most of you guys have felt that. It could be with your family, could be in work, could be business, whatever, but you've felt the weight of the world. Right? Russell: So this is what Atlas had to hold. Right? And so the premise of the book, Atlas Shrugged, is what would happen if the producers, the people that are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, what happens if they were to go on strike and they were to shrug their shoulders and be like, "Meh." In fact, should I read your tile you gave me here? Josh: Yeah. Russell: So Josh, as a gift today, gave me some amazing tiles. This is a quote, actually, from the book, Atlas Shrugged, talking about this. It says, "If you saw Atlas, the giant holds the world on his shoulders. If you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling, but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater of his efforts, the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders, what would you tell him to do? Just shrug." That's things like, what happens to society when us, the producers, when we no longer want to carry the weight of the world? We shrug and we walk away from it. Russell: And the book is a story about that. What happens when these producers start disappearing and they start leaving, they start going on strike? You see society, what happens when the producers disappear. Josh: Yeah. It's interesting because there is no one named Atlas Shrugged in the book and there's nobody named Ayn Rand in the book. And so there's concepts that she's writing about outside of that and it's this ... How do you summarize a 1200-page book? Basically, in the book, there is a main character by the name of Dagny. Russell: Oh. Yes. Josh: Oh. Russell: I was going to say John Galt, but you're right. Yes, Dagny’s the main character. Josh: Sorry. For the first two thirds of the book, the main character is a woman by the name of Dagny. And basically, she is one of the producers of society. And she's not the head boss of the railroad, but she's basically the person that runs this railroad company. And it is written, what, 1950 is when this was- Russell: Yeah. Josh: So 1950, and it's basically this forecast into the future of a government that is basically forcing super, super strict restrictions onto private businesses and making them do things, kind of like today in America, but super, super government overreach in a lot of ways. And so Dagny is trying to keep the world afloat, more or less, by getting the railroads done on time and getting orders shipped. Josh: And I'm super oversimplifying, but around her, all the people that she works with that owned all these other companies that she would buy copper from or she would buy steel from or buy the railroad track from or buy the coal from, all of a sudden all these head people ... Imagine people like Russell, all his friends just start disappearing. Imagine Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Russell all just started disappearing. Right? That's what's happening all around her and she doesn't understand what's happening to them because just, one day, it's up and it's gone. Josh: And so the premise of the first two thirds of the book is showing this story of this producer who is living in this world of super government tyranny, overreach that's super, super controlling and she's watching all of her friends disappear and she doesn't know why. Would you say that's a pretty good explanation of it so far? Russell: Yeah. And every time they disappear, they leave behind a note or something that says, "Who is John Galt?" That's this theme throughout the book, is who is John Galt? Who is this John Galt person that makes all the producers disappear? Josh: And Dagny has no idea who John Galt is. Right? She doesn't even know, actually, for awhile that John Galt's actually even a real person. And so once she does find out that John Galt is probably a real person, John Galt becomes her sworn enemy because she doesn't know who he is or what he's doing. All she knows and all she associates with is that John Galt is taking away all these producers of society and is making her life harder because ... Imagine you being an entrepreneur and all of your entrepreneur friends that you buy stuff from and that you send all your people to, your referrals and everything, you buy all your supplies from, imagine they're all just disappearing and you think it's because of this one guy who's taking them all away and you don't know what's happening to them. Obviously, they'd become your sworn enemy. Josh: So for the first two thirds-ish of the book, that's kind of this premise of they're painting this really, really vivid story of the ... what are they called, the great thinkers of society? Yeah, the great minds of society, basically disappearing. And Dagny and ... there's a guy by the name of Hank Rearden, I think. Russell: Yeah, Rearden Steel. Josh: Rearden Steel, yeah. So Dagny and Hank Rearden are the two major ones left right before the big plot twist happens and you're like, "Oh," and then you get introduced to John Galt. I'm going to let you explain John Galt now. Russell: Oh, man. Okay. So that's the first two thirds of the book. By the way, there's movies. Don't watch them. They'll ruin the book. The movies were really bad. Josh: Yeah. Read the book. Russell: So two thirds into the book, she starts trying to figure out this mystery of who's John Galt. She ends up finding him and turns out that he has been going around and getting all these producers to go on strike, convinces them to, "Look, it's not worth fighting for anymore. All your incentives are gone. Let's leave. Let's go on strike," and they leave. And John Galt's trying to get her to leave and she's like, "I can't. I have to do everything in my power." The last third of the book is her leaving John Galt's presence and going back and trying to figure out how to do this thing as she's watching just government regulations getting harder, and harder, and harder, and harder to the point where everyone just has to disappear. Russell: But one of the things John Galt and the people say, "When the lights of New York go out, then we'll come back and we'll rebuild society from the ground up, after the looters and the people are gone." Josh: And that's basically how the books ends is lights of New York go out and then- Russell: For such a long book, all of a sudden it just ends and you're like, "Oh, I need one more chapter. Come on. Just end it." Josh: And we're never going to get it. Ah. Russell: Well, maybe I'll write it. Josh: Yeah. So that's the storyline of the book, but what I think we really both want to focus here is kind of the premises and the overarching ideas that the book presents, and capitalism versus socialism, and I think we'll talk religion and politics and kind of everything that’s in that, but I kind of want to, if it's all right with you, I kind of want to turn the conversation more towards us now and just kind of start geeking out just about that. Josh: So guys, we'll obviously go back and ... By the way, we want all your comments if you're ... Actually, comment below right now. Where are you watching? Are you watching it on YouTube? Are you watching it on Think Different Theory page or are you watching it on Russell's page? Comment down below because we went to multiple different locations. So we have a bunch of different people tuning in for everything. So just comment down below. Leave your comments, leave your questions, smash the like button, love button, share this out, and we're going to be here. Josh: All right, Russell. What's up? Russell: Hey, man. Josh: All right. Dude, I've been wanting to, and I hate this terminology, but just pick somebody's brain like yours for the longest time. And this book, oh, my gosh. So what do you like about the book? What was your favorite thing? Russell: Yeah. Well, let me tell the backstory. So 2008 is when the market crashed last time, right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I didn't realize that, that year, over 500,000 copies were sold organically by people talking to me about it, talking about, "Everything's she's prophesying is happening right now." And so, back then, I remember all my entrepreneur friends, like, "You have to read this book." It was the word-of-mouth buzz that sold 500,000 copies of a book has been ... The author died, whatever, 30 years earlier. There's not active marketing out there. It's crazy. And everyone's talking about it, like, "What's happening in this book is happening in 2008." And it was just this prophecy that was being fulfilled. Russell: And so everyone in 2008 was telling me to read this book. I remember buying it and I was like, "This is a really, really big book." And it took me awhile to get into it and I could never get into it. I read the first, I don't know, first 200 or 300 pages four or five times. And then, finally, this summer, one of my very first trips where I didn't bring a laptop since my marriage. So my wife is very proud of me. Josh: Dang. Russell: And so as I was leaving the office, I grabbed this book. And I picked it up and I was like, "I have no computer, but I've got this." And usually, I bring 20 books just because I know I'm going to read. I just brought one and I was like, "I'm going to do this. I'm going to be forced. I'm on a lake for a week and a half with my kids and all I can do is read this book." So I brought it, got the audiobook, as well. It's funny, I do the same. I listen to the audiobook and I read along so I can listen to it way faster, that way. And I started going through it. It took me a little while. She does such a good job of character development at the very beginning, it took awhile to get into it. Josh: Yeah, for sure. Russell: And then the story hits and then you're just like ... And you couldn't- Josh: It's like thing, after thing, after thing. It's so quick. Russell: Oh, yeah. And it got crazy. So for me, it was interesting because I think, if I would've listened to it 10 years ago or read it 10 years ago, I had never experienced any of the things they talk about in this book. Right? Josh: Now you don't have to worry about it. Yeah. Russell: Even better. I never experienced government regulations and things like that or just those kind of things. And as ClickFunnels has grown from me and Todd to our first member, to our first thousand, 10,000, 100,000 members, 400 ... I don't know how many employees, a lot, 400 plus employees. As it's grown, it's been crazy because you would think all we'd be focusing on here inside ClickFunnels is the next feature in the app, next thing. Russell: And there's the year where we had to spend an entire year just refactoring the software for GDPR compliance. We have regulations that come in on taxes and this. It's constant where most of the battles we fight at ClickFunnels right now is not about, how do we make this thing better for the customer? It's, how do we protect our customers from the government? It's crazy. And just so many regulations and things. Russell: And so I have been feeling this pressure. Some of you guys may have seen my interview I did with Tony Robbins ... not interview, but Tony Robbins did an intervention with me last year in Fiji. Josh: Yeah. That was fascinating, by the way. Russell: I'm so glad we captured that. It was a really cool moment in my life, but if you listen in there, I talked about ... He's like, "Well, what do you want to do?" And I was like, "I don't know, but the pressure ... I love the same, so I love everything I'm doing. I love the people we're serving, but there's these other pressures that aren't the game, that aren't the people, that they just get so heavy sometimes where it makes me want to just walk away." And again, as I'm reading this book- Josh: You hadn't read the book at the time. Russell: I hadn't read it yet. Josh: Yeah, okay. Russell: As I'm reading this, it's like- Josh: Did you know anything about the- Russell: I did not know the premise, no. Josh: You knew nothing. Okay, okay, okay. Russell: I didn't know what Atlas Shrugged meant. I was just like, "Oh, it's Atlas ..." I didn't know ... And it was like, when I read this title, like, "What would you tell Atlas if this was happening? Just shrug." And I was like, "Oh, that's why they called it Atlas Shrugged." And then I remember vividly feeling the pressure of this calling and how heavy it is. Russell: And there's so many times I wish, like, "Okay, sometimes it'd be so nice to walk away or to shrug or whatever." And so I instantly, with Dagny's character, I was like ... I feel that with Hank Rearden. I had so much empathy and understood their characters because I feel that so many times. Hank Rearden just wanted to invent his steel and put it out. That's all he cared about, right? For me, funnels are my art. I can't draw, but funnels, that's my art and entrepreneurship. That's my art. And so I just want to do my art. That's it. He just wanted to create steel. And it's all these other things and it's just like, "I just want to do my steel. I just want to do my art. Why do I have to deal with all this other stuff?" Russell: And so as I'm reading this, I just had so much empathy for the characters because I felt like I was the characters, even though it was weird because it's railroads and stuff like that and I'm internet, but I think that's why I really got into it. And then I got just curious, what happens? How does this story end? Be I'm in the middle of it. And depending who's listening, you may or may not have felt some of these pressures. As you grow, you feel them. Russell: It's interesting. As ClickFunnels has grown, we've talked about the pressure that I feel today would've crushed me five years ago. Right? And so you have to go through this thing where you build capacity to handle the next set of pressure, and build capacity, and build capacity. And nowadays, stuff happens daily that's just like, "Man, that would've destroyed me five years ago." Russell: And so I think, if you guys haven't felt that, as you grow, as you continue to try to get your message out and try to grow your businesses, whatever, the bigger you get, the more that pressure comes. Josh: Do you think…with that ... And I want to continue that because it's such a good conversation, but with the pressure, the things that are happening now daily that would've wrecked you five years ago or three years ago, whatever it was, do you think it's good, though, that they would've? Is it good that, at the capacity that you understood, that you took those things seriously then or would it have been better for you to just be in this mindset? I know it's not possible, but looking back, if you could snap your fingers and back then would've had the mental capacity to just ignore all those things and go up, would that've been a good thing? Or the fact that you went through all those things, does that help? Russell: The going through it is what makes you worthy of the things, right? Josh: Being able to… Russell: It makes you ready for it. Otherwise, just like lifting weights, if you try to squat 800 pounds, that's what it feels like. Right? Your legs buckle and you die, but because you went through that thing, you're able to have the capacity to hold the weight. Josh: Okay. Russell: Yeah. So anyways, the thing for me that was the big thing is reading