Podcast appearances and mentions of josh forti

In this exciting conclusion of the five-part Atlas Shrugged interview series on the Marketing Secrets podcast, I sat down with Josh Forti for a deep, engaging, and sometimes humorous conversation that delves into entrepreneurship, leadership, and the philosophical ideas inspired by Ayn Rand's famous book. We had been talking for over three hours, starting our session late at night and continuing into the early hours, but the energy and insights made it all worthwhile. Josh and I explored the importance of having role models and mentors, especially as you climb higher in the business world. We discussed who I look up to in business and life, from companies like Salesforce to individuals like Tony Robbins. We shared stories about the balance between ambition and faith, and the incredible impact of following a calling or purpose that feels bigger than oneself. One of the most moving parts was discussing Tony Robbins' sincerity and the profound moments I've experienced with him, both on and off stage. Here are some of the key topics we covered: Role Models in Business: Why looking up to industry giants like Salesforce and HubSpot inspires me to reach the next level. Faith and Purpose: How seeing our work as a calling changes everything and gives us the strength to persevere through challenges. Lessons from Tony Robbins: Stories about Tony's influence, sincerity, and the life-changing energy he brings to his events. Handling Pressure: Strategies I use to cope with the immense responsibilities of leading a massive community and business. Personal Insights: From my greatest fears as a parent to how I seek spiritual guidance before major events. This episode is packed with reflections on how to navigate the complexities of leadership, stay true to your values, and remain grounded even when the weight of the world feels overwhelming. Join us for a heartfelt discussion that encourages us all to embrace our purpose and run with it. And if you want to enjoy the Marketing Secrets Show ad-free, check out https://marketingsecrets.com/adfree Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of the Marketing Secrets podcast, I continue my in-depth conversation with Josh Forti, exploring the ideas in Atlas Shrugged and diving into the intersection of personal beliefs, entrepreneurship, and family values. Throughout this series, we've tackled sensitive subjects like religion, politics, and the evolving role of family, all framed within the philosophy of Ayn Rand's classic. In this fourth installment, Josh and I examine the driving forces behind entrepreneurship, the challenges of staying true to core values, and how these principles influence both business and personal life. Josh and I discuss how our upbringings and relationships with our parents shaped our outlooks and entrepreneurial spirits. We reflect on how pivotal those early family values were to our development, particularly the roles of our fathers as hardworking role models and our mothers as sources of unconditional support. We also talk about the significant impact of maintaining a balance between masculine and feminine energy in relationships, a concept I first explored with Tony Robbins. Key Highlights: Parental Influence: How family dynamics and values shape entrepreneurial drive and personal development. Masculine and Feminine Energy: Insights from Tony Robbins on balancing energies in relationships and their importance in family stability. Entrepreneurship and Influence: The role of communication in making complex ideas accessible and influential to a broad audience. Philosophical Conflicts: Navigating the concepts of charity and self-interest in Atlas Shrugged and reconciling these with our faith and moral values. This episode is packed with personal insights on navigating life as an entrepreneur while remaining grounded in one's values. Join us as we reflect on the intersection of philosophy, family, and business and how they shape our path forward. Don't forget to check out this awesome deal from Mint Mobile! https://mintmobile.com/funnels And if you want to enjoy the Marketing Secrets Show ad-free, check out https://marketingsecrets.com/adfree Get 70% off on Welch Equities' retail price at wealthyconsultant.com/secrets Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're back with part 3 of my fascinating interview with Josh Forti and our special series exploring Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. In this installment we unpack powerful lessons from the book that continue to shape the way I think about business, value, and success. We focus on what it means to be a “prime mover” and discuss how producers can create meaningful change without losing their identity or purpose. Josh and I explore a variety of deep topics in this episode, from the importance of fulfilling work to navigating societal expectations around success. One of the standout moments was when we discussed Myron Golden's “four levels of value” framework, which breaks down the hierarchy of contributions—from manual labor to visionary leadership—and why each level plays a crucial role. This conversation pushed us to ask hard questions about fulfillment and whether everyone needs to be an entrepreneur to feel truly alive. Key Topics and Questions Explored: Fulfillment vs. Achievement: Can someone find deep fulfillment in roles that society views as “average” or non-entrepreneurial? The Four Levels of Value: We break down how workers, managers, communicators, and visionaries contribute to building a thriving organization. Success and Societal Criticism: How do you thrive in a world where success can often be criticized or misunderstood? Balancing Ambition and Contribution: What does it take to succeed while still giving back to your family, community, and society? The Art of Writing as a Journey: I share insights about my next book project and how it's reshaping the way I think about storytelling. If you're someone trying to balance growth with purpose, or you've ever questioned the path you're on, this episode will resonate deeply with you. It's packed with thought-provoking ideas, actionable insights, and a few personal stories you won't want to miss. Tune in, and let's explore what it really means to shrug off limits and step into your full potential! Don't forget to check out this awesome deal from Mint Mobile! https://mintmobile.com/funnels And if you want to enjoy the Marketing Secrets Show ad-free, check out https://marketingsecrets.com/adfree Get 70% off on Welch Equities' retail price at wealthyconsultant.com/secrets Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to part two of my deep dive with Josh Forti into Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. This conversation is a continuation from the first episode, where we explore some of the philosophical themes in the book and their real-world applications. If you missed part one, I recommend starting there before diving into this episode—it'll give you the full context of our thought-provoking journey. In this episode, Josh and I discuss topics that go beyond just the book itself. We explore ideas about ambition, productivity, and personal fulfillment, as well as how these concepts influence the way we build businesses and lead our lives. It's not just about scaling companies but also understanding the motives behind why we create, strive, and continue to produce—even when it seems like we've already achieved success. Key Highlights: Greed vs. Growth: We question how ambition is often misinterpreted as greed and explore how personal growth transforms with life stages. Sedation vs. Creation: A deep dive into why so many people stop producing, and how fear or discomfort drives them toward sedation instead of action. Government and Charity: We challenge traditional views on taxes, charity, and responsibility, asking if personal giving should replace government intervention. The Producer's Mindset: We unpack why some people are naturally driven to create and keep building, even after reaching financial success. If you're interested in how philosophical insights can shape your personal and business decisions, this episode will definitely give you some powerful takeaways. Listen in, and let's continue pushing the boundaries of what's possible! Don't forget to check out this awesome deal from Mint Mobile! https://mintmobile.com/funnels And if you want to enjoy the Marketing Secrets Show ad-free, check out https://marketingsecrets.com/adfree Get 70% off on Welch Equities' retail price at wealthyconsultant.com/secrets Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A little while back, I had the opportunity to sit down with Josh Forti for an in-depth discussion about one of the most thought-provoking books I've ever read: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. This wasn't just your typical business or marketing chat. Josh and I went deep into the themes of personal responsibility, capitalism, government overreach, and the pressures entrepreneurs face when they carry the weight of the world. If you've ever felt the strain of growing a business, this conversation will resonate with you. We talked about what happens when the “producers”—those who drive society—decide to walk away and let it all crumble. In this first part of a five-part series, we explore the impact of Rand's philosophy on business and life, touching on the tension between personal ambition and societal good. We didn't shy away from controversial subjects, discussing politics, religion, and the complex emotions that come with building something meaningful. I even share how reading this book during a pivotal moment in my life gave me new insight into balancing self-interest and contribution. Key Highlights: Government Regulations vs. Entrepreneurship: How real-world business struggles mirror those in Atlas Shrugged. Capitalism and Self-Interest: Is greed always bad, or does it serve as the starting point for growth and innovation? The Shift from Self-Focus to Impact: My personal journey from focusing on business success to embracing the ripple effect of helping others. Dealing with Pressure: How entrepreneurs manage the crushing weight of expectations, and what it means to "shrug" like Atlas. This is just the beginning of a fascinating series where we unpack big ideas and challenge some deeply held beliefs. Whether you've read Atlas Shrugged or not, I promise this conversation will spark new thoughts and perspectives on how to approach life and business. Tune in and join us on this journey of exploration! Don't forget to check out this awesome deal from Mint Mobile! https://mintmobile.com/funnels And if you want to enjoy the Marketing Secrets Show ad-free, check out https://marketingsecrets.com/adfree Get 70% off on Welch Equities' retail price at wealthyconsultant.com/secrets Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike "C-Roc" brings on entrepreneur and podcast host Josh Forti to dive deep into themes of personal growth, faith, and the power of continuous learning. Josh, who has managed millions in online sales and has grown a following of over 7 million, opens up about his journey from seeking worldly success to finding freedom through Christ. He shares his transformation story, detailing how a personal tragedy led him to reevaluate his life's purpose, eventually dedicating his life to faith. Mike "C-Roc" and Josh explore the intersection of entrepreneurship, faith, and the pursuit of true freedom, emphasizing the importance of learning and personal growth, not just for success, but for a meaningful life. Tune in for a powerful conversation about overcoming fear, embracing faith, and living with purpose. Website - https://www.joshforti.com/jfhome Social Media Links/Handles- https://www.facebook.com/realjoshforti https://www.instagram.com/joshforti/

Josh Forti shares his journey as an entrepreneur and how he discovered the Golden Mic Method. He discusses the importance of focusing on principles and proven marketing and sales techniques… rather than chasing after new and flashy tactics.  The Golden Mic Method is a principle-based approach to sales that utilizes a podcast as a platform to reach and attract high-paying clients. He also highlights the importance of making the podcast about the guests and their ideas, rather than using it as a platform to pitch his services.  The Golden Mike Method focuses on building a platform that attracts wealthy clients and creates powerful relationships. By focusing on high-quality conversations and building a platform that amplifies the guest, entrepreneurs can attract wealthy individuals who are willing to invest in their services.  Selling to wealthy clients is easier and allows for higher margins, providing financial stability and the ability to deliver exceptional results. The Golden Mike Method is a choice to work in a world of wealth and abundance ____________________ Connect With Josh Forti On All Platforms

I love having some of the brightest entrepreneurial, marketing, and branding minds on my podcast. The conversation always turns out really amazing.Today is going to be just that. I first heard of this guest back in 2023 after hearing him on a few podcasts, and was so impressed. After following him for awhile, I saw that he was looking to get on some more podcasts so I reached out and threw my name in the hat. Today I'm excited for this opportunity. My guest today is Josh Forti. He has grown his clients to over 7M followers across social media, sold $25M plus of online services & info, and built a 1.5M download podcast all organically. Josh's Bio:Josh Forti is a Christian, Husband, Father, Entrepreneur, And Host Of “The Golden Mic.” With over 7,000,000 followers grown & managed, and tens of millions of dollars sold online, Josh teaches online services providers how to sell their services for lots of money, to clients that have lots of money, using a Golden Mic Podcast.Connect with Josh:Subscribe To Newsletter: https://www.joshforti.com/newsletter Connect With Josh: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshforti Listen On Audio: https://www.joshforti.com/listen Builders of Authority:FREE Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/7685392924809322 BOA Mastermind: https://buildauthority.co/order-form-mastermind GoHighLevel Extended 30-day Free Trial w/TONS of Personal Branding Bonuses: http://gohighlevel.com/adammcchesney

In this episode of ClickFunnels Radio, Laura and Chris are joined by entrepreneur and podcast host, Josh Forti. With over $20 million in revenue, 10 million+ followers on Instagram, and 1.5 million+ podcast downloads, Josh shares his revolutionary "Golden Mic Method" for attracting high-ticket clients from a podcast. Get ready to learn from the best in the industry and discover how to utilize podcasts to generate massive success.

In this deeply personal and candid conversation, Josh and Kevin share the transformative journey of how Josh regained his fire and purpose after facing a crossroads in life. Join them as they explore the profound realization that shifted Josh's perspective on success and fulfillment. We delve into the core principles that have become non-negotiables in my life: faith, commitment to family, and the unwavering drive to achieve personal growth and impact. These values became the compass guiding Josh toward a more meaningful and purpose-driven existence. Following Josh's work with a mindset coach, he found myself at a crucial junction, unsure of the path to take. Instead of yearning for a specific business or venture, he decided to clarify what truly mattered to me. He crafted a list of desires, goals, and intentions that were surprisingly different from what he had previously pursued. These newfound aspirations included financial stability without daily money worries, a strong, committed relationship with my spouse, a lifestyle that allowed quality time with loved ones, in-depth exploration of philosophy, psychology, and spirituality, and the ability to engage in deep, meaningful conversations with people. This was his awakening to the fact that he didn't necessarily want a traditional business; he desired a life that aligned with these aspirations. To attain financial stability, he embarked on a journey to understand the principles of value creation and money-making, a process that would ultimately shape his new path. Discover how this shift in perspective led him to uncover his true calling, paving the way for a unique business approach that aligned with his values. Learn how he found fulfillment by solving problems for others while maintaining the freedom and lifestyle he had envisioned. If you're on your own quest to find your true purpose and achieve success that aligns with your values, this video is a must-watch. Subscribe and hit the notification bell for more insights and inspiration on personal growth and entrepreneurship. HOW TO CREATE A 7 FIGURE PODCAST & LAND $25K-$100K CLIENTS WITHOUT MARKETING W/ JOSH: https://www.joshforti.com/sales-page-606860851698089366653

The launch is coming soon... would you like to get notified and learn more?- Join Waitlist.- Subscribe To Newsletter.- Connect With Josh.   

Josh Forti, a guest on the podcast three to four years ago, has since embarked on a remarkable journey, establishing a thriving online business and achieving great success. With a seven-figure coaching business under his belt, Josh also dabbled in the world of cryptocurrencies, primarily as a speculator. However, his encounter with Chat GPT made him realize that the world was on the verge of rapid transformation. Amidst these transformative times, Josh faced a personal milestone as well: his wife's pregnancy with their first child. Contemplating his future, he had to decide between continuing on the coaching path or seizing the opportunity to embrace the next trend. Although he had made some gains in the crypto market, he made the bold decision to shut down his coaching business at the end of the previous year. Instead, he committed himself fully to comprehending the crypto space and understanding how technology would disrupt various sectors, including investing and personal wealth management. Josh firmly believed that artificial intelligence (AI) would revolutionize everything, whether people embraced it or not. He recognized the power of AI in conjunction with blockchain technology, which resolved the issue of digital ownership. Furthermore, he speculated that superintelligence would eventually emerge and foresaw the possibility of AI causing harm to individuals in some capacity. Josh also emphasized the utilization of AI to foster growth, scalability, and automation. He mentioned AutoGPT as a prime example. He questioned the type of brand he wanted to build and concluded that personal cash flow was the most critical aspect of his life at that moment. To achieve this goal, he pondered how AI and blockchain could aid him in his endeavors. With the impending arrival of his first child, a daughter due in November, Josh's motivation to secure personal cash flow intensified. He expressed his belief in the value of coaching and learning from individuals who possess superior knowledge. Rather than solely focusing on making money, he advocated for transforming that money into freedom. Bitcoin held a special place in his heart, as it allowed him unparalleled autonomy over his assets. In contrast, he highlighted the flaws in other systems, such as real estate ownership, where taxes could lead to confiscation. Josh encouraged understanding the rules and playing by them to succeed, ultimately creating an ecosystem where worries became obsolete. While acknowledging that complete freedom eluded everyone, he acknowledged that wealth provided greater opportunities. Reflecting on his own journey, Josh considered the advice he would give himself if he had to start anew with only the knowledge he had gained. He shared a personal tragedy—the death of his brother in a helicopter crash four years ago, which left him residing in his parents' basement without any money. In his quest to rebuild his life, he hired a coach for $60,000, despite only having $5,000 upfront and uncertainty about acquiring the remaining funds. This coach imparted a crucial lesson: self-love and self-awareness were essential prerequisites for success. Understanding one's values, beliefs, and writing them down formed the foundation of an individual's operating system. Additionally, Josh emphasized the importance of figuring out ways to generate income, asserting that the core of effective selling lies in making customers feel understood—a skill that also helps in understanding people better. Josh Forti's story is one of resilience, adaptability, and a strong belief in the power of technology. Through his experiences, he has demonstrated the potential of AI, blockchain, and personal growth to reshape lives and businesses in profound ways.   What You'll Learn: Ways to use AI to scale your business. Which two cryptocurrencies Josh believes in and why. What it takes to be truly financially free. And much more!   Favorite Quote: “Every industry that AI can disrupt, it will disrupt.” -Josh Forti   Connect with Josh: Josh Forti   How to Get Involved: Get podcasting help here. For more on how to grow your business, check out this episode.  If you enjoyed this episode, head over and visit us on Apple Podcasts - leave a review and let us know what you thought! Your feedback keeps us going. Thanks for helping us spread the word!

Succeeding is about more than just what you do. It's about who you are. In this episode, we're joined by Josh Forti, an entrepreneur and marketing expert coach who teaches coaches how to grow their business and increase their sales. Tune in to learn how understanding who he is as a person allowed Josh to turn his life around and achieve amazing success in his business.   Connect with Josh: Website: JoshForti.com IG: @joshforti FB: /realjoshforti

Entrepreneurs biggest advantage can be their mindset. Unfortunately, most people decide to outsource their thinking instead. This past year, Josh has been working on this foundation that pulls the biggest lever in his life. After hiring a $5,000/mo coach and taking action towards the growth he has been seeking, he has seen the biggest change in his life. In the last year he has built the relationships he was seeking, made the most money he has ever had, and grew his business to a whole new level. Here are some of the best #GoldenBoulders:

Russell is taking over ClickFunnels Radio once again, and this time he's got Josh Forti with him to divulge some of the key points he'll be speaking on at Funnel Hacking Live 2022 this September! As a marketer, social media strategist, influencer and founder of Think Different Theory, Josh is bringing to the FHL stage his top methods for creating the "Master Story" your business needs in order to turn followers into real believers and customers. Still sitting on the fence about going? Russell and Josh are here to let you know that the time to invest in yourself and your true calling is NOW. Grab your ticket to Funnel Hacking Live 2022 and secure Josh's awesome bonuses TODAY by heading to: funnelhackinglive.com Join our Messenger Tribe! https://m.me/clickfunnels?ref=cfpodcast-join-CF-tribe

So In this episode of Interviews with Entrepreneurs Show we're Interviewing Josh Forti. Josh Leverage his distribution channel for his voice, alongside able to Interview Top guys In the Industry and Creating relationships with them including guys Like Russell Brunson, Steve Larsen and Many many more Josh Forti is a millennial thought leader, social media marketer, and founder of Think Different Theory who chooses to see the world, people, and reality not only for what it is, but what it can be. By the age of 26, Josh had started and sold 2 companies, grown and managed 6m+ followers on social media, generated over $3,000,000 in revenue for clients and students, and made astatement in the world of social media and online marketing. He has spoken on stages across the country and has been featured in Forbes, The Today Show, Entrepreneur Magazine, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, and GC-TV. Through his travels, he was able to see the world through the eyes of many different types of people which opened his mind to new perspectives and ideas. After his older brother passed away in a tragic helicopter accident, Josh's life changed forever and his focus shifted from “building a business to make money”, to building a business that has real meaning, purpose, and longevity to it. He focuses heavily on mindset, human psychology,and what it means and takes to be truly successful in all areas of life. Always on a search for truth and a strong desire to help others, Josh is launched “Think Different Theory”, a podcast and education company designed to spread the message of #ThinkingDifferent, help inspire entrepreneurs to know why they believe what they believe, and provide the tools and resources for them to live accordingly. By asking the right questions, thinking different about everything you do, know, and understand, and having the tools & information to live accordingly, Josh believes anyone can have success and achieve whatever they set their mind to. He has set out to prove this theory for himself and for is sharing his story for others to see. All of it. The wins. The losses. The lows. The highs. Josh's “why”/purpose in life is to inspire others to break free and find their purpose, know truth, and define their own destiny, so they fall in love with life and make the world a better place Josh's SOCIAL MEDIA: FB Profile: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshforti IG: https://www.instagram.com/joshforti/ FOLLOW RJ SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therjahmed FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AMHOE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsrjahmed

So In this episode of Interviews with Entrepreneurs Show we're Interviewing Katie Richardson. Katie is an Awesome Multi 7 fig Mindset coach who Coached Successful people in our space Like Kathryn Jones, Josh Forti and Many many More... She Help Entrepreneurs Rewire there Brain to find the Best Version of Themselves and Get Most of the Clarity Out of it The One And Only. Katie Richardson Katie's SOCIAL MEDIA: IG: https://www.instagram.com/katie.live FOLLOW RJ SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therjahmed FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AMHOE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsrjahmed

Last weekend I attended Sam Ovens' Quantum Mastermind in LA.Every single person in the room paid $36,000 to be there.It was 3 days long, and the entire purpose of the mastermind was about how to scale you course, coaching, and/or consulting business to over 100k/m profit.I took over 30 pages of notes, and on the plane ride home, I summarized the all my notes down to my top 10 takeaways from the event.You can download a FREE copy of my takeaways here.This episode breaks down my top takeaways!Enjoy!--------------FREE TRAINING: How To Get High-Ticket Coaching & Consulting Clients Every Single Week.Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.joshforti.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/566680497878566FREE RESOURCES:FREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshfortiInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti

There is a quote from Jordan Peterson that says:"It is luxury in life to pursue what you love, but it is a MORAL OBLIGATION to pursue what you find meaningful."I have thought a lot about that statement, and I have asked myself - what do I find meaningful?In this episode, I discuss how one goes about doing that, and explain what I have found meaningful in my own life.Enjoy.--------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.joshforti.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/566680497878566FREE RESOURCES:FREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshfortiInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti

When Akbar Sheikh first asked to come on my podcast, I asked him what is was that he wanted to talk about..."How God wants you to run your business."Now this was interesting because I am a Christian, and Akbar is a Muslim...So of course I said yes! I love learning from different perspectives.In this episode Akbar shares an interesting take on God, business, and our purpose in this world.Enjoy!--------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.joshforti.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/566680497878566FREE RESOURCES:FREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshfortiInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti

For most of my life, I had a hard time with the concept of just "giving". (Particularly money.)I have also, for most of my life, had a poor relationship with money.In this episode, I share the struggles I have dealt with, and what happened that changed my mind on it. (And it's not the typical "I gave $100 and I randomly received $1,000!)My purpose of this episode is to inspire you to start giving, and watch how it changes your life.Enjoy!--------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.joshforti.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/566680497878566FREE RESOURCES:FREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshfortiInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti 

Brad Gibb is one of (if not the) smartest man I have ever met, particularly around money.Being a former Goldman Sachs tax advisor, to taking companies public, there isn't much about money he doesn't know.In this episode, Brad and I talk about the current state of economy, hyper inflation, what to do in times of collapse, and crypto.Brad (who is not a crypto fan) and I (who is a crypto fan) go head to head and discuss the future of money.Enjoy!--------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.joshforti.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/566680497878566FREE RESOURCES:FREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshfortiInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti 

George Wentz (founder of MAD Energy) may be a genius...Or maybe he just got lucky...Either way, he discovered a way to transport ELECTRICITY, wirelessly. (Yeah, seriously.)Meaning he can send electricity through the air like a wifi signal.And he started a company (MAD Energy) to revolutionize the future of energy! (And he's funding the whole thing with crypto.)I learned so much about how energy is created, stored, and transferred in this interview, and you will too.Enjoy!--------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.joshforti.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/566680497878566FREE RESOURCES:FREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshfortiInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti

Sam Kwak started with nothing...Not only that, he started as an immigrant from Korea who couldn't speak english!After moving to America when we was young, he learned english, business, and hustled his way to become a real estate millionaire... all before age 30!This is the inspiring true story of Sam Kwak!Enjoy!--------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.joshforti.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/566680497878566FREE RESOURCES:FREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshfortiInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti 

Kathryn Jones (Now Kathryn Lish) has an energy like no others.There aren't many people who can captivated an audience like she can...So why did she marry a legend, burn down her business, and build a sunroom?For the story of course... (jk)In this episode shares how marriage changed her life, business, and even how she operates, and shares the secrets to happiness and living a fulfilled life.Trust me, there are some really good stories in this one.Enjoy!--------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.joshforti.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/566680497878566FREE RESOURCES:FREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshfortiInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti

If you are in the internet marketing space at all, you've seen a Tanner Chidster ad."I went from 0-8 Figures in 2 years".And that's the social media version of his story...But what about the rest of it? Turns out, there is more.0 To 8 Figures To Suicidal To Happiness. In this episode, I sit down and go behind the scenes with Tanner Chidster as he shares his incredible story.We talk taxes, religion, purpose, and finding yourself, and he shares a side of his story you've likely never heard before.It's truly a raw and real episode.Enjoy!--------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.joshforti.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/566680497878566FREE RESOURCES:FREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshfortiInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti

If there is one man who has changed my life more than anyone else, it is Russell Brunson.Inside this 2 hour uncut, unfiltered, no topics off limits episode with Russell Brunson, he shares never before heard advice on:Getting the attention of big name influencers (including himself)What it was like getting dream 100ed by me (Josh Forti)The #1 skillset you MUST have inside marketing to be successfulBehind the scenes stories of building ClickfunnelsHis weird diet habitsAnd so much more!This is the KICKOFF episode of the Josh Forti Effect, and it will have you engaged, laughing, and educated in way only Russell Brunson & Josh Forti can!Enjoy! 