this. And so I was just fascinated because I was like, "This is kind of my story. How does it end?" Josh: How long did it take you to get through it? Russell: I'd say about two months. I got a lot of it done on the boat, and then I got into biking for a little while, so I was listening to it while I was biking. Josh: That's right, I remember that. Russell: I just kept biking and biking, like, "One more chapter, one more chapter." I'm in really good shape because of it. It's funny because one of the premises ... And they don't say greed is good, but there's a chapter, I think it's called Greed. And I remember, if you guys have ever seen Wall Street, Gordon Gekko talks about, "Greed is good," and I never understood that premise. Right? In the book, they start talking about that, how greed is what drives this whole thing. Is it called Greed? Josh: I'm trying to find it. Russell: Utopia of Greed, yeah. Josh: And then Anti-Greed. So Utopia of Greed and then Anti-Greed. Russell: So what's interesting is ... because all of us are taught that greed is bad, right? That's just, like, you shouldn't be greedy. That's, I think, a principle that's instilled in most of us, but then I think about, for me, when I started this business, why did I start this business? I wanted to make money. That's greed, right? And you think about any of us, we go through a phase in all of our lives that greed is the driving factor. Right? When I wanted to become a good wrestler, I wanted to become a good wrestler. It was greedy. I went and got coaches and spent all my time and it was a very selfish time in my life. Not that it's bad, but it's a very greedy time. Right? Kids, when they're first born ... I love my kids. They are so ... not in a bad way, but they're greedy. It's about them. Right? Josh: Right. Russell: And it's this growth phase where growth ... You have to be greedy. You're in the growth phase. Right? When you're trying to learn, you're sucking things and you're learning and you're not contributing it. You're just learning, you're growing. And it was interesting because, as I'm going through this, I'm like, the greed is what got me into business. Right? And it's what got these things started and then the byproduct of that is jobs were created and things ... All the byproduct of it is ... I think, in the book, how it justifies it, Hank Rearden going after ... he wanted to build his steel and make a bunch of money, created tens of thousands of jobs and changed the world and changes all these things. Russell: And so the premise of the book is that greed is this driving force that gets you moving. And it is. If you think about any aspect of your life, from sports to education, to business, to everything, it starts with greed. Now, we'll go deeper into this. I don't want everyone to think that I'm just into this for the greed, because there's a transition point. We'll talk about it in a minute, but there's a transition point from growth to contribution that happens, but that's in the book where it starts talking about that. Russell: And I remember I was on the greenbelt here in Boise, riding my bike with James P. Friel, listening to that chapter. And I was trying to think, "Is this true? Did I get started because of greed?" And it's like, yeah, I didn't start a business because I wanted to change the world. Eventually, that happened, but it wasn't like it was ... Greed was the driving force that moved me forward. I think it moves all of us forward such a long time. And as I was listening as I'm riding my bike, I'm like, "Yes, I understand this," and the other half of me was like ... I started thinking about my spiritual upbringing. Right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: I'm very Christian. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints and I started thinking about Christ and his teachings, which are, honestly, the opposite of that. Right? It's like- Josh: Really the polar opposite. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Which it's funny, whenever you say that, people are like, "You know, Jesus was a socialist." I hear that a lot. I'm like, "You need to read the Bible." Anyway, but I think a lot- Russell: But he definitely is way more liberal leaning, 100%. Josh: Right, right. And I think that that's where Republicans, conservative, traditionally on that side of the aisle, fiscally Republicans get into trouble is where we're like, "Yeah, we're Christians, but we also want to get rich," and they never talk about all this other ... People like to use Christianity, I feel like, when it's convenient. Russell: We call it cafeteria Christians. Josh: Right. Russell: They pick and choose the things off the menu they want. Josh: Right. And then they go through and do it. So I definitely want to dive further into that, but continue that. Russell: Yeah. So that started this question in my head, though, of just, so is greed bad then or is it good or where does it fit in the whole grand scheme of things? Because it is something that's instilled in all of us from birth. Right? When you're born, you're a baby, if you didn't have greed, you would just die. Right? It's me. I need food, I need love, I need shelter. It makes you cry, which creates people coming to you. Greed is a driving force that's instilled in humans from birth, right? When we come here, greed is what helps us survive the first part of our life. Russell: And first, I was having this conundrum. I'm just like, "God, is this book evil? I don't know what to do with myself." Right? But all good things in my life that happened happened initially because the seed of greed started me on motion, started me in momentum. And then I started thinking, if you've read the Expert Secrets book, which- Josh: If you haven't, come on. Russell: If you haven't, you must hate money. Come on. No, but in the beginning of Expert Secrets book, I talk about this concept, as well, where as an expert, there's two phases to go through. The first is a growth phase. Right? I want to be an expert in whatever. You go through and you're a consumer, consuming everything. And that's greed, right? And then there's this transition point where, eventually, you keep trying to grow, grow, grow, grow, trying to learn everything, going there. I'm listening to all the podcasts, I'm reading all the books, I'm growing, growing, growing. And eventually, there's this point. I remember feeling it in multiple parts of my life. In wrestling, I felt it. In business, I felt it where you can't continue ... The ability to grow through consumption slows to almost a halt where you can't continue to grow. Right? Russell: I've shared this story. I think I shared it in the book with wrestling. I was a really good wrestler. I was a high school state champ. I took second place in the nation. I was an All-American. And my senior year, I got invited to go to a wrestling camp. My coach was like, "Hey, do you want to come coach wrestling this summer?" And I was like, "Why would I do that? What's in it for me?" Josh: Before you go on here, I want to ask you something. So you're riding your bike, wrestling with this whole greed thing. Is this the first time that you've thought about greed in this way? Russell: 100%. Josh: And this is, what, six months ago? Russell: Not even that. Maybe four months ago. Josh: So you've built most of what ClickFunnels is today and now this is the first time you're really sitting down and wrestling with this idea of greed and is it bad, is it good, what's the balance there and stuff like that? Russell: Yeah. Josh: That's fascinating. Russell: Yeah. It never crossed my mind, really. And then it became this thing where it bothered me because I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. I don't want to be a greedy person." You know what I mean? Josh: Right. Russell: I'm like, "I don't feel like I am," but I was stuck. I couldn't figure that out. Right? And so I'll rewind to the wrestling story because I think it will set it up. Josh: Yep. Russell: But my senior year, again, I'd been growing as a wrestler. I was going to camps. I was getting coaching. I was greedy. I was sucking up everyone's brainpower I could and I became a really good wrestler because of it. And then my coach asked me to go coach a wrestling camp. So I say yes, go to the wrestling camp, and I remember he's like, "Okay, I need you to teach ..." My best move… I'm really good at tilts. So for all the wrestlers out there, I'm really good at cheap tilts. And he's like, "Teach these kids how to do a cheap tilt." Russell: And I was like, "Okay." So I walk out, there are like 30 kids. I'm like, "Yeah, you do this. You just do it like that." And they all look at me and they go try and they try to do a cheap tilt and they all just fall apart. I'm like, "Are you guys dumb? This is not that hard." I'm like, "Come back in, come back in. No, you did it all wrong. This is how you do it." I show them again, like, "Go do it." They go back out, nobody can do it. Russell: And then, all of a sudden, I'm like, "Gosh, they're missing something. What is it?" So I have them come back in and I start breaking down, "Hey, for the move to work, your hips have to be here, your legs have to be here." I start walking through all the things. And as I'm doing that, I start realizing, "Oh, the season why I'm able to do this is because of this," and I started realizing what I was doing as I was teaching people. And as I taught it to people, then the kids started doing it and they got better and better. And all of a sudden, I started realizing, "Oh, my gosh. This move works because of this." Russell: And now that I was aware of the situation, now I was able to make these tweaks and stuff on my own. And I realized that, but coaching the kids, that was the next-level growth. It was a shift from selfish greed growth to contribution. So that's why I started coaching camps every year and that's why I went from slowing down my progression to, all of a sudden, it sped back up again by shifting from growth to contribution. Okay? Russell: And so I think the same thing happens in business, right? I got in business because that seed of greed is in us. It gets us moving, gets us in the momentum. And some people never get out of that. Some people live their entire lives chasing greed and they die and it's a tragedy, but I think for most people, there's this transition point. And I don't know where it happens. It happens different spots for everyone where, all of a sudden, you realize ... you make the money, you started the business, and you realizing how unfulfilling that is. You're tapping out. You're like, "I'm not growing anymore. I thought I wanted money, but I don't. I want growth. That's what we're here on this planet for, is to grow as humans. Right? Russell: You don't get that and, all of a sudden, you realize money's not fulfilling and then you start seeing the other people you're contributing to and you're helping. Then it shifts to ... We hear people talk about, "This is about impact, about growth, it's about helping other people," and that's that transition. That's charity, love. That's pure love of Christ. It's that transition, but greed is the seed that gets us moving, right? And so there's this handoff. It doesn't happen all the time. And are you guys cool if I share scripture stuff? Because- Josh: 100%. Russell: -all this stuff is scriptural. It's not just- Josh: They don't get to decide, Russell. I get to decide. It's my podcast. You can talk about whatever. Russell: If you hate scripture, just close your ears and go, "Blah, blah, blah." So I wrote down some scripture. This is a scripture because it illustrates this point. I think it's so good. Josh: Also, I just want to say, Russell Voxed me and he said that this is the first episode of a podcast that he's ever prepared for. When you said that, I'm like, "Ha! I was the first for something for Russell. Let's go." Russell: I want to be ready. Okay. So this is a scripture. It says, "For the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam and will be forever and ever." I'm going to stop right there. Okay. So natural man is an enemy to God. Why is that? We're born. We have this greed inside of us, so the natural human is the enemy of God because we're chasing after greed. Right? But God gives us that seed because it creates momentum. It creates motion. It creates us doing something. Right? Russell: And then it says in here, it says, "For the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam, will be forever and ever," and then this is the transition point, "unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit." So he's greedy forever, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and puteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ, the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." Russell: So growth is the seed. It's the natural man. It's the thing we have that's ... It's good, right? God gives it to us because it gets us to do stuff, gets us to learn, gets us to not die in our crib because we need love and attention and to get fed. Right? So then it gets us off our butts, off the couches, us being producers that gets us moving. And if we're not careful, though, the natural man will destroy us. You see so many people who made tons of money and they destroyed themselves in their lives because they don't do that second thing, which is, "Unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit." Russell: That's the thing saying this is not about money, this is about the impact. Look at the people you're changing. And it shifts, right? If you make that shift, all of a sudden, now this thing you’re creating is not about greed, it's like, "Oh, my gosh ..." I remember, for ClickFunnels, when I had that transition was when I started seeing Brandon and Kaelin Poulin. I started seeing the ripple effect of their business. And I can name hundreds of people, person, after person, after person. Russell: I was like, "This isn't about money. This is about the ripple effect of what we've created in each person's life." Now, that's charity. That's love. Now the mission isn't about money. We don't care about the money. We keep score with money, but that's the mission, is the people's lives and the impact. And I think that's that transition where greed is the thing that gets us moving, but if we don't have that ... Russell: I think that's happened in the book. We talked about it. You said this at my house earlier, like, "A lot of people in the book seem like they have a miserable life." And it's like, yeah, because they never yielded to the spirit. They never made that shift. It was all greed to the point where they let everything collapse as opposed to the charity side of things. Josh: Yeah. So one of the things about the book ... And I'm sitting on the plane on the way over here and I'm like, "How do I articulate this?" Because that's always the hardest thing. You have this idea in your head and you're like, "How do I get it out and explain it in a way that somebody else can be like, 'Yes, I understand that?'" I'm going to go kind of political here for a second. I'm going to bring it back, too, specifically to the book. So I am pretty vocally a conservative. Right? I'm a blatant Trump supporter, very much so conservative when it comes to everything fiscal, but I call myself a libertarian