Dealing with imposter syndrome, mental chaos, and confusion is never fun, and certainly not easy.Admitting that you are dealing with it/have dealt with it is even harder.In this episode, I share the time (recently) that I was dealing with it, and the thing I did to ultimately get through it.This episode is as much of a reminder for myself when it happens again, as it is advice for those that need it.Enjoy!--------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.joshforti.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/566680497878566FREE RESOURCES:FREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshfortiInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti

How well are you doing in life? (Kind of a loaded question, I'm aware... haha)But, a question that most people (mostly unknowingly) ask themselves on a consistent basis.This question rarely leads to a helpful answer, UNLESS we understand that we live in 3 worlds.In this episode, I explain what I mean, and share my struggles around comparison, health, and progress.Enjoy!--------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.joshforti.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/566680497878566FREE RESOURCES:FREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshfortiInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti

What happened to Think Different Theory? (The old name of this podcast.)Why did the podcast end so abruptly? And why is there a new name?In this episode, I explain what REALLY happened, how I almost got sued by the biggest company in the world, and what comes next for this show!Thanks for tuning in!--------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.joshforti.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/566680497878566FREE RESOURCES:FREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realjoshfortiInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti 

Josh Forti is a world-class marketer, master storyteller, and host of The Josh Forti Effect. He brings a unique approach to marketing, encouraging entrepreneurs and companies to perfect their master story and watch as it changes their results. In this episode, we drill down on his background in marketing, some wild stories from travels across the world, and what part faith plays in his career. Josh also breaks down step by step how you can craft a master story for your brand and leverage it in your marketing. This information is invaluable, and personally, I think everyone needs to hear this and apply it to their marketing.RESOURCES FROM EPISODE:EXPERT SECRETS BOOK - By Russel BrunsonDOTCOM SECRETS - By Russel BrunsonPSYCHO CYBERNETICS  - By Maxwell MaltzCONNECT WITH JOSH FORTIINSTAGRAMYOUTUBEFACEBOOKCONNECT WITH DERRICK LAWTER TWITTERINSTAGRAMFACEBOOKJOIN BIG WHALE COUNTRY CLUB NFTSECURE YOUR PRESALE SPOTJOIN OUR DISCORD FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAMFOLLOW US ON TWITTER

This episode Russell dives deeper into goal setting, which goals to pick, why to pick them, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- What's up everybody? This is Russell. Welcome back to The Marketing Secrets Podcast. I'm actually in a hotel room up in Northern Idaho. Bowen, one of my twins is wrestling in a tournament up here. So we flew up last night, and I'm hanging out with a whole bunch of teenagers for the next two days. And I'm in a hotel room, and I'm reading, I'm studying, I'm working on my next book, and a bunch of other things. And just wanted to share some and thoughts, specifically around your hall of fame and your Super Bowl goals. All right, so like I said, I'm in a hotel room right now. I feel bad. I'm sure my neighbors next to me can hear me talking. It's not a nice hotel. It's definitely like paper thin walls, but here we go. They're getting a free podcast episode. Anyway, so on the flight up here, and then I have an eight hour bus ride with the teenagers coming back home. It's kind of geeking out working on my next book project, which if you listen to the episode I did with Josh Forti about New Year's time, we first started kind talking about goal setting, and how to get my goals, and talking about a hall of fame goal, and then the Super Bowl goal, and all these things. It was fascinating, because after I started talking about that, I got tons of feedback from friends, and people I haven't heard from in long time, and how it affected them, and how it made things so clear. And so I wanted to just talk a little bit more, because... I'm flushing my ideas out now as I'm working on this book, and trying to think through the process and the structure, and how to do all the things. And I know that podcast episode, we talked about a lot of the stuff from identity shifting to beliefs, rules, values, all that kind of stuff. But I just wanted more, so I come back, and just focus on a couple things. So the first one was, I talked about it's like, when you're setting a goal... And this is true. I learned this initially from Alex Charfen. And he talked about it from, when we have a business. What is your business goal? And he talked about most businesses, it's like, we're going to make money. And it's like, oh no, you have to structure it. He's like, "Look at it like you would a football team." Right? And he said, "Every football player comes in, and they want to be in the hall of fame. That's the end thing." Right? So for you're business, what's the hall of fame goal? What's the thing you want to do someday? Right? What do you want to be remembered for? That's the first thing to figure out, and then you reverse engineer. You step back. So okay, now I know what that is. Now this year, I want to win the Super Bowl. So what's your Super Bowl goal as a business, right? For a lot of you guys, I'm assuming your Super Bowl goal is to win a Two Comma Club award, right? Or maybe you've already won one, so your Super Bowl goal for this year is to win Two Comma Club X, right? But that's your Super Bowl goal. And then you come down from there, and you're okay, now what are the... It can be quarterly things we got to accomplish to be able to do that. What are the weekly games we got to play? And then, what are the daily things, and then your habits? And so you kind of reverse engineer it from that, right? And the daily levels, and best if you're building your habits, your routines, and all the things you need to be able to get in the hall of fame eventually, right? Because think about it, we all want to be in the hall of fame, but from a day-by-day standpoint, it comes down to the routines and those kind of things we put in place, right? If you're a football player, it's you getting up in the morning, it's lifting weights, it's nutrition, it's working out, it's doing the things the coach says, it's watching film. It's like, these are all the habits or routines you do consistently for long periods of time to make it, so you can win the game each week, which means you can win your division, which means you can go to the playoffs, which means you can win the Super Bowl, which means eventually you can get in the hall of fame. So it's kind of interesting, I think a lot of us are good looking at the Super Bowl, but not the hall of fame. And so, one of my friends who listened to that podcast, he came back, and he was like, "Oh, my gosh. The hall of fame concept was a game changer for me." He's like, "Because I had these other goals, but a lot of times they weren't leading towards this hall of fame." Right? Or maybe even going the opposite directions where they're fighting. And it was interesting for him. He came back and he told me, he's like, "I kind of break this into two sides. My personal goals, but also my business and my mission goals." And it's fascinating because in the book I'm actually working on that specifically. Because there's so many goals we could have, right? And I think it's overwhelming. We have goals about our fitness, and goals about our this and that. There's a million goals, which I think that can get overwhelming. But I do think that if you break it down to two things, which are growth and contribution. Your own personal growth, and then your contribution to other people. Those are the two type of goals that really drive everything towards the hall of fame, I think. Again, this may shift by the time I get the book out. This is still raw thoughts in Russell's head. But I just want you to think about that. And it's interesting because if you look at Tony Robbin's six human needs, which I'll be talking about in the book as well. There are the four needs of the body. I've done episodes on this. I'm not going to go deep on it right now. But there's certainty and then there's variety. There's love and connection, and then there's significance, right? Those are the four needs of the body. And there's two needs of the spirit. One need of the spirit is surprise, surprise, growth. And the other one is surprise, surprise, contribution. So what's interesting is, first off, we have to learn how to master the needs of our body, otherwise, we never get to the needs of the spirit. I wish all of you guys can do a three-day event. Actually, I am doing a three-day event in Mexico teaching this stuff to those who are my Two Comma Club X and my Inner Circle coaching programs in March, so that's exciting. But conceptually, the quick version, you can go dive deeper. If you look at how Tony Robbin's six human needs works, anytime something in your life meets three of your four needs, it creates a physical addiction in your body, right? And if your needs aren't being met through one thing, you'll find a way to get it met somewhere else, right? You will figure out a way to get your needs met, the needs of your body looks for. And people will give up their values, they'll give up their everything to make sure the needs are met. So if you aren't getting love and connection at home, you're going to seek for in other ways. You're going to find it through... It's different for everyone. Some people get it through work, some people get it through drugs, some people get it through pornography, some people get it through joining a bowling team. We will get our needs met. And the problem is that most people, they spend their whole life trying to get their needs met in ways that aren't satisfying. They don't drive them, and so they're stuck in this rut hole, right? And so again, that's a podcast, that's a seminar for another day. But after we figure out how to get the four needs of the body met, the personality met, then we're able to shift to the needs of the spirit, which are the two, growth and contribution, which holy cow, we're talking about growth and contribution. So the reason that most people never actually hit their goals is because, guess what? They never figure out the core base needs of solving those problems first. But after you solve those problems, then you can shift over to these other things, which are growth and contribution. And so for me, the hall of fame goal is the blend of growth and contribution, right? It's like, who do I want to be? And I've struggled kind of explaining this, but my friend who listened to the episode, he came back, and he had doodled it all out on a pad of paper. And he's like, "Okay. What is my hall of fame?" And he started explaining, he was like, "It's like..." He was using words, like things he wanted to feel. And I haven't sat down and done this for myself yet. So I don't have the top of my head to kind of like, this is my hall of fame goals, but it's definitely like a feeling, right? It's like, I want to be like this person. In fact, one thing that is fascinating, it could be fascinating just to look at. I think most of the times when we're thinking about our hall of fame goal and who we want to become, we're looking at like, okay, there's who we want to become. But we're liking it to something we already know, right? It's a person, it's something. Who is the person or who are the composite of multiple people? That's who I want to be. In fact, I wonder if... I'm going to pause this really quick, and I'm going to read something to you from Napoleon Hill. Give me one second to find it. Okay, I'm back. So I'm reading Napoleon Hill's a whole bunch of stuff. But one of the things I was reading on the flight over is Napoleon Hill's Laws of Success. It's not The Laws of Success that most people have. I actually found a first edition from 1925 that was published three years before the one that is in people's hands. And anyway, so I'm reading from those manuscripts. Sorry, I digress. It was really fascinating because he talked about how he has a council of people that he, in his imagination, works out ideas and things through, right? So this is Napoleon Hill's, the list of people he had in his table of... His mastermind, the people who had passed on. The people he had were Napoleon, which I think it's Napoleon Bonaparte, Washington, Emerson, Elbert Hubbard. So these are the people he had on his list, Lincoln, anyway. And then he went through, he talked about each person individually. He said, "Mr. Lincoln, I desire to build in my own character those qualities of patience and fairness towards all mankind. And have a keen sense of humor, which were your outstanding characteristics. I need these qualities and I should not be contented until I developed them." And he said, "Mr. Washington, I desire to build in my own character those personalities of patriotism, self-sacrifice, and leadership, which were your outstanding characteristics." And then he goes on and talks about Emerson, Napoleon, Hubbard. All these people that he looks up to and the characteristics. And so, that's the best way to do the hall of fames. Who are the people you want be like? Who are your idols, your heroes, the people who, if you could look at, I want to... For me, there's definitely people who have passed on that I look up to, right? I look up to Joseph Smith as someone who's a mentor and a friend. He was the first Mormon prophet. I look up to him. Napoleon Hill's someone I look up to, Charles Haanel. All these old personal development authors, old marketers. All these people who, I've seen them, I've read their books, I've seen their stuff. I look up to those people. I'm like, "That's who I want to become." For me, I don't know how to explain my hall of fame goal yet, but I do know what it feels like. It feels like in 200 years from now, there's going to be a kid like Russell on eBay searching for stuff. And he finds my work, and he finds my books, and he finds these things I've done. And he's just like, "Oh, my gosh." And he takes those things, and he... That's the feeling I want, right? The same thing that I'm having for these thought leaders who are molding and changing my life. Yeah, who are the people that... And specifically why? Napoleon Hill said, "I wanted Lincoln because of these characters. I wanted Washington because of these characters." Who are the people you look up to that you want to be like? And what are the characteristics that you want to emulate? Those are the things I feel are a part of the hall of fame goals. Who do you want to become? Right? It's less a tangible thing. I think it's more of like, it's who you become by the time you're done, right? And so then we step back, and now we come down to... So that's the hall fame, right? Now we've got our Super Bowl goals, right? So the Super Bowl goals, these are very tangible. This is not like, I want to make money. This is like, I want to make Two Comma Club by June 16th, right? I'm going to win the Super Bowl on February 2nd or whatever. They're very tangible. They're very realistic. You know there's a beginning. You know there's an end. You either achieve it or you don't. There's a finality. That's the goal. And so you pick these goals with what Napoleon Hill call definiteness of purpose, right? I know exactly what I'm going to do, how I'm going to do it. This is what I want. And so what I thought was interesting, my friend reached out to me, he was saying, he's like, "I feel like there's two sides. I have my personal goals, but then also my mission, my work goals." And I said, "Yes, exactly. It's growth and contribution." What is your growth goal? What do you want to achieve? What do you want to personally achieve? Right? And the second side is, how do you want contribute? And I feel like if you set a Super Bowl goal for both of those different sides, and they work hand-in-hand, that's what you're moving towards, right? I'm trying to become this. This is my goal personally. This my goal as a mission. And if you're looking at those things, and they work hand-in-hand, right? The more growth you have, the more likely you'll be able to contribute. And the more you'll be able to contribute. So I think I haven't figure out exactly how to explain this yet. But conceptually, that makes sense. So I'm picking goals both about growth and about contribution. And I'm picking them with definiteness of purpose. I know exactly what it is, where I'm going. And all of Napoleon Hill's books, literally I've got pretty much every manuscript he's ever published that I can find. He talks about definiteness of purpose. He's always talking about the people who are successful in life. They have a definite purpose. I know this is exactly what I want, and they have a definite plan to achieve it. This is the steps I'm going to do to go and achieve that thing, right? And one Of the quotes I marked last night from The Law of Success. It was interesting. He said, "Until a man selects a definite purpose in his life, he dissipates his energies and spreads his thoughts over so many subjects in so many different directions that they're led not to power, but to indecision and weakness." Boom. So if we don't have this definite purpose, this is what I'm doing, what I'm moving forward, this is my plan. Do you don't have those things? Then you're dabbling. You're all over the place, which is the majority of the world, right? Everyone's dabbling. They're doing little things here and there, and they're all over the place, but no one's actually moving forward. Definiteness of purpose, it says that, "They're led in so many directions that they lead not to power, but to indecision and weakness." Which is the majority of the world, right? There's no power, there's no decisions, there's no movement, it's just randomness. And so for us, it's picking a hall fame goal. Who do I want to become? And it's looking back one step, and say, "Okay, if I achieve all my goals each year, and I'll keep winning Super Bowls, eventually I'll get there." But now, what are my Superbowl goals? What is it that I want about personal growth that I want to achieve? And then, what is my one on contribution I want to achieve? Okay? And then picking those, and making them definite. Again, not just, I want to make more money. I want to lose weight. I want to weigh 127 pounds and I want to be 6% body fat by June 16th. Boom. Now I know there's the goal, definiteness of purpose. I can reverse engineer. Okay, if I'm going to win that Super Bowl, what do I got to do? Okay, what do I need to know? I got to figure that out, right? I know how many calories I need each day. I know how much exercise I need to do. And you reverse engineer it all the way down to, okay, now I know my daily routines, my morning routines, my afternoon routines. These are things I need to do to be able to eventually win the Super Bowl, so then eventually I can be in the hall of fame. And it's true with any goal, right? So setting the personal growth goal, setting the contribution goal. And then, now you got a definite purpose. Now I'm creating a definite plan. And then like I said, there's so much more I can geek out with you. And then it's like figuring out the needs of your body, so things are met. So you can actually focus on your goals. So you don't keep getting sucked down into this thing that's not going to help you to have a success you need and you want. But that will be a podcast episode for another day. Anyway, hope this helps. Again, I know that I'm giving bread crumbs, because I don't have all the answers yet, but hopefully a couple things. Hopefully, it helps you, number one. Number two, if you are in the process of creating your frameworks and your thoughts, notice how I'm doing this, right? I'm talking about it. I'm sharing it. I'm sharing unfinished thoughts, unfinished ideas, because it helps me think it out loud, gets me the momentum, gets things happening. And as I keep doing this, it'll get closer and closer in March. I'm doing an event about it. And then, I think September is my due date on the manuscripts. Hope by then, I'll have the book manuscript submitted. So anyway, hope that helps you guys. Thank you so much for listening to this and all episodes. Grateful for you guys. If you haven't joined The No B.S. and the Behind the Scenes newsletter yet, make sure you do that. This is the print physical newsletter that goes out twice a month. The first month is called Magnetic Marketing. It's coming from me and Dan Kennedy. And the second one, every fourteen days you get a new newsletter, it's called The Behind the Scenes. So I'm showing behind the scenes of the funnels we have that are working the best in all the businesses that I run or I mentor. And it's amazing. I'm spending two or three days every single month writing these things. This is not someone I outsource. It's not me recording audio and transcribing. It's me sitting on my computer spending two or three days writing these things out because I'm really passionate about it. I love newsletters. It's how I learned initially growing up. I finished the February Behind the Scenes newsletter yesterday before I flew out. It's good. It shows you guys literally, here's the funnel, here's the steps, here's the pages, here's the scripting. We break it down step-by-step-by-step. So if you're not a member yet, you can go to nobsletter.com. You can go get the most incredible free gift ever. It's 20 bucks. And then, you'll get a thirty-day trial to the newsletter. You're going to get two newsletters in the mail. Make sure you do that, because like I said, I'm putting a lot of effort into this, and they're really, really powerful. Basically, it's like, every two weeks you're getting a mini book written by me and Dan Kennedy sent to your house. And I grab it, read it, pull out one or two ideas. You do that every two weeks from now until this time next year, and implement things piecemeal, just one thing at a time. Your business in 12 months from now will not be the same. I promise you that. So anyway, nobsletter.com. Thanks again for listening. I appreciate you all, and I'll talk to you soon.

On this episode of the What's Working Now Show, we get to take a look into host Katie Richardson's coaching world by discussing the story of the “world's most amazing entrepreneur,” in Katie's opinion. Guest Josh Forti is one of Katie's infamous “exceptional people,” not because he's the multi-million-dollar success story that he is today, but because of how Josh learned to push through deeply dark times of identity crisis, crashing finances and management, and dehydrated relationships. Get inspired from Josh's open personality about the absolute cruciality of knowing where you're going and why you believe what you believe, and learn his four amazing reasons to push through your darkest days with proven tips on how to get out of that position in the first place.3 Key TakeawaysWhy it's more important to know where you're going and why than it is to make moneyHow high performers function differently from the average personThe fallacies behind work/hustle culture that may be pitfalls for your entrepreneurial journeyResourcesWebsite: joshforti.comSocial: @joshfortiInstagram FacebookPodcast: The Josh Forti EffectExpert Secrets by Russel Brunson

The skill set for building an effective team is WAY different than the skills needed for marketing and sales. For one, you have to learn how to become a true LEADER. So the two key questions to ask yourself are 1. Who do you have to become to lead a great team? And 2. What are the critical strategies you need to implement to get your team onboard to follow your vision? Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up, everyone? This is Russell, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today's episode, we're going to be talking about building a team. How do you do it? What are the pitfalls? What are the pros, the cons? And some of the things that I learned along the way. Hopefully this'll help you as you're building out your team to be able to do whatever it is you're trying to do in your life. Whatever your mission, whatever your goal, whatever the business you're trying to build. I hope that this episode will help you as you're thinking through it, to help you to build the team that's going to get you to the finish line. So with that said, I'm going to cue up the theme song. We come back, you have a chance to listen in on a cool interview, talking about how to build your team. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast, I'm here today with Josh Forti and we've been having fun today. The last two episodes- Josh Forti: We have. Russell: We recorded went longer, but- Josh: It's been fun. Russell: I think they've been fun. So today will be a little bit shorter episode, but it's something that, again, Josh brings things that I don't ever really typically talk about. So it's been fun to talk about some of the stuff like I think about, but I've never really verbally shared. So do you want to set up what we were talking about today? Josh: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so very specifically here, I want to focus for you specifically. The question is, well, leadership and team building, what are some of the biggest shifts around building a team and becoming a leader? Because as someone who built a team myself that failed miserably, it wasn't that we hated each other, but it's just like, it was chaos. When you're trying to manage like six or seven different people and they're all like contracting everywhere. And now I'm like kind of going back and rebuilding. And I'm building it right and I have full-time people that we're bringing in and going. And it's like, man, the skillset of making money, the skillset of being a marketer is way so totally different- Russell: Yeah. Josh: Than building a team. And even being like the attractive character and building a following, like building a following is a completely different skillset than it is of growing a team and being a leader and things like that. And so I guess like two part is number one, who did you have to become? And like, secondly, what are like some of the hacks, tips, or I know you like secrets. So what are some of the secrets that you use to build a team and really like sell them on the vision and like really make sure that they were thriving in that role? Russell: Cool. So I want to just second what you said, building a team is way different than all the other things. And I've struggled over the years. I have an amazing team, as you guys know, if you've seen everything. And I wouldn't say most of it's because of my own doing, I'll talk about some of the stuff I've learned along the way. But it's a different skillset. And I think making money is an easier skill, I think creating a movement of people that are following you is different. I always tell people, like I'm such a good leader and communicator to like my tribe and I'm not as good to my internal team. It's interesting. And so a couple things that I'll share again, I don't have this perfect. And if you ask people on my team, like Russell's not perfect at this because I'm not. But I'll share some of the things I've learned because I'm always trying to figure this out and trying to get better at it. One of the biggest lessons I had and I did a podcast on this probably two or three years ago. Was this realization that I had to make a transition. Because I was always like the All Star. Like if you look at basketball, like I was the All Star, like I was really good. I could write copy, I could build a funnel, I could drive traffic, I could sell from stage, I could do all the different things. And so I was like, Michael Jordan out there and I'd be on stage, I'd be doing, I'd be dunking and slamming and three points. And like just amazing and people would tell me how great I was and I loved it. And then I start building a team. And so I started building a team, but the problem is that as I was building a team, I still thought I was Michael Jordan. So I'd build the team and I'd be in there, all of a sudden, I'd have the person writing copy and they'd be going up with the ball, about to do the layup. And I'm like, "Ah, I could actually do it better." So I grab the ball from my own teammate and rip it out of their hands and I'd go dunk it like, "Ah." And I would get everyone cheering for me again. Or someone would be coming down ... I'm trying to get these analogies working. But basically what's happening is that I was the All Star and- Josh: That one worked. That analogy worked. Russell: That one did work? Okay, good. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I was trying to bring in other All Stars. But the problem is I'd bring these All Stars in and then as they were trying to perform, I'd be like, "I can do it better." And I would take the ball from them because I want to be the All Star. And I had this realization, like for me to actually build a team, I cannot continue to be the All Star. And this is hard- Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: For achievers like us, especially for someone like me. Like I was the achiever, I had done all the roles because I had built the company by myself initially. It was me doing all the roles, so I learned all the roles, I got good at all the roles. And so as I started trying to like bring on these different All Stars, it was tough. It's kind of like if you watch the All Star game or like the dream team. Like all of a sudden you got like the best players on a team and usually they're not the best playing with each other because they're all the All Stars, they all want a ball hog and it gets really, really difficult. And so I had to make this realization, like if I'm going to be successful growing a team and getting click funnels from hundred million to a billion dollars, like I can't continue to be the All Star. I have to retire and I have to become the coach. That's a hard transition. Because now you're coming back and like you're successful, not now by your skillset, but you're successful by like cultivating other people's skillsets. And that's a different skillset to have, by the way. Like it's way harder. For me, it's always been easier for me to go and like to do the thing. Like I'm finding it now with I'm coaching my kids wrestling. And I'm watching my kids, I'm watching the team and like, man, I was such a good athlete. I'd go out there, I'd kill myself, I'd work so hard and I was an amazing athlete. But it's way harder for me to coach other athletes because I can't give them desire, I can't give them these different things. And so that was difficult. And so that's the first thing to realize is that if you're going to start growing a team, you have to be willing to like take your Jersey off and say, "I'm no longer the All Star, I am now the coach. And I've got new people." And that's been the hardest thing for me and I still struggle with that, I still like jump back in. I'm like, "Ah." But that's the key, if you want to get a good group people around you. Because otherwise if you're the one that's taking the ball from him, from the other people on the team, the All Stars are going to leave you. Like they're not going to stick around, they want to be the All Star too, they want the recognition, they want to be doing the thing. So that's the first big shift that you got to have. Any questions on that before I go to kind of- Josh: No, no. Super good. Yeah, you're good. Russell: Okay. So the second thing is you have to be good at hiring All Stars. I remember when we first started building ClickFunnels, Todd read an article or something and he was talking about ... in the article was like, there's A players, B players, C player, there's different levels. But what people don't understand, it's not like A players, like 100% and B players like 50%. Like the article said the difference between an A player and a B player is like 2200% difference. So it's like a B player, you can have like one A player going to give you the output of like 50 or 100 or how many B players. And so what most of us try to do, is try to come in and say, "Okay, I don't want to spend as much money getting the right person. So I'm going to find somebody who's cheaper. Maybe they're not going to be an A player, but they'll be a B player, but I can afford them." And that's like this mindset that most people have. I see it all the time, I see it in Facebook groups, in ClickFunnels Facebook group, like, how do I get a cheap funnel builder? Like, that's the problem, you're looking for a B player. Or you find an A player, you get 2200 times better thing. And so it's been interesting because we launched ClickFunnels the first time, like I had a couple A players, which is why it grew. We had a couple All Stars, we had some like Todd Dickerson. You guys know our team, like we had A players who were able to go and intergrow. But then from there, we had to hire whoever we could afford. Right now we're building ClickFunnels 2.0 and we're in a unique spot where it's like, we don't have to just hire who we can afford. Like let's hire the best. And so we're going out there trying to figure out who are the A players in each regard. And it's crazy because I look at the team that's building ClickFunnels 2.0, it's a small team. What they're accomplishing is amazing, but they're all A players. When we started like looking at rolling out Click Funnels 2.0 and our marketing team, we started trying to bring in A players and they're expensive. And so a lot of times the questions like, well, I don't have any money. How do I recruit the A players? Well, I recruited Todd and I was broke. A players aren't necessarily looking for money today. The A players are people who are looking for money in the future. They're the ones who are like, "I want to be part of a team. I want to build something cool, something I believe in. And I want to be able to get paid insane amounts of money over here. And I'm willing to give up that for this over here." The right people will be willing to do that. So as I come back, if I was to like be building my team over from scratch right now. There's number one, again, taking off the All Star, say I'm going to be the coach. And number two is like, if I'm going to be the coach and I'm out there building the team, like I'm going to try to build the dream team. And to do that, I've got to sell them on the vision of why this is cool and like where it's going to go, and what's the opportunity for them. Because just like you're trying to sell your customers on the opportunity of like funnels are the opportunity or whatever. It's like, you're selling your dreams team, like this is the opportunity. Like if you join the team, you're going to get paid nothing right now or very little right now. But this is how we're going to structure things so that it'll be worth it for you over here. And the right people will hear that because that's what they're looking for. Someday when I retire from this whole, whatever I'm doing. If I was ever getting a job again, it's not going to be based on money, I could care less about money. Someone's going to sell me someday on the vision. In fact, I just saw Sean Wayland just hired the dude who started Tapout- Josh: Yeah, I saw that. Russell: And like how powerful is that? The Tapout dude does not need Sean's money. He sold his company for insane amounts of money. But I'm sure Sean's like, "Hey dude, here's the opportunity. You help me do this thing and flip it like, this is what's possible for you." And now he's got literally like there's no better person that Sean could have hired to run that company- Josh: Yeah, I know. Russell: Than this dude. Josh: When I saw that one, I was like, "Oh my Gosh." Russell: It's brilliant. So for all of us, we got to start linking more strategically. Not like, who can I afford for this role? It's like, who is the person that's going to be getting a million bucks a year in five years from now in this role? And how do I sell them on the opportunity? How do I create an opportunity where they can grow and they can monetize? Where they can make this kind of money. And that's how you recruit the right people into your world, who are going to help you to actually have success. And so those are the things ... because you get a good A player, you don't have to be really good at managing, you don't have to be really good at micro- Josh: Yeah. Russell: All those kind things. Like you get the right people in place, they're going to do the things and it makes you look like the All Star, the coach of the year that you are. Because you built the right team. Building the team- Josh: Yeah. Russell: Is more valuable than all the other pieces, I believe. Josh: Yeah. Like getting the right people is more important. The systems, the process, like those are all important. But like if you have B players on the team, it's like you're going to get a mediocre result. Russell: Yeah. And then- Josh: Yeah. Russell: And B player, you're going to be one in charge if you know the process. We brought Todd and I didn't have to like sit down with Todd and like, "Okay, how are we going to manage the projects? How are we going to do this?" Like Todd came in, he's like, "All right, I got it." And he just ran and he was able to run and like, all right, he's done. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Like we just brought in this guy named Kevin Richards, who we brought him in into like be the CMO of ClickFunnels. And Kevin had worked for a whole bunch of really big companies doing this. And it's crazy because like he came in and we gave him the reins, he started running. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is way better than I was running." Like there's structures, organization. Because he's done it before, over and over and over again. He's going to come in and plug in and just do it. And I'm watching it right now, I'm like- Josh: Yeah. Russell: "Man, like he's an A player who I could hire." In fact, I have over the last decade, a whole bunch of B players to do this role and no one's been able to hit it. And it's been me being involved so much. Where now it's like literally the first two weeks I was like all nervous because I want to make sure that everything's perfect. And finally like gave him the reins and I stepped back and it's like, "Whoa, this is so much better than when I was running it." Josh: Yeah. Russell: And it's easier and less stressed on me and he's loving it and it's just powerful. So those are the key. Josh: Okay. Couple rapid fire questions here, so that we make time. Number one, have you ever run into challenges or how have you dealt with communication differences inside of a team? Because one of the things that I've noticed is like, I just thought everybody would communicate like I was if we're all part of a team. I'm like the most expressive person, like when I talk. Like I use emojis and exclamation points and like if I'm texting, if I'm going like my voice or whatever. And like someone on my team is like, "Okay." I'm like, "Ah, are you mad? Do you understand? Like what do you mean, okay?" Do you have systems in place? Or do you typically go and just try to like find people to do that? Or is that something you just learn? Because I'm sure like, Melanie, I mean she was with you for how long? Right before Shelia, I'm sure she had a very unique communication style and I'm sure your next assistant is probably not the same as her. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Right. So like how have you learned like how to deal with that? Russell: Yeah. A couple things. One is like personality profiling is huge. In fact, we're working on a whole project right now and that'll probably be a book and a membership side, bunch of stuff, all based on personality profiling. Because that's how you understand like what motivates people? How do they speak? How do they not speak? How do they understand? Because again, Melanie and Jenny are very different people. But I'm able to work with both of them because I understood their personality types, I understood like, what are the things that would light Melanie up? What are the things that'd get Jenny excited to work? And vice versa. Like, if you look at Melanie was a very high S, so very faithful. And so like she would like die for you to be able to get something done. Jenny on their hand has very low S, almost no S. And so for her, it's like, man, if she gets bored, she's gone. So I got to make sure that she's got 8,000 projects and she's juggling them all. The more things she's having, the more successful she's going to be. Similar to me. And so I give her tons of projects and she thrives that she's able to juggle all these things. Whereas if I treat her like I taught Melanie, she would've been here for a week and a half, like, I'm out, like this is horrible. So understanding those kind of things. Like DISC profile's big, Meyers Briggs is big. Those are my two favorites. I'm trying to learn to master all the other ones, but those ones help a ton when you're hiring and all also when you're managing people. Josh: Yeah. Russell: The other thing is, this is one that helped me. Actually, Julie Story actually was one that taught it to me initially. And I don't remember all the things, but there's these different hats. There's like a black hat and a green hat and a red hat and yellow hat and all these things like that. So I'm a very green hat person, so are you. Put on the green hat and it's like creative ideas and we're flowing. I'm like, we get so excited about sharing stuff. And there's people who have like a black hats, they're the ones who always like ... they look at what could go wrong. What about this? And what about this? Josh: They take away all the fun. Oh my God. Russell: Yeah. Josh: They ruin it. Russell: And then like the white hats. So there's all these different hats. The ones I really remember is like green and black because I'm green hat. And like, Jamie Smith's a good example of a black hat. I love Jamie, one of my favorite humans in the world. But when we would do meetings together, I literally wanted jump over the table and strangle him. Because I'm like, "I did, I did, I did." And he's like, "Well, you think about this? You think about this? Think about this?" And like you're sucking the life out of me. Josh: Yeah. Russell: My wife's a very black hat person, as well. I'm like, "We should take the kids and like fly around the world and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Like just brainstorming things that are probably never going to happen. She's like, "What about this, this, this?" And so we started learning like based on this ... this is something that Julie brought that was really powerful. It was like, "Hey, we're in now in a green hat phase. Well, Russell's going to green hat, we're talking about ideas. No one's allowed to black hat this at all. Let's just share ideas." So then everyone's just sharing ideas and like, we have a chance to be excited and creative and get these things out there. And after it's like all the creative steps out, it's like, "Okay, now let's put a black hat on, now it's black hat this." And now we can all look at it objectively you're like, "Okay, we're going to black hat this and go through the black hat things." And then we put on a different colored hat and go through those things. Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: And we go through different hats, but they're separately, they're not all happening at the same time. Because if it happens at the same time, it destroys my creativity and excitement and energy. I want to like strangle the person. But like, man, I need those people. I need Jamie to look at this and be like, "Here's 40 ways why this isn't going to work." Like, oh crap, I didn't think about that, that or that. We stack the different hats as opposed to doing them all at the same time and making us all want to kill each other. And that has been- Josh: That's so helpful. Russell: Huge for us. Like for me, it's huge. I always tell people like when I start brainstorming, like, "Okay, green hat time, no negative, no what ifs. Let's go." And then we just do that. And you see like the black hat people are like twitching and they're like, don't worry, you're going to get your shot, but not yet. Until everything's out and it's like, "Okay, black hat's on. What do you guys got?" And then they can go do their thing. Josh: You need some anxiety medication over there. Russell: Yeah. We can do a whole, like two day training on that, too. Because it's such a powerful thing. But conceptually, it's breaking those things in that way. Josh: All right, Russell. Well, in your other life, we'll just have an entire podcast where all we do is just do deep dives all day long. But in this life, we have to stick with constraints of where we're at. So anyway, thank you for sharing that. Super, super helpful. I appreciate it. Russell: No worries. Thank you, Josh. Appreciate you guys. Hopefully you enjoyed this episode. As you guys are building your teams, remember the principles we talked about. You've got to become the coach, you've got to attract A players, you got to put them in the right spots, figure out ways to make it profitable for them in the long term, figure out personality types, you can serve them the right way. Black hat, green hat, red hats. We should do an episode on just on all hat ... I have to go back to remember all the other colored hats. But anyway- Josh: All right, our next- Russell: There you go. Josh: Go around, I'll be like you have homework for this. Russell: Russell, prepare for this and we'll go. Josh: Prepare for this one. That'd be awesome. Russell: That'd be awesome. Thanks everyone for listening. Thank you, Josh. And we'll see you guys on the next episode.

Did you know this may be holding you back from success in your business? Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to Marketing Secrets podcast. One of the questions I get asked a lot about, and I don't spend a lot of time talking about it, is actually money and mindset around money, and how that works, and things that can help you to make more money, things that hold you back from making money. They have nothing to do with your skill set, it just has everything to do with the conversations, the beliefs, the things inside of your mind. This interview with Josh Forti, it was really fun and hopefully you enjoy it. Hopefully it'll help you if you do have money blocks, to help you get unstuck. If you don't think you have money blocks, you probably do. And this hopefully, interview, will make you very aware of those things, and help you to find those things and knock them out in your life. That said, we'll keep the theme song, and when we come back, listen in on this interview with me and Josh Forti. What's up everybody? Welcome back The Marketing Secrets podcast. I'm here today again with Josh Forti, and we're having so much fun today. We just recorded one episode and now we're going deep into episode number two, which we're going to be talking about mindset as it relates to things that are very specific to you guys as entrepreneurs. I'll Josh talk more about this as he's going to be queuing up the question, but hope you guys enjoy this episode as well. Josh Forti: All right, man. First off, we got to talk about your shirt. I feel like there's got to be a story behind this. Guys, for those of you that are listening on audio, let me just explain real quick. It is a skull and crossbones, but it's not just a skull and crossbones. It's got bunny ears on the skull. It's got little waves off to the side. What does it say on the sleeve? Russell: It says, "Psycho bunny." Josh: Psycho bunny. Russell: This is actually a really cool brand called Psycho Bunny, and I bought a couple of their things. I'm like, "This is a cool brand." And then I was shopping with Bart Miller in Vegas, and they have a Psycho Bunny shop. I went in there- Josh: Oh dang! Russell: And they had shirts and jackets and suit jackets that have the Psycho Bunny inside. It's just a fun, cool brand, and I really like it. Psycho Bunny. Josh: Okay. There's no grand, huge story behind how you got it. You just liked it. Russell: I should buy the company because it'd be really cool. Anyway, nope. Nothing. Josh: Guys, when you're a funnel hacker and when you decide to take over the world and create empires, you can randomly decide on a podcast that you're just going to ... "I should buy the company." That's not a normal thing that most people get to say, but it's super dope. Russell: This could be a fun episode in the future because as we acquired two big companies last year and I'm learning about this and having more fun with it, there are some cool ... For most of us, we look at a company, like, "There's no way I could buy that company," but then like Tai Lopez who just bought RadioShack and he bought Pier 1 Imports and all these companies… Josh: Dress Barn. Yeah. Russell: Now, I bought a couple companies and I'm like, oh, my gosh, there's actually a really cool strategy where it doesn't technically cost you any money if you do it correctly. We bought Dan Kennedy's company for a steal. We've launched the first thing. Now we made our money back. And now moving forward, everything I do with Dan Kennedy's company is pure, unadulterated profit to the bottom line. And that's exciting because ... All of a sudden it's like, you can actually buy companies when you understand the core principles of what we do. Anyway, that's a topic for another day, but it's kind of a fun one. Josh: So much fun stuff. Topic for another day. We'll do many episodes. Now is not the time. We're going to dive into what I think goes really well with our last episode. Last episode we talked about goal setting and setting things up, and that last bit of it was around identity and beliefs and values and rules and things like that. I want to talk about mindset here, and specifically the mindset ... There's a couple core key areas, because what's interesting is a lot of times we think mindset is we have to train our minds to think a certain way, or we have to overcome false beliefs about bad things. Like, "I'll never be successful" or "I'll never be this." But it goes both ways, because often times we can have fear of success. We can have fear that, oh, my gosh, what happens if I actually achieve that goal? There's so many different things around that, that we could dive into, but I want to kick off with this one specifically around mindset around money. I do want to talk about not just money, failure, doing the impossible, things like that, but I want to start with money because I feel like money is one of these things that we all have some form of weird relationship with it. Very few people grew up in a home where their parents and everybody around them had a healthy relationship with money, because most people ... I would say 90 plus percent of the people that I've met do not have a healthy relationship with money. They don't understand it. They don't understand what it represents, how it works, any of the things with it. For you, I want you to take us back because one of things, and I've kind of told you this at the beginning, a lot of people in the ClickFunnels world, like Russell. I was talking to Brad Gibb the other day. Shout out to Brad. He's awesome. He's like, "Russell has come and he's taken these handcuffs off of us, to where now we just can print money." It's ridiculous. It's kind of a cheat code. When we talk about it to all of our friends, we go around and we're like, "Yeah, we just kind of make money on the Internet." They're like, "How do you do that?" We're like, "We don't know. We just do what Russell says and it just works." Russell: It's a magic trick! Josh: It just shows up. It's amazing. We've kind of unshackled the making of money, if we follow what it is, but keeping money. But our thoughts around money, our beliefs around money, how we perceive and value money, how we think money is going to change us. All of these different other things around money, those things are now new problems that a lot of us are running into, or have not yet applied the things that you've told us to do because of those beliefs. I think both of those are true. I've seen so many people ... I made not a ton, ton of money, but certainly 10 times more money than I'd ever made in my life when I first got started, and blew it all because of my poor, very unhealthy, almost toxic relationship with money. Take us back, what are the money shifts or the beliefs around money, specifically in mindset, that you had to go through. I'm just going to kind of leave that open ended and see where you take it. Russell: The first thing I think that would be useful for everyone is for everyone to actually, honestly sit down and look at their relationship with money and understand it ... It's funny because if you would ask Russell 15 years ago Russell if this was actually a real thing, I'd be like, "No, this is stupid. Just make money. It's easy." But I had a friend who I worked with, man, probably 12, 13 years ago on a project and he was someone who is super charismatic, super dynamic, super talented person. When he was younger, he used his talents and his gifts and he made a whole bunch of money really, really fast. Crazy, crazy money. Money that doesn't make any sense. When he got that money, he started doing stupid things with it. He got into drugs and alcohol and all the problems that are associated with when you make too much money too fast as a kid, and almost destroyed his life. He almost died. He almost lost his family and his marriage. All these things happened. He lost all the money, which was probably a blessing. And then he refixed his life. And then he got back to the spot where he's like, "I want to make money again." I watched him for probably 10 years of his life, where he would do all the right things, he would get close to making a bunch of money and then he would literally subconsciously destroy everything he had built, and it kept happening. At first I was so confused by it. I'm like, "You were so close. How do you keep messing this up? I don't understand it." Then he told me a story. He didn't know this subconsciously but we had a conversation one night where he told me a story. I was like, "Oh, my gosh. Subconsciously, you are linking the destruction of your family, your health and all these things to making money, because that's what happened the very first time. Now every time you get close to it, your whole subconscious mind is like, no, and starts making you do stupid things to destroy yourself from actually having success." I've seen ... Now, it's been a decade of me watching this. And as much as I love this person, I keep seeing him. He's so talented, so many gifts, and keeps not having any success because of this thing that happened in his youth. His is an extreme example, but this is happening to all of us. You think about when you were growing up, what are the things that your parents said about money? What are the things that you heard at church about money? What are the things you heard in different spots? There are so many things that have been ingrained in our head that we don't even know consciously. And also, we start having success in whatever. We start making money or we start getting close to making money, and all these warning signals are popping off in your head, like, don't get money because of this because you'll become a bad person and you're going to fall away from God. You're going to be doing this. You're going to be the bad person. You look at TV. Myron Golden is the first one that ever pointed this out to me. You look at every movie, every superhero movie, for the most part, the bad guy is the rich billionaire who is this horrible person. This is ingrained in our heads that money is going to make us evil. Those things are real, and even if you don't think that they're affecting you, they probably are. Josh: And then you don't consciously believe it. Subconsciously they control you. Russell: Yeah, it's affecting you. I've seen this in my own journey. When I first started making money, I thought everyone was going to be excited. I was like, "This is so cool." I was so excited to teach everybody else. I started making money. I start teaching people and try to show my friends and my family and what happened. The response I got was not what I thought it was going to be. It was not like, "This is amazing-" Josh: At all. Russell: "Let's try it." Instead it was weird, especially for my wife. My wife struggled with it even more so than me because I've had success in parts of my life in the past where ... In wrestling, I was a state champ, I was an all-American. I hit these different things, but there was this weird side of success you aren't expecting where the people around you who you think are going to be celebrating with you, they don't. In fact, I remember my mom when I bought my dream house ... My house is ... You've been to my house. Josh: Your house is insane. It's so awesome. Russell: It's like the coolest thing in the world. When I was growing up, I wanted an insane house. I remember I was finally at a spot where I could buy this house. In the reality, I didn't pay it off immediately. I could've just paid cash for it. I didn't. But within two years I think I paid it off, which was a big deal for me. But I remember when I was buying my house, I remember a comment my mom said. She was like, "You don't want to buy a house like this because then you're going to be one of those rich people up on the hill." I was like, "What does that mean, mom?" She was like, "They're the ones that are always looking down at everybody else." I'm like, "What?" All of a sudden I was scared to tell my mom about my success because my mom viewed the rich people as this thing over here. And then other people. It was this weird thing where all of a sudden it makes you want to shrink down, it makes you want to hide because you're like, "I don't want people judging me because of this thing." For all of you guys, for all of us, there's these things that may happen, where comments are made, when people we love and respect were to all of a sudden to ... The side of success that you think is going to happen doesn't. Especially in money. I think money is a big one because it's such a thing. Josh: Yeah. I also think that because of the stories that we're told by everybody else, like you're saying, subconsciously it's ingrained in our society, what money is and how it works, nobody understands it. Taylor Welch ... You know Taylor, right? Taylor Welch? Russell: Yep. Josh: He's the one ... He and I have become ... I don't want to say good friends, but certainly friends over the past little bit. He was actually the very first person I ever interviewed on my podcast. Russell: Very cool. Josh: He got me into money. He was like, "Study money. Because once you understand how it works, it'll completely change your perspective of it." I always joke around with my mom. I'm like, "Money's not real. It's all fake." In America specifically, the U.S. dollar is not real. It's all fake and it's all made up. She always pushes back. She's like, "It's not fake because I can guy groceries with it." I'm like, "That right there, that shows that I have a different relationship ..." And side note, I freaking love my mom. My mom and I have an amazing relationship. But my mom and I have a completely different fundamental relationship with money. That was a very interesting learning lesson for me. When you change your relationship with money, when you change how it works, when you understand it differently and when you change your relationship with it, it also becomes not hard to get or keep, because now you're not needy of it. Your relationship changes with it. I always think about ... Take it back to dating. I'm not even going to say the book because I don't want people to go ... It's not a great book, but I was reading a clip out of this book one time and the guy in it goes, "Money and ..." Let's say, relationship. Money and girls are kind of the same thing. Those are not the words he used, but money and girls are the same way. If you're desperate and needy of it, you'll never have it. But if you don't care, it'll come abundantly. That was a very interesting shift for me as well. Anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt you but that was very interesting. Russell: It's key. As I studied Tony Robbins, the biggest thing I learned ... One of the biggest things. I shouldn't say the biggest, but is just becoming aware of things. I think the first step for of any us is being aware of how this is actually affecting you. For a lot of us, at whatever level you're at, the reason you're not at the next level is because there's some belief around it that's keeping you from there. It's interesting, I remember when I had the goal, when I hit a million dollars in a year, I didn't hit it three years in a row. Every year I was within $50,000. Like, $75,000. How am I not hitting this? It was like, I had these weird beliefs around that thing. As soon as I broke it, I was like, this is easy. Going from million to 10 million was next. Getting to two, three, five, eight million was easy, but then 10 million was this gap where I was stuck. It's beliefs. What's easy? What's hard? A couple things ... Again, this is one of those topics. I've never taught this before so I don't have the, here's the Russell three step framework. Things have happened in my life that I became aware of this for myself. One of them was, I had a coach ... I've had her a couple times throughout my life. She's awesome. One of my favorite coaches of all time. Her name is Tara Williams. Tara ... It was interesting because I always thought ... Again, especially people who are religious, there's always this belief of is money going to make me evil? You hear these things on the side. I definitely had this subconscious fear around that. If I get too much money, I'm going to forget God. I'm going to forget my family. All these things couple happen. Because they do. They happen to so many people. We see it. I had that fear behind it. I remember, especially when I bought my house, I was like, I bought this house and it's crazy. Anyway, Tara was at our house, actually, doing a coaching session with my wife and I. It was an interesting thing. But she said a couple things in that meeting that had a big impact on me. One of the things was ... She asked my wife this specifically. "Do you think this is bad that he bought this house?" My wife is like, "Yeah." She has so much guilt associated with it, because she's like ... It was interesting because Tara brought back, "Because you guys have money, talk about things you've done. Last year you gave a million dollars to OUR. Last year you did this. Last year you did this. How many people have you helped? How many entrepreneurs have you empowered? How many jobs have you created?" We started going through this whole thing, and it was like, all these things you're doing has been creating wealth for you. You have this wealth. You can just give it away and you guys do give a lot away, but is it bad for you now to enjoy some of it, to buy a house? Still she was like, "I don't know. Is it bad or not?" She's like, "Now you have this house, what have you guys done with this house?" I was like, "We have our kids here and we have our family here. We bring people here. We're able to serve people at a different level because we have these things." All of a sudden it was like, oh, my gosh, this isn't a bad thing. I remember hearing Richard Branson, somebody asked him ... Who was it? It was another one of those moments for me that opened my mind. But someone asked Branson, "Do you feel guilty that you're not down at the soup kitchen helping feed these people?" Branson's response was so powerful. He said, "The people of the soup kitchen who are feeding people, that's amazing. We're so grateful for them. They're giving their time and their effort. It's powerful. I'm not going to go to the soup kitchen and feed people soup, but I can give the soup kitchen $50,000, and that's going to feed 10,000 people. It's different service but it's still service, and this is able to help even more people." I started thinking about that. Man, these tools that we create, like wealth and the things that we have can be so much more impactful if we use it correctly. It's not a bad thing. It's just understanding these are tools that we have. Anyway ... Josh: It's interesting you say that and phrase it that way because that was one of the things, actually, Brad Gibb, he's a very good friend of mine as well, and we talk a lot. And he's taught me probably more about money as far as investing how it works and how to use it and things like that, probably more than anybody else. Very, very smart. One of the things that he said is money is not all the same. He's like, "You can have a million dollars over here and a million dollars over here and one of them be used for good and to multiply and to be productive, and one of them be used just to indulge and be gluttonous and to be greedy. Is money good or bad? It's not good, it's not bad. It is. It is a tool for exchange. How you go and use it will determine whether or not it's good or bad for you in your own life." When he put it that way, I was like, if I have my money and I'm investing and I'm multiplying it and it's creating freedom and then I'm using that to be able to go out and give back, all of a sudden money is now good. It makes me be able to do my job better. But if I'm just going and I make a million dollars and I go to Vegas and I put 100 grand on black, cool. Maybe once in your lifetime. But that is not a good thing anymore. Now it's taking away from your gift. It can either be an amplifier or it can be something that takes away. That was a really, really big shift for me. It was like, how am I using it? Russell: It's powerful. Again, it just comes down to there's so many subconscious things that are weird about it. Next thing I want to talk about for entrepreneurs too ... And this is a trap with money that I got caught into for almost 15 years. When I stared my business, I remember I started making some money. I figured out what my wife and I needed to live. I think at the time it was $8,000 a month that was giving us the most amazing lifestyle ever. We set it up where our paycheck was eight grand a month and that's what was coming from the company. And everything else in the company I kept reinvesting back into the company. For a while that's important. That's where we're going to grow, where we're going to expand it. I look at my business for the next decade at least, maybe longer, I never pulled anything else out. It only kept getting reinvested, reinvested. And eventually ... Some of you guys heard my story. 10, 12 years ago we had this big crash where everything got shut down and we lost everything. And the thing that sucked is when it all was said and done, I had nothing. We never pulled money out. We never invested. We never did anything. It was all being reinvested back into the business. I got my guarantee, we had our certainty, eight grand a month coming in consistently every single time, but then nothing happened. I remember when we launched after that happened and everything crashed and we were rebuilding back up, during that time we had no money so everything is being reinvested back into the business because we had no business at that point. We started figuring this out. That's where I met Todd. We launched Click Funnels. When we launched Click Funnels, I instantly went back to my same pattern. Like, cool, all the money goes back into Click Funnels. That's how we're going to do this thing. Todd was like, "Dude, just so you understand, I did not build this thing to just have a good paycheck and let this thing keep growing. This is not worth it for me unless we pull money out." I remember I was like ... I had so much fear and I was like, "No. We can't do this." This is one of Todd and I's first and probably only real things where he was just like, "It's not worth it to me unless this is producing money that's being put over here for my family, for my church, for my faith, all the things I want to be doing." Again, we fought back and forth for a couple of months. The very first time we had some profit. I was like, "What do I do with this profit? Put it back in the business." Todd was like, "No, we need to pull it out of the business," and we fought back and forth. Finally, we figured out a way to make us both happy where we figured ... At the time, we need three months of money in reserve. Worst case scenario, that's there. But then after that's over, all of the money, 100% of the money needs to be pulled out and given to the owners. Otherwise we're going to be like you were, Russell, 15 years in and you've got nothing to show for it. All the stress, all the effort, all the energy, and nothing to show for it. That's how we set things up. I remember it was so scary for me. In fact, when we started pulling out and distributing out the profits every single month, I kept mine in there for two years. I didn't touch a penny of it because I'm like ... It's in my separate account. It's over there. What was crazy, though, is that all of a sudden this thing that I was doing started actually producing wealth for me, which took the stress down. I started seeing this thing happening, and all of a sudden it started giving me options where I had no options ahead of time. I think for a lot of entrepreneurs it's like, we have this thing ... It's funny because I see even big people like Gary Vee talk about this, like, "I don't care about money. I dump all my money back in. I'm just building this brand." I'm like, I thought that was the thing for a while too, but it's not. If the business is not producing wealth for the owners, what's the point of it? Eventually you got a job and that's it. It needs to be doing something or else it's not serving you, and therefore, it's not a gift. Josh: Was that the thing, though, helping you overcome that? Was it just doing it? Is that what helped you overcome it? Russell: Yeah, Todd forced me. If it wasn't for Todd, I would still be pulling out eight grand a month and that would be where I would be living. 100%. Todd forced me to do it and it stressed me out. I was so scared. For two years I didn't touch the money and all of a sudden it was like, oh, my gosh, there's this money here. Now I have the ability to ... This thing I had created, this value I was trying to put into the world was paying us back, and now we could ... Now we had all sorts of options. Especially when you're really pushing and you're working hard and you're grinding on something, if aren't seeing some tangible value back from it, it's not serving you. It's just taking from you. Again, this was my personal money, one of my personal issues I struggled with. This may or may not be that, but I would say for all of you guys, looking at this as you are creating a business and creating wealth, you need to be pulling things out. What you do with it is up to you. Like you talked about, use it for good, evil. You can give it to charity. You can do whatever. But if the business is just paying for itself, the business will continue to eat up all your money. It will. You leave money it, it's going to continue to eat it up and it'll disappear as fast as it can possibly happen. But if you start pulling it out and it's over here and it's different, man, it becomes more efficient. It becomes more effective. Everything becomes better because of that. Josh: It's funny, because my thing ... I had that same struggle except I wasn't even paying myself. I was literally just, what are my bills for the month, the bare minimum, and then that was it. And then I met my now wife and I started thinking about finances and she wanted stuff. I was like, but also the business. It was kind of like this thing. Katie came along and was like, "Josh ..." The very first ... She didn't give me a lot of tactical things. It was very mindset-focused. I remember one of the biggest tactical things that she gave me out of the very few that she did, she was like, "You need to pay yourself a paycheck, and that paycheck needs to not only be enough to cover all of your expenses, but it needs to in excess." When I started to put away multiple thousand dollars a month into savings or into being able to invest outside of the company, it changed my whole entire perspective. Weirdly enough, magically, the business made more money. It was like, made it every month. It was like, we're entrepreneurs. We figure out problems. Our brain programs for it. And then I started looking at it as myself as an expense. I was like, I'm a line item on the books. Just like I pay a contractor, that's me. All of a sudden, the business made enough money to cover that. But before that, it didn't. It was crazy. Russell: It's interesting because when you start seeing the results ... I've talked about this before. If you look at my Disc profile, there's the D-I-S-C, and then there's your values. My number one value is ROI. If I can't see the ROI of a situation, it makes it harder for me to do it. I was in business for a decade and a half and the ROI I was getting was good. I was like, "I'm helping people and having success, and it's fun to see the success stories." That was the ROI I was getting, and it was good. It kept me going. But man, I look at the last seven years of Click Funnel, it was like the pressure and the stress and all of the type of things. If it wasn't for the ROI, it took this pressure, but here's the ROI of it, I wouldn't have been able to do it. As soon as I started seeing the ROI and the ROI gets bigger and bigger and bigger, all of a sudden it's like, this becomes fun again and you get excited. How do I make the ROI ... For me, it's all about the ROI, the return on investment, any situation is the key. If you don't have the ROI, it gets hard. It's hard to be creative. It's hard to come up with the next idea, the next thing, and the stress and the pressure that comes. What's the return on investment for the effort you're putting into it? But if you see the ROI and you start amplifying it, then it becomes a more fun game. That's where you start growing from a million to a 10 to 100 and beyond because it's like, I see this game. I'm playing it. I'm getting the return on investment. But I never saw that before because the only return on investment I was getting was this one thing, and those things they feel good, but it's hard to keep score with the feel goods. You got to have a scoreboard to see, like, oh, my gosh, I'm winning. Can I win even more? What's it going to look like? And now it gives you options and opportunities… Josh: You mean you're telling me that all the stress and pressure isn't worth $8,000 a month? Russell: You know, I could get ... I was like ... Nowadays with all of the inflation, I can work at McDonald's for eight grand a month, I think. It's crazy. Josh: Man. Russell: But back then- Josh: That's crazy. Russell: That was the ... Anyway, it's crazy. Josh: You can buy Bitcoin and keep up with inflation. Bitcoin, the savior of money. One more. I kind of want to dive ... I wasn't going to make this a money episode, because that's kind of where it's been. When did you make the shift ... One of the big problems with entrepreneurs, talking maybe a little bit more established entrepreneur, is once they're making money ... I was talking with Brad about this and he was talking about in the inner circle. He was in there ... Or in Category Kings, right? The guy's like, "What's the main problem that you solve?" Brad was like, "So interesting. We thought we could answer that question." Then he asked us it and we try to do it, and it was like, dang, what is the main problem that we solve? What he said is one of the things that they came down to was entrepreneurs know that if they have money, it should be doing more. But they don't know what to do with it. This is something that you probably are an amplified example of this, because you're really, really good at making money. You don't even need to think about what your money should be doing because you can just go make more of it. Once again, that because you've unshackled us. It's like, "All right, want a new car? Go build a funnel. You want a palace? Go build a funnel. Want to take a vacation? Launch a funnel. Just do a funnel and you print money." For you, when did that shift happen for you when you actually started paying attention to, I can't just leave my money in an account right now? I can't just buy cars and houses because those don't make me ... You have houses, you've got the cars, you've got everything you've ever wanted and you still have money left over, so when did you make that shift of, my money needs to be doing more, and how did you solve that problem? Russell: Interesting. This is one that's been more recently solved for me, actually, which is fascinating. For a long I was just hoarding it. Just hoarding it, keeping it here. Then Brad and Ryan ... You have to invest it. I'm like, "I don't want to do that." They forced me to do ... I give them a bunch of money every year and they do whatever they do with it, and that's awesome. I'm like, "Okay, cool. Something is happening." But then the money kept adding up. I remember one day I was like, "I'm in a weird spot where I could buy almost anything I want. What do I want? I'm going to go and spend some money." I remember going to eBay and I was like, "I'm going to buy anything I want." I was searching for stuff, and I spent four hours on eBay when all of a sudden I spent three grand. I was like, "That's it. I got everything I wanted." I was like, "Oh, crap, now what do I do with it?" It was interesting, because for me, it was like ... Again, this is something ... It's been a recent development. I can't remember if it was this podcast or the one I talked about it, I was like, I didn't know what to do with this. Yeah, I could invest in real estate, but that wasn't inspiring to me. I have money in crypto, but that's not inspiring. What's the things that's going to inspire me to want to do more? Again, it's ROI for me. What's going to give me the ROI of now I got to create more money so I can do this thing? So I have a lot of things. Again, we give money to charity. All those things are good and they get me excited. But I was like, what would be the thing that, for me, would amplify? When we bought Dan Kennedy's company, it was the first time I felt it. I bought his thing. We reorganized it, cleaned it up, and I was like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm able to take these things that were so precious to me and I can bring them back to the world, and I can monetize them. I can actually make money off of this thing." I got really excited. I told you I started buying old books. I started investing in Napoleon Hill books and Charles Haanel and Orison Swett Marden and Samuel Smiles and all these people, the founding fathers of personal development and business and all these kinds of things. I've literally spent a small fortune ... I've spent a lot of money in the last couple months on these old, old books, because now it's like, I'm not investing in real estate that's over here. I'm investing in these things I don't care about. Now it's like I'm investing in something that I can take and that I can turn this into more money, and I can turn it into help. I can serve my entrepreneurs. I can do more things with it. For me, that's what's been stimulating for me. That was the investment of ... It was like, I can dump it back into things, but it was like something that's meaningful to me. For some people, crypto is meaningful. For some people it's NFT. Finding the thing that's not just like, I'm investing to invest, but what's the thing that you're passionate about it where it becomes more than just ... For me, that's what I'm geeking out on. You know this, next door I'm building a 20,000 square foot library to house all these books, to build an event center, to build all these kind of things because this is what I feel like my life's mission is. I'm curating all these ideas and I'm bringing them back to people in the simple new form to help these ideas and these concepts live on. For me, that's double fulfilling because it'll make me money, but it's also something that can serve the people I've been called to serve as well. Again, buying Kennedy's company, I'm serving these people, but I'm also making money, which gives me the ability to serve more people. It's kind of fun. Josh: What was the shift, though? For a while you didn't do that, right? Russell: For a while I just sat there. I didn't know what it was. Josh: Who or what got you to the point where you're like, "Okay, I've got to go figure this out"? Yes, this is what you ended up doing with it, but I think a lot of people, there's got to be that thing that's like, "This is when I realized I got to figure out ..." Or some people just let it sit their whole life, I guess. You know what I'm saying? Russell: I heard stories about ... I don't know how true ... But like Scottie Pippen or Mike Tyson, he made half a billion dollars and he's broke. I was like, I don't want to be that dude who made a half a billion dollars and is broke right now. I need to figure out ... I always joke with Brad and Ryan when we were writing their webinar page initially, I was like ... On 30 Rock, there's that scene where Liz Lemon is talking to Alec Baldwin and he's like, "I need that thing that rich people do where they turn money into more money." He's like, "Investing?" He's like, "Yeah. I want to do that." For me, it was like, I've got money here. I need to figure out how to turn money into more money, that's not just me doing the whole thing. How do we amplify what we're doing? How do we have that exponential growth? That was kind of the thing that got me into it. Again, initially it was doing the things that weren't exciting. I'd invested money in real estate and I hated that, so I had Brad and Ryan, I invested money with them. That was cool. It was passive. It wasn't passionate. I was trying to figure out what's the thing that I'm going to be passionate about, where now it becomes part of a game. Now I can see the ROI on this thing. I invested $40,000 this weekend on old books, how do I turn that into $400,000 or four million or 40 million? Can I do that? Now begins ... Now it's fun. Some people, real estate is that game. I got friends who own 100 houses, or 200 houses, and that's the game that they love. I look at Tai Lopez and he's buying these businesses. That's the game that he loves. What's the game you're going to love, the investing game you're going to love? There's a million ways to invest, but when you find one that you love, then it becomes ... Now it becomes a fun part of the game. I think it's understanding first off you need to do it, otherwise you're going to ... You mentioned this ... I can't remember if it was before we started recording, but people who have won Two Comma Club and they got nothing, or Two Comma Club X and they're broke. Entrepreneurs are good at generating money, but there's this other part that you got to learn how to invest it correctly. Otherwise, you're going to pull a Tyson or a Pippen and be broke in a couple of years from now. Yeah, I got 3 Two Comma Club awards on the wall, but I'm trying to figure out how to feed my family this weekend, and that's now where you want to be… Josh: That's so crazy that's a reality for people. It really, really is. I think that's one of the things that I am very, very thankful to have learned relatively early on, is ... Russell: They're two different skill sets. Making money- Josh: They are. Russell: And keeping money are not the same thing. Josh: Yeah. Russell: They are completely different skill sets. In fact, typically, the people who are good at making money are the worst at managing it. Josh: Keeping it. Russell: It's like yin and yang. Understanding that if you're good at making it, you find people around you, like Brad and Ryan, I was like, "Here's money. Do that thing you do because I don't want to mess it up." Josh: Yeah. Russell: In fact, it's funny, before I invested money with Brad and Ryan, I invested it in two different deals. I was like, "This is the greatest thing in the world." Both of them, literally both of them turned out to Ponzi schemes. I got to write off multiple of millions of dollars last year because I gave money to ideas that were so good that me as the entrepreneur was like, "This is genius. This is the greatest thing in the world." Ponzi scheme. I got sold on the thing. It's funny, one of my friends just sold his business for eight figures and he messages me. He was like, "All right. I want to ask your opinion. Where should I put this money?" I was like, "Dude, do not ask me. If I think it's a good idea, it's going to be a Ponzi scheme. Find someone who, that's their life, is that, like Brad and Ryan. Go give your money to them," or find something like I'm doing now with the books and stuff, where it's like now. This is something that fits into my skill set. I think it was ... What's the old dude who invests all the money? Warren Buffett, that said only invest in things you understand. It's like, I understand how to turn old information into money. I'm investing in information and intellectual property because I can turn that into more money, and so that becomes something I can invest in, because I understand the game. I don't understand- Josh: So interesting. Russell: This, but I do understand this, therefore, I will invest in the thing I understand because I can turn this into more money. Josh: That makes sense. Side note on Warren Buffett, you know 80% of his wealth or something like that came off of nine trades? Russell: Really? Josh: Nine investments that he made, it produced 80% of his wealth or something like that. Isn't that insane? Russell: That is fascinating. Josh: That's why when ... I read the quote from him, it was in the context of this quote. It was like, Warren Buffett is like, everyone thinks they have to make a bunch of good decisions. He was like, "I try to make three good decisions a year." I was like, "Oh, my gosh. What the heck?" And then I found out that 80% of his wealth came from ... It was eight or nine trades or something, or investments, and I was like, "All right. I guess that makes sense, then, if you only need to make ..." Anyway, last question, rapid fire question on money. Is there anything that you could do, if you could go back and change something about what you've done or your handling with money, is there anything that you would change, and if so, what's the biggest thing that would be? Russell: Good question. I think I would've started ... Number one, I would've started pulling money out of my business faster. Number two, I would've had a plan for what I would do with that money. I wish I would've said, "I'm going to pull out ... After three months of thing, pull out all the profit, I'm going to put 25% in real estate, 25% in crypto, 25% in something else, and just have that happening in the background, I'd be a much wealthier man today." It took me a long, long time before I did that. Todd forced me to start putting money into crypto, which was one of the greatest gifts ever for me. Brad and Ryan are now forcing me to put money over here. It's like taking that and putting it in spots where again, it's not going to be 100%. I'm going to fall for two Ponzi schemes a year probably, but if I can get one of them to win and three of them to fail, or whatever that is, that's the big thing. I always thought that I will start pulling money out when blah. When I hit Two Comma Club, when I hit a million. The problem is that win never comes. You got to structure from day number one. When money comes in, boom. Profits come out. This happens here. I pay myself first. From the money I pay myself, 10% is going to go for me to go do stupid things, 25% is going to go into real estate or Bitcoin or stocks or whatever. And dividing that stuff up so it's happening at a small level, because when that happens, I wasted a decade and a half before any kind of investments happening. Can you imagine if I had 15 years of the stuff I was doing, turning into something? I missed out on so much of that, that I wish I would've done. Josh: You just got to make sure that you have a small percentage there, which is dedicated to losing bets and Bitcoin to Josh. If you have that, then we're good. For the rest of your life, you're going to be losing bets, so that's how that's going to work. Guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode with money. I'll let you sign it off, but this was awesome. We get to hear Russell Brunson talk about money, which is something that, you make a ton of it, but you don't really talk about it, which is awesome. Thanks for sharing a little bit more. Russell: Thank you. I apologize I don't have a framework for this yet, but this gets me thinking, man, if I could figure out something for entrepreneurs, this is the next thing to do, so then I'll talk more about it as I figure things out. But it's fascinating. I remember I bought a Dan Kennedy course on wealth creation, and it was fascinating because I'd heard Dan talk about building businesses and all that sort of stuff, but it was the first time he ever talked about wealth. Again, same thing. Fascinating. I'm like, oh, my gosh. I never thought about that side of the coin because most entrepreneurs don't talk about it, or don't think about it. I think it's important for us to think and talk and do more with it because again, 15 years of never investing anything, man, it would've been nice. I'd be in a different spot right now than I am today, for sure. Thank you, Josh, for hanging out and talking about money. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode. If you did, let us know if you want more about money and wealth and these kind of things. Let us know and we'll go deeper on topics. Just take a screen shot of this on your phone, post it, and tag me and write your #1 question you want to hear, and maybe we'll talk about it on the next podcast. Thanks again. Thank you, Josh, and I will see you guys soon.