because I actually think that I lean left on a lot of social issues. I think the government should stay out of gay marriage. Right? There's a lot of things that I lean left on, but when it comes to money and finances and things like that, I lean to the right. Josh: But the reason I lean to the right and I typically go with the right is because I like what the left is trying to do in concept. It's like, okay, there's a bunch of people that are really truly in need. I agree. We need to help them. The problem is is that the way they go about doing it, I so radically disagree with it. It's against everything that I stand for. Right? I'm like, it's not that I disagree with what you want to do, it's I disagree with how you want to do it. Josh: What's interesting is I feel like, in this book, I feel like it's the opposite. I actually don't agree with why they're doing it. This concept of ... I mean, Hank Rearden says it over and over again, "Everything that I do is for profit." That is it. Even to his friends. He took a bullet for John Galt, right? He gets shot. And John Galt thanks him for it. He goes, "You know I only did it because it's what I wanted to do, right?" Literally saves a guy's life. Josh: So it's all about what he wants and only for him and that's it. And it's profit and money and dollars. It's not about everything that he helps. And I'm like, I disagree with that premise, but what that leads to, I actually do like. And I feel like it's flipped compared to the world I'm living in now. Half the stuff that the Democrats ... I hate to… oh I want to go into politics so bad… Russell: Left and right. Josh: Yeah, the left. Guys, we're going to say left and right. Generalized here, right? Oh, my god, but generally speaking. And so when it comes to the whole greed issue, I'm like ... It's interesting to hear your perspective because I never, even throughout the book, I'm like, "Greed is a bad thing." And hearing your perspective, I'm like, okay, I understand what you're saying, but is it greed or is there some other driving ... If I were to ask you a year ago ... When were you in the heart of ClickFunnels, like a year and a half ago, two years? There was a time of your life when all you ... I know all you do is ClickFunnels, but when- Russell: It's the last six years of my life. Josh: But you know what I mean? Wasn't there a year or two period in there, in the growth phase, where 100% of everything you do was just ClickFunnels, ClickFunnels, ClickFunnels. It felt like you were going nonstop. It feels like you're a little bit more balanced now. Maybe not, but from the outside perspective looking in, it does. Anyway, during that time of growing ClickFunnels, before you read that, would you have described yourself as greedy? Russell: No. Josh: What would you have described yourself as? What's the word? Russell: I don't know. That's a good question. I was always trying to create stuff. It's art for me, right? So it's like I was trying to create stuff. I think, initially, I was creating for myself as opposed to, "Oh, my gosh. I create this for myself, but look what happens to the people." Josh: What point was that shift for you, though? Russell: You can see it in my marketing, by the way. And by the way, for those who are greedy capitalists who only care about money, it actually is a better marketing way, too. My marketing went from- Josh: For all you greedy capitalists out there, switch to being a contributor, you’ll make more money. Russell: Well, think about it. My marketing is always like, "Here's Russell. Here's how much money my funnel made. Here's how much ..." It was me talking about me all the time. And then I realized, "Who cares about me? I don't care about me. Let me show you what this person ... Let me show you all the results of the people we're serving, what's happening there," which first off, is better marketing and, second off, it's that transition where I was literally like, "Everything I've accomplished is stupid. What they're doing, that's the real ... What we're doing, that's the thing that's amazing." Right? That's the spiritual side of it. That's the thing where it's like, the thing that got you into motion now is doing good in the world. And when you start seeing that, it's like, oh, my gosh. That's so much more fulfilling and so much more exciting. Russell: And people ask me, "The last six years, why'd you keep getting up? Do you need more money?" I'm like, "No, that's not what keeps me up," but I can tell you 100 stories of people who ... literally the ripple effect of how many lives they've changed because I did my thing. Right? We made a documentary of the Two Comma Club and Jamie Cross has this whole part there where she's bawling her eyes out and she said, "Where would my family be if Russell wouldn't have fulfilled his God-given calling?" And every time I see that, I start bawling, myself. That's why, eventually, you start doing it. Right? Josh: But when did that shift happen? Russell: I don't know. It wasn't a day that it happened. The energy of it shifted. Right? I don't know. It gradually kind of happened. Josh: What's that? Dave: Tell them about your dad. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Dave, come on in. Dave's here. Dave, take the mic. Here. Dave: Yeah. No, honestly, I think… this has been one of those things. It's been fun for me to watch Russell from the sidelines here. I think, honestly, it was your dad's 60th birthday. Josh: Which was how long ago? Dave: I don't even know. Russell: Three, four years ago probably. Dave: But it was the reflection on that and it was the difference from having your hand raised versus ... because I remember you… Russell: Yeah, you want me to tell that story? Dave: Russell is a much better storyteller. I'll seed the thought, but I'll let him finish. Russell: All right. Josh: Oh, thank you Dave. Russell: Thank you. Interesting. Josh: Guys, we have a live audience here. Russell: So yeah, my dad turned 60 and we have our little family reunion every year we do. And so it was during his birthday. And I remember my mom gave him $60, six $10 bills. And so she gave them to him one at a time and said, "Okay, the first decade was one to 10. Tell us something you remember about that." He's like, "I don't remember anything back then." The second one, he's like, "10 to 20, that's when I was a wrestler. It was so much fun for me." And then, 20 to 30, he was like, "Okay, that's when I was starting my business, trying to figure things out and trying to get our family stable." 30 to 40, "That's when my kids were wrestling and I was coaching them." And then 50 to 60, he kind of went through everything. Russell: And then, after it was done, I asked him, I said, "Well, Dad, of all the decades, what one was the best for you?" Thinking, in my world, the best was going to be when he was a wrestler because I was like, for me, the greatest part of my life was when I was wrestling. And my dad said, "The greatest decade was when I got to coach you." I forgot that story until Dave said that, but I remember coming back and telling Dave and other people that I always thought the best part was being the all star. For my dad, the best part was coaching other people and seeing their hand raised. Josh: That was a good interjection there, Dave. Huh. Russell: …which was really cool. Learn more about your ad choices. 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It has been a few years since this episode was first released, but I still feel that the message is important today. Enjoy this special episode from the archive! 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 to Marketing Secrets. I mentioned a little while ago how I hired a new coach, and it’s been really, really good. He’s one of the main guys over at The One Thing, his name is Jeff. It’s interesting because I read The One Thing book a while ago and I remember, I think when I read it I didn’t like it. I think at the time we had just launched 12 companies in a year. And I was bitter against it, but everyone kept recommending it to me. That book and the Essentials came out at similar times and everyone was like, “you gotta read them.” So I read them both and I was just like, “They want me to focus on one thing. I hate that idea.” So I kind of didn’t like the books. And fast forward to last week, I just kind of got back into it in the last week. I went and listened to a bunch of podcasts from The One Thing, I started re-reading the book, I got the main dude coaching me Monday mornings and it’s really, really cool. What’s interesting is, since he started coaching me, I’ve had this big epiphany, big aha, big realization inside, and then as I’ve been coaching the inner circle the last two days, I’m watching the people who are leveling up really, really quickly and there’s a consistent theme behind all the people who are growing fast versus who…..everyone’s growing, but the ones who are really quick. It’s interesting thing, it’s funny, the thing that I got in my coaching session was, it came back to Steven R. Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which I read back in high school. It was start with the end in mind. It’s been interesting, as I’ve been going through the coaching stuff. Man the first, it feels like it’s been like a month because I move pretty quick on stuff. But the first exercise he had me do was figure out, what is your someday goal? Where do you want to be someday? So it’s not like 5 years from now, or 10 years, like in the future, where is it you really want to go?  It’s been interesting as I’ve kind of done this exercise, I can walk you guys through what it is, but it’s morphed, 3 or 4 times to radically different things and I one of the big aha’s I realized when I went through this exercise is that literally my someday goal, I achieved it like 18 months ago. So the last 18 months I’ve been wandering without really a focus or a goal other than just more, which is interesting. So he’s had me keep focusing, what’s your someday goal? Begin with the end in mind. What are we trying to get to? So I figured out initially, here’s my someday goal, and someday goal can be about your business, you personally, your relationships, your spirituality, whatever you’re trying to figure out for yourself. Then he came back and said, “Okay, what do you have to had accomplished within 5 years to keep you on track for your someday goal?” So I was like, “Okay well, to have that I need to have this in place, these things need to be in place in the next 5 years.” And he came back and said, “Okay, what do you need within a year to be able to hit your 5 year goal? And what do you need by the end of this year to hit your one year goal? And what do you need by the end of this week to hit your yearend goal? Or your month goal?” So as you do this it’s interesting because you start getting more and more clear on all the steps. It was funny because it was like, as I did that, as I identified, had the end in mind, I started going back forward and I got to the things I needed to do. I looked at my to-do list and none of the things on my to-do list actually got me any closer to my someday goal. All the sudden I realized that I’m doing all these to-do’s that are good, they make me feel good, I check off the box, but none of them are actually moving me towards what I’m really wanting. I was like, well what’s the one thing I need to do today that’s going to help me hit my goal for the end of this week, which will hit my goal for the end of the month, blah blah, blah, all the way to the thing. And as I started asking those questions it blew my mind what the one thing was that I needed to focus on. It was not by any stretch what I thought it was going to be, what I assumed was the most important thing. And after this exercise he wanted me to come back and refine it and change things. So I kept getting….my someday goal changed three or four times and I started realizing as I was looking at that, it took me a while to figure it out. In fact, I still don’t know if I have it completely figured out. But the message I want to share with you guys is just that. Beginning with the end in mind. Again, the inner circle members having the most success is because they have a very clear end in mind. What is it they are trying to accomplish? And from there it’s easy to reverse engineer the funnels and make that happen. People who are struggling, they’re building funnels to be able to sell a product or a service, not with the end in mind. Does that make sense? It’s a little intricacy, but it’s interesting. I’ve had this really cool experience over the last two days, to kind of reflect I’m listening to all my entrepreneurs talk and teach and share what they’re doing and really start thinking more and more, what is the end? I need to know really clearly for my business, I need to begin with the end in mind. Or is my goal to get people in Clickfunnels? Is my goal to get people in Two Comma Club Coaching? Is my goal to get people into Inner Circle?  What is the actual end goal? As soon as you identify it, that becomes the end goal and it becomes easy to see, well if that’s it, here are the funnels I need to reverse engineer to get people so that they will come up into that thing. For example, Dean Holland, he’s been in my inner circle for 3 years now. He basically over the last few months shut his entire company down and rebuilt it from the ground up but this time with a definite, very clear end in mind. This is where I’m trying to go. Because of that built out the funnels very simply in order, he launched and in the first 28 days built up $106,000 recurring income. Just because he began with an end in mind. So I think most of us, including me. I’m guilty of this as well, that’s been my big thing for the last 2 days, what’s the end goal. From a business standpoint, from a life standpoint, but also the customer journey, the value ladder. I talk a lot about in the Dotcom Secrets book, this value ladder, taking somebody through. But I would say even my value ladder isn’t completely clearly defined. It’s morphed and changed so much and I’m really coming back now and figuring that out. Dana Derricks when he was doing his presentation he was talking about his big aha. He said that us as creators want to keep creating and creating and creating. He said because of that, “If I look at my value ladder it kind of goes up a little and then it splits off in three different places. Some of those go up and some don’t and it gets really mushy really quick.” He realized he had to clearly define the value ladder. We’re going from here to here to here. So now he’s beginning with the end in mind. And what he said was interesting. It’s was funny because it’s something that I, a recurring thought I’ve had in my mind as well. Okay, I can’t keep creating new stuff that just spurts off my value ladder and shifts people all over the place. If I need to get my creative juices out there and just create something, the things I create need to be on the front end of the value ladder. They should only be free plus shipping or they should only be low ticket things to get somebody in, but the back of the value ladder should never shift, never change. That should be just a thing that’s there. And man, I just resonate with that. I was like, okay I obviously have my value ladder, I’ve got things in place, but I need to really specify this is the path, the process, the order and then just focus on the front end stuff. So it’s exciting. The last thing I wanted to kind of say is, again so many of us start our business like, here’s a product and we start building funnels based on that product. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s how most people do it. It’s how I’ve done it a lot of times. Because of that, I think we get lost in the weeds of where we’re trying to go and often times we never get there because we don’t know where we’re going. And again, as I’ve been working with my coach on this, which has been really fun. It’s been cool because I’m clearly defining my someday goal, clearly defining the end and then from there I can reverse engineer all the pieces I need to make that happen. I think the same thing is true with funnels. It’s just begin with the end in mind. What’s the top of the value ladder? Where do you really want to take people? Figure that out and then reverse engineer, to do that here are the funnels I need. You got a path and a process. Anyway, it’s exciting. I love it. I love this game. I love my entrepreneurs. I love the inner circle. I love all of you guys. I love Clickfunnels. I’m having the time of my life. And hopefully, also I’m helping. I’m doing my best. It’s funny, I was reading, somebody I care about wrote a really cool post about what we do. And I was reading it and in the comments 3 or 4 people who were like, “I just don’t like Russell. I can’t connect with him. I don’t like his energy. I don’t like…” Whatever. It just kills me. It’s tough because I’m always trying to give and serve and do whatever I can and I hate when I don’t connect with everybody. But that’s okay as well. Hopefully my message gets to you and you’re able to take whatever it is you share out to people. And people connect with you, people I would never connect with. Hopefully you can connect with them and change them. So that’s one of my goals. Hopefully I connect with you and if I do, that’s the key. Take your energy, get out there, share your message with other people and change the world the way you can. Because unfortunately not everyone is always going to like me. And that’s the same for you. Not everyone’s going to like you. But the people who do, they’ll hear your voice and they’ll come to you and you’ll be able to help them and serve them and it’ll make the quality of their life so much better, which in return will make the quality of your life so much better. So that’s all I got tonight you guys. Appreciate you all, see you guys soon. Bye. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I got a text message from my buddy, who reminded me how easy it is to change our circumstances if we really want to. 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. Today I want to talk about change. Hey everyone, so I'm actually right now in Atlanta, Georgia, or a suburb nearby, hanging out with my co-founder. My favorite people on this planet, Todd Dickerson, who's the genius who built ClickFunnels. And right now we are in a secret retreat away from everybody planning the future of ClickFunnels. And it is good. It is bright. It is exciting. But anyway, we're at his Lake house and looking over the Lake and just hanging out this morning. We had elections a couple of days ago. At the time I'm recording this still chaos, no one knows who's going to win. And I'm not going to talk about that because I don't really want to put brainpower into something I can't control. So I want to focus on things I can control, which is looking at my company, what can I do? How can I make things better? And how can I serve at a higher level? So that's what we've been focusing on. And from those questions come really good conversations. But I actually had something, a text message I got from my buddies, which was really cool. So the way I met this guy, he's actually a jiu jitsu black belt. He lives here in Boise. And I don't know if I told you this story before, but I'm a wrestler. I grew up as a wrestler. I was a good wrestler, was a state champion, I took second place in the country in high school. Started ranking top 10 in college. And I was a good wrestler. And I remember, I always assumed, because I was a good wrestler I could beat almost anyone in fight. Right? So then fast forward, one day I'm on an airplane and flying home. And one of my old wrestling buddies is on the plane. I hadn't seen him in like 10 years. And he was like, "Dude, you should come do jiu jitsu." And he's actually a really big jiu-jitsu fighter now, which is cool, but he was like "You should come to jiu jitsu." I'm like, "I don't know jiu jitsu." He's like, "Dude, it's like wrestling for old fat guys." And I was like, "Sweet. I'm in." And he says "There's a tournament this Friday, you should come to it." So I go to this tournament. The night before, literally we went to a wrestling room we had access to, one of my buddies who I talked into going to the tournament with me, he watched a couple of YouTube videos about how to wrestle cheat or fight jiu jitsu and he tried to teach me a couple of things. The next day we showed up and we were not jiu jitsu fighters, right? So I show up to this tournament and I go out there, and I put my little gi on, and I don't know what I'm doing. And all I know, they taught me is "Hey, if you just take it like wrestling, and if you put your knee on their belly, you get four points." And I was like "Four points? That's so easy." So I just go out there and I was like, boom, double A, the guy I slam him on the ground, put money on his belly and get four points. I'm like, "This is amazing." And I let them go, do it again. And I do it three or four times. I'm just destroying this guy. And all of a sudden he reaches up to my gi, grabs my little collar and he crosses across my neck. And I don't know what's happening. All I know is that the blood to my brain stops going into my brain and this dark circle from the outside ... if anyone's ever been choked out you've seen before. It's like the circle from the outside starts coming in, and the world around you is getting smaller, smaller, until all of the sudden this dark circle is collapsing, collapsing. And everything's about to go out. And then I look up and I see my coach, my buddy, tapping his hand like "Tap you idiot." And I'm like, "Oh," so I tap my hand. The guy lets go of my thing and blood comes back to my brain, the little circle expands again. I can see the world. I was like, "Whoa, that was horrible." Right? So I go to my next match, same thing happens. Take them down, boom, knee on belly, knee on belly, four points. Take them down. Boom, knee on belly, take them down. Reaches up, grabs my thing, and somehow chokes me out. I'm like "This sport sucks." I was like "I hate this." Right? And then after that two matches with gi, and then two matches with no gi, which is basically shorts and a T-shirt, right? So I did that, and I had a little better cause there's no collar for people to choke me out on. Same thing though, I’m beating the guys, beating the guys, and then, for those who know jiu jitsu, twice I took the guy down, got overextended, I didn't know about posture. So I broke posture, guy puts me in a triangle lock, chokes me out twice. I got choked out four times in one day for never doing jiu jitsu. And I still remember all the people that I wrestled, that I did jiu jitsu with, they were all so weak. They were soft. They're all white belts. They're so easy to pick up and slam down, and all this stuff, but they just had the ability to reach up and choke me out. Cause I didn't know what I was doing. Right? And I remember that day being like ... actually this trainer came over to me, one of the coaches came over. He's like "Are you a wrestler?" I'm like, "Yeah. Can you tell?" He's like "Triangle locks are kryptonite for wrestlers. You guys all break posture." I'm like, "Okay." So I get on the mat. I'm like, "All right, I got to learn jiu jitsu." Cause I assumed that anyone ... not everybody, but for the most part, if I met someone on the street I could just beat them all up. Right? And all of the sudden I realized that these little wussy white belts were choking me out. I was like, I don't know what I don't know. And I do not like this feeling. So I have to learn how to not get choked out. So I did what Russell Brunson does, and I did not go to a class. I found out who's the best person in Boise. Called them up, said "Can I take privates with you?" And then twice a week for the next two years I went and did private lessons with this guy. I went into three or four more tournaments, after I learned how to not get choked out it got real easy to beat everybody. Basically white belt level, blue belt level. And it was really fun, did it for two years and then ClickFunnels became ClickFunnels and my free time shrunk. So I haven't done it in a while, but really enjoyed it. So the guy who was my trainer, he's awesome. And after doing jiu jitsu stuff for a while, he ended up getting some other job. I don't know what it was, but I had a sense when I talked to him every once in a while, that he didn't love it. But he was doing it and whatever, right? So then this last week I see him posting on Facebook. He's opening a new restaurant, this new ... I'm not sure exactly what it is, I'm going to go when I get back from Atlanta. But it's a juice place or something, and it's all healthy stuff. And he's a vegetarian I know. So it's all these ... anyway, I'm pumped. I'm excited to go check it out. Right? And I text him like "Dude, did you open a restaurant?" And he texted me back. He said, "Yeah, man." He's like, "I didn't like where I was at. And since I'm not a tree I left." That was his response. At first I started laughing, and then I started thinking how profound that was. And how most people do not look at it that way. Okay? So like he said, "Yeah, I didn't like where I was at." He didn't like his existing circumstances. He's like, "I'm not a tree, so I'm not rooted in and stuck. And so I got up and I left." Right? And I started thinking about me, and you, and all of us. And it's like, how many times are we not happy in our circumstances? And instead, we think we're a tree. We're like, "Well, this is the hand I was dealt." This is the whatever, right? This is where I am right now. And we're frustrated, right? But that's kind of what we do. And I think the lesson here for all of us is, we're not a tree. So if you're not happy, get up and leave. If you're not happy with your job, get up and leave. You're unhappy with your business get up and leave. You're not happy with your customers, change it. Right? I know we know this, it's funny cause I remember ... very first time, if you've read the DotCom Secrets book, I tell this story at the very beginning of the DotCom Secrets book where I woke up one day and I realized I hated my business. I hated the customers I was serving. And I was like, "I wish I had a boss that would fire me." And about that time I remember seeing a video, it was New Year's time. And Tony Robinson's wife, Sage, put out a video. I believe they were in Fiji at the time. And she said, "You know, it's New Year's, and obviously we can all change anytime we want. But for some reason we give ourselves permission during the New Year to change." So I want to give you guys permission, if you're unhappy in a relationship, then change. If you're not happy in business, then change. She named five or six ... not happy with your weight, change. You're not happy with your whatever, change. And I remember thinking, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I could just change." And it was just a thing ... I don't know, we get our heads so much, like "This is the reality, this is what we have to be doing," it's like, "No, you don't actually have to, you could just change." You know? And like my friend Jason said, "I'm not a tree. So I got up and I left," right? If you're not a tree, you have the ability to change. You can get up and you can change your circumstances. And so right now, just in the season of ... I know the last 10 months of 2020 has been hard for everybody. The elections have been hard for everybody. All these things have been hard for everybody. I think that the biggest thing I would say is right now, looking at yourself personally, looking at your family, look at the people you have stewardship over, and saying, "Look, if I don't like this, I can change." And then give yourself the ability to it. Just like my buddy, Jason, like "I wasn't happy and I'm not a tree. So I got up and I left." That's it. You guys can do the same thing as well. Change is possible. You just got to be willing to do it. So remember that, you guys. You're not a tree, you don't have roots going 20 feet down. You can get up and you can leave. And so that's what you should do. But that said, I appreciate you guys all, thanks so much for listening, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please take a screenshot on your phones, wherever you're listening, and tag me. Post it on Facebook or Insta, and tag me on it. I love seeing those. I love seeing your big takeaways, your ah-ha’s. I appreciate it. Thanks guys so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I want to make an amendment to all my talks about finding your voice.Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’m in the middle of changing my office. Let me tell you why and what it’s going to hopefully do for me. 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 welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Are you guys pumped for today? I hope you are. I am. I came in the office today and I looked around at my environment and I was like, "These are the same walls, the same everything I've been looking at now for a long time. And I want to make a change." And so that's what happened today. I'm going to tell you why and what it looks like now. All right, everybody. So I'm not going to lie. Today, I came in and I was just frustrated at a lot of things. I was like, "You know what I need? I need a new view of the world." And so I literally came in and I started ripping things off my desk, moving monitors, shifting things around, moving my computers, moving my desk, just getting a whole new perspective on the world. And I'm about halfway through it now that my whole office is a nightmare. It was really clean a few minutes ago, but now it's a nightmare. But I want to share it with you because I remember I had one of my first mentors, Matt Furey, when I was getting into this game. I started studying because I wanted to learn marketing. And then, lo and behold, he was sneaky and started slipping in all this personal development stuff, which was so good for me. But I remember, and I'm probably going to say this wrongly, this is back on an old CD that I bought from him, way back in the day. So I couldn't even re-find this if I wanted to. But the principle, I remember in my head, he talked about just the power. I believe he married someone who is Chinese and so he studies tons of deep Chinese philosophies and principles and things like that. And I remember him talking about any room, there's an energy. There's energy in the room. He's like, "If you want to change the energy, change the room." If you're not feeling the vibe you want or the energy you need to be able to produce or to work or think or whatever, he's like, "Literally just change your desk. Move a plant." It physically changes the energy of the room. Move a picture, move your monitor, move your desk. Just shift things up. I just change things and it'll change the energy of the room and how you produce and how you do everything. I think that the layout of my office has been good. It's been through a lot of wars. I think that I even beat up a lot recently and it's just like, "You know what? I need a change." I looked at everything from different perspective and different ideas. And so that's what I'm doing. And so literally, all these things I was so proud of, I remember four or five years ago I moved into this office, like these big, huge monitors and just all this stuff is just being shredded apart. And I'm move everything, changing everything to change my environment so I can work better. So want you think about for yourself right now. Think about, and this could be any part of your life. It could be your personal life, your business, you whatever. And in fact, it's interesting. There's a book by Ben Hardy called Willpower Doesn't Work. Sorry, this is a squirrel tangent, but it's important. So in the Willpower Doesn't Work he talked about how, you look at how people change things in life. They try to quit smoking, start making more money, all these things. And they have tried willpower. "If I just do this thing for 30 days, it will clear the habit." Or whatever. They're trying to force things through willpower. And I remember the premise of the book is that basically it didn't matter how much willpower you had, you always would relapse back. He said, the only thing that caused sustainable change in people over time was, can you guess? A change of environment. You change the environment, which then makes the habits all easy. And that was the secret, literally moving, physically shifting your body or your environment, changing things around you. So that could be used at a big scale where you're like, "I'm going to move to a different city." That's going to change things. If you're around a bad group of people and it's easy to keep falling in your bad habits, if you literally physically moved to some other state or different place, that could cause the shift in the energy that you need to make the change. Or, if you're like me, sitting in an office where you just need something, physically shifting the things will change the environment which just now makes it easier to have willpower and have the things you need to be able to be successful. So, again, coming back to what I was talking about before, is for you, start thinking about in your personal life and your business and your work environment in your family and your house, wherever. If things are stuck or stagnant, can you just radically shift things around? What would happen if you did that? What would it look like? What would you change? What would you move? And what would be the outcome you're hoping for? I'm hoping for me just to have more energy. I've tried for the last four days to get this project done. I keep coming in and I just can't get it done. I think it's because I'm just stuck in this rut of that I'm just not happy. I need to shift everything. So we shift everything. And now, well, I'll find out a little later on today if I'm able to be in a state where I can get work done. The energy is different, the feeling is different. Now I can start running. And so that's my game plan. So I want to show you guys right now is I'm in the middle of this cleaning. And Michael, I want to stop for a minute because I've been cleaning and moving things for an hour and a half. And I was like, "I need something to break the energy." So I'm going to do it the podcast on this, but I want to give you guys permission to make that change in your home office or say your home bedroom. Move your bed to the other wall. Or, in your office, move the desk to a different wall and get a new computer. Throw your old on away. Rip the wallpaper off the wall. Get a family picture and move it. Whatever it takes, try that and feel the energy of the room change and see how it affects you. And keep doing it until you feel like you're in a spot, in a state where it's like, "Okay, I can get stuff done. I'm actually having success now." All right. This is a short one, but I think you guys got the gist. I appreciate you all. Thanks for listening. And I'll talk to you soon. Bye everybody. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recently I had a friend pass away, and I was grateful to be able to visually see the ripple effect that his life had on the world.Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here’s a cool case study of a band that performed a concert every single day for a year. Listen to this episode to find out what happened to them and how this relates to you. 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 Seekers Podcast. I want to share with you guys what I consider an insane case study that isn't necessarily from the business world, but it's following a business principle that I talked about all the time, and it happened for a little band. So with that said I'm going to cue up the theme song. When I come back I'm going to share with you guys the story about Jim and Sam. All right, so as you guys know I've been talking about publishing for years about the power of it and why we should be publishing daily, and I remember at one of our Two Comma Club X events I made a statement, I said to everyone in the audience, "If you will publish every single day for a year by the end of the year I am convinced you'll be financially free," and I think a lot of people looked at me and said, "Cool." Some people said there's no way, and very few people actually did it. People have and those people insanely enough are having a lot of success right now. So anyways, I still stand by that. You pick where you're going to publish at and do it every single day for a year you should be successful because a couple things are going to happen. Number one, it will give you a chance and give you time to find your voice. And number two, it gives your audience enough time to come and find you, right? And so, that's kind of the reason behind it. And so, what's cool is this morning Brandon Fisher who's one of the guys here on my team that does our all our video stuff he sent me this trailer, and I haven't watched the documentary of it. I watched the trailer this morning, and it was amazing, so I highly recommend it. If you go to wearejimandsam.com you can go and watch the trailer for this documentary called After So Many Days. And so, I didn't know why he sent it to me, so I clicked play, and in this minute and 50 trailer for this documentary it tells a story about a couple, newlyweds named Jim and Sam, who've been trying for a decade to hit it with music. They were playing shows, they were practicing, all sorts of stuff, and for 10 years had no success, and they decided they needed to do something crazy, like we need to figure out a way to make this thing successful. And so, they decided that they were going to do a show every single day for 365 days. Right? And again, I haven't seen the documentary yet. I am so excited to go and watch it, but just from the trailer you see what happens is they go out there and they start doing a show, and some of the shows are next to these guys cutting down trees because they're the only person that will listen to them. Some of them are in these little bars, some of them are just wherever they can find a place to perform a show in front of humans, right? And they start doing this, and they start doing this, and by the end of the trailer they're performing in front of these audiences of tens of thousands of people. And there's this quote at the end of the trailer that was so powerful. In fact, I wrote it down. I just wanted to share it with you. At the end of the trailer he says, "So here we go, making something happen every single day," and then, boom, they start on this journey. Anyway, I wanted to share it with you because, man, so many of us have this dream. We have our art, right? For Jim and Sam it's their band. For you it could be an offer, a product, a coaching program, a book, a course, a CD, a physical product, a service you do. It could be whatever, right? We have this vision, we have our dream, and we go out there and we try to put it out there. But the magic of this, and again, I cannot wait to watch the documentary. It'll probably end up having 10 more episodes. I'm going to be geeking out about this, but the concept of like, all right, if we're going to be successful it's not just going out there and dabbling, or going out there I'm going to read a book, I'm going to go try to whatever. It's like, here we go, making something happen every single day. What are you doing every single day to make your dream come true, right? What is it? Right? And for most of us if we're selling stuff online is publishing. I know Nathan Barry who was the founder of ConvertKit, a great software program, he said the same thing. He's like, "I'm going to write a blog post every single day for a year," and he sat down and he started doing it, and first it was really, really hard, right? But then, he got into the habit of this every day I'm going to sit down I'm going to write 1,000 words, write 1,000 words. Every morning do 1,000 words, 1,000 words, and by the time a year had come up his company had blown up, so many good things happened from it. And so, I think for all of us, man, they just serve as such a good reminder. How do we publish something every single day, right? And so, this is the rallying call, okay? As you guys are going to commit to this and say, "Okay, I'm going to do this." The rallying call is this, "So here we go, making something happen every single day." So what is that for you? What is that level? What's the thing that if you do every single day it's going to change everything for you? You got to figure out exactly what that is and then focus on it and do it consistently every single day for a year. If you do that a couple things happen. Number one, you will find your voice, okay? I guarantee that by the end of performing a show every single day for a year, what happened? They got better. They figure out if people like it, or if people didn't like it. They mastered their craft, right? And the second thing is they're going out and doing this over, and over, and over again. The consistency gave their audience a chance to find them. I talk about it in the Traffic Seekers book as well. I shared one of Nathan Barry's thousand blog posts, or 100 blog, whatever, 365 blog posts he did that year. One of them is called You Have to Endure Long Enough to Get Noticed. And he talked about it, he said you know what's interesting? You think about TV shows, or movies, or documentaries, like how many TV shows did you find out about season four or five, right? So the problem is there's so much content being created all the time that the market, the world, waits to see what's good enough that's going to rise to the top, right? And so, it's testing you. I think for all of us it's like, okay, the universe, God, the market, whoever is testing you to say, do you really want this? How bad do you want it? How bad do you care about your message? Do you care about it enough to blog once a week about it? Do you care about if you're going to blog every day about it? Do you care about that every single day you're going to make something happen? Because if you do, if you are, then you get rewarded. Okay? There's a reason now that I'm still having so much success in my business, right? Despite the ups, and the downs, and all the things I have been doing this now for 18 years. 18 years I've been beating this drum over, and over, and over again. I beat this drum when nobody was listening. I beat this drum when people were angry. I beat this drum when clients were leaving me. I beat this drum and I keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it because I believed in it so much, because I cared about it so much, because I knew the impact it could and would have if I just kept doing it, and kept doing it, and kept doing it. And now, 18 years later, and I'm still learning, I'm still becoming better, I still make tons of stupid mistakes, right? But 18 years later I've found my voice, right? And my audience is finding me, and it'll continue to hopefully continue to grow and keep evolving, but that's definitely what's happening. So hopefully I gave you guys some encouragement. I highly recommend if you want to get motivated just go to wearejimandsam.com and watch the trailer. Like I said, I'm totally going to go watch this documentary. I'm pumped to see it. And again, it's called After So Many Days. That's the name of the documentary. And I'm going to end this podcast with the line that ends the trailer, "So here we go, making something happen every single day." What is that for you? Commit to it, do it, and if you do that again two amazing blessings will come to you. Number one, you'll find your voice, and number two, your audience will find you. Thanks again so much for listening. I appreciate you guys all and I'll talk to you all soon. Bye everybody. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Instead of asking “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, let’s start asking this question instead. On this episode, Russell talks about the importance of considering WHO you want to serve, before you start working on WHAT you are going to provide. Sometimes you might end up wasting time doing a lot of work for something that won’t actually help the people you are called to serve. ---Transcript--- Hey, everybody, hope you guys are doing amazing today. It's Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. In today's episode, I want to rewrite what all of our parents have been telling us for generations upon generations. And hopefully, save me and you and our kids from the same frustration, because if we fix this, I think we'll fix everything else. All right, so, this is my thoughts today, and I hope you don't mind me sharing with you. But inside of our community, we talk about the fact that, I believe, each and every one of us is called to serve a group of people. It's like, for me, I was called to serve entrepreneurs. And so, I figured like, who are the people I'm supposed to serve? They're entrepreneurs. And then it's like, well, there's a lot of entrepreneurs in the world. Who are my entrepreneurs? And so, my entrepreneurs are funnel hackers. And I give them a name and a title and a belief and all that kind of stuff. And it was interesting because as soon as I knew, oh, here's who I serve, these are my people, this is who I'm supposed to serve, then everything else came really easy. Then it was like, well, what do these people need? Well, they need this, they need this, and then, the ideas, the products, the services, the events, the coaching calls, the podcasts. All the things became easy when I first identified, who am I called to serve? And then, giving those people a name. They're my specific people. Because saying, "I serve entrepreneurs," is tough because there's a lot of people serve entrepreneurs. Now, I'm fighting and competing against everybody else. It's like, no, I don't serve all entrepreneurs, I serve my entrepreneurs, my funnel hackers. And so, it's interesting though because I was talking today with some people, and there's a phrase that we hear all the time when we were kids. It's, what do you want to be when you grow up? And people like, "Oh, I want to be a dentist. I want to be a doctor. I want to be a football player. I want to be... " We talked about who we want to be. But you think about how we actually make money, how we actually start businesses, it's not about who we want to be, it's about who we want to serve. It's like this little thing. And so instead of, with our kids asking them, what do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to be when you grow up? Or asking the kids who just graduated from high school, what do you want to be someday, when you... After college, what do you want to be? I think to ask that question, what do I want to be, sends us on a wrong path. I want to be a dentist. Okay well, how do you be a dentist? Well, you got to go to school here, and you got to go to school here. And then, when all that's said and done, then you become a dentist. And then, you get your dental degree. Now, you're able to clean people's teeth. And then, cool, now, you can clean people's teeth, the question is, who do you serve? And you're like, I don't even know, I'm a dentist, just everybody probably. And it just puts you on this long, long, long, long, long path that before you ever get to the real question, which is, who are you called to serve? I think we should start switching around like, well, who do you want to serve? Who are your people? Who's your tribe? Who's your whatever you want to call it. So looking at that standpoint, it changes everything. It changes how you start looking at this business and starts changing all the different things. And so, my question for you is you're starting this journey, wherever you are is not so much, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I've asked myself that a lot. But it's like, who do you want to serve when you grow up? Who is the group of people that you're the most passionate about? Who is that if you woke up every morning and be like, okay, this is the group I get to serve, it would change everything for you. And then, if you have that and you have that person, then you figure out like, what's your name for that group? Who are your people? Then, all the ideas start flowing easier. I think when I first got started in this business, and I talked about this a little bit in the Dotcom Secrets book, for those who have read it. If you haven't read the new updated version, by the way, please go get it. I promise it's worth getting the new updated one. But I talked about how I started my business. What I was focusing on, I was like, what do I want to create? I was like, I want to create this product and this product. Again, a question, a lot people chase down, but it puts you on a really weird path. I was like, well, I want to create a product that does this. Because I had this idea. I want to create a product that does this. So I started creating these different products. I thought that was the path, I started creating them, and I was selling them. And luckily, I was able to figure out the process, and I started making money. But it was by default, what I created, it attracted a certain audience. And because I didn't ask, who do I want to serve? I just said, what do I want to create? And I create this thing. And then by default, what I created attracted a certain type of people to me. It's like bait. I'm not a fisher, but I went fishing one time. And I remember it was like different bait. If I want to catch... I don't even know the names of the fish, so embarrassing. If I want to catch a big fish, I want to catch a trout or a salmon or whatever, there's different bait. And the bait you throw out, attracts different fish to you. I have no idea if that analogy is actually true, maybe I just made it up. But I think it is. And if not, you guys get the gist. Right? Same thing, the bait you put out into the world attracts different people. And so, because I led with, what's the bait I want to create? What's the idea I have? What's the bait? I started doing that. I started throwing this bait out, not knowing what it's going to attract. And all of a sudden, it's like, "Oh my gosh, it attracted trout." And then, I'm like, "Oh, I actually hate trout or I hate salmon," or whatever your version of that. In the Dotcom Secrets book, I talk about that, how I woke up one day and I was laying in bed and I was like, I wish I had a boss, so that he could fire me because this is miserable. Like, I am not enjoying this experience at all. It was such a bad thing. And so, if you remember the default, what I should do, is I shifted away from what do I want to create? To, who do I want to serve? Who is my dream customer? I wish I would have led with that. I never did. And most people don't. We lead with, what do I want to be when I grow up? What do I want to create? Here's an idea hat. And all those things sent you on a path, but it's not a direct path. The direct path is who do I want to serve, then go find those people and figure out what they actually need, and how they want to be served. Because you come in with a product that people don't actually want, no one's going to buy it. And then, it doesn't work for you. And you're frustrated like, "Oh, this business thing doesn't work. Oh my grade, it didn't work." You don't need to have great ideas. This business is not about being super, hyper creative. That's not going to help you as much as you think it will. Like, "Oh Russell, you're so creative." No, no, no. I'm not that creative. I'm just really good at knowing exactly who I'm serving, and I pay close attention to what they want. That's it, pay attention. That's what the podcast episodes come from. That's where the books come from. That's where the software comes from. All those things are just coming back to, who is my dream customer? Who am I called to serve? And then, how do I serve them? What do they want? Wheat do they need? I pay attention. And then, that's what we create, that's what we go and do. So I want you guys to understand that, because again, I think so many times we look at it wrong. I think instead of asking our kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? We should ask our kids, who do you want to serve when you grow up? Who are the people that get you pumped up? And I just recently finished the Phil Knight's book, Shoe Dog. His people were athletes. He loved athletes. He was an athlete. He wanted to serve athletes. And if you haven't read Shoe Dog yet, by the end of the book, it's really cool. He starts... it might be the epilogue. I was listening to the audio books, I'm not sure... Anyway, but at the end of the book, he starts telling these stories about dinner with Michael Jordan and this guy, and this guy, all these athletes. It's like, he served his athletes at the highest level to the point where the who's who of athletes had him at their weddings, had him at their funerals, had him at all these different things. Because he figured out who he's going to serve, and then, he focused on that. And he built a shoe company and a clothing line and all these things, because he knew exactly who he was serving and how to make the product better than anybody else. I think for you guys, if you come back the same foundational things, like who are you called to serve? Not, what I want to do when I grow up? Not, Oh, I had this idea for a product or, oh, what should I create? It's, no, who do I want to serve? And then, if you come with that in sincere heart, they will tell you, you will see it. Especially online, like you see it in the Facebook posts, the positive and negative. I see it in the comments. Every time I post a podcast, I see the comments, and where I see the lack of comments. I post some episodes, but nobody responds. I'm like, I guess that's not what they needed. Other ones blow up, I'm like, Okay, people like that, I should go deeper on that, let me share more things. I'm using this community texting app where I text out the audience. And I can see what things get response, what things don't. And I pay attention. It's funny, those who have seen me using this texting app. It's a texting platform. It's pretty cool. In fact, let me pause for a moment to insert a tiny around to make sure you are on this texting platform. When I come back, I'll tell you the cool thing I'm doing with it. So as you see, you guys have a chance to text me. And then, the message come to my personal phone, which is pretty cool. And at first, the first week, I was doing really good at answering every message. And then it blew up and it's getting thousands and thousands of people, and I can't keep up. But I do spend about anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes a day, answering as many questions as I can, which has been really fun. So I may be personally answering your question. Hopefully, I will have a chance to. But the cooler thing is that every time I send a message, I can see the responses to that message. And so, every day I look at the day before, I look at the message I sent. And I scroll through and I see what things hit chords, what things people are looking for, things people are complaining about. And it's my market research daily. I get a daily text message from all my dream customers telling me what they want, what they don't want. And even if I don't respond to them all, I read them. And so again, I have my pulse, I feel the pulse of the market. So many times, I get hit inside the ClickFunnels team as well. I think I drive them crazy because they're all planners. They want to plan what's happening, and what emails are going out, the sequences, all sorts of stuff. And I'm like, you don't understand, if we plan ahead of time, we miss the pulse of the market. Everybody asks me, "What's the plans for next year?" The plans for next year is to feel the pulse of the market, see what they want and serve them. That's where we're going. It's not like, "Okay, well, Q2, we're going to do this, Q5, we're going to do this Q 10, next year, we're going to do. It's like, no, no, no, no, pay attention to the market and let them tell you what you do. Yeah, so I drive them crazy because we'll do a campaign and they're like, "Okay, we have 12 emails. Let's try these 12 emails." I'm like, "You can't write them right now." I'm like, "Why not? Let's get ahead of it." I'm like, "Because we have to feel the pulse of the market. What are they saying to us? We need to be shifting our message based on what's happening, with the feedback, the response." If we're not doing that, we're not truly serving our audience. We're trying to write an email sequence. We're trying to create a product. We're trying to do a webinar. I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how this game works." Hey, if you want to be good at this game, it's coming back to the foundation. Who's your dream customer? How can I serve them? Paying attention, watching, listening, and they'll tell you everything they want, which is pretty cool. So I hope that helps, hope that helps shift some of you guys who are struggling. Again for me, I struggled my first five or six years in this business because I was chasing the product or the idea I had, as opposed to the customers I want to serve. And it was crazy for me. And you guys probably heard this part of the story, but when I shifted that, I said, "Okay, no longer am I going to create products that are my good ideas and sell them. I'm going to figure who's my dream customer and figure out what they would want." And I made that mental shift and it was like, what could we create? And the very first product we created was my book, 108 Split Test Winners, which some of you guys have a copy of that book. And what's crazy about that is, I was so scared to create the book. Because I knew that my existing audience, the people who I was serving, I didn't love them. I knew they wouldn't want to buy that book. They weren't going to buy it. And I even tried, I put the book up, I sent email out to my existing customers and none of them came. I sold a few copies. I was like, okay, that sucks, this is my best material. This is stuff that people would die for. And they weren't interested. And I realized that I was serving the wrong customer. And so, what was cool, is that this new thing I created, I created for my dream customer, for the person I wanted to get into my world. I launched it. I put it out there. I started buying ads to it. And then, guess what eventually happened? My dream customers, they heard my voice, and they came to me. And that's how we built the list. And then from there, we built ClickFunnels. And from there, we built the Funnel Hacking Movement And my funnel hackers and everything else we've done. But it all started with, who do we want to serve? And then, what bait do we create to attract that person? And that's how we changed the game. So at least, changed it for me. And if you listen to this, probably for you as well. So hope this helps, hope you enjoy this. If you guys got anything that from this episode, please take a screenshot on your phone, post it on social, tag me on it. And tell me your biggest takeaway. I love to read those. I see them. I read them. And you'll see me, I usually like them, if I see them. Anyway, I appreciate that. Thanks you guys for everything and I'll talk to you guys, all, again soon. Bye everybody. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recently I was asked by Rachel Pedersen what my favorite books are and why. So I wanted to share three that I’m loving right now. On this episode, Russell gives you his top 3 book recommendations and explains why they are so important to him during the phase of life that he’s in right now. ---Transcript--- What's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson, welcome back to The Marketing Secrets podcast. Today I'm going to drop on you some of my favorite books that I'm reading right now. Hey, everybody hope you guys are doing awesome. So we're getting closer and closer to Halloween, depending when you're listening to this. Halloween was my favorite holiday for basically my entire life. I went trick-or-treating until I was 21 years old. And those who are like, "Wait Russell, weren't you on a mission when you were at 19 and 20? And the answer is yes, and yes, I dressed up as a Mormon missionary going door-to-door, because I already had the costume on. I got free candy. It was awesome. Oh, it was the good old days. Anyway, I love trick-or-treating. I love Halloween, love everything. In fact, when my kids were born, I was like, "This is the greatest thing in the world. Halloween was amazing before, it's even more amazing now." And went trick-or-treating every single year until about three years ago. Three years ago was when I bought my Batman suit. We launched Expert Secrets, our affiliate prize was to give away these Batman and Iron Man suits. I got my own custom-fitted, it was so cool. And I was so excited because that Halloween I was going to be Batman, legit Batman. And I was going to put on the suit and I was just so excited for it. And I remember it was a long day at the office, I got home as quick as I could, and I was trying to… oh, and the kids had wrestling practice. We got wrestling practice and come back. And kids gets home and I'm getting them all ready, giving them dinner, because I have to race back to the office to get the Batman suit on, which is an hour long project to get that suit on. I'm so excited. Feeding the kids, about to race back to the office and all of a sudden doorbell rings. And I go to the door and it's one of Ellie's friends. And friend's like, "Hey, is Ellie here?" I'm like, "Yeah, but what are you doing here?" She's like, "I'm coming to go trick-or-treating with Ellie." I was like, "What?" I'm like "I trick-or-treat with my kids." Ellie runs over, "Oh, bye Dad, I’m heading out.” I'm like, "No, you can't." And Collette is like, "Why not?" Because this is my holiday, you can't take my daughter trick-or-treating. And Ellie took off with her friends, she was gone. And a few minutes later the boys got calls from their friends and they're like, "We're going, we're going trick-or-treating." And they took off. And I remember, I wasn't ready for it. I don't know, it's like the kids leaving home, only worse. I wasn't ready for it. And I remember they were all gone and it was Aiden and Norah. Norah was tiny at the time, she was maybe two at the time. And so I didn't get my Batman suit on. We go out to the car and got Norah's suit and everything and put her in the car seat. By the time we got in the car she passed out and she was out cold. And so it was Aiden, me and Collette. So we drove to this neighborhood. Aiden got out with Collette, started trick-or-treating, and I passed out in the car. And that was the saddest day of my life. I miss Halloween. Anyway, I come to grips with it now. My kids are awesome. They can have friends. It was just, I wasn't ready for it. You know what I mean? You're planning your kids are going to leave the house someday, and then all of a sudden they just leave, without any preparation. Anyway, so Halloween was my favorite holiday until that year. And now my favorite holiday is 4th of July, because I spend more money on 4th of July than any sane human. And so because of that, everybody comes to me. And I'm doing that to compensate for Halloween being stolen from me by kids. Anyway, that's how I really feel. I'm just joking. Anyway, that's a true story. So 4th of July is my new favorite holiday, but it always was Halloween. And so as Halloween gets closer, I still get excited. I'm not going to lie, I love the leaves falling and the seasons changing and pumpkins and candy and just all the things. So anyway, one of our family traditions is every year for Halloween we go to Albion, Idaho, where there's this old college campus. It's in early 1900s, there was a thriving college here. In 19, I don't know, 1920 or something, it went out of business. So it's been vacant for 100 years. And a couple of years back, this family bought it and they renovate the whole thing and turn it into, one of the dorms they turned into a bed and breakfast. And then the rest of it, they turned to haunted houses. There's a zombie house, a clown house, and it's these old creepy buildings from the early 1900s. And anyway, it's insane. So we go every year. This year we took two of our friends, Rachel Peterson and her husband, Paul, and they came with us, which was really, really fun. So anyway, on the trip down, Rachel asked me, says, "What are your favorite books you're reading right now?" Everyone time someone asks me that question about books, I always freeze, because there's so many. I'm obsessed with books. I have more books than anybody I know. And I buy them every day and tons more. And I don't read most of the books, I listen to most with audio. But I buy the physical book too, because I like having physical books. Anyway, all sorts of turmoil. I sat there like a deer in headlights thinking. I kept thinking and thinking and I realized right now ... And it's tough, because you know how it is, different seasons of your life there's different books and all those kinds of things. So anyway, I'm in a season of my life I'm actually really excited for. I'm preparing, not really, I'm mentally thinking about my next book. I think I told you guys before, my next book. I bought the domain bootstrap.com. So the book's going to be called Bootstrapped, and it's going to be the ClickFunnels story, how we did it. It's going to be different, because all my other books have been how-to books, right? How to get traffic, how to build a funnel, how to write copy, things like that. But this book's not going to be how-to, this is the story of it. And so I've been obsessed, listening to books about companies and people telling their story about how they built the company. And so I've been listening to a lot of those lately just to understand how to write that way and how to tell stories that way that's different, right? It's different than how I've typically done things. So for me to be able to write this book, I'd have to change my skillset. And this hopefully is a side lesson for everyone. A lot of times when we have to do the thing we want to do, we have to learn something completely different, right? A lot of you guys, if you were a business before and you come into our world, you're like, "Oh my gosh, business is different online." We have to change how we think. And so for me it's the same way. For me to write this next book, I have to learn how to write differently. And I understand that and respect that. I'm paying attention to it, I'm trying to learn it. So anyway, so I've been listening to a lot of books about companies, about their stories, because I want to hear how people tell their stories. And so my three books I want to recommend to you today are all books about people with companies. And they're good for a couple reasons. Number one, they're fascinating books. Number two, they're really good storytellers. The way they tell their story was fascinating, where I was sucked into the book and I couldn't stop. In fact, two of these books I've listened to twice, and one I will probably listen to again. I just finished it yesterday, so that's why I haven't listened to it twice yet. That's rare for me. I don't normally read things twice, because I have so many books coming in. But two of the three books I have already listened to twice, which is a testament of how good of a story that they actually are. So with that said, in no particular order, I'll give you my three books. Number one book. And this one I'm nervous to tell you guys about, because it's the dark side of entrepreneurship, okay? A lot of times you hear stories about, "Oh, here's how so-and-so built their company." And it's this positive thing and there's ups and downs and trials and tribulations. But for the most part it's a positive experience, right? This is actually a book about a website called The Silk Road, which is a website that's on the dark web that sold illegal drugs. And so it's the negative side of entrepreneurship, but it's one of the best stories ever. So the book is called American Kingpin, okay? American Kingpin. And the premise of it is there was this kid, think he's 22, 23 year-old kid, he's libertarian and he felt that people should, if they want to do drugs, they should be able to do drugs. If they want to do it themselves they should be able to do it, right? And so he talks about that a little bit, and then he had this idea for a website where it's the type of site where people can come and buy and sell drugs on the dark web and he'd take a commission of every single sale that happened, right? And so that was this idea. Now the problem is that he didn't know how to code and it was illegal to make what he's trying to make, so he couldn't go hire coders on Script-Lance or oDesk like we would, it's illegal. So he had to teach himself coding. Then he started building the site. And it's crazy. I don't want to ruin the story, but it is amazing. He basically ends up building this empire. And he had every government agency coming trying to take him down, from DEA, FDA, FTC, all of them were trying to come and get him and none of them could figure out who he was. And so the story is just so fascinating. The way it's told, oh, it's so good. And one of my favorite parts is there's a scene where he's in downtown San Francisco, he's walking around, he's looking at all of the tech buildings, right? These huge companies worth billions and billions of dollars. And he's walking around by himself with a backpack on looking at these buildings and realizing that his company was worth more than any of these buildings, but if he told anybody about it, he'd have to go to jail. How cool is that? Even though everything he was doing was illegal, he was still an entrepreneur, went through the same trials and problems and ups and downs that we have to go through. And so I love this book. It was amazing. It's called American Kingpin. And it is the first one that I wanted to recommend. Also, the writer who wrote it is ... I literally, I tried to message him like, "Hey, would you want to write my book for me? Because you are such a good writer." At the end of the book, he tells about how he did it and talks about the tens of thousands of hours of research and all the papers and documents and court cases he had to go through to write this book. And he went on to say that on top of him just going and actually writing the book, he didn't just be like, oh… he looked at, what was the weather in San Francisco on that day? What was happening here? Happening here? When he's telling the scenes of the story, it was actually like what was really happening at the time. Oh, anyway, it's so good. I listened to it twice. I'll probably listen to it again, it's that good. I think they're going to make a movie out of it. Apparently there's a documentary made about it, but the documentary is horrible. Don't even watch the documentary about Silk Road. Just read the book, because it is insane and it's worth your time. So there's book number one. All right. Before I open up to book number two, I've got a secret message here about a cell phone number. And I want you guys all to text here in a few seconds. So I'm going to take a pause and do a really quick promo for the community, my texting community, and how you can get on it right now. All right. By the way, I'm having fun with the texting community. I've been sending out cool stuff every day, at least I think it's cool. Audio messages every morning, giving motivation ideas, inspiration. So if you're not on it yet, go and get in there. All right. Book number two. You guys ready for number two? Number two is a book called Lost and Founder. And this is a book by a guy named Rand Fishkin. And I love this book for a couple reasons. Rand started a company called SEOmoz, and he started about the same time I was getting started. So I had a chance to watch what he was doing. And Rand, I have so much respect for him. I think we both look at the world differently. I think he would disagree a lot of things I believe, I disagree with things he believe, from how to run businesses. But man, I have so much respect for him. And I remember watching, because I went the whole, bootstrapped, build a company through ads and funnels and things like that, and he went the other way of building a really good product and raise money and things like that. And it was interesting because looking at the outside, I never knew if I was right or if I was wrong, "Should we be taking out money? What should we be doing?" And in fact, in my book, Bootstrapped, there was this chance meeting where Rand actually came to Boise and spoke at an event. I showed up to the event. He told the story about Moz, how he took on money, his whole thing. And I remember listening to the story. In my head I'm like, "Okay, the next step for ClickFunnels is for us to take on money." And when he got done, normally I would leave something like that, I'm too introverted and shy, but one of my friends, BJ Wright, was there with me. He was like, "Let's go talk to Rand, let's go talk to him." I'm like, "Oh, okay." So BJ pulled us up there and BJ asked him, basically said, "Hey, you took on money, was it worth it? Tell us the real story." And Rand was very raw and honest and like, "No, it ruined everything." He went on, he's like, "I suffered depression." He's like, "I had to quit from CEO." He's like, "I don't even have my own car. I don't make that much money." And just going into the whole things. I remember when he got done telling me this whole thing, I remember getting in my car and voxing Todd and everybody on my team, "We are not taking on money no matter what it takes." He literally diverted me from taking on money. If it wasn't for him saying that, the next phase for ClickFunnels was to take on money. And so, because of that we didn't. And it was interesting, because publicly in his presentation, where he's telling the story about taking on money, but then privately, he literally told us don't do it. And I remember always thinking about that and wondering how he felt. And after he left Moz, a couple of years later he wrote a book called Lost and Founder. And Lost and Found founders is him telling a story. And in his book he explains the dangers of VC money at a level that I have never understood before. It was so clear and concise and oh, I'm so grateful for that book. Grateful for Rand, first off, for steering us in a different direction. But second off, the book is such a good illustration of why. And I hope you guys, especially my world, where we're talking about how do you go funnels, bootstrap things, man, that book was one of the best to show the opposite side of that, what happens when you do take on money and the scary side of business that a lot of us aren't aware of until it's too late. So Lost and Founders is book number two, super well written. Rand's an amazing writer, and just someone I have a ton of respect for. So that's book number two. All right. You guys ready for book number three? My third and final choice today is the book I finished last night, which is called Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. And a Shoe Dog is the story about Nike. And I've had so many people who told me to read this book over and over and over, and I kept fighting it, fighting it. And finally, it was actually interesting, Dean Graziosi told me I had to read it. And I was like, "Oh yeah, I've heard that by a lot of people." He said, "No, you need to read it for a different reason than everybody else." And I was like, "Why?" Dean and I talk about our kids a lot, and Dean and I both have children that we had butt heads with and struggled with sometimes. And he said that there's this part in Phil Knight's story where he had two children and he said that one of the kids he never could figure him out. It's like this puzzle, could never figure it out. And he always just struggled. Said his son would not wear Nike's. His son, whatever his dad wanted, he wanted to do the opposite and just, it was really hard. He said eventually, I think his son was 28 years old, he ended up passing away in a tragic accident. And one of the things he said in the book, he said, "Man, if I can do my life over again, I would've focused more energy on trying