It's new years, and I know you have a lot of goals. Listen to this episode to find out how to become the person you need to be to actually achieve what you want! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today's episode, you guys have a chance to listening on a really fun actually interview that Josh Forti and I did today about goal setting and what that looks like. I know that we're... At the time we're recording this, it's almost the new year. And so he asked me the questions about how I set goals. How do I make sure I hit my goals and reach them? And what does that look like? And I was excited because it's actually a topic that I'm writing it sensibly about in my new book. And so anyway, a lot of things are top of mind, and we had some fun with it. It went longer than we thought. And so I had to go fast through some things. Someday maybe I'll do a three or five day or two week, two month long event teaching these topics. But hopefully it gives you a head start to kind of figure out what is you want in life? What kind of goals you want to set for this year, and then how you actually make sure you achieve those. Stuff that's fascinating to me and hopefully you guys will find some cool stuff in as well. And at the end of it, there's assignments, so make sure you do it. And if you do that, in fact, I'd block out two or three hours during this new year's break as you're figuring out what you want to with your life over the next 12 months and go through this audio and then actually do the assignment at the end. And if you that, your chances of hitting that goal will dramatically go up. All right, with that said, we're going to cue up the theme song. And when we get back, you have a chance to listen in on an interview with me and Josh Forti. What's up, everybody. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today I'm here once again with Josh Forti, and at the time we're recording this it's a little after Christmas. We're getting ready for the new year and world domination. I think today we're going to be talking about how to focus and goal setting, all that kind stuff. Is that right? Is that the- Josh Forti: Yeah. Today's episodes a good one. I'm so excited for this because I mean, we get to listen to Russell Brunson tell us how he picks his goals, how he's going to plan the world. It's going to be great. Russell: I'm excited too because some of you guys know I'm actually working off and on, just depends on, but I have another book in the works that I'm working on and it's my first personal development book. But for me, personal development's definitely around picking a target and running towards it with definiteness of purpose and trying to accomplish the thing. And so as I've been not... I wrote 200 pages of the book, and I told you this when you were out in Boise. Josh: I know. I'm waiting for my copy, Russell. Russell: And then I said, I hated it. So I got... I didn't hate the book. It's actually good stuff. I'm putting it in the new behind the scenes newsletter. I'm putting the chapters in there. So it's being reused, but I wasn't happy with how it turned out as a book book. And so I'm starting over from scratch and rethinking it all. And so that's the phase I'm in right now. But a lot of it is tied around what we're talking about today, so it should be good. I'm excited for this. Josh: Heck yeah. Awesome. Well, let's kick it off and get started with that note. So whenever we sit down for podcast, I go and it's interesting because now that we are doing so many, normally when I do long-form interviews or because we record in batches, right. Normally when I sit down, I'm just like record go. But you can only do that so many times with somebody before you have to start planning topics ahead a time, right? So I'm on the plane yesterday or a couple days ago, whenever we flew back home, and we got to upgrade to first class for like $47. It was great. I'm there on my computer, just have room. And so I was thinking, walking through the topics that we wanted to cover over the next couple episodes and one that kept coming up and my mind kept coming back to is goal setting. Right? We're sitting here. We're coming to the end of this year. The last two years have really just been crazy, right? Like 2020 was super, super uncertain. 2021 was a little bit more certain, but we all know we're not back to reality yet. Right? With everything. And so I was like, all right, how do you set goals? Not only in the midst of just chaos, but just in general, right? Because there's so many different ways you can think about goals and set goals and do targets and all the different things. And so as we wrap up this year, as we bring this year to an end, and as we look ahead to 2022, what are the areas specifically that you look at as far as setting goals, and how do you set goals effectively that you're going to stick to? Because I think that's a big thing for a lot of people is they can write down, like I want to make $1 million this year, or I want to lose weight. You know what I'm saying? But how do we actually do that? Right? Do you break it down? How does that work? Russell: Yeah. So I'd say, again, this is like, we could write a whole 25 book topic on this. So I'll just go over some of the highlights of things I think about. One of them actually I got from Scharf and that was interesting. He spoke at Funnel Hacking Live Orlando, and we did a little session on stage, and it was interesting because he was talking about it from a team building standpoint, but I took this principle back, and I started implementing it with my family and then in my own personal life. And he talked about how a lot of people set a goal like I want to make a million dollars. And he said if you structure it and if you look at it like a football game or a football team, it's different, right? He said, if you sit and look at the goals, there's always the main goal of anyone who's a football player. They want to be in the Hall of Fame. That's their legacy, their legend. There's the Hall of Fame goal. Right? And so that's the first thing is what's the Hall of Fame goal? And then you break it down from there and say okay, now what's the Super Bowl? What do you have to do to win the Super Bowl in football, what the Super Bowl for you, what it is. And then from there you break down to like, okay, what are the things you've got to do to win this game, this quarter, this half and things like that. Right? So it's breaking things down like that. And so I did this with my family like two or three years ago. It was really cool. We said for our family, what's our Hall of Fame goal for our family? What is the big thing where we're like, I made it into the Hall of Fame. I'm a legend. This is amazing. So we set a goal for the family. And I've been thinking about that with ClickFunnels and with me and my mission. What's my Hall of Fame goal? So that's the first thing to think through because it's not something like I'm going to get this year, I'm going to get it. But it's like, I've got to be doing a lot of things to eventually when I retire, I did this thing and I'm in the Hall of Fame, right? What is that for you? Because if you don't know what that is, it's hard to reverse engineer everything backwards. A lot of times entrepreneurs are good at just running, ready, fire, aim, but we're not thinking, and I'm as bad as anyone else. Right? Again, I want to make a million dollars. Then 10, then 100. You keep looking at these things as opposed to what's the end goal of where you're trying to get to. So that's first thing, Hall of Fame goal. And then what's your version in the Super Bowl? And the Super Bowl is more like, in my mind, the next 12 months, like what are you going to do, right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And so that's the bigger one I think a lot of people are thinking about when you're trying to January 1st setting your New Year's goal. This is your Super Bowl goal. Next 12 months, this is the thing I want to accomplish. And it's not 12 things. Football teams aren't like, okay, I'm going to win the Super Bowl, and I'm going to win this. I'm going to win this. No, there's just one goal. There's one thing that you're focusing on. And then underneath there, there's all the things you've got to do to be able to accomplish that. And that's where these sub-goals come in. Right? And so that's the first phase. Any questions about it before I move on to the next? Josh: Yeah, well, no, just a comment on that. I was reading. I don't have the book next to me. The book Essentialism. Have you ever read that book? Russell: Yes. Back in the day, I did. Josh: Okay. Super, super good. Right? And one of the things that he talks about there is he's like, it's always funny to me when companies say that their company has a lot of priorities. He's like, you can't have a lot of priorities. You can have a priority and then everything else comes secondary. Right? So whenever I walk into a company they're like, our priority is customer service and this, and then list all the other ones. He's like, then you don't have any priorities. Right? And so he is like, when you sit down, what's the number one thing? What is the thing that if that thing happens, it is a success? Right? The whole year, that's what the thing was. And so sitting down, I noticed that for me and my company, for us, our number one priority for next year is not, yes, we have a revenue goal and yes, we have quarter goals and all the different things. But for us, the number one goal is we want to build the very best product in the space for what we do. Right? That is the goal. For 12 months, that is our goal. And so now everything else comes secondary. And so when you're talking about that is like, what is the goal? I love football, right? So football is how I do all my analogies? Right? The Super Bowl is the 12 month goal. Right? And what's interesting about that is the Super Bowl is a collective team goal. The Hall of Fame is an individual goal. Right? Which is super interesting because then you can have your own individual, but then as a team, and as I'm starting to grow a team more, things like that, having that really clear goal, I think, was really cool. So no, just some comments, but no questions on that. '. Russell: I love that. Very cool. So then, and you could tell who I'm studying right now by some of my phrases. I've been going deep into Napoleon Hill and Charles Haanel and all the old time people right now. That's where my mind's been with. And it's interesting because as I study all them, especially Napoleon Hill, what he talks about all the time is you've got to pick a goal, and then you have to move forward with definiteness of purpose. And he uses that phrase, and took me forever. Finally I couldn't even like say the word right because it's such a weird word, but definiteness of purpose. And when I think about that definiteness of purpose is like, this is what I'm doing, the Super Bowl. I'm going forward. There's the goal. I'm not just dabbling and hopefully I'll figure out my way. I've got my sights on the goal, and I'm moving forward with definiteness of purpose. It means everything is going towards that thing. Right? And so, that's the biggest thing. And I was reading a Charles Haanel book last night, and he's the guy that wrote Master Key System and a bunch of other really cool old books. And what he talked a lot about is just desire. A Lot of people are like, oh, I want to go. I want to hit Two Comic Club, but then their desire isn't big enough to actually get them moving forward with definiteness of purpose. Right? And he shared this story, and I've heard this story a thousand times over the years. I'm sure everyone's heard it. I think my math teacher used to tell, he said it was Euclid that told this story. In this book it was someone different. I don't know what that story is, but basically the dude comes up to the gurus like, "I want to learn how to do whatever. I want to learn how to make money online. I want to learn how to whatever the thing is." Right? And so the guru's like, "Well meet me tomorrow morning at the beach, and I'll show you how to do that." So the next morning, meets the dude at the beach. The guru walks him out in the water, and they get deeper and deeper and deeper. And he gets the point where the water's up to the kid's head or whatever. And he grabs head and shoves it under the water, and he holds him there, and the guy's fighting and failing. And the point is where he is about to die. And then he pulls the guy out of the water and the guy's like, "What are you doing?" And he's like, "When you want the thing you want as bad as you wanted air, you're going to get it." And that's this desire thing. So we have the goal. We have to move forward with definiteness of purpose. That becomes the focal point of every thing we're doing. And then the last piece is that desire. Because most people that I find who don't have success, it's because they don't have desire. Right? For me, when I was wrestling, and I wanted to be state champ, I had so much desire. I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was day and night. I'd sit in class, and all I could think about was different wrestling moves and what I could do to increase my strength and my cardio better and how to get the moves better because my desire was so strong for that thing. And for me, business was the same one. When I got into business, I just wanted to figure this out and to make money and to grow a company. I had so much desire that it happened. Right? I think most people just don't have desire. Like, oh, let's just set a goal, and hopefully I make that. If that's what you're going into it, you're not going to be successful. What's the Yoda quote? Josh: Do or do not. There is no try. Russell: Yeah. If you ask him what's your goal? And they're like, "Oh, I'm going to try to whatever." It's like, you're not going to make it. Why not? Because you said I'm going to try to do it. Josh: Right. Russell: You have to be definiteness of purpose. I'm going to be a state champ. I'm going to hit it a Two Comma Club. I'm going to make a million dollars. I'm make 10, I'm going to make a hundred. I'm going to get to a billion dollars. I'm going to get to 200,000 customers. This is what I am doing. And my desire's high. I'm moving forward with definiteness of purpose, and that's where it begins with. Josh: Yeah, and I think part of the thing that goes with that is Tony Robbins. Gosh, every time you bring Tony Robbins in, it's never bad. Right? You could do that every single year, and it would never get old. Right? . Russell: Yeah. Josh: But he says this a million times. He's like, you have to be so specific with what you want. Right? He's like people come to me all the time and I've heard him say this a million times, but just, we got second row right behind you because Parker Woodward came over. Shout out, Parker. He's like staring into your soul. And he's like, you want a million? And he is like, you want more money? Fine. Here's a dollar. You have more money move. Get out of my way. Right? Or get out of here. I'm like, dang. Right? If you're not so specific with what you want, you'll get it. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Right? But it's not going to be what you actually want because you're not specific with it. And so with definiteness of purpose, I feel like one of the keys to that is to be very specific with what that purpose is. Russell: Yep. Yep. Josh: You know what I'm saying? Russell: Oh, I want to get better. I want to get, yeah. It's got to be something tangible. You can touch it. And you know when you got it. You know when you went to the Super Bowl if you got to the Super Bowl or not. You can be like where's your goal last year? Oh, did you hit it? Oh, I don't know. Therein lies the problem. Right? That specific goal, move forward with definiteness of purpose because your desire's not high enough. You don't know if you hit it or not? That's a problem. Josh: Yeah. One more thing on that. I think it also helps you if you can get really... Setting clear goals is like a muscle, I feel like. It's a skillset that's learned. And I was listening to Alex Becker, which I know you know Alex. And dude's like just a mega-genius man. His mind. If I can ever get him on the podcast, I'll let you know because- Russell: You'd get a 30-second podcast with him. Josh: Right. Right. It'd be a profanity-laced thing full of truth. And you'd be like, wow, I have to process. Anyway, I was listening to him. I was watching his training on YouTube Ads and going through. And he is like, what people need to understand is that all of marketing is the exact same thing when it comes to running ads. Right? And actually I still have it written up on my board. He goes, every single person wants the exact same thing. They want a result. They want a consistent system to get there, and they want it fast. That's it. Right? He's like, if you just are able to specifically call out the result, provide the specific system to get there, and do it faster than anybody else, you will win every single time. Right? I feel like a lot of goal setting is that. Right? It's what is the result that you're actually trying to go after and get to? If you're not specific on that result, try marketing something where there's no specific outcome. It's so hard. Right? And so the more clear you can get on that specific outcome, the more clear that you can get on the outcome that you're providing for your customer. I feel like that's a learned skill that transfers in other areas besides just goal setting. You know what I mean? Russell: Oh, for sure. That's awesome. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Becker's smart, man. I did one call with him one time, and it was literally like three minutes long. He's like, "Kid, it's all I got," and it was done. I was like, that was amazing. Anyway, so. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Becker, he's a freak of nature. That's for sure. Russell: Yeah. Okay, I got four more things to talk about related to it. Josh: Okay. Russell: I got this from Tom Bilyeu because Tom's one of those people who is again, just brilliant. And he said something in three or four podcasts, just kind of like as a blah, blah, blah. Just went off on it. And I remember one day, so I finally, I messaged him on text message. I sent an audio message. I was like, okay, you said this. I want to make sure I understand this right. And he wrote back to me, and he messages back. He's like kind of, but you kind of got it all wrong. I'm like, what? So I scheduled a call with him because I was like, I'm writing this book and this thing you just shared was so powerful. I need to map it out. So I spent an hour with him on the phone and mapped it out. I drew it out. I was like, is this what you're talking about? He's like, "Oh yeah. That's what I'm talking about." So it's going to be in the new book because it's core foundational. I'm going to go through with you guys because a lot of times, and I didn't know this, there were things that I did unconsciously related to these things, but now that I consciously know this, I'm going deep in it. In fact, I'm planning our Two Comma Club X Managed Circle members are going to Mexico in March, and I'm thinking I'm going to do a three-day event in Mexico just going deep on this alone because this is the key to everything you want in life. So there's the pre-frame you guys ready for me to jump? Josh: I'm ready. I'm hooked. Russell: Okay. So what Tom said was interesting. He said a lot of times we set a goal, but what we don't realize is that for us to get the goal, we can't be who we are today. Because if we were, we'd already have the thing, right? We have to actually evolve and change and become something different if we're going to achieve the thing we do. So then how do you become something different? And that's where you're in this weird limbo thing. Right? And so there are four core things that really tie into this. And so I'll talk briefly on each one as much as we can in the time we have. So the first one is after you know this is the goal, very specific, definiteness of purpose. I desire to go there. The first thing we have to do is have an identity shift. Right? Our identity has to be different than what we are right now. If we don't shift it, then we struggle. So I started looking back at the things I've had success in life. For me, the very first one was a wrestler. And I remember I got into wrestling. I liked it. And I was good at it, but I wasn't great. I don't have time probably to tell the specific story, but I remember a specific story where something happened where that day I was like, I'm a wrestler. This is me. This is who I am. I'm a wrestler. And as a wrestler, I'm going to do what wrestlers do. Right? And Tom, when I was talking to him, I mentioned that. And he's like, now imagine this. Instead of saying I was a wrestler, what if you said I'm a world class wrestler or I'm a state champion wrestler. He's like just by changing the identity that you're putting on yourself, changes how you view everything. Right? And for me, I viewed myself as a champion wrestler, and I view myself like I'm someone who's a state champion. Therefore, I started looking at what do the state champions do? How are they doing it? What do they believe? What do they think? What do they do? What do they value? And I started matching my beliefs, values, and rules based on that. But the first thing is that you have to realize what's the identity you want to put on yourself? And I think most people don't do it consciously. I didn't do it consciously. But when you become aware of it, it changes things. At Funnel Hacking Live, Anthony Trucks talked about identity, and it was such a powerful thing. If we figure out how to put these identities on ourselves, it makes everything else become easier. So the first thing is understanding, okay, what's the identity I've got to put on my shoulders if I'm going to become the person who's going to be able to reach that goal? And we've got to think through that and strategize and figure that out because if you don't, if you pick the wrong identity, like, oh, I'm an athlete, that's good. But I'm not become a world class wrestler if my identity's an athlete. If my identity is I'm a world class wrestler, I'm going to become a world class wrestler. Right? You've got to... When I got into business, it was the same thing. I was dabbling and dabbling and dabbling until I figured out I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And then after that, it wasn't just an entrepreneur. It's shifting, and it's changed throughout time, but the identity is the key because everything struck. You start doing things differently when you have a different identity. One of the identities I've I've recently, and I did a podcast about this, that I've put on myself is that I'm not just an entrepreneur or I'm not like... I'm a curator. And just by me saying that, I've literally bought, I would say conservatively, probably 3000 books in the last three months that I'm buying that I'm going through them, curating old books, trying to figure out all these kind of things because I have the identity. I put the identity upon myself, and all of a sudden, it shifts my behavior because of that. Josh: Yeah. Russell: So identity's the first thing. And again, we could talk for a day on identity, but understanding what is the identity that you're going to have to have to be able to become the person who's going to go get that thing. Josh: Okay. Can I touch on that just really briefly? Russell: Yeah. Josh: Okay. Only because, I don't know, I've spent like a hundred thousand dollars in coaching on this exact topic. So it was so crazy, when I was working with Katie and lots of other people. Have you ever read the book Psycho-Cybernetics? Russell: Yes. Josh: Dude, that book changed. That was the first personal development book I ever read. Russell: I'm trying to find the rights to that book right now, just so you know. Josh: Dude. Dude, ah. Russell: It's so good. Josh: Why do you get to do all cool stuff, Russell? Russell: Curating, that's my identity. It's what I do. Josh: Yeah. But I read that book and it, I mean, it completely changed my whole perspective on life. Right? And for the premise of the book, for those of you don't know, there's a guy. He was a plastic surgeon. He rebuilds people's faces and stuff. And he realized that when he would make even the smallest tweaks in people's faces that it would change their entire life. Everything about their life and their change based on how they saw themselves basically in the mirror. Right? And so this whole premise of the identity, part of it is when you have an identity shift, you actually believe it now. And there's so many people that are like, they want something, but the reason they don't do it is because they don't believe it's possible. They see themself as the person that's able to do that. Right? And so one of the things I thought about doing with the podcast sometime down the road is openly Dream 100ing people. How cool would it be to have on the board of, "Hey guys, we're all Dream 100ing Elon Musk right now." Right? How cool would that? But if you have the identity I'm going to Dream 100 Elon Musk, then all of a sudden, it just becomes, oh, for the next three, five, 10 years, it doesn't matter if you haven't gotten there yet. That's just who you are. It's just what you're trying to do. It's just what you're doing. And by default, your brain starts thinking differently. So anyway, I love that. I don't want to take anymore out of that, but that one concept changed my whole entire life of understanding that if you shift your identity, by default, you'll get to where you want to go. Russell: Yeah. It's huge. And again, I look at the things I've been successful in my life in, and again, looking backwards, I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that I had an identity shift tangible. And in fact, I remember the day that it happened, and it changed everything for me. It was the day I became a wrestler. It was the day I became an entrepreneur. It was the day... It shifts things. And so, ah, anyway, so that's number one. So identity. Now under identity, if you look at my graphic, identity is at the top, and there's three pillars that go underneath identity. And they're all super powerful, and they all have different purposes and things. So if you look at one of the legs under identity is beliefs. What do you believe? And beliefs are cool. Because beliefs, I feel like beliefs can change. I have to figure what are the beliefs I need to have to be able to achieve this thing, right? If I believe that making money's difficult, I am not ever going to make money. If I believe making money's easy, it's going to be really easy for me to make money. Right? If I believe that I'm a good athlete, I'm going to be able to be a good athlete. If I believe that eating healthy is going to make me have more success, I'm probably going to eat more healthy. And so in the second phase, figure out what are these beliefs that you need to have? And some of them you already have inherently, a lot of them you don't yet. And so that's why when you have this identity, it's like, well man, if I want to be a world class wrestler, what do world class wrestlers believe? If I want to be an entrepreneur, what do world class entrepreneurs believe? Right? What are those beliefs? That is sitting down physically, I've been doing this recently. This is part of my New Year's thing I'm doing now is I'm listing out here are all the things I either believe or I need to believe to be able to hit this goal. Right? And so I start writing out these beliefs. Now the thing about beliefs that's hard is just by you writing down I believe this thing, does not necessarily mean you're going to believe that thing. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And this is where like most of personal development is affecting this tier, this leg of this thing. If I knew to believe I need to be successful, like I'm going to go read a bunch of Tony Robbins books because he's going to help me instill this belief in me until I actually believe it. Or I'm going to listen to a bunch of podcasts or whatever that thing might be. Right? Or if I believe that eating healthy is going to make me more successful. You may say I know I need that belief, but I don't really believe right now. That's why I keep going back to cookies and candies and ice cream or whatever. Right? So you need to instill that belief, so this is where a personal development comes. If I believe this belief is going to help me get the thing I need to do, I need to go listen to everybody that's talking about health or fitness or whatever that is until that belief becomes so ingrained in my psyche that now I actually believe it. Because when I believe it, now it becomes really easy to do. When I believed in wrestling that if I got on top of anybody in this country that I could turn them, then guess what? As soon as I got on top of anybody in this country, I could turn them, right? Because I believed it at such a deep level. I always tell people my core job at ClickFunnels is be the belief cheerleader. If I can get you guys to believe in yourselves, that's it because it's not that difficult. All these things are not hard. The hardest thing is getting you to believe it's actually going to work. Right? And believe if I buy ads, it's going to work, believing that I'm going to lose money on the front end, but it's going to be successful. I believe that if I put myself out there, it's not going to be scary. I believe, so it's like, I've got to get you to believe those things, but if you can do it, then it becomes easy. So I look at who's already achieved what I want? What are the things that they believe? And then I've got to start focusing on getting those beliefs wired into my brain so that I actually believe them. Okay? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I always tell people this, the biggest problem we have as humans is we always want to try to conform the world to what we believe, and that's not the right strategy. Especially, I see this in religion all the time where people are trying to convince like, this is what God should believe. It's like, no, no, no. If you really want to be successful in religion, you've got to figure out what does God believe? And then you shift your beliefs to that. You don't try to bend God's will to yours. That's insane. Why would you even think that's okay. We need to believe that he believes, it's not trying to get him to believe what I believe. Right? And that's the extreme example is religion in God, but it's true in anything. Right? If I was going to be basketball player, I would go figure out what Michael Jordan believes, and I would do everything I can to believe what he believes. I would not be trying to conform Michael Jordan's belief patterns to mine. Okay? Because he's done it, and I haven't yet. Right? And so that's the next step is figuring out what are the beliefs I have to have to be successful? And then I've got to go and start plugging the stuff into my ears and my head and be reading and listening and everything until these beliefs become so real that they become real. Because that's the hardest thing. The beliefs are the one, the other two I'm going to share are much more simpler, I think. Beliefs are the ones that are, they come and they go. And this is where it takes the mental mind power to make those things actually stick. Does that make sense? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. No for sure. No, I have so many thoughts on that. But for the sake of time, oh my gosh. Belief, I think that's the hardest thing. Like you said, it's one of the hardest things though. But I love the religion example because it's like, what was that? There's that one quote on it that says we will question everything except for the things we truly believe. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Right? And religion is a perfect example of this. I believe that Jesus came down to die on the cross for my sins. I believe that. Russell: Yeah. Josh: I've never even questioned it, and I've questioned pretty much everything in my belief. But I'm like, if I believe Christianity to be true, I by default believe that. Right? I believe that that happened. And so when I talk to people that don't have that world view, you're not even having the same conversation. It's not even worth debating on some particular topic about right or wrong or this because they don't believe this and I do. And it's a fundamental different thing about you. So yeah, anyway. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Talk a million years on it. Russell: That's true because, so when I'm on mission for my church, I, not to get religion, but I had that same thing. I was out there knocking on doors, telling people about God and about Jesus. And all of a sudden I realized, oh my gosh, most people don't believe in this. Josh: Right. Russell: And it was freaky for me. All the way back to do I actually believe in Christ? Do I actually believe there's a God? And I had to question those things and figure it out and get the belief. And then it was strengthening everything I was doing moving forward. But same thing in anything we're doing in life. So beliefs are beliefs. Josh: We'll do the Mormon episode because I have questions for you on that. I've got to finish the podcast first. We're not done all the way done yet. But that'll come once I know everything you believe, Russell, then I'm going to come question you on it. Russell: Yeah. I'm excited. One thing it'd be cool if you guys want, if you type in to Google type in Tom Bilyeu Impact Theory beliefs. He actually has a list that he makes all people who join his member site go through these belief patterns. And they're fascinating. And it's seeing Tom mapping out for his community here's the beliefs that we have as a community if we're going to have the impact. And so it's worth it to go look at his beliefs. It's as related to his members and his membership platform. But it's something you guys can use this as well if you are serving group of entrepreneurs or a group of whoever you're serving, when they come in, helping them to identify and strength. Like these are a the beliefs you have to have to be successful in our world. And Tom did it such a cool way. I've not yet done that in my world, but I'm planning on that because again, if people are joining my coaching program, they want to become more like me, therefore, what do I believe that got me here? I need to be able to identify those things and give them to people and then help drill those things into their mind because that's what's going to be successful as they believe those things. And so belief is just, anyway. We can go again, this is another three day event just on beliefs. Josh: All right, all right. Russell: Okay. I'll go through the other two. The other two are not simpler, but they're easier. Okay, so we have identity at the top, right? Identity shift, boom. Beliefs, and again, map these things out, you guys literally between now and New Year's or whatever you're listening to this, sit out and write out here's all the beliefs I have to believe to be able to be successful in this thing that I'm trying to figure out. And for me, it's funny as I've been doing this, I've been listening to a lot of Tony Robbins's stuff or reading Napoleon Hill. Tony will tell, like when he speaks, he's like, you've got to believe this, and he shares a belief. And I started putting those things in. Like I want to keep building up my belief. These are all things I believe in because if I can believe those things in myself, again, my likelihood of success. So this is an ever-going thing. It's not just like, here's my beliefs, and it's done. It's like if you're hearing speakers or podcasts or books or whatever, like, oh this is the belief I need to have. I see why this is such a powerful thing to start adding these things into your version of your beliefs. Okay? The next one. So you have your beliefs. The next one I'm going to go to is values. And values and beliefs are very similar, but values, I feel like, are more so... Beliefs are things that I've got to be working on to get myself the belief things to move forward. Values are what I actually value. For me, I value hard work. Okay? In fact, I have so many friends who their beliefs are different. One of my really good friends, John Jonas, who owns OnlineJobs.ph, super successful company, great entrepreneur. But he values being able to work as little as humanly possible and still make money. And he does. And he's been very successful. I value working my face off because my whole value system growing up was wrestling. We worked hard. We had at work everybody. So I value hard work, and I love it, and I enjoy it, and I'm never going to... My values are not John's, and that's okay. They're going to be different, but I need to know what my values are because if I'm going to go into something, if this is not aligned with my values, I'm not going to have success with it. So I need to know what my values actually are. And so what are the things you value? I value hard work. I value giving. I value creation. I value... Top of my head, I don't have my list here, but what are the things you actually value? Okay? And then as you're looking- Josh: We know hard work has to be close to the top of that list because that's the one that came out first when you can't remember anything else. Russell: And for sure, for me, it is. It's such a core value. But if me and John were both going after the same goal, which is let's grow our company by whatever, he's going to struggle because his value's not going to be hard work, and vice versa, for he's like I want to take four to five days of vacation every single month, that goal is never going to work for me because I don't value those things like he does. And so it's going to be constant odds with ourselves. Right? So listing out here's all the values you have and understanding those things and again, you can shift your values and values change. But values are harder to change, I believe. Beliefs, I can change, not faster, but those things are multiple whereas values, based on my life experience, these are things I value, and those things are there. They're not going to shift or disappear or leave. These are my values. Josh: Yeah, very rarely. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Yeah. Russell: But if I list those things then I can look at as I'm trying to become this person, do these fit in my values? If not, it's like, how do I structure this in a way where it still fits and it's still congruent with my values because otherwise you're going to be odds to yourself. And I know so many people who are like, they have one value but they have a goal and they're those things are at odds with each other. And that's why they never succeed because they're just, I want this goal, but I don't value this. Therefore, you can't hit it. Josh: Yep. Russell: So beliefs, values, and the last ones are your rules. Okay? And your rules are like, you set up these, it's almost like guideposts to get the thing. Right? So when I was wrestling, I had a lot of rules. My rules were I do not cut corners. I have a story behind that, but I do not cut corners. I don't drink carbonation. One of my other rules was I'll never go more than 24 hours without doing some kind of cardio because I had a belief that after 24 hours, if I haven't worked out that my cardio would drop down, and I didn't want to lose anything. So I had a rule saying I cannot work out. So I could take Sunday off, but I can't take Saturday and Sunday. Right? I had a rule of no more than 24 hours of no cardio. I had rules of what time I woke up in the morning, what time I went to bed. I had all these rules, and rules bleed into routines. Right? So you set these rules, and from there you create a routine. So looking back, here's the goal I have, I'm moving forward with definiteness of purpose. Here's all the rules I have to create to give me boundaries to make sure that I move forward and I hit those things. And so for me, my rules right now are like, okay, I have to make sure I write for two hours every morning before I come in. Because if I don't do that, none of my writing gets done. I have a rule about this and rule about this, and I have these different rules I create for myself to give me boundaries, to be able to actually hit my goal. And then the rules again, here's the rules. The rules are translating into routines. Right? So here's my rules. I tie these into my morning routines, my afternoon routines, my night routines. And now I've got the things I need to guide me to the goal. Whew. So there's a lot of stuff in there. Josh: That's really, really good though. I feel like if someone were to just go and apply that right there, that sounds simple, but it's not. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Right? If you were to actually go sit down like that, you could map out that for a while, and I see why you want to do a three day event on it or something like. That'd be awesome to go through each one of those because you're literally rewriting. So how I think of the mind is I think of the mind as a computer system, and then the story, the master story, ha-ha. The master story of your mind. Right? But the master story is the computer program that you program it. Right? So there's the Windows operating system inside of a computer, right? Or the Mac. And so the master story is like the operating system. And by going through and identifying and writing down those three things, it's like you're rewriting your operating system almost that by, or if you've never done it, you're writing your operating system because your subconscious mind by default then just carries that 80% of the way. Right? And that's the coolest thing is if you can just switch your subconscious mind, 80% of the work is done. It'll do it for you. Right? You've only got to battle that last 20%. So that's super cool. Russell: Yeah. So if we were to recap this really quick, for those who are like, I want to do this exercise with my kids or my family or by myself, I sit down and say, "Okay, what's the Hall of Fame goal?" Where do you want to go someday? Right? So you've got that, right? Then from there, say, "What's the Super Bowl goal?" That's what I'm going to accomplish the next 12 months. Here's my Super Bowl goal. And I have that, and say, "Okay, now to do this, I've got to have desire, and I've got to have definiteness of purpose." Meaning I have to really, really want the thing or it's not going to happen. Why do I want it? How do I amplify that desire in my head? And where am I going, right? Now we come back and say, "Okay, what's the identity I need to take on to be able to achieve this thing?" Right? And be specific with the identity. I'm a wrestler versus I'm a world class wrestler versus I'm an Olympic level wrestler. Right? So here's the identity to have. So write that down. And identity is just one thing. This is the one thing I am. Then now what are all the beliefs I have that I need to have to be able to be successful in this thing? Okay, I've got to believe this. I've got to believe this. I've got to believe this. This is what I already do believe, but a lot of it's new beliefs I need to create to be able to be successful. Right? And then who are the things I value and making sure I'm not out of alignment here. I value this. I value this. Here are the things I value. And then here's the rules I need to create for myself to make sure I actually move forward and hit that thing. And I'm going to take these roles, and I'm going to convert them into routine to make sure that I'm in the guardrails to my success. And so that's the pieces and ah, it's so much fun. Again, this will be a book someday if I ever get it done. But these are the pieces that are- Josh: Yeah, Russell, we need it. Come on, man. Not like your life's busy. Get it done. Russell: I'm working my fastest. It's going to be amazing. So anyway, I hope that helps you guys. As you're sitting down this year, this is literally what I'm doing. We're recording this December 28th. I've been mapping these things out. And my goal is January 1st, I'm waking up, and I'm just going to sit down and I'm going to flush these things and spend hours just putting it... Again, I've been percolating on them and taking notes on stuff, and I'm going to map it out, have it printed out. And this is the next 12 months of my life. This is the goal. This is where we're going and moving forward with definiteness of purposes. I'm going to just amplify my desire. Here's the identity I've got to take on to make it successful. Here's my beliefs, my rules, my values. And let's go and start running. So hopefully that helps. Josh: One more super rapid fire question then we can wrap it up. Russell: Okay. Josh: Do you have a coach that helps you with this, or do you do it all yourself? Russell: Oh, very good question. So during my life, I always go on and off with different coaches that have helped different parts. Right now. I do not have a coach. How do you say this right without being creepy. I don't have a coach who's living right now. Right now I am looking at authors as my coach. And for me right now, Napoleon Hill is the person I'm focusing on, who I'm literally going through so much of his stuff right out and having him accountable to me. I will in the near future rehire a coach to help me, but I'm still trying to, I don't know if that makes sense or not, but I'm trying to- Josh: Yeah, no, no, for sure. Russell: Yeah. Josh: That's awesome. That's good. Russell: Anyway. Josh: All right. Thanks Russell. That was awesome. Russell: Hope you guys enjoy it. If you enjoyed this episode with me and Josh, please let us know. Take a screenshot of the podcast on your app, tag me in it. Let us know your favorite thing, biggest takeaway. And with that said, I hope you guys enjoy the new year, planning it out. And I want you to all hit your Super Bowl goals over the next 12 months. So let's do it. If you do that, you'll change the world in your own little way, and it'll be awesome. So thanks, Josh. Thanks everybody, and we'll see you guys on the next episode.

Russell and Josh reveal the 2 biggest biohack, supplements, diets, brain food, focus & marketing. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody? This is Russell, welcome back to Marketing Secrets podcast. Today's episode we are going to get into a little bit of some biohacks and some things, diet, energy, supplements, what we do to be able to have our brains stronger so we can be better entrepreneurs. This was a really fun conversation, I think you're going to love it. You're going to see some of the weirdness happening in my brain, what I do, why I do it. And hopefully it gives you guys a place to start when you start looking at how do you change your health to be able to have more success in business. So hopefully you enjoy this conversation. Also, at the end of it, Josh pitches his new podcast, which is coming out here in a couple weeks, couple months. And I think I'm episode number one, so I'm sitting down with him for a two hour conversation here in the near future. Make sure you get on the waiting list for his podcast it is JoshForti.com/coming soon. And again, he'll do a little pitch for it at the end. But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation about biohacking, supplements, health, and how it relates to you as an entrepreneur. Welcome back everyone to the Marketing Secrets podcast. We're about to move into the third topic, I don't know what it is, but I'm pumped to find out. So what's the third topic? Let's go. Josh Forti: All right, Russell, so here's the ding. You're this dude who you've got this super, super successful company, but anybody that has followed you that knows you a little bit, right? All the newbies out there might not. But you're a wrestler and you to be successful in all areas of life, which is really cool, it's one of the reasons I follow you is because you're not just... I'm going to throw rocks to Grant Cardone here, Grant we love you, but also all you care about is money. So get a life. All right? But anyway, so you have more of this complete picture, this more complete thing that you're trying to go through and do. And so for me, one of the things that I've been focusing on a lot, and it's always interesting because whatever I focus on, I share on social media. And then when I share it on social media, people start giving me ideas back, and half the time it's really great ideas, and then half the time people just hate me for no reason. They're like, you're so dumb. I'm like, oh my gosh. Okay. But anyway, for me, right now, one of the things I've been really focused on is health and fitness. Right? And I remember, I don't know, it was a year ago or whenever it was that you were freaking out about bone broth. Right? And you were like bone broth is going to be the greatest thing. Oh my God. Or whatever it is, it's going to be so cool. And it's going to help me cure cancer and not get it or whatever. And I'm like, you're so weird, dude. I don't even understand. Because I wasn't in it, right? I didn't understand it. And then I got married and my wife is a yoga instructor and so she's super, super fit. And now I'm at this point in my life where I'm like, man, my brain feels foggy a lot of days and I want it to be clear. And I'm like, oh crap, there's Russell over there talking about bone broth that one time, he was talking about brain health and all these different things. I'm like, I got to go figure this all out now. And so I hired the Shockley's. Do you know the Shockley's by the way? Kelly and Jay Shockley? They've been in Steve's MasterMind and stuff for a while. They're students of mine now, they're awesome. They live here and they do total body mastery. And it's basically, they come in, they take 15 different blood samples and hair analysis, urinalysis, all this stuff. And they go and test every single different level of your body, and they basically tell you if you're going to die or not. It's pretty great. And so I went and did that and I geeked out and came back and I'm like, there's so much here. And so I'm curious, and I think a lot of people that are, they reach a certain phase in their journey of entrepreneurship and marketing where they're like, okay, I've made some money now. So now I'm not worried about if I'm going to be able to pay the bills or pay off the credit card. And now I've got some money in the bank. And so now they start thinking about more important things. And one of the biggest things that comes up is their health, right? It's, how do I take care of my brain? How do I take care of my body? How am I going to make sure there's longevity? How do I make better decisions? Anybody that's ever studied personal development knows your brain is like this, it takes 80% of the energy in your body every day. It's like something stupid. Right? So I guess let's start with, how do you go and figure out what you're going to focus on? And what's your routine for health? What are the areas that you focus on and how did you figure out that those were the areas you should be focused on? Russell: Yeah. Great questions. It's funny because I think everyone goes through cycles where, remember I used to make fun of the people who were like me. I'll call them hippies. Like, "Oh they're such hippies." And now I'm like, "Dude, I love the hippies, they got all the good stuff. I love these people." You know? But yeah, I think the biggest thing is... It was tough for me because I was a wrestler my whole life, so I always consider myself an athlete. I thought I was in good shape. I thought... And I was. I thought I understood nutrition, I did not. I wish I could go back and compete knowing now what I know now. And so it was weird, I got done with wrestling and then my wife got pregnant with twins, literally during my last wrestling term, she was on fertility. But I wrestled in my last tournament and we found out a week later we're pregnant of twins. And then we were excited, and I wasn't wrestling or competing or working out. She was eating for three. I was eating for three or four as well. And I gained I think about, my senior year I wrestled 165. When I came back to go wrestle the next year after I graduated with the new team, I was so big, they made me wrestle the heavy weights. So I'd gained probably conservatively 60 to probably almost 80 pounds while my wife was pregnant. Josh: Oh my gosh. Russell: And then one day she had twins and lost 60 pounds overnight and I had 80 pounds on Russell. But it's weird because you don't see it. I didn't see it. I remember going back to wrestle at Boise State, and I walked through the door and Ben Cherrington, who's actually Gaethje's wrestling coach, I walked in and Cherrington is like, "Dude, your face is so fat." I'm like, "What?" He's like, "What happened to you?" I'm like, "I don't know what you're talking about." I couldn't see it. You know? And it was just weird. And anyway, so for the next seven or eight years I was in business and I didn't think about it. I was like, I had so much energy here and focus there, I didn't think about it. And eight years into my business is the very first time I remember feeling, I think I was on stage or something. And I used to wear a tie, and the tie wouldn't fit around my neck anymore. It was all this stuff and I was just like, oh, I just felt crappy. And finally I was like, okay, I have to figure this out. So I hired a trainer, got on a plan, and in seven or eight months I went from, I don't know, whatever, 26, 28% body fat down to 12% body fat. And that was cool and I felt better by myself. But the thing that I noticed the most was that I could get more done during the day. And that's when I was like, oh my God, health actually matters, not just... Like for me, if you look at my disc profile, my number one value is economics. So if I don't see the ROI of something, I won't do it, which is why I sucked at school. That's why I suck at a lot of things is because if I don't see an ROI, I would rather die than do the thing. And all of a sudden I saw the ROI of health, I was like, okay. I was like, by shifting my health, I was able to get two to three times more stuff done every single day. ROI of that is I'm getting three years worth of work done every year, which means I'm going to crush everybody else. Therefore, I'm going to go deep on this. And so that was the thing that sold me on it was just, I saw the ROI and then I became obsessed. And so I'll take you through my journey because there's different levels of things I've learned. And again, I could probably someday will write a 5,000 page book on this because it excites me. But there's the things that are the big lever, like the big levers had the biggest impact. So I'll talk about those. Josh: Yeah. Russell: The first one I understood- Josh: Can I just say a quick side note? Russell: Yeah. Josh: I love how you're coughing as we're talking about health. LOL. That's funny. Russell: I know the one time I've been sick in a decade and it's right now. Yeah it's weird, I have a stuffy noses and a... Anyway, I'm in a season of my life where there's not much sleep because my kids are wrestling. And so I leave every day at 2:30 to go to wrestling practice, and then they're cutting weight at night, and then there's tournaments, and I still got to do all the stuff I got to do. So I'm up every morning earlier than normal. Josh: It's like you're busy Russell. Geez. Russell: Yeah. It's a lot, so my health is suffering a little bit right now, which is why I am spending more time on health stuff right now because I'm losing sleep so I got to make up for it in other places. By the way, sleep though is the number one performance drug you can do. In fact, it's interesting if you study all the biohackers, the two or three biggest things is sleeping more and more sunlight, like going outside with your shirt off, getting natural vitamin D, those help more than almost any biohack you can dream, any supplement, anything. It's sleep and sunlight are the two biggest biohacks. And so, anyway, we should all spend more time outside and we should sleep more. But those are hard sometimes where, nowadays we're not sleeping and we're in an office, so those are the things. So okay, I'll step back. So the first big thing I noticed when I started the health journey back now, it's been probably 14, 15 years ago now... Maybe not that long, maybe 10 years. Anyway, whatever it was, is I went through different diets. Right? So I did a bodybuilding high protein diet, which had lower carbs. I also went through the ketogenic diet because I spent a lot of time with Pruvit when the keto movement was starting, helping them launch that. So I was trying to understand, and I went to through that. But the biggest thing I started learning is how carbs affected my brain. If I eat carbs, it made me tired, faster. You know after post Thanksgiving dinner, you eat and then all of a sudden you can't keep your eyes open. People say, it's the tryptophan in Turkey, I don't believe that, it's the mashed potatoes. Josh: I don't believe that either. I just found out this Thanksgiving that apparently Turkey makes you sleepy. I'm like, that is not the case. It is just food in general. I eat any amount of food that much, I'm sleepy. Russell: Yeah, well it's not just food, it's the carbs. The carbs make your brain tired, at least for me. And so I started realizing that, I was like, I don't want to not eat carbs because the carbs have a very important role. I did the whole keto thing for a long time where I just only ate fats, and that I don't think is right either. So your body needs all the things, but I time my day based on those things now because I know that when I introduce carbs, I'm going to be tired. So I don't introduce carbs early in the day. I don't typically eat breakfast, when I'm eating lunch it's usually high fats and high proteins. And then when I do carbs it's at night, when I do actually want my body to start falling asleep. And so if you notice, like if you look at my eating cycles, I'm still eating the same things most people are eating, but I'm eating them in different orders. Right? Like my lunch, if I'm ordering lunch today off Uber Eats, it's going to be a poke bowl and it's going to come with no bass. So no rice, no nothing, but I'm going to have fish, I'm going to have five different fish in there. Right? Because the fish has high protein plus high fat content, which affects your brain. So I'm going to eat that fish, that's going to be my brain food. But I'm not eating carbs because I don't want carbs yet. I need carbs in my diet, I need it in my body, but I don't want it until I want my body to naturally fall asleep anyway. Right? So dinner time, usually I'll be lower on carbs and as it gets closer to bedtime, then I'll go and have my rice or whatever my carbs are going to be. And because I'm like, okay, I want my brain to shut down anyway. It's like, that's when I'll introduce those things into my diet. And so for me, it's like the timing of food has been really, really big because I would normally, back in the day I eat breakfast, I have cereal for breakfast or something and I'm wrecked for the day. Or I would skip breakfast, I eat lunch and then lunch I'd go order something and it'd be a sandwich. Right? And I eat the sandwich and all the bread and I'd lose the last half of the day. So I'm very, very sensitive on how I'm timing, where I'm introducing the carbs in the day so that I can keep my focus as much as possible during the windows where I need my brain sharp and fast and ready. So that's the first phase of it for me, that's been the big thing, because that brain fog is the worst. You're like- Josh: Is the worst. Russell: I need to be... And you can cover it with caffeine. And so you kind of have it, but it's not the same. You don't have the same sharpness when you have the brain fog and caffeine. It's like going into a bathroom where it stinks and they spray Poo Pourri. It's like, now it smells like Poo Pourri flavored poop. You know what I mean? They're both there. Josh: Right, right. Russell: It's like, it's not actually clean in here. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. Do you use Nootropics or anything at all? Joe Rogan has that Alpha... Or I don't know if it's his, but he does that Alpha BRAIN or whatever. I use that and that... I mean, I don't use it all the time, but whenever I need to be focused, because I usually take Adderall and- Russell: The hardcore stuff. Josh: Don't take Adderall people. It's the best ever, but it is straight up... Alex Sharfin did something on it one time. And once I learned what was in Adderall, I was like, "Oh, all right. So if I take that long term, I'm basically on crystal meth basically." I mean, not, but it's like the same thing. So Adderall's great, but it's not a long term sustainable thing. So I did Alpha BRAIN and stuff, which is much healthier. Do you use anything like that? Russell: Yeah. So there's a range in this stuff, because a lot my friends are the hardcore biohackers, and there's a range. And there's, for me there's a cutoff line of where I feel comfortable. And most of my friends go way beyond that cutoff line, where I don't feel comfortable. So it's tough, you get in the Nootropic world, I feel like you got to have your, this is as far as I'll go, because if you're not careful, I have friends who pushed it all the way to the spot where there's stuff that I think they're crazy for because man, you mess up your brain you are screwed. You know what I mean? And it's not worth sometimes the increasing of, oh I'm going to get more focus here. But there's a potential of damage. So yeah. So Alpha BRAIN's great, Alpha BRAIN's definitely on the left hand side of, I can take this stuff, I feel comfortable. I love ketones, I'm still a big ketones' believer. I'm trying to think off the top of my head. There's different ones that are good. Right? For me, when you start getting into the racetams, there's a whole family of race, that's where I start freaking out. For me, my cutoff line is right before that and I don't go there because the racetams stuff and then after that, then there's the more hardcore stuff and there's microdosing on things, then there's like- Josh: Psychedelics. Yeah. Russell: Crazier and crazier, and I do not cross that line because my brain, I'd rather have... People that want the last 10% from these crazy things is not worth the potential death. Josh: But is that also a religious thing for you? Or is that? Russell: For sure. Josh: Yeah, okay. Russell: 100% religious. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Definitely religious belief, but even more so, for me it's... I don't know. I've had so many friends who... And I don't want to get political on all the different drugs and things like that. I could, if people want to, but- Josh: You can come on my show, we'll talk about it there. Russell: But honestly, I have so many friends who smoke weed because it makes them more creative. I've had friends who the brain shuts off because of it. So the potential, I might be more creative, but I could lose my brain, is not worth any amount of, that's a risk I will not ever take. Alcohol is the same thing. People are like, oh, I do this because it relaxes me. But I've seen the opposite side of that. It's like, I don't know. Yeah, I have my line, I think everyone should have a line. But there are some really good Nootropics out- Josh: I want to talk to you about that more. We'll do it on my show, because I'm super curious to know your thoughts on that too, because I smoke weed sometimes too. Russell: That's why you want to bring me on that. You're from Colorado, I know. I'm not against it- Josh: Yeah, it's legal here people. Russell: I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole, no matter what of positive benefits might be on one side. So there's that. Josh: We can talk about that more at another time. But anyway, back to the- Russell: So the Nootropics stuff, so that's good. But supplementation as a whole, I used to just go and randomly buy every supplement that had a good sales pitch, because I'm a good sales guy and I love getting sold. I remember Anthony DiClementi came to my house one time and he saw my supplements and he was like, "You're taking everything, which is good." But also he's like, "There's crossover because a lot of supplements, they want a marketing pitch, they'll put 12 things in it." And all of a sudden I'm taking 30 pills and all 30 of them have this crossover, and all of a sudden I'm taking unhealthy levels of whatever this ingredient, because there's a little bit in 40 different things. Right? And so I started getting more strategic. In fact, Braven, who spoke at Funnel Hacking Live, his dad has been doing these really cool things. I'm trying to figure out, he's coming out next week actually to do some more work with me. But I'm trying to figure out how to help turn that into a business that I can introduce to entrepreneurs, but basically comes and tests your blood. And basically your blood testing is like, Hey, instead of just randomly taking stuff because you think so, it's like, here's where your markers are at, and then they create custom supplements based on that. They get all these- Josh: That's literally what the Shockley's did for me. That's 100%. I have this whole long list, like this long of every single different level of every nutrient in my body. It's crazy. Russell: Those are really powerful because then you're not just guessing and you can get in trouble when you're guessing. I've seen people who've had issues because they've shotgun approached it, which I've done for years in the past. And so I'm a big believer in that now, where you're taking stuff, and so to make sure you're optimized is a big thing. And one of the fascinating things, I've heard people talk a lot about gut health in the past, but I didn't understand gut health until I did this because he was showing me that the amount of fats and proteins I'm taking aren't being digested enough based on my blood levels. And he's like, the biggest thing that I need to do is start focusing more on my gut. And so I didn't really know what that meant, so this has been a big, huge thing for me now that has had a huge impact, is understanding gut health and how to do things like that. So a couple things. Number one, I have this on my desk here in my house, this is... What are these things called? These are the digestive enzymes. Right? These are actually Braven's, if you go to GainesinBulk.com you can buy them, but these are the digestive enzymes. So before I eat anything now, I pound a handful of digestive enzymes, just consistently, because it helps you digest your food. If you've got lactose intolerance, if you've got, which I do, I'm lactose intolerant on some things, it helps your body digest those things so you don't have the same issues. You have less gash, you have less bloating, less annoyance when you eat. So I pound these before every single meal. That's my first tier is digestive enzymes, I'm sold on those. I carry a little pouch to me when I travel, every I go, and before I eat anything, I pound enzymes, and that's been a big gut health thing. Number two is, every society outside of America, they eat fermented food with every meal, but Americans don't. So in Germany they eat Sauerkraut, in China it's kimchi, there's different things like that. And so that was a big thing, he's like, "Your proteins aren't being digested because you don't have anything fermented in your stomach at any given time." And so now I buy a jar of Sauerkraut and every night at dinner, when I'm eating my bigger meal, I eat Sauerkraut with the meal because it's getting those things in there. And I used to hate Sauerkraut, there's some really good ones actually nowadays that are insanely good. So I eat Sauerkraut a lot. Kombucha, I used to make fun of that. And some kombucha scared me, because they're really high alcohol content, but- Josh: Oh really? I didn't know that. Russell: Yeah. So for me it's like, but there's some kombucha, the kombucha, however you say it, they'll actually pull the alcohol content out of it. There's some that taste like, I don't have it right here, but there's these ones, there's a whole company. There's a company that made kombucha's that taste like Coke and Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew. And it literally tastes exactly like Coke and Dr. Pepper, and Mountain Dew, and it's kombucha. Josh: No way. Russell: Insanely good. So those are- Josh: Okay, you got to send me a link to that. I got to try that. Russell: Yeah, they're awesome. And then this is my new obsession, it's called Alive, GTs puts it out, and it's a mushroom Root Beer and it's got reishi, chaga, and turkey tail. I drink two of these a day, they deliver to my house from Whole Foods. I am obsessed, these are my favorite thing in the world. And it's all gut health stuff. So it's figuring those things out. The first tier of gut health is digestive enzymes, the second is fermented food while you're eating, then third is adding in kombucha's and things like that, it just helps your body break down stuff, digest it, and it gets... Because I don't know about you, but for years I'd eat stuff and I'd just get digested and bloated and then you don't feel good. You don't want to do things. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And now I don't have those problems like I used to. And that's been a huge... Anyway, so those are some of the tiers of things. Like for me, it's timing my food, taking supplements, like Nootropics and things to a certain level to help increase your mind. Josh: Right. Russell: And then the gut stuff is, your gut and your mind. There's studies I've read, I don't know how, I don't understand it all, but they say when you're an embryo your brain and your gut are connected, and then they separate and there's this brain gut thing. And so when your gut's not doing well, it affects your brain and vice versa. So it's like those two organs are the ones to really focus on the most. Josh: Yeah. My mom was big, so my sister, when she was, oh gosh, I think it was five years old, had epilepsy. Like seizures every eight minutes, like full out seizures, completely. And we took her to the number one child epilepsy doctor in the whole world that was over in the Cleveland Clinic. And they like looked at my parents and were like, "We have no idea what's wrong with your daughter. She's just going to have seizures for the rest of her life." And my mom went on this whole thing and cured her through diet. And that's when she discovered the whole gut thing and everything like that. And so ever since then, my mom's... I always tell my mom, I'm like, "Mom I love you to absolute death, obviously when you die it's going to be the worst thing ever." And I'm like, "One of the biggest things I'm going to miss when you're gone is whenever I have a problem, whenever I'm sick, whenever I don't feel well, whatever, I just call my mom." And I'm like, "Mom, what do I do?" And she knows, and it's always the natural thing. I haven't been to the doctor in probably 10 years because anything that's wrong, I just call her so- Russell: Natural is good. Josh: Yeah. She's all about that. Russell: Natural stuff is fascinating. Like again, I used to make fun of people and say they're hippies, but man, I got a Natural Path here in town I go to. Before Funnel Hacking Live I was like, I can't get COVID. And so he came in and hooked me up to IVs and things and all these. It's crazy. They do muscle testing, what things your body needs. I don't know. Again, all this stuff I used to think was like crazy, woo-woo, weird stuff. And the more I get into it, the more I'm just like, man, this stuff's amazing. I think everyone should find a Natural Path, find something that's good. As a first line of defense it's preventative, but also when you do get sick, looking at those options, because they don't wreak havoc on your body like some of the... And there's a time and a place for all those things, right? There's time to play- Josh: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Russell: You need traditional medicine, but man, there's this non-traditional side that's based off of thousands of years of people doing this stuff that is amazing. And it's looked down upon here in America unfortunately, I think it's gaining more and more popularity. But man, it's fascinating and important to, I think for all of us to understand and to be willing to look at. Josh: Yeah, for sure. Well, I appreciate you sharing more about that. I'm sure that you could talk about that for a long time. Last question on that and then we can wrap it up here. What are the things that you just absolutely stay away from in your diet? I mean, obviously for you, there's some faith elements in there too, so feel free to talk about that. We already talked about hard drugs and things like that, but diet related. Do you drink soda? Or are there certain things that you absolutely stay away from and you just don't do for health reasons? Russell: Yeah. So really decide, as a Mormon, it's alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea, those are just chopped off. And then anything worse than that obviously like- Josh: And tea? Russell: Yeah. I think- Josh: I didn't know tea was- Russell: We can have green teas, but not like the... Or something. I don't know. I don't even know. Josh: I don't like tea, but that's super interesting. I didn't realize tea. I knew alcohol, tobacco and coffee. Russell: Yeah. Then on the other side, then it's like, as I was trying to master and understand really diet and stuff, when all is said done calories... And again, I'm friends with all the health influencers, so I see the wars online, calories versus that and all that stuff. But calories do matter, but the type of calories matter as well, right? You can lose weight on a Twinkie diet, if you're eating 1500 calories a day of Twinkie, but you're got to feel like crap. Right? So I'm very conscious of that, so I do not drink soda, for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is if I'm going to waste calories on something, I am not going to drink a soda, I'm going to eat ice cream. Right? I'm all for- Josh: Right. Russell: It, but I would never waste it on something like that because I feel like you're just drinking pure. So I'm not perfect, I'll go off on binges and eat stuff I want, but I would never drink pop, like I just don't. I would rather spend my calories somewhere else. Josh: It's soda Russell, it's soda. Russell: Soda. Yeah. In Utah, we called it Pop. But yeah, I think in the rest of the world it's soda. Anyway, so I don't do those kind of things. Josh: It is soda, Pop's not a thing. Russell: I'm also thinking, I'll go somewhere and there's a dessert, so I'm like, oh. And I'll try something and I'll take the first bite, and I judge, is this worth the calories? And if it's, yes, then I'll go pound the rest of it. If it's not I'll throw it away. Right? Like for example, cookie dough. If my wife brings home a tub of cookie dough or something, I eat it. And its worth the calories, I don't care what it is, that's so good I will eat that and I'll deal with the consequences later. Right? But then I'll eat something like a Pop Tart, and it's like, oh, this is not worth the calories. The soda or whatever, not worth the calories. Have you had those Mochi ice creams before? Josh: Mm-mm (negative). Russell: Oh my gosh, they're Chinese things. Anyway, they're the most amazing, I'll eat 4,000 calories of that because it's worth it. It's worth any extra effort I have to have because it's that good. And so for me, it's just like, I judge everything, is this worth the calories? If not, I just throw it away and I won't eat it. I won't put in my mouth. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. You ruined me with Crumbl Cookie. Russell: Oh yeah, those are worth the calories. Josh: Dude. Freaking, you're the one that I saw it on your Instagram story, you opened it up and you're like, "These are the most amazing things ever." I was like, what are those? And I looked it up and there's one five minutes from my house. And so now we go there all the time and I'm like, they're so good. Right? Russell: They're worth the calories. Josh: And people don't get it until you have one. And you're just like, oh. So we try to limit our consumption of that. But you're the one that got me on that and now we're... I hate you and I love you at the same time for them because they're so good. Russell: Yeah. I'll judge that. So let's say I need to eat something, it's like is it Crumbl Cookies or Subway? I would not eat it subway because it's not worth the calories for this nasty bread and all these things. You know? But I will definitely sacrifice it for a Crumbl Cookie. So anyway, that's my Litmus test. I don't think most biohackers would live by that model but for me, it's like, I eat pretty much the same thing 99% of the time. But when I'm going to mess up, I want to mess up with the best stuff and not stuff like, oh, I ate that thing and now I feel like, that wasn't even good, why did I do that? I want to make sure I'm doubling down and if I'm going to mess up, then I'm going deep on something that's worth it. Josh: Yep. Yep. All right. Well thank you for sharing Russell, I appreciate it. This was, I think it was a good batch of three episodes for us. Knock it out. Russell: That awesome. Hope you guys enjoyed this. If you like conversations like this, that aren't necessarily marketing related, but based on all the other weird stuff going on in my head, and Josh's head, let us know and we'll do more of these. And thanks man for doing this, I appreciate it. And we'll see you guys on the next episode of the Marketing Secrets podcast.

In this second installment of this special interview, Russell and Josh go super deep on ‘the master story' and the attractive character…and what happens when you have tons of followers and NO ONE buys! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. So, today's episode is probably from most of my conversations with Josh, might have been one of my favorites. It was really, really fun. We started talking about expert secrets and storytelling and how they work, and attractive character profiles, which one you should be using, and how they work, and can you change them? And then also he started going into his concept of the master story, which is something I talk about in Perfect Webinar, but he goes really, really deep in it. And anyway, we geeked out. This was a really fun episode. I hope you enjoy it. With that said, let me cue up the theme song. When we get back, you'll have a chance to listen to this exciting conversation with me and Josh talking about story and attractive character, and a bunch of other really cool things. JoshForti: I got to ask this. Are you not on Twitter? Like I see you on Twitter a lot, and I see you posting stuff on Twitter. But is it not you that's engaging on Twitter? Russell: No, I don't know how to tweet. Josh: You don't know how to tweet? Russell, I tweeted you a lot. Or not a lot, but I tweeted you quite a bit. Russell: Oh, hey. Josh: And then sometimes you like my tweets. Dang it. Russell: I do like all your tweets. They're awesome. Josh: Yeah. Oh, man. Russell: I personally, I enjoy Instagram, probably my favorite. And then Facebook's probably number two. But that's the two social platforms I spend my personal time on the most. So, if it's from either of those two platforms, it's usually me. If it's other places... Josh: Do you have it like broken up? Like are you like, "Instagram, I do this type of content and stuff on. And Facebook, I do this type of content on." Or is it kind of like a mixture of both? Or... Russell: Um. Josh: For you personally. I know your team posts stuff, but... Russell: The only place I really post/do stuff typically is Instagram, like stories. That's where I kind of, like me personally, do stuff. And then Facebook and my personal page, probably once, every once in a while, I drop stuff there. And everything else, that's my team. Josh: Yeah, that's rare though, not often. Russell: Yeah. Josh: You're not like me who's like, "What? It's been 48 hours without some form of controversy? What can I say? Oh my God." All right. Well, actually, I kind of want to talk about that though. Not so much controversy, but creating content specifically around storytelling, because I think this is probably one of the biggest... Let me give backstory, a little context around this. I came into the world completely backwards of what most people do, right? So I was the guy that came into the world, and most people have no following and no followers, and they can't get leads to happen. Right? And they don't get anybody to show up to their webinar. And then they're super depressed because nobody showed up and nobody bought. I had the exact opposite problem. I had everybody show up and nobody bought. And let me tell you, that's way more depressing. You know why? Because when everybody shows up and nobody buys, you're like, "Crap. Now I really am screwed because I have no idea what's going on." Right? Russell: It was me, and not the… whatever, yeah. Josh: Right. It's not because nobody's hearing it. It's because I actually suck. And I remember the first time I ever did a webinar, we actually... I don't know if you remember this or not. I actually sent you a Snapchat. This is right when you first got Snapchat. This is way, way back in the day. I've told this story before. And I went and I was like, "Russell, what's up, man? I'm trying to build this webinar. How much would you charge me to build out a webinar for me or whatever?" Right? And you sent me a little video, a Snapchat video back. You're in the Jeep, and you were like, "Man, I don't really do that. I don't really do that anymore." So I like snapped you back, and then you snapped me back, and you're like, "It'd probably be like $250,000 or something like that. But I don't really do that." I'm like, "Man, I really wish I would've hired you for 250 grand." But anyway, so I go and we do this huge webinar, and everyone told us... We were like, "We're going to have all these people sign up." And everyone's like, "No. No, you're not. Nobody gets people to their webinar that easy. You maybe have a hundred registrants." We had 2000 people register, and we had a thousand people... We maxed out the room with a thousand people on live. At the pitch, there was like 982 people in the room. I go through, I do my pitch. No one buys, not a single person. And then we hung up, and like an hour goes by, and one person had bought. And most miserable, depressing... Russell: That's the worst because then you're like, "Crap. I thought there was no sound or something. Maybe they didn't hear me." Josh: Right, right, right. But I sat there and it was a bad webinar. We had like dozens, probably hundreds of emails and comments of like, "Can I have my money back for a free webinar? This totally sucks. Worst experience ever." It was awful, right? And what was interesting is that really scarred me for a while, from doing presentations and from doing anything where I pitched live. And so I basically went and I just did sales from that point on. I did lots of presentations. I did lots of content. But I did not actually go and pitch because really, it was like PTSD almost. Right? It was like, "I don't want to go back there." And what was interesting is I went and I would do sales, and I got good at sales, but sales is hard, man. Sales is just a different game. It's just like pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing. Right? And then my brother died, and out of just sheer not knowing what to do, I just started sharing my story because at that point you're like, "What do you do? My whole life is messed up at this point. I'm so confused." And so I just start sharing what I was going through, and I start sharing things of like the emotions and what I'm learning and what I'm going through. And I remember people just started buying, and it was like the weirdest thing, because I wasn't selling anything. Right? But I would go through and I'd be like, "I'm super grateful and thankful to have an audience right now because I'm able to go through and have a business that allows me to go and like be mobile and go to my brother's funeral or whatever." And then people started buying my programs. And I was like, "What in the world?" And then I would share other things, and then people would start buying. And I'm like, "I'm not actually selling these things. I'm just talking about my life." And what was interesting is I went back eventually later that year, and I went back to all these different people, and I was like, "Why did you buy this product?" And they're like, "Well, because you told such and such a story." Oh, that's interesting. So then I went over here and I was like, "Why did you buy that product?" And they're like, "Well, you guys told such and such story." And it was a completely different story. And it was like they were buying because they would hear a story, and they would associate that story with a product that I was selling, and they would go buy it. And so I had all these different products and all these different stories, and I was like, "Okay, well, I got to figure out what's the one story that I want people to figure out?" Right? So I could sell the one product. And so that's what I've really been focused on recently. But that lesson taught me that storytelling was everything, because I had heard that from you a million times. Right? Russell: Yeah. You didn't believe it. Josh: Story, story, story, story. Right? And I'm like, "I'm telling stories, Russell. What more do you want me to do?" But I wasn't. I was telling facts and I was going out there and trying to sound smart. And when I just let go of it all and was like, "This is the story, like the real, the raw, the genuine. I'm not trying to sell you anything. This is legitimately what's going on in my life." I made more money and more sales than I had before. And so I would love for you to talk about... Like I know in Expert Seekers you go through like storytelling and all the different, the core four stories, and the change of false beliefs. But what's the key? And maybe that's it, like going back through that. And that's fine. But like what's the key to telling a good story? Because I think not only do people... And there's a follow-up question to this, which I'm not going to tell you what it is yet. But what are the elements that make a good story? What actually makes a story work? And how do you tell one effectively? Russell: Yeah. First off, it's fascinating because I went through a very similar journey when I got in this world too. I remember going to my very first event. I saw people selling from stage, and seeing the numbers and doing the math, I was just like, "This is crazy. There's no way this actually works." And then I remember getting invited to speak at a seminar, and it was different because webinars are painful, but man, standing on stage and doing a pitch, and then it bombing was even worse. Because it's just like all these people, nobody moved, and it was just like... In fact, I remember I was like, "I'll never, after the first one, I'll never do this again." That was the worst experience ever. And that's when I joined the Dan Kennedy world, and they had this public speaking course. It was like 40 CDs. I remember the pack was like this thick of CDs. And I bought it because I was like, "I want to figure this thing out." I started listening to him. And I don't remember the course at all, other than this feeling of just like it's not teaching. Teaching is not what gets people to buy when you're on stage. It's telling these stories that connect with people. And it shifted my mindset, and so it shifted to the point where I went and tried again. And the next time I tried, I tried to weed these things in, and I got like six sales, a thousand bucks apiece. And I was like, "Oh, okay." Like I got the reward of like this actually worked. And then I was like, "Okay, do it again and do it again." And then you start getting obsessed with it. And then for me, most of my education for the next five years... Because there wasn't a lot of people that had courses on public speaking or things like that. There were a couple, but there wasn't a lot. I just went... And from a timeline, it was before the big 2000 whatever, the big crash in 2008 or whatever. And so there were events happening every single weekend. So I'd go to an event every weekend, and I would sit there and I would just watch the people speak. And I would watch what they were doing and then see how people would buy at the end. And people, the ones that had the big table rushes and stuff, I was like, "Okay, what did they just do? What'd they do to me? How did they do it? What did they say?" And I was like trying to dissect what they were doing. And then I would model that for my presentations. I'd be like, "Oh, I like how they did that part, how they told the story or how they got emotional." Sort of like just studying. McCall Jones calls it charisma hacking. I didn't know that's what it was at the time. But I was just watching how they did stuff and how it made me feel. And it wasn't just like selling from stage. I started watching religion people as well. Like some of the best presenters in the world are preachers and pastors and things like that. And I was watching just people speak and how they got me to feel and move, and how they told stories in a way that was exciting. And then so that's like this study I started going on. Then I met Michael Hague. I started learning about story structure. I was like, "This isn't just made up. There's actual structures and there's things in place. And this guy's way easier," because now I'm not just guessing. There's actually a pathway. Anyway, so that's kind of my history with it too, but it's fascinating. But I think that if I was to break it down into something for people to understand that's not complex but simple... Because you can go to the Expert Secrets book and it can get really complex. But the simplest form is that if somebody's coming to you, it's because they're looking for something different, right? They want change. They want more. There's some result. And I always think about this like on a mountain because Dan Kennedy used to talk about this. He's like, "You need to become the guru on the mountain. And people are going to come to the base of the mountain, and the closer they get to you up the mountain, the more they're going to pay." Right? So, the base of the mountain, they're paying a hundred bucks a month for a newsletter. And then they want to get closer, they pay 500 bucks a month, then a thousand bucks a month. And for whatever, for 50 grand, they can sit at your feet and talk to you." And he used to always talk about that guru on the mountain thing. And back when I was first studying this, the way people sold was different. It was much more like that. It was more of a status play like, "This is how successful and why you should come up here. And if you want to be like me, you got to come to me, pay me more money." And I never really resonated with that, partially because I'm awkward and I always felt awkward like positioning myself. So I never liked that, and so I started learning about story structure. It was cool because I realized that the positioning of you on the mountain, it's essential, right? But it's not like you sell from the top of the mountain, yelling down to the people. It's like people see you on the top of the mountain, and they're down here like, "I want to be up there." You're like, "Cool." And then it's you coming down off the mountain, running down to where they're at, and being like, "Okay, I know exactly where you're at. Let me tell you my story, because I was in your same spot at one time." Right? And that's the power. So, if you look at the way I do my presentations, I usually drop like one slide or one thing like, "Hey, this is the thing you want." Right? Like, "Cool, I've made whatever." Like I'll do my quick posturing just so they know that I've been to the top of the mountain they're trying to get to. But then I don't stay there. But again, if you watch the old-time speakers from the nineties and early 2000s, they would spend the 90-minute presentation talking about them on top of the mountain the whole time. And I just hate it. So I drop real quick, so you know that I know I've been where we're trying to get to, but I got to come back very, very quickly. And the story I'm telling you is the story, my story, of them. Right? I have to put myself in their spot. Like where was I when I went through the same thing? Because all of us, if you got to the top of the mountain, somewhere you had to start hiking. And you went through that journey to be the guru on the top. Right? And so it's like coming back and remembering where are they at or where were you at, telling your story. And if you tell it the way that they connect, they're like, "Oh my gosh, they are me. I was Russell. Russell went through this. He understands." And there's empathy. Then they trust you. Then they want to go on that journey with you. That's like when you came out and you started telling your story, it wasn't you posturing a position of how great you were. But it's like, "Hey, I've done this thing you're trying to figure out. But let me tell you my story and how I'm struggling, how I'm still struggling, the struggles I went through, and the pain and the fear." And all of sudden they're like, "Oh, I feel that too. I feel the pain. I feel the fear. I understand those things. This person understands me. I can trust them to take me on this journey because he's not going to be the person who's just positioning how great they are. It's someone who I have empathy with. They understand me." And that's the key. Because if they feel like you understand them, then they're going to go on that journey with you. And you do that by telling the story, like your version of their story. Because they're living it right now, and you've lived it the past. You've got to tell that in a way where they connect and now they're going to want to go on that journey with you. And that's kind of the key to it all. Josh: That's super, super interesting. Yeah. Because when I think about story structure, because I've like tried to simplify things down in my own head... Because it's always interesting, because I'll watch everything that you do, and so it's funny whenever I do presentations, people are like, "You're a mini Russell." I'm like, "Well, that makes sense actually. Right?" Like I've watched all this stuff, right? So, but for me, man, going through Expert Secrets, I don't know, it was probably the third or fourth or maybe even fifth time through before I finally actually was like, "Oh yeah, you actually do know what you're talking about." Because every step of the way I'd be like, "But my story doesn't fit in. That doesn't work." Or like, "Mine doesn't have that." Or like, "It's not that systematic." Or, "Russell, it's too much of a science. There's more of an art to it." And then I'd read about it and I'd be like, "This is so scientific." And then I'd watch you do it and I'm like, "That's so artistic." And I'm like, "But they're the same." Right? And so I would try to figure out ways to simplify it down to a way I can understand it. And then once I would understand it, I would plug it into yours, and then it would work. Right? And so for me, it was always like, okay, there's four parts. It's, "How did I get here?" Right? That's backstory. Like, "How did I get to right here right now?" That's like that. And then it's, "Where am I going?" Right? So, the goal, the desire. And then it's, "How am I going to get there?" New vehicle, new opportunity, right? And then it's, "What's it going to look like?" The vision, like what's it going to look like in the process of all that, so we can paint this thing and we get people emotionally attached? And so for me, in my brain... And they don't always happen in that sequential order. Like sometimes you start with the desire, and then you go back, but it has to have all four of those parts. And then I would take that and I would go, and then I would apply it to the Expert Secrets, and then it would start working. Right? I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's what Russell's doing here and here and here." And then you actually have this whole framework out about it, right? And I think one of the things for me is I always go... Because we've done book clubs on Expert Secrets. I teach stories in marketing. I teach stories in personal development. Like stories and storytelling is a big part of what I do now, especially over the last six months and moving forward. One of the questions that continues to come up is... Well, there's two parts. Let me start with the first one. "Hey, Russell, that's all great, but I'm not a leader. I'm not the attractive character that's the leader." Right? "I'm not the person that figured it out and am living my customer's journey." And there's actually a lot more of those people than I thought. I thought most people were leaders because that's what I was when I first got started. So my question is, do you tell this story a different way? Or how is the story different, how is it positioned differently, if you are not the leader? Because I know you're not in your story. You're the reluctant hero, right? And so I tell people, I'm like, "Before you start figuring out your story, you got to figure out what attractive character you're going to be." Right? And we go through the four inside of Expert Secrets. It's like there's the leader, there's the adventurer, there's the reporter, and then there's the reluctant hero. And what's interesting is early on in my journey, I was the hero. Right? I was the one, I was like, "Guys..." I was literally this broke kid, freaking living in a $500-a-month apartment with duct tape windows. And now I'm not, right? And Instagram was the thing, and social media, and here we go. Right? But as I evolved, then the podcast came. And without even realizing it, I became the reporter. Right? And so how does, based on your attractive character, how does that change the story or how you tell it? Russell: Yeah. And it's funny because mine's transformed, not only just throughout time, but in different situations as well. Right? Like sometimes I'm the attractive... You know, when I got started, say when I was an interviewer, so I interviewed people. So I was a reporter for a long time. But then I transitioned to like a reluctant hero. But there's other times, like if I'm on Hockey Live, I'm not the reluctant hero, right? At that time I've got to be the hero. Like I'm coming in and I'm setting authority because I've got a whole group of alphas in the room. And if I don't come there as like the head alpha, they will run me over. If you're like in a situation with Tony Adib, like if I'm that situation, I'm transitioning more back to reporter because I'm leveraging Tony's expertise and things like that. And so I'm going back as a reporter. Same thing with Dan Kennedy right now. You look at... It's fascinating. Like we just bought Dan Kennedy's company, right? We just launched the first Dan Kennedy new offer. By the way, if you're listening, go to NoBSLetter.com and go sign up. But yeah, like... Josh: By the way, make sure you go through my link. Russell: Yeah. But look at like how I've... It's /JoshForti, yeah. Josh: Yeah. Russell: But if you look at like how I'm positioning this offer, it's not me coming as like Russell's the alpha. Right? I'm coming back here as like, "This is my mentor. Boom. And I had this chance to acquire, but I'm going to go through 40 years of his stuff, and I'm bringing it back to you." And I'm pulling these things out, and this is what I learned from Dan and what I learned from Dan here." Right? And it's me coming back in a reporter role with my mentor, and that's how I'm introducing the world to him. So, it shifts, right? It shifts based on the story and the situation. Like what are you using it for? Right? Like I could've come in and be like... Because there's different posturing. Like I could've come in and been the hero and like, "I bought Dan's company. We bringing it back from the dead. Da, da, da." Like put it on me. But that story, first off, didn't feel good. But second off, it's not the story that needs to get people to move. The stories to get people to move is me giving homage to this guy who's changed my life, and now I'm going to be having the chance to bring these things back to you. Like me becoming the reporter back in that phase, in that business and that side, is a more powerful story to use. Right? And so it's all coming down to figuring out what's going to be the best story, right, in this situation and where you're at, and thinking through that. Because right now you're in a reporter role, but other times I still see you, you shift back over where you're running different things. So it's just trying to figure out what's... Again, these are all tools. I was talking to the Two Comma Club X members this week. And part of the group's doing challenges, part are doing webinars, part are doing different things. And they're like, "Which one should I do? Which one's the best?" I'm like, "No, it's not which one's best. These are tools. Like this is a hammer, this is a saw, and different jobs and different tools." And so it's like if I'm coming in here, I want a hammer, but over here I want a saw, and here I want a hammer and a saw, because I'm going to do this thing. Right? And same thing with stories, understanding that. Like your attractive character can shift. Mine's shifted more throughout time, but also situationally it shifts where it's like, okay, this is the role I need to be here, and it's okay to shift back to reporter. I've seen people, in fact... Well, can I drop names? Yeah. Who cares? So like Grant Cardone's a good example. I love Grant. Grant is like the leader, right? And at 10X, after we set all these sales records, Grant was going to shift to the interviewer and he was going to interview me. And it would've been a really fascinating thing for him to pick my brain and ask. And we sat down and we got in the thing, and he sat there for a second, and all of a sudden he was like, he didn't want to. He thought like shifting to the interviewer was a decrease in status. And he literally stopped before he started and said, "Actually I don't want to interview you. I'm going to have somebody else do it." And he got off the little thing, had somebody else come in, and that person interviewed me. And I was like, "Ah, dang it." It would've been so powerful for him. Josh: Come on, Grant. Russell: It would been so powerful for him, for his positioning, for people to connect with him better, if he would've come off like, "I'm Grant Cardone." You know, trade, come down for a second, and done the reporter, and been excited. Because he genuinely was excited. He, backstage, was freaking out. He was like, "I've never seen what you just did. That was amazing." Like it was this cool thing. And it humanized him for a minute. And he could have had that moment where he did it, and he didn't. Whereas me right now with Kennedy, I'm paying all homage to Dan. He's amazing. And it, first off, makes the offer better, makes the story better, but it also makes me more... People connect because now it's like they're the same thing. Like, "Oh my gosh. I have mentors. I can be excited about what they're learning." I don't have to posture all the time where I'm the only person. You know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. Well, it's super interesting that you say that because studying influencers has been something that I've kind of geeked out about. And one of the things you talk about in there, in Expert Secrets or whatever, is the attractive character has flaws. Right? And when the attractive character owns those flaws, it actually makes their supporters love them more. And what's interesting is that I've looked at people like Trump, and we're not trying to get political here in any way, shape or form, but one of the big criticisms of Trump, even from his own people, and I being one of those, is he never admits when he's wrong. He never will step down and even give the idea that somebody else could be right. And because of that, that actually hurts him a lot more in the long run than in the short, than it gains him in the short term. Right? And so it's that same concept. And then I look at someone like a Dave Portnoy, right? And do you follow Dave at all? Dave Portnoy? Okay. So he's the founder of Barstool Sports, and he's the one that did the Barstool Fund and everything like that or whatever. Here's a dude who, I mean, his fan base is not as large as Trump's, but as far as like fans and fans, people love Portnoy. Right? Like, I mean, there's his fans. But he makes fun of himself constantly, right? And he's constantly coming back and being like, "Yeah, I messed up." All of his bets are public because he owns like a gambling or a sports betting company. So you go to his Twitter and it's nothing but all of his wins and then all of his losses. Right? And so you can see both, and people just love it. And anytime people are trying to bash up on him, all of his supporters come and they're like, "Yeah, we know he's an idiot. Right? But he's an amazing idiot. Yeah." Right? And so it's like when you show that other side, people connect to you even better. And it's such a fascinating concept because it's opposite of what our brains think. You know what I mean? Russell: A hundred percent. It's counterintuitive. Like we want to always posture position, thinking that's the... It's just like the guru on the mountain we talked about, right? Like in the eighties, nineties, every expert wanted to be the person, the infallible expert up here at the top. But man, that's not what gets people to connect. It's the coming down and like, "Dude, I struggle too. I remember the pain. I remember the pressure, the fear, the scare, like all those things." And that's what connects people. People crave connection now. Maybe there was a time in history where people just wanted the other thing. But nowadays it's not that way. People connect with vulnerability. But it's hard, it's scary, because it's like... In fact, Natalie Hodson, I think she quoted Brene Brown, but she's the one that told me this. She's like, "When you're vulnerable, you feel small, but people looking at it, it feels makes you feel big to them." So it's a weird thing where you're like, "I feel horrible," but it makes them look at you and like, "Oh my gosh, this person's willing to say things I'm thinking in my head and I don't dare to talk about because of my own fear and anxiety and status, and all those kind of things." And it gives them that thing, and that's what gets people to connect with you. It's really fascinating. Josh: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Okay. Last piece on this, which will take up the rest of the time for sure, is the number one question that I get hands down when it comes to stories... I'm sure you've heard this a million times, but in the odd case that you haven't, Russell, your people want to know this. Okay? The number one question is: How do I know which story to tell? Russell: Ooh, that's good. Josh: Right? It's the hardest thing because people are like... And it's always hilarious because I'll sit down and I'll be like, "Well, what story are you trying to tell?" And they're like, "I don't know." And I'm like, "Well, here's your life story." And I will tell them because I'm like their coach and I've been around them for six weeks or whatever it is. And I'll go, "Here's your story. Boom, boom, boom." And I'll summarize their entire life in 30 seconds. And they're like, "How did you do that?" And I'm like, "Because it..." Well, anyway, I want to know the answer to their question. How do you know what story to tell? Because everybody has these. We're so close, right? And for me, I'm about to turn 28, right? My 28th birthday, we'll do a big birthday bash. Russ is coming on. It's going to be great. We're going to want to do podcasts. It's going to be so cool. Right? But it's like I've got 28 years worth of experiences. How do I know what to tell? Russell: Yeah. It's fascinating. When I wrote the first version of the Expert Secrets, I didn't know that was the question people had. I didn't even know how to answer. It never crossed my mind. And anyway, I wrote the second version of the Expert Secrets and I'd seen it, so I'd updated it. But no one ever commented. And it wasn't until... Actually, you came to it. You came to the most recent FHAT event I did, right? The expert one? Yes, okay. Josh: Yeah, not the e-com one, but yeah. Russell: Yeah. So the first time I shared that publicly was at that event, and I remember it was fascinating because Steven Larson is probably one of the people that have studied me the most. And he raised his hand like, "Oh my gosh." He's like, "I finally understand what story I'm supposed to tell." And that was coming from Steven who like... And I was like, "Interesting." So, this is the problem I think that... And I always tell people, "Tell your backstory. Tell the origin story." So they're like, "Okay. I was born in Provo, Utah, March 8th, 1980. It was a cold night." And they, they go back to there, right? Because they think that's the story, because I tell them, "Tell your origin story." And it wasn't until at that event... Again, I think, I'm pretty sure in the second version, the hardbound version of DotCom Secrets, it's in there. But it was that event where I really said, "The story you're telling is not like your origin story. It's your origin story of how you came upon or created or figured out your framework. It's your interaction with the framework you're sharing." That's the key, right? So, when I'm talking about the perfect webinar, for example, the origin story I'm telling is not my origin story. It's my origin story discovering this framework. So, for example, I went to Armand Morin's event and I saw people speaking on stage. I did the math, and then I spoke on stage, and I looked like an idiot. And I went back home, and then I bought Dan Kennedy's course. I realized it was wrong, and then I went through the thing. And so it's that story, it's how I learned or I earned this framework. Like how did I come up with... What was the things I went through to discover this gem that I'm bringing now from the top of the mountain down to them, saying like, "This is the thing I found out, and this is the story about how I found it. Let me share it with you." And be like, "Ooh, I want that gem. I want that gold nugget." And then they come with you on the journey to go and get that with you. So, that's the most simple way I've figured out how to explain it. I'm curious on your side, because you've explained versions of this as well, would you add to that or change it? Or what are kind of your thoughts on it? Josh: Well, so let me start by telling you the biggest struggle that I had. Like I'm talking for over a year of reading Expert Secrets, I struggled with one specific thing that I could not figure out, and it was the question that I wanted to ask you for the longest time. And then like right before we got an interview, I figured it out. I was like, "Oh my gosh." But it was I didn't understand the difference between the backstory and secret number one. And what I meant mean by that is like, to me, I'm like, "First you discover funnels, and then you teach them the framework for funnels. It's the same thing." But then you would say they're different. And I'm like, "How?" Right? Like I don't understand the difference between those two things. Now, at first I didn't understand it at all. And then kind of my first epiphany or my first breakthrough was, "Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. First the backstory introduces the thing. And then secret number one has the framework for the thing." Right? And so then that was kind of my first realization of like, "Okay, these are separate. It's one, it's the thing. And then the framework for the thing." But then I would look at your webinar and I would go, "Russell, Russell, what's your framework? Like what's the framework to build a funnel?" I'm like, "It's hook, story, offer." That's what I thought, right? I'm like, "In order to build a good funnel, it's hook, story, offer." And then I was like, "Well, maybe that's not the framework. Maybe it's add all the upsells and break the beliefs, and then go through." And I was like... But no matter what it was, it was never... Like the framework for building a successful funnel was never to go and model somebody else's funnel, and then build all the up. I'm like, that's a thing, but that's not the parts of a funnel. Right? And so I got confused because I thought the framework that I was supposed to teach in secret number one was the parts of the thing, not the framework for how to build the thing. Right? And so I think one of the biggest 'aha' moments for me is like each part of the webinar that you're doing is its own separate section, and they build off of one another, but they're also each standalone. Right? And so I thought that the backstory or that the story that I told in the backstory was the story through the entire webinar, and it's not. Right? And so whenever I would hear you say, "Well, tell the backstory about how you learned it and how you earned it," I thought it was like that was the story for the webinar, and then I had to go through and tell each thing. And then I realized that there's a separate story for each thing. Right? There was a separate story for the backstory. And by the time you're done with the backstory... And I think it was you that said it. I go back and forth. I really like how Dan Henry explained some of the things specifically when selling courses, because that was the other problem, was you were selling a software and I was like, "Well, what happens if I'm not selling a software? Oh, crap. Where does it fit in?" Right? But I think it was you that said by the time you're done with the backstory, there's a percentage of your people that are ready to buy. And I'm like, "Whoa. That's the story that I've got to figure out." And so for me, I was like, "What is the story that I have to tell, that if I were not allowed to tell secret one, secret two or secret three, people just took me at my word that what I said was the solution to their problem? What's that story that I have to tell that people would go and buy?" And I became obsessed with that, and that's what I call a master story. Because I'm like, to me... And that's why I was telling you where I was geeking out about it. I'm like, to me, once I figure out that, and I've gone through and taught all these students how to teach stories, if I focus all of my time on the three secrets, we never get anywhere. Like literally. It's ridiculous. We'll spend so much time, and then they'll do the presentation and it won't work. But if I spend 80% of my time on just the backstory and we get that right, they basically figure out the other three secrets like that. And I spend 20% of my time in the other three secrets. Russell: That's fascinating. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Because I spend both of my time doing the three secrets, because that's where people get stuck on my side. But man, the way you frame that's really cool, because I always think about... There's different markets I go after, right? So if I'm going after like a beginner market, my first thing is telling the potato gun story, because it's like, "I had a potato gun, we had an upsell, da, da, da." And for beginner, like... Josh: Which 100%, by the way, 100% of what I've done... The last like six, three months I've been doing sales calls like crazy. Whenever I mention the master story, I go, "Hey guys, do you know Russell?" They're like, "What's the master story?" I'm like, "Do you know who Russell Brunson is?" They're like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Do you know the potato gun story?" 100% of the people say yes, every single time. There's not been a single person... I'm like, "That's his master story when it comes to funnels." Anyway. Russell: That's always interests me because I have a different master story if I'm going over like a more advanced audience, which is the master story of no VCs. Right? So it's like, "We're competing against InfusionSoft and all these things. They had a hundred million dollars in funding. We didn't have any money. We were broke. And so we put this thing together. Da, da, da." And they're like, "Now we get customers for free, and then they buy software." And that master story is what sells it to more of like the corporate, like the business owners who think through the world of like investing. So, that's story that I lead... If I talk about potato guns with them, they're lost, right? So again, it's like, people are like, "But I only have a story." It's like, "No, you have different stories. What are the stories that fit the audience?" Dan Kennedy 101, message to market match. Like how do you connect these things? Right? It's like here's the market I'm talking to. In fact, I think you know this. We bought Doodly.com and we bought like Brad Callen's whole company. And these people, I didn't realize at the time, I thought they were internet marketers using software to make sales videos. But no, they were actually course creators who don't know anything about marketing. And so I went and did my webinar pitch to these people and it bombed, and it was like the worst thing ever. And I was like, "What?" And it was like, "Oh my gosh. I didn't understand the market." And so I had to change. So we rewrote it, changed the story, changed the thing to match the market we're going after. And now it's converted really well. But it was like, it's just understanding that in every situation, like figuring out, "Okay, who am I actually speaking to? So there's the market. And what's the message, the story I think I have that's going to match that to then bring them into our world?" Because I'm selling the same product, no matter what, but there's different stories that's going to hit different markets as you go through. You'll probably hear me quote a lot more Dan Kennedy in your future, as I'm going through all his courses again right now, and having the time of my life with it. So... Josh: Yeah. Well, it's just interesting, just going back to that one concept of like the first core story, the master story, the backstory of it all. I think one of the big problems that I know I ran into this is, once again, I thought the whole webinar was designed to teach and educate. Like that's when I would introduce and teach it, the whole entire process. But it's not. Like secret one, secret two, secret three are designed to educate on the thing that you introduce in the backstory. Right? And for me, with the people I work with on a pretty consistent basis, it's like they don't understand that either. And so when I go in and I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no. Forget about teaching them about it. You have to teach them what it is, why it's so important." And I always go back to that story when you were like no one was buying it and then you're like, "Do you understand what I went through then?" I'm like, "That! That's what you're trying to create." It's like forget the framework for it. Forget how it works. Forget why it worked for them. Forget the external objections for a second or whatever. Like what do you have to do that, if you didn't get to do anything like that, how would you convince somebody that this is the most greatest, amazing thing, and then be like, "And just take my word for it that it's going to work for you." Like, what's that story that you would tell? And for me, once I identified that was what it was, and I started working on my students with that, all the rest of the webinars and find new challenges and everything became easy. Whether it was Catherine Jones when we worked with her, whether it was Brad Gibbon, casual tactics, like all of them, it was like, once we figured out that, then all the rest of the things fell into place. Russell: Yeah. It's fascinating because the reason why I bombed when I first started versus why I started studying dance stuff, is that realization of just like, "They haven't bought into the fact that they want to funnel yet or that they want weight loss or whatever the thing is." Like your only goal during the webinar or the challenge or whatever is to convince them that this is the vehicle that's going to be the most likely successful to get up on that mountain and get the result that they've been looking for. Because they've been looking for the result for a long time, right? I think Katlyn said the average woman goes on eight diets a year. Right? So it's like, now that they're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to lose weight." It's not like this, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to make money. Oh my gosh, I'm going to..." Like, they already want the result. They tried three or four other things. You're trying to convince them that your presentation or your challenge or whatever is to convince them that of all the different potential opportunities, that your new opportunity is the one that's most likely to get them success. And if they buy into that, then you can take them on the journey. But you start teaching around the gate. You're trying to take them on this journey, and they're like, "Wait, but there's like 10 other options. I don't think you're the right... I don't even know if you're the right option. I have no idea." So your job and your role is 100% only there to convince them that this is the most likely thing that's going to give them the success they're looking for. And yeah, then you won. Then you can bring them into world. Now you can serve them. Now you can change their life. But until you've sold them on the fact that your vehicle is the one that is most likely to give success, you can't serve them. You can't change their life. You can't do anything. And so that's what we got to become really good at is that transition. So, anyway, so fun. Josh: All right. Well, that'll wrap up the story episode there. I think that was really, really good. I think we got a lot accomplished. Russell: We should go, another time, or next time you're a voice, we should do like a half-day live with everybody on like the master story. That'd be fascinating to go deeper just on that, without the context of having to have all the rest of the webinar things. I'd love to geek out with you deeper on that. So, there's the thought. If you guys want more of that, you got to let me and Josh know, and maybe next time we're around some UFC fight or some fake YouTube boxing fight, we'll plan something fun like that. Because that'd be really cool to go deep on that. Josh: That fake YouTube boxer fight, that's 5 and 0, right? Oh, man. All right. Russell: All right. Thanks, you guys, for listening. If you enjoyed this, please let us know. Tag us on social. Tweet us out. Instagram us. YouTube... I don't know. All the different places. Josh: Don't tweet us. Russell won't tweet at you. He'll just fake like your tweets. Instagram? Instagram. Russell: Tweet at Josh, and then I'll share it. Josh: Yeah. Russell: My team will share it. Anyhow, let us know. We're enjoying doing these, and hopefully you guys love them as well. And the last way, if you want to help grow this podcast, please just tell other people about it. And yeah, that's all I got. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Josh.

Russell and special guest Josh Forti dive deep into funnels,  storytelling, and building your own reality. Find out how to break free of what's expected, how to create your own rules, build your own world, and be OK with being different. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to The Marketing Secrets podcast. Today, I've got two things for you. Number one, I got kind of a cold so if I sound a little funny, that's why. Number two, is you guys loved our last three podcast episodes with Josh Forti, so we thought we should do it again. Today, we jumped on a call and we recorded three more episodes for you, and they've been a lot of fun. The first episode was all about just kind of... It was an interesting conversation, and I think it took us a while to get exactly to the point. But by the end, the end of of it wrapped with some really cool thoughts and ideas and I think some clarifications that'll help you guys a lot. But it was all about I'm in this world of funnels, and how has that affected my world perspective, my world view and, everything else happening around me? And how does that work for you with the thing that you're most passionate and most obsessed with? And so I think you guys will enjoy this conversation. With that said, I'll queue up the theme song. When we come back, you have a chance to listen in on a conversation with me and Josh Forti. What's up, everybody? It's Russell Brunson. Welcome back to The Marketing Secrets podcast. A little while ago, Josh Forti and I did a couple episodes. We've done this three times now technically. This is the fourth, but we did an episode a little while ago, just to see how you guys liked it. And the feedback was amazing. I got tons of good feedback. I think you did as well, right? You saw everyone. Josh Forti: I got tons. I sent you some of them. We convinced somebody to start a podcast over it. Russell: Because of the... Yes. Josh: Because of the podcast. Russell: ... podcast. We are having little podcast babies now because of what happened last time we hung out, and I'm pumped. We're jumping back in. We got three episodes of recording today. I know the title of the topics, but that's about it. I don't know where we're going, the direction, but I'm pumped and excited and just grateful for you, man, doing these. I really enjoyed it last time. I left afterwards pumped and on fire and had a ton of energy, so I'm excited for this. Josh: Heck yeah. That's awesome. Well, are you sick? Russell: Yes. I have a little stuffy nose, so I apologize in advance if I sound... My voice sounds deeper though, so I sound more masculine which is kind of cool. But yeah, definitely got a little bit of a cold. Josh: Oh, man. As long as it's not COVID. Russell: Oh, yeah. No, I did that. We're good. The antibodies are flowing through my body, so I'm pretty good there. Josh: Heck yeah. Russell: Well, what's the plan today? What are we talking about for this episode? Love to get kind of- Josh: Are we doing intros or are we just jumping in? Russell: This is the intro. I'll do intros. Josh: This is it, we're in. We're rocking and rolling. Russell: We're live. Let's go. Josh: All right, all right. Let's dive in. Dude, interestingly enough, as I went back and I started going... By the way, I actually listened to all three of our episodes, even though we did them. I actually went back and listen, because I'm that geeky nerd. I was talking to one of my friends. We were sending VOXs back and forth to each other and he's like, "I just listed to my vox back to you." And I'm like, "I'm glad I'm not the only one that does that." And he's like, "Oh, no, you are the only one. I just did that one time." I'm like, "Crap. Dang it." I go back through it. I listen to VOXs and I listen to podcasts. I'm trying to figure out how I could've made them better. But what's interesting is I wanted to take this one a little bit of a different route today, to kind of kick things off. Because normally, I'd say there's two types of podcasts. There's educational podcasts, which is you're talking on a very specific topic, and you're trying to educate people on that. And then there's entertainment podcasts. Entertainment is much more... Maybe it could be educational still, but it's not designed to educate you on one specific thing, and then break all the beliefs around that thing. And then do the whole perfect webinar thing on a podcast episode. Whatever. But rather, just kind have an open conversation. And I want to open this one up, talking specifically about funnels. And not funnels and how you build them, but I want to know is funnels a worldview for you? And what I mean by that is right now, I'm really, really big into storytelling. That's kind of my thing that I'm geeking out about, is how to tell amazing stories. And I call it the master story. That's the core thing that I'm trying to figure out right now, is the master story for me is what's the one story I got to get people to believe? After they believe that story, they'll do whatever I want them to do. It's the big domino statement of stories. But as I've done that, I've kind of gone out and everything in my life now revolves around stories. I'm like, "Oh, story there, story there. Oh, that's the story? Oh, that's the story." And my whole life now is just everything is stories. Obviously, I'm a huge fan of Expert Secrets and Dotcom Secrets, and you wrote those books and everything like that. You talk about kind of building this world and this identity, and bringing everybody in. And so I'm curious for you, where do funnels play into your life besides just marketing? Is this a worldview? Is this a lens upon which you view the world? Russell: Everything. Yes, for sure it is. It's interesting. I still remember back when I first got in this game, and I was learning marketing, and then I started studying Dan Kennedy's stuff and started... And I remember starting after I got that, some of the initial inputs of this world. What's the Matrix? The red pill or the blue pill. I took the pill and all of a sudden I was like, "Oh, my gosh, I see the world differently." And for me, it was fascinating. I started loving, I became obsessed. In fact, you can ask my wife this. We first got married, we listened to the radio and commercials would come on and she'd want to change. I'm like, "No, no, no. What are they doing? Did they do a good job did, they do a bad job, and how could they have done it better?" I started geeking out on that and I started watching more infomercials. I started watching as you go down the highway and you see the billboards. "Okay. That billboard, did it make me do anything, did it not? Was there a call to action, was there not? If there was, what did... " I'd get my phone out and I call the number and like, "What happened? What was the sales pitch?" And I started seeing behind the curtain of what was happening, and I became obsessed seeing that. And I remember, this is probably a little bit prior to this, but after I started seeing things I started realizing how things made me feel. I remember in high school, I was the wrestler, as you know. and I was into my health and fitness. I didn't understand it back then, but I do remember Bill Phillips had a magazine called Muscle Media. This is probably way before your time. But it was the first muscle building magazine that wasn't... All the other ones were these dudes who were just steroided out. And Muscle Media was the dudes and the ladies in it was who you want to look like. That guys looks amazing. And he had a supplement company called EAS he launched, and so I got into supplements and got into Bill Phillips. I got into his world, where I was reading his magazine articles and buying his supplementsm and it was cool. But I remember I wanted to buy some... I can't remember what the new supplement was. And there was a GNC close to my house.And so I remember jumping my bike, riding down to GNC, being so excited to buy a supplement. And I walked through the door, and as soon as I walked through the door of the GNC, the person came out and was like, "Hey, how can I help you?" And I'm like, “uh…”, and kind of freaked out. I was like, "Oh, I'm just looking." And I got all nervous and then I kind of wandered away, and then it felt like the person was kind of following me and everything. And I remember I came there cause I wanted to buy something, but I felt so uncomfortable, excuse me, that eventually I just snuck out and I left. And I was like, "I didn't get the thing." Because I felt so uncomfortable in the process that even though I came there with my money in hand, ready to buy something, I didn't because I didn't like the process. And I noticed, I don't know if you ever go into a GNC. As soon as you walk in, they always come and they pounce on you. And even to this day when I walk into GNC, it's one of my favorite stores. But I know the initial anxiety of the person pouncing on me asking if I can help them, or what I'm looking for. I'm like, "I don't know what I'm looking for. I want to literally read the back of every label of every bottle here. I'll come to you if I need help, but don't come and pounce on me." And I started realizing that and I started thinking, "If this was my story, how would I have wanted to be approached?" And I started thinking the script. And I started thinking if I came in the door and the person says something like, "Hey, welcome to GNC today. I'm over here. If you need anything, let me know." And it was more of a deflect, I would've felt more comfortable. I would've walked around, then I would've felt comfortable coming back the person. And I just started thinking through that. Anyway, that was before I learned marketing. I remember feeling that way, and as I started studying marketing I was like, "Oh, my gosh. I now know why I felt that way. The script was wrong and the process was wrong." And I started thinking through things more like that. And I'm sure it was annoying for my family. We'd go to a restaurant and I would notice how did the server do things, and what did they say? And it started opening up for me. In fact, my junior year in high school during the summer, I got a serving job and I was serving tables. And I remember, because I would split test different things to see what would give me more tips. If I said this to a person versus this. And I remember in fact, this is a 17 year old kid who's stuck on himself. I'd roll my sleeves. "If my sleeves are rolled up and they see more of my arms, would it be higher?" And literally would split test this thing to try to figure out how to increase them. And it's just weird. That was when I was young, and definitely it's messed me up nowadays, because it's hard for me when I see every ad, everything. I want to go deep into things, and I do sometimes but sometimes it takes me long rabbit holes. I don't know if that answers the question or not. Josh: Okay. Well, I want to kind of dive further down deeper into that, because I want to expand beyond just marketing as well. Because I think any of us as marketers when we have the light bulb turn on, you take the red pill or whatever it is. I remember for me, I had that first experience with money. I grew up in a very small, small, small town. The two towns collectively combined had 750 people in them, and one bank and a gas station. Very, very small world. And then I started learning about money, and I'll never forget the day that it clicked for me. I was actually out in... I had already moved to Nebraska, and I started to realize how money flowed. And I got done reading this book, and I remember I picked up the phone and I called one of my friends who had been teaching me about money. I'm like, "Dude, I get it now. I get everywhere around. I can't not see how money is flowing and where it works." I'm like this, and now I have all these questions about it. And so I totally understand when your lights come on, you start seeing the whole world through that, for that specific thing. But I want to know what about other areas of your life, and how funnels and your viewpoint of funnels has affected that. And what I'm trying to get at and understand, is you talk a lot about in Expert Secrets, we're building this identity, we're building this community, we're building this movement, this calling. And what's interesting for me I've noticed, is that when I first got into this space, I was so new that the preconceived notions of what people should do or should not do did not affect me. Because I didn't know anything. I was like, "I know I'm an idiot." people were like, "You're doing that wrong?" I'm like, "Probably." And there was no ego in the way of it. But then as I grew, I thought there were certain ways that I had to think, or there were certain things that I had to do. And then if I broke free from the mold that everybody else was doing, then somehow that was wrong. And I struggled with that. Thankfully for me, I didn't stay in there. But what helped me get out of it, is I gave myself permission and I literally was like, "I'm doing my own world over here. Everybody else, they can have whatever it is that they want. They can make more money than me, that's fine. I'm building this own little thing." And when I envisioned myself stepping into this world, then I was allowed to make my own rules. And so the rules had to follow everything else, but people would be like, "Josh, it's super weird that you think about everything in marketing." And I'm like, "But that's my world." And so everything about my life, from what I buy, to where I live, to who I hung out with, was all shaped around that. And for a while, that was weird. And whenever I would go to my friends it was like, "You're weird." And I struggled with that. But then once I gave myself kind of permission to be like, "Well, that's just literally how I think. That's my world, and it's okay to be different." That really freed me. And so I'm curious. How has funnels shaped your world outside of only marketing? And what would you tell somebody? Would you tell someone it's okay to like view the world through whatever their new opportunity is, in all aspects of life? Does that make sense? Russell: I think so. It's interesting, because I know you're trying to get outside of marketing, but it's fascinating because in my vision of the world, like everything is marketing. Josh: That's what I'm saying though. That's what I'm saying. Russell: When I meant my wife- Josh: How has that affected relationships? When you are dealing with a problem in your family, do like go like, "What's the funnel for this?" Does that make sense? Russell: How do we craft the story, the pitch, the thing. But it's true, because I think about when I met my wife. When I met her, there were multiple people who... She was the prospect and multiple people all competing for her attention. It was like, "Okay. I've got to create a better offer. I'm not the best looking guy, so I got to... What are the tools I have to increase the value of what I have to be more attractive to her?" And things like that. With my kids right now, it's tough because my kids have got so many distractions and there's things that are way cooler than dad. I'm always trying to think through that lens of, "Okay." Josh: Wait, there's people cooler and Russell Brunson? What? Russell: You could never be a prophet in your hometown, they say. You're never cool to your own kids. But it's tough though, because I'm competing against all of... For my kids, the rappers that are in their ears, and they're listening to all these people who... That part of the world. And they got their friends and they got these... There's so many things we're competing against. It's like, "Okay. Well, how do I take them on this journey to be able to help?" And you talked about universe building, which is true. In fact, I'm working on a project with Dan Kennedy right now, and it's all about that concept of universe building, and things like that. And you look at the big companies that have done it successfully, that's what they did. Walt Disney built this universe. In fact, I've listened to the interviewed me and Dan did on Funnel Hacking Live, and he talked about Walt Disney and Hefner were basically the same business. He's like, "One had bunnies and one had had rabbits or whatever. Or one had mice, one had bunnies." But it's the same business, right? They both had a universe that people came into. And I think about that. We're doing the same thing. You create a universe for your customers. That's a lot of what the Expert Secrets and everything is about, creating this customer universe. But it's true in your office with your team, it's true with your family, it's true with your relationships. You're kind of trying to craft this environment that makes people first off want to be there and to be part of it, and then to persuade people to hopefully get the things you're looking for. All of us are in a persuasion business, even we don't want to admit it. And people are like, "I don't persuade people. I don't manipulate people." But you are. What do you want to eat for dinner tonight? You got to persuade the other person. What movie do you want to go to? Are we going to go out tonight, or are we going to sit home on the couch? You're always in this thing of persuasion. And if you look at any kind of sales environment, is the number one. The biggest, one of the most important things when you're trying to sell somebody something, is the, the environment. The universe that you put them in. It's the reason why if I do a pitch on a virtual event, where somebody is at their own home, in their own environment, and I'm giving them a glimpse in my environment. I can convert and I can sell people. But I do the exact same presentation at Funnel Hacking Live in a room where I control the environment, they're in my universe. My sales were 5-6X, even though it's the exact same presentation, exact same everything because I'm controlling the environment. And so my home, same thing. How do I control this environment, my home? And how do I structure things? And how do we set the same things? You think about in the ClickFunnels ecosystem, we've got these awards. We got the Two Comma Club awards, Two Comma Club X. We have things like that. How do we create these things for people to strive towards inside of our families? Colette and I did that a couple years ago. We were trying to figure out what's our family goals. Do we have a goal? What does that look like? What's something that we can collectively all work towards together? And in the Mormon church, one of the biggest goals is you want to get married in the temple. But to get married in the temple, you have to be living worthily. There's all these things to do. And so as a family, we set a goal. How do you explain it? If my kids get married in the temple, their younger siblings won't be able to go, because they're not old enough to be able to go into the temple to actually witness the marriage. The goal we set as a family, we set a goal of when Nora... Because Nora is the youngest. When Nora gets married, the goal is we'd love her to get married in the temple, and we want all of our family to be there. Which means all of our family has lived in a way where we're worthy to be there together as the family. That became our family goal, and it's this thing we're all shooting towards. And it's fun, because now when I'm having family conversations with my kids, it's like, "Hey, you shouldn't be doing that." It's like, "Hey, these are things that are keeping us away from our family goal." We want to do this thing in 10 years from now, 15 years ago, Nora... But the way you're living, you're not going to be able to do that. And it's less of me trying to tell them what to do, as much as this is the goal we collectively set as a family. This is what we're trying to get to. Same thing in Marketing, we're trying to get the Two Comma Club award, cool. You can go listen to forty other gurus if you want, but this is the path. This is the process. We can get you there, but if you're distracted... It's just kind of a similar thing where, you set the things inside the universe, the goals, the steps. And hopefully, everyone... Not that they will or that they want to. Maybe my kids decide they hate the universe and they want to break out of it, and that can happen, too. People don't think funnels are cool, because they don't like me. I talk too fast or I'm annoying or whatever, and they enter different a different universe, but that's okay. Josh: Yeah. And I think entering a different universe, I think maybe what I'm trying to get at is I grew up, once again, super small town. Super small world, and I just figured there was a way the world worked. Singular. That's how it worked. And as I've grown up, I was striving to figure that out. I'm like, "What's the way the world works?" And I get out there and I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. There's five million different ways the world works." And depending upon whose world old that you're in. And so I was watching the football game last night. We had it on. It was the Steelers and the Vikings. I don't know. By the way, I know you don't watch football, but I'm going to make a prediction on here for all my football fans out there. Patriots are going to the Super Bowl versus Tom Brady. It's going to be Tom Brady and the Bucks versus Bill Belichick and the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Anyway, we're watching it last night and they have this documentary that's coming out. Do you know who John Madden is? Russell: Yeah. Just from the video game. Josh: Yeah. They have this whole thing on Madden and his whole life. And it's coming out, this documentary, and they do little clips, and there's all these different little people talking about it. And they're like, "This dude, you couldn't be around him and not love football. Because he just exuded football in every aspect of his life. At the dinner table, around his family, around his friends, at the... Football, football, football, football." And it got me thinking, because I'm preparing for this interview last night. And I'm like, "That guy's whole life was football. That's how it came about. He couldn't imagine a reality where football didn't exist. "Yet there's somebody else out. There's millions, billions of people out in this world who they never heard of or think about or want anything to do with football." And so here's a guy where his whole life revolves around football. All of his analogies, all of his stories, all of his strategies, everything was football all. And then I was like, "Oh, I wonder if that's what it's like living with Russell." Everything is funnels. And it's like funnels, funnels, funnels, funnels, funnels. I feel like sometimes as entrepreneurs, I know I struggled with this for a while, and I struggled with this a lot more when I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. When I was still trying to figure out my voice and kind of everything like that. But I'm like, "I just can't be the X guy, because that would be weird. That's not how reality works. That's not how life works. You don't just get to just focus on all of this." But I feel like it is. And I feel like you don't necessarily have to be a single thing guy, but I feel like you can. In the sense of... And that's why I'm trying to get at with you, is I feel like you've gone into this world and you've found the thing that works. And you've said, "Hey, listen, basically, in life you have to know where it is that you're going and how it is that you're going to get there." That's essentially in life, and that's kind of my core premise of everything. I'm like, "I don't care how you live in life." But I'm like, "If you don't know where you're going and how you're going to get there, your life is going to suck. You're not going to have a very fulfilled life." And so I feel like for you, you've figured out, "Okay. Wherever I want to get, this is the vehicle I'm going to use." And you've built an entire reality and universe around that. Yeah? Russell: Yeah, for sure. And it's interesting though, too, because I actually was on a call last night with Stu McLaren at their prediction college here, and he was asking my predictions for the future. And it's interesting because yes, funnels is the thing. It's my lens. And that's what people come to me. It's the lens they come through. But what I think is fascinating, and I see this with... In fact, I told Stu, I'm like, "There's an evolution. People were experts for a while and then they became influencers." And I think the next phase, it won't stick. People will still call themselves influencers, because it sounds cool and they feel the significance of that. But I think the next phase is people are going to become curators more so. Which is someone comes to me for funnels, but it's interesting because my last inner circle meeting, people pay 50 grand to be in the room. There's 100 people in this room and they're here because they want to learn funnels from Russell. We're talking about funnels and then we open for Q&A. And guess how many funnel questions came through? Zero. The questions were, "Russell, I came to you for funnels, but I trust you. I like you." And they didn't say this, but this is what happened, is they wanted to figure out how I curate. They wanted me to curate other thoughts for them. "I trust you in this, therefore what do you think about religion?" And they want me to take all my years of curation of all the ideas like, "This is what I believe." Or they're like, "How is your family successful?" And so they asked me these other questions. And I was telling Stu last night. I'm like, "Stu, you're the membership guy. People come from your memberships. But after they come in, that's what brings them into the door, but then they're coming because they want your curation of other ideas." Dan Usher. I think Dan on our team. It was fascinating, because his favorite band is Rufus or something like that. I don't really know the band that well. But he's obsessed with them and their music, and so he follows them, he loves them and everything. And he just bought his first house out here in Boise, so he needed to get art on the wall. He's like, "Well, I love Rufus. I trust them. They've curated their favorite art." He went and bought everything that Rufus ever said they like for art and put it on his wall. He's like, "Cool. Because I trust them, therefore I want this." And then he bought the furniture that they have in their house, because he trusts their opinion on this and other things. And so I think it's with Madden, I'm sure the football is what brings people in. And they come in there, they sit at the table for that. But then if they like him and they connect with him, then they want to know, "What else do you know?” I want to go down these other rabbit holes with you, because I trust you and I trust your opinion. I trust because you've already kind of done that." I think for me, that's probably more so, is they come in from one thing, but then if they connect with you then they want to dive deep on all the other pieces, the things that you find fascinating. Josh: Yeah. It's almost like they need the in to step into your universe, and then you get to build the rest of the universe out for them simply because you've built trust in that one area. Russell: Yeah. And what's fascinating. If you rewind back in my history 15 years ago, it was tough because when I was trying to create my universe, I didn't know that's what it was called. But it was funny. If you look at the landscape in our industry back then, it was interesting. Jeff Walker was the launch guy, Frank Kern was the mass control guy, Filsaime was the butterfly marketing person. Everyone had a thing where they were the best. Brad Fallon was SEO, and then you had Perry Marshall was PPC, and everyone had their thing. And I came in, I was good at all of this. I'm like, "I'm the guy who do everything." And I'd go to events like, "Cool, what do you do?" I'm like, "What do you need? I'm good at copywriting, and I can do all the things." And people are like, "Oh, okay." But then they'd go and they'd sign up for Jeff for launch. And I'm like, "I can do launch. I've done tons of launches." Or they'd go to whoever for copywriting, John Carlton for copywriting. I'm like, "God, I've done all these things." But there wasn't a thing. It wasn't until I specialize in. "Okay. Funnels is the thing." And it was a narrow focus where people could attach a thing in their head like, "Oh, Russell is the guy who does funnels." And they do that. But they come into the... That's the doorway that brings them into my world. But inside the funnel world, what is there? You can launch a funnel. There's copywriting, there's traffic driving, there's all these other things. But I had to bring them in through a channel they could connect with, they could label me with. You know what I mean? But after they're in my universe, there's all sorts of stuff I can do with him. Josh: I feel like that right there was the core of what I was trying to get after. I think a lot of people struggle with or are afraid to claim their thing, because they're like, "I can't just claim it." Funnels. Russell could claim funnels because that was a thing, but was it a thing before Russell? Was there a funnel... You are the one that came in and nobody came to you and was like, "Russell, you're the funnel guy. Go." You were the one that had to decide that. You were the one that had to come in and be like… Russell: And it's fascinating, because I was the only one back then talking about it. There was a bunch of people. In fact, I remember Todd and I started building ClickFunnels. And I remember about that time it was T&C, so it was the T&C before we launched ClickFunnels. And we got T&C, we were sitting in the audience, and Todd and I are mapping things out, and we're talking back and forth. And the entire T&C, that event was about funnels. And so Ryan was on stage, Perry was on stage talking about funnels they developed. "This is the funnel framework for all funnels." They sold the $18,000 funnel coaching program and half the room signed up, and all this stuff. And I was like, "Oh, my gosh. That's what we're trying to go, but they just took it from us." And then it was crazy. After that T&C, then everyone was talking about funnels. And it was funny, because the next week everyone became a funnel consultant. All of a sudden, 2,000 little funnel consultants were running around the internet talking about funnels. And I remember Mike Filsaime had done something showing behind the scenes of one of his funnels, and I remember somebody else got mad. I'm like, "We're the funnel person. You shouldn't be talking about this us." And I remember Mike and him were fighting back and forth. I was kind of watching this and I was like, "We have this software coming out called ClickFunnels. And I have this book I'm writing that's almost done called Dotcom Secrets, which is all about funnels." And so I was stepping in this thing where there was a whole bunch of noise around this topic, and I could have been like, "Who am I? I'm not qualified." Whatever. But instead I was like, "You know what? This is what I'm obsessed with. And I'm just going to do my thing, and I don't care about everybody else." And so I just did my thing and came out there, and there were people who... I can't tell the actual stories, but there were people who were upset. "You shouldn't be talking about this, Russel. This is so and so's thing." And then at TNC the next year, there was some weird comments from stage made about stuff. Because in fact, somebody said from stage, "Because of what we talked about last year at T&C, Russell created ClickFunnels because of us." And they gave them credit for this thing. And it was just this craziness. But man, we were the only ones who took it and that were consistent, consistent, consistent, consistent. I'm seven, almost eight years into the consistency, which is how you define the path. That's how you get the... You look at Jeff Walker, who's been talking about product launches for 20 years. Therefore, he's the product launch guy. People try to come dethrone him, but he's been consistently talking about the same thing for so long that you can't. And so the biggest thing is picking the platform, and then you just triple down on it and you keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it. And eventually, you will rise the Victor. But most people don't have the longterm, the patients to keep just drilling in for long enough to make it stick. Josh: Yeah. And I think that a lot of times, at least in my experience, and it could be different for other people. But a lot of times, it's because you're just not confident enough in it. The only thing that's going to be the difference of whether or not it's going to stick or not, is whether or not you're confident enough to follow through. That's not necessarily true for every single product universally. Sometimes the market doesn't fit, and sometimes there really is... If you tried to launch a competitor to iPhone right now, you're probably not going to make it. But generally speaking, especially in our world with funnels and experts and a lot of online influencer marketing and things of that nature. It's basically whoever sticks at it the longest and then creates the clearest, simplest stories, the clearest, simplest frameworks, and the easiest way for people to be able to get results with it, are the ones that are actually going to make it and follow through. Russell: Yeah. That's the game, and it's so much fun. Josh: All right. Well, I'm ready to move onto topic number two here. We're about at time. Russell: All right. Josh: You ready to rock and roll? Russell: We'll wrap it up. Thank you guys for listening. If you enjoyed this, let us know. Otherwise, we'll never do this again, so if you loved it, tag me and Josh on Facebook, Instagram, wherever you guys do stuff. If you tweet, I probably won't see it there, but tweet it up and let us know, and we'll come back and do some more of this stuff.

What is the future of funnels...? With meta-verse coming, what should we be focused on now!? Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody? This is Russell Brunson. I'm back with my co-host Josh Forti. How you doing, man? Josh Forti: I'm doing awesome, man. How are you? Russell: Doing so good. We just recorded a new episode for you guys. This one's all about funnels and I think it went in a different direction you thought it was going to go, didn't it? Josh: Yeah, it did, a little bit. It was super good. Russell: …because the question was like, "What is the next funnel? What's the thing?" And it wasn't a funnel thing, it was something different. So, I think this is an episode you guys can enjoy. Josh: It's tough. Russell: It's been so exciting for me, I literally woke up at 5:00 AM every morning this week because I'm geeking out on the thing that you're going to learn about. And hopefully, it'll help you guys with all your funnels, no matter if you're running a webinar funnel, or a book funnel, or a challenge funnel, or whatever, doesn't really matter. This principle, you can overlay on top of all of them and it'll make them all better. So, that said, should we queue up the theme song? Josh: Let's do it. Russell: Let's go. Josh: Now we got to move into.. I want to move into funnels, dude. This is a topic that continued to come up. So kind of a back story. When we're preparing for this episode, guys like, Russell hit me up and was like, "Do you want to do a podcast together?" And I was like, "Yeah, what do you want to do it on?" He's like, "I don't know, find something." And I'm like, "oh, all right." And so- Russell: "You tell me." Josh: I do what I all always do and I go to the community and I'm like, if the community tells me... I loved Poland's presentation at Funnel Hacking Live it's like, "Ask, go ask your community. What did they tell you?" And so, that's what we did. I went to my Facebook group and I went on my Instagram and luckily, I have a pretty engaged following that will give us lots of feedback back. And this theme that kept coming up was funnels. And obviously, this is your world. But it was interesting because I've been talking with several different higher level people that are like, "How are all the funnels, they made tens of millions of dollars or whatever?" And it's like, "This funnel's not really working anymore. This funnel's kind of working here. This type of funnel is working." And so there's like, I feel like we're in this phase of funnels are almost evolving, where it used to be that you could run an ad to a webinar and sell a 9.97 product, and make a million bucks, and high profit margins, and you can make it work. But I was talking to Dan Henry the other day and he's like, "Dude, I can't even make that work anymore." And he's like, "And I'm brilliant at ads." And like Sam Ovens, I was talking to him the other day- Russell: Dan Henry, "I know everything." I love Dan. Josh: And Sam Ovens was like, "Man, we're probably going to shut down our front-end $2,000 program and we're going to transition up and evolve the way we do funnels." And so, funnels are the thing, obviously. They're going to be around forever, they've been around forever, you popularized them. But I want to go and take this into two parts and see where this goes. But number one, what is the foundation of funnels? What are the things that like... it doesn't matter how it's executed, the funnel itself, this is the thing that works. Because I think a lot of people get confused that... Whenever I talk to a lot of my students that are building funnels, they're like, "Should I do this type or this?" And I'm like, "The core essence of funnels doesn't change," so what are the core essence of funnels? And then two, what is the future of what that looks like rolled out with technology? Because I mean, I know it's not here yet and one of the things we'll talk about, but- Russell: Metaverse. Josh: We got Metaverse. And my wife was like, "Oh my gosh, ask Russell. If I want to be able to walk into Metaverse and Russell's going to be right there being like, "'Hey, do you want to buy my funnel cake,' click this button and you go into a portal. Instead of another page, you enter a new world that is Russell's world, that'd be so cool." But let's start with the foundation of funnels. When someone is building a funnel, when they're looking at it, what are the core pieces that they're actually looking at? Take us back to the foundation of that because I think a lot of people miss that or forget. Russell: Yeah. So, I'll take you back in history back in time so back to my beginning. Think what example I have sitting here on my desk that I can show you. So, the core, the thing you have to understand why funnels are essential, and why they'll always be here, comes back to my favorite Dan Kennedy quote of all time which is, "Whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins." This is the foundation but... Everything else you have understand- Josh: Like 7,000 speakers at Funnel Hacking Live all said that. Russell: Yeah, because it's the thing. In fact, you'll see, if you look at the... And maybe we'll get into this. My next move, what's happening next year for me? I'm looking at this, all ties into that as well. Why did I buy Dan Kennedy's company? Why am I doing these things? And I'll show you it's literally to solve that exact same question. So, when I got started 20 years ago, people didn't have offers yet they just had a product. So, you would be... Just say a book, like, "Okay, here's my book," and I would just sell a product, and that was what I was selling. And it worked for a long time and then guess what? Everyone else is like, "Oh, dude's making money with this product, I can make a product," they make the same product. Now you got 10 people selling a product that's similar. And so, then it's harder to compete because now you're no longer a unique thing, you are a commodity. And anytime you're a commodity, the person with the lowest price always wins. So, as soon as everyone's doing it, you got to drop at the bottom and then you lose your margin and then life sucks because if you don't profit what's the point of what we're doing? So, there's the first phase. So, then the next phase is like, "Okay, well I got a product, everyone's got the same product but how do I turn this from a product into an offer?" That was the first evolution. It's like, "Hey, when you buy my book, you also get my book, but you're also going to get my video course, my audio course, and then my checklist and my..." And all of a sudden you make something truly unique again where it's like, not just a product, but this is my offer that's specific, unique to me, that nobody else has. So that was the next evolution. And we got really good then in making offers that were sexy. It's like, "Oh yeah, everyone's selling this, but mine, if you get mine, you also da da, da, da, these other things." Right? And that's where this whole offer development started happening. In my mind, probably 15 years ago is when this became the thing that we all focused on. And whoever had the best offer was going to win because ads didn't ship that much. It was just like you're competing so now you're competing with six different people or 10 different people. So because that, Google ads AdWords cost went up, because there's 20 people bidding on the same keyword versus just you, initially. Now you're coming in, you make a better offer. Then you get the lion share people buy from you because your offer is the best. That was kind the next phase. And then of course the market evolves. Everyone gets smart. Everyone starts making good offers. Now it's like, maybe they're unique offers, but they're all good offers. Now it's like the market's getting fragmented up again. And so this is where the evolution now of funnels started happening where... And it was before. We didn't have one click up-sales back in the day. But the first thing was like: you buy my potato gun DVD, fill in your credit card, you buy it. The next page, you're like, "Do you want the potato gun kit? Cool. Get your credit card back out and fill it out again." And they'd fill out all the credit card again. Josh: Dang. Russell: But even with that, there's no one-click up-sales, man, like 15, 20, 30% people would buy the second thing. And all of a sudden, I'm selling a potato gun DVD, but I'm making 200 bucks on the back of the kit and nobody else selling potato gun DVDs was doing. I could outspend them all. So even though costs me more per click, I was able to get all the clicks because I made way more money than anybody else. So I was able to dominate the market. And that was kind of the next phase. And what's interesting is that depending on the market you're in, depends on where this is. For example, I'm in a fun phase where I wanted some side projects. So I'm launching a couple supplement companies. The first supplement company launched is called Zooma Juice. It's a green drink company. And some of you guys know, I actually worked with Drew Canole and his team back in the day on Organifi, and helped them launch that when it first came out seven years ago, and helped him build an actual funnel. And what's interesting is because of that... The green drink market is sophisticated. I went and funnel hacked, probably, 30 green drink offers before we built Zooma Juice. And all of them have pretty advanced funnels. Everyone's doing the best practices pretty well. Second company that we are starting, I acquired a bone broth company. And so I took... Got bone broth company and went funnel hacked every bone broth offer. And that market's new. Nobody had a funnel, not one. They have an offer, they have a product, that's it. And I'm like, "I'm walking into virgin funnel territory." We'll be the biggest bone broth company on the planet in like 30 days? Because there's nobody who understands any of what we're talking about. We'll outspend everybody 10 to 1 because we understand the funnel structure. So depending on what market you're in, some markets haven't even evolved to the funnels yet. Some have, that's exciting. If they have, it's like, "Cool. We got... We can funnel hack. We get good ideas of what's working." If it hasn't like, "Man, you can bring all the stuff we know into these markets and just dominate and destroy them all." It was funny, as we were buying, I was funnel hacking the bone broth offers, I was like, "There's literally not single upsell, order form bump, email sequence. Like nothing." I was just like, "This is like, oh, embarrassing. Almost too easy." That was next phase though. And then to your point, initially it was like... In fact, I remember 10 pre-click funnels. Almost every funnel was the same. It was a video sales letter order button order form upsell one, upsell two, down-sell, down-sell. Thank you, basically. That was what a funnel was. In fact, if you look at, before we launched ClickFunnels, the first T and C event, Ryan Dice and Perry, and they had this whole team event talk about, "Here's the funnel." And they had a funnel and there's only one. And it was just like, "This is the five steps of every funnel." And it fits. It was like trip wire. They had these five steps like trip wire, profit maximizer, and they five or six... They had a name for each page. And it was like, "This is the funnel." And in reality, that was the funnel. There weren't funnels. It was like, "This is a funnel. This is kind of the one." And at the time when I was writing The Dot Com Seekers book and we had been playing with different ones, but there wasn't a lot of this thing out there. Was just kind of like, for the most part, there was a funnel. After ClickFunnels came out and it gave people the ability to create things fast and start innovating, creating ideas, that. And then I was like writing all my ideas in the book and people are doing stuff. It started evolving quickly. Last seven years have evolved where now there's been like a million different funnel things come out, from webinar funnels, auto webinar funnels, high funnels, low ticket funnels, trip wires, SLOs VSLs, challenges, paid challenges, free challenges, challenges to a webinar challenges to high tickets, a webinar to high ticket. There's a billion variations that come from that which probably gets people overwhelming. And so this os what I want to tell them because, this kind of comes back to your first questions, what is it? The reality is, it's going to be shocking for most of you guys, what funnel type you use doesn't really matter. They all work. The thing that matters is the offer. You still have to make the sexiest offer. That's still the most important. We acquired Dan Kennedy's company and we're doing this merger. And like I've spent I podcast episode this morning driving to the office. I've been up every single morning at 5:00 AM because I'm so excited. Because we have a fun, we picked a funnel on structure, we have all of products. I spend a week every morning at 5:00 AM, from 5:00 till like 7:30, when my kids are getting up, in there writing the page for the copy and the offer, and then tweaking and tweaking. That's the thing. The sexiness of the offer that gets people in is the key. So I can get them in, I can use this to get them in a webinar, in a challenge, in a free plus shipping. It doesn't matter. It's like the offer is the thing that puts people in a momentum. And the thing that I'm selling, I could sell it in the webinar. I could sell it in the challenge. I like there's I could sell in all the different funnels. It would fit in all of them. I'm picking the one that I'm using because I think it's going to go... For like the launch campaign, it the one that'll probably get sells the fastest, but it'll work in all of them. And So it's understanding that, it's still coming to the core fundamentals. The funnel structure is the sales process. All of them will work. You just got to figure out better way to sell. Like that's the harder thing that people are missing. Josh: All right. So let's talk... I want to dive into that offer. When you say specifically here... Because I think, and this is just from coaching with a lot of people, the questions that I get asked when I talk about this type of stuff. You talk about the offers, the sexy thing, but how does the offer affect getting somebody to opt in? How does the offer affect my ad? How does the offer affect the training? I don't show my offer until the end after the whole thing. So how does that affect every other step of the funnel? Russell: Okay, great question. So if I can see one here. Right, sorry. I had all the examples here a second ago. Oh, well. I'll just tell you the story. So when Dan Kennedy started his newsletter, in the Dan Kennedy company, the newsletter's the foundation of everything. And we could do a whole podcast episode just on psychology of the original GKIC, when Bill Glazer was running it with Dan. But the newsletter- Josh: Sounds like a sexy topic. Russell: Yeah. It'd be really fun, actually. I love... In fact, it's funny because I spent so much time with Bill Glazer geeking out about. I knew their business really well. And when that they sold it the very first time people bought it and didn't understand the business. And I saw within weeks of them destroying the foundation, I was like, "You guys literally don't know what you bought. You should have asked some questions before you wrote a check that big anyway." But the core is the newsletter. And so I had a chance to go back in the archives. I literally... they gave me, "Here's Google drive. Everything's ever been created." So I'm like, "This is... It's insane." for nerdy Russell, everything Dan's ever said is in this drive. And most of it, no one's ever seen before, so I'm freaking out. But the newsletter started back in like 1995 ish. I was like 15 years old when it started and it was just a newsletter. That's all it was right. It's like a product. That's how they sold it. And from '95 till I think I was probably 23, 24. So, 2004, 2005 ish was when Bill Glazer bought out the company from Dan and kind of ran it, and then they launched it. Instead of a newsletter, they launched it as an offer. And the offer at the time... I still remember the day it happened because I got like 400 emails from my Yanik Silver and all the different gurus at the time. They all started emailing about this Dan Kennedy offer. And it was called the most incredible free gift ever. And in fact, internally in the company called the MIFGE offer, M-I-F-G-E, the most incredible free gift ever. And what it was, it was like, "Hey, when you sign up for magnetic marketing net letter, what you're going to get is you're going to get..." I think it's like, "$639.93 for the money making material from Dan Kennedy himself." So it was like, "We'll give you all this cool stuff when you sign up for the newsletter." And it was the bribe. It's kind of like, if you guys remember back in the day, sports illustrator. It's really hard to sell sports illustrated issues. So what they would do is they would have TV commercials were like, "Here's sports illustrator, 12 issues year about the best sports. When you sign up today, we're going to give you..." And then they had their version of the most incredible free gift offer. It was this huge football clock and the sports illustrator swimsuit issue. That was the MIFGE offer for sports illustrator. And so Dan had their... They had their MIFGE offer, and they went from having five or 600 subscribers at that time to... Bill built it up to over, I don't know, 10, 15, 20. I don