to understand the puzzle of my son". Oh, I'm getting emotional. Anyway, so that was the reason why ... After Dean told me that, he's like, You should read it, because I think for both of us ... " He's like, "We need to spend more time trying to understand our kids that we struggle with." And so I said, "Okay." And so I started to read the book and oh, so glad I did, for so many reasons. Number one, just helped me to understand that and put more focus on my kids, which I think is so important. And number two, it's just a fascinating story of the story of Nike. I didn't know all the story, how it happened and all the things he went through to make it possible. And anyway, it was such a good book, and I hope you guys have a chance to read that one as well. So there are my three books. Number one, American kingpin, number two, Lost and Founder, number three, Shoe Dog. All amazing books. Again, it's so hard to have a comprehensive list of all the amazing books in the world. But I thought three that are telling stories of companies, they will inspire you, they will motivate you to get you ready to build your company or give you ideas for the next steps in your company. And then also, how it relates to your life and your family and things like that. I think those books are amazing. Hope you enjoy them. With that said, I appreciate you guys all. Please, take a picture. If you enjoy this, take a picture of it, post it on Instagram or Facebook, wherever you post it, and then tell me your favorite books in the comments and tag me. And I'd love to hear what books you're reading so I can decide what to read next. Thanks everybody. And I'll talk to you soon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The missing step that most people forget, before you create a product or build a funnel. Over the weekend, my personal team’s funnel builder…Nick…and I launched a funnel at the spur of the moment just because we thought it would be fun. It’s from an idea I’ve had for 8 years and it’s just been sitting on my hard drive. The funnel was literally hatched, built, and launched in 2 days. And already we’ve had a bunch of sales! Now here’s the crucial part. This is the place where many entrepreneurs mess up. They spend a ton of time…weeks, months, even YEARS…developing and creating something, only to find out that when they launch it, nobody buys. Nobody wants what they have. And that’s because they didn’t ask themselves this ONE CRITICAL QUESTION… The one question that will tell you whether you should spend the time creating a product, service, or offer, or you should pass on the project. If you want to save yourself a ton of time, frustration, and stress, then tune in to this episode of Marketing Secrets to find out what the question is and WHY it’s so important to your entire business. ---Transcript--- What's up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I want to teach you a trick today to make sure that every campaign and every funnel you build, always wins. All right, everybody so I wanted to do this episode because I was bored this weekend, not really bored, I'm never bored, we’ve got a lot of stuff going on, but Friday we were about to leave the office and then one of the guys on my team, Nick Sanders, was like, "Hey, do we have any fun project you want to do on the side that'd be kind of fun?" I was like, "What is a fun project that we have on the side that we can just do real quick?" And he's like, "I got some time this weekend, I'd love to just bust something out". I'm like, "Okay." We started thinking back and I remembered that eight years ago, I had this idea for a site called T-shirt smackdown. And the concept was picking two competing concepts or philosophies or whatever, and make a t-shirt for each one and let people vote with their wallets. So, they come to the site and they're like, "Oh, I want this one to win." So they buy the t-shirt to make sure that that one wins, right? And so, I remember I designed this... the site we had designed eight years ago because... So funny, because it was back when Obama was running against Romney. And so, in fact, the initial PSD files we found had the Obama versus Romney thing, and so it was kind of fun. Anyway we found those PSD files and were like, "Dude, let's make this." So, he took it and he got it all working inside ClickFunnels, and spent his whole weekend doing that. Obviously, the elections are coming up right now so I was like, "Let's do some Biden/Trump shirts." And so we got designers to go and design the t-shirts and all sorts of stuff. And, anyway, it's just been this really fun project that we put together, literally in no time. It's crazy, it's been sitting on my hard drive for eight years now. I can't believe I found the PSD files. It looked so cool. In fact, if you want to see it in action, but I'm not sure when this podcast episode will drop, my guess is hopefully the site will be live by then, but it's tshirtsmackdown.com, so you can go see it there. Anyway, so the concept is we picked two different shirts to compete. When the movie Twilight came out, we could have done like Edward versus Joseph, or during The Bachelor season, it could be this person versus that person, or whatever. You pick two competing things, you put them out there and you let the communities of the things all go and vote on it. And so, with this one, we're like less than a month before the election, everyone's really angry about both sides like, "We should capitalize on this as capitalists do." And so, we put this together. And so, Jake on our team went and got a whole bunch of really cool t-shirt designs that he made some for Trump, some for Biden, and we threw it up on the site and... Anyway, they've been killing themselves and it's almost ready to go. So we're excited. It's going to go live. And again, all you guys should go pick your favorite. Go to tshirtsmackdown.com buy which shirt you want to prove... To vote with your wallet. But anyway, I'm telling you this because a lot of times, we have an idea for something. And you're like, "Man, do I spend the time and energy doing this? I have no idea. It's going to take me all this time and I have no idea if it's going to work or not." And all this fear. The reason why I'm able to do crazy things like this without any fear is before I said yes, before we started the process, the first question that we asked was, "If we do this thing, where are we going to get the traffic for it?" That was the question. And if I don't know the answer to that question, then the answer's always no, we're not doing this thing. I have to know that first. And so, that was the first question like, "Where do we get traffic?" And I was like, "Okay well, to get traffic for this means we need a conservative Republican people and we need liberal Democrat people." So, I'm like, "Where do we find these people?" Okay, there's email lists so we can write here, here and here. And then there's email lists we can write here, here and here. Then here's these Facebook pages we can target. Here's the liberal, here's the conservative, here's the... and so we really quickly, as quick as we could, found as many different variations as we could of both sides to know where you get traffic. So, very quickly okay, boom, here's the traffic. I think conservatively we probably said 10,000 to 20,000 clicks in a three to four day period of time, which is how long one of these smackdowns probably end up lasting. And so, "Okay, let's do it." Right. And so now, Nick and Jake and Jamie, have been working on the site on their free hours, after hours and the weekends and stuff. While they're doing that, I just went and texted all these people, "Hey, can I run add your list?" Yes. Can I run run add your list?" Yes. How much does it cost? Okay I want this date? I want this much." And within, I don't know, within 12 minutes, 10 minutes, maybe I had enough traffic lined up to get about somewhere between probably 10,000 to 15,000 clicks, half on the conservative side, half on the liberal side. And so now when the live site flied, I clicked a button and that fast sales will start coming in. So I want to share with you guys, number one because I want to show off and brag about my fun little idea that we had eight years ago that we're finally actually executing on, but number two is for you guys to start thinking about this. That's one of the biggest things people have is spend so much time and energy and effort on their idea and their thought, and then they go and they build their sales message and they build their funnel, and then they're like, "Where do we get traffic?" And that should have been the first question. Not the last. I remember... Man this is pre-ClickFunnels, no, it wasn't pre-Click, it was right when ClickFunnels first came out actually. So maybe about five years probably. I was in London and I spoke at this really cool event. And afterwards, my wife and kids were still gallivanting around London while I was finishing my speaking things. So I sat in the hallway and talked for two or three hours to all the people there, which was really fun. Definitely intimidating as an introvert, but it was still good. Talked to everybody and they ask those questions. I still remember one person asked me this question that I'd never answered before. No one had ever asked me before, but he asked the question he said, "Man, you've been doing this so long, how do you know that something's going to be successful before you do it now?" And I started thinking and he was right, I do know. I haven't failed at this game in a long time. I failed a lot initially and I failed more than you've tried, I guarantee that. Hundreds of times we launched funnels that did not actually work. And I would say in the last five or six years, pretty much all of them have worked. And so the question was like, "What do you do differently? What do you know? What's the answer?" And before I give you that answer, I'm going to catch a really quick sponsor from myself and I'll be right back to answer it here in a second. Okay. You text me at Community, come on let's just do it. Anyway. All right, so let me answer the question. The question goes like, "How do you know the funnel is going to be successful before you build the funnel out?" And the answer I told him is, the first time someone ever asked me that, first time I ever answered, I told him, I said, "Hey, the reason why I do this is because I find the traffic source first. I don't go and create a product that I want to create, I'll go and take my best idea, I go and find the traffic source first and figure how much the traffic is going to cost, what does it looked like. I figure things out, and then the question I ask myself, "Okay, here's the traffic, here's the market, what does the market actually want?" And then I started brainstorming ideas. That way when the idea is done and the sales message is done and the funnel is done, I know the traffic so I just click a button and traffic shows up. And so, while you're thinking about that, as you're building your businesses where you are, in any spot you are right now, they just imagine like as soon as your thing is done where's the traffic going to come from? Where's that place? Do you have it already? Do you know where it is? If not stop everything and just go figure that out. Go figure out where is the traffic going to come from before you spend all the time and the effort and energy trying to figure out what you're going to create. And honestly, when you figure out what the traffic's at and you figure out how in the world to get access to this traffic, what's it going to take? Who do I need to get to know? Who's the person that's going to sell me the ads? How much does it cost? All these things you're going to start figuring out at that time. Then when you find that traffic source and the best things to do, like let's say it's email traffic you're going to rely on, get on that email list and get all the emails come in, and then that way, as you see the emails like, "Oh, I see this offer and this offer. Here's all the offers that are being sent out to this group of people now I know what this kind of person is responding to," Or if you're following them on Facebook pages and you start seeing your everybody's adds you're like, "Oh, now I know what this type of person is looking for. What kind of offers are working," it'll stimulate the ideas for the offers and the products that you actually want to create. So that's the key guys. That's what we help understand is that a lot of times, most of us do it backwards instead of doing it backwards, the first goal should be where's the traffic? Where's the traffic at now so I can go find it and then go and figure out your product, figure out your funnel, figure out your sales message. Find the traffic first. If you haven't yet, I'd highly recommend reading the Traffic Secrets book. I talk a lot about this. In the first phase for me how I find the traffic is going through the Dream 100. In fact, it's crazy in our 2 Comma Club X Coaching Program. It's 25,000 a year coaching program. People come in and I think everyone thinks I'm going to give them some magic sauce that I've never talked about before. And module number one, literally I force them to actually build out their dream 100 list. They be like, "Why? I thought I was here to make money." Exactly. Right now, our job is to figure out who are the people who already have your traffic. Where are they at? The better I understand that person, that group, the more successful I'm going to be because now I know what are all the other offers they're going out there. Who's controlling the traffic. How do I get to know them? Can I buy my way in? Can I work my way in? All the other things. And so, anyway, that's the one I shared yesterday, just looking at things a little differently. We were able to launch the site. My guys spent the weekend plowing through, getting it done, getting the designs, getting the program and getting it all into ClickFunnels and everything. And then I spent 12 minutes texting the people who I know have the traffic and now we're ready to rock and roll. And that's how the game was played. It was fun. For the T-shirts smackdown is every week, we're going to have a new smackdown. And so right now the smackdown is... next two or three weeks is going to be the politics. And after that guess what's going to be? I don't know yet, but I know I'm going to know where the traffic's at before I go in and do the thing. I'm going to go say, "Where's the traffic at for... " Let's say it's some movie coming out. Or maybe it's the finalists on The Bachelor, maybe it's who knows. I'm going to go and find the traffic first, like where I'll actually get that traffic from before we design the t-shirt, before we get the thing created, otherwise it's just going to be a waste of time, energy, and money. And that's how we play the game. All right. Hope that helps you guys. I appreciate you all. If you got any value from this episode, please take a snapshot, post it on your social profiles and tag me in it and let me know your biggest takeaway. It would mean the world to me. I read every one of them and I'll definitely read yours as well. Thanks so much guys, and I'll talk to you all soon. Bye everybody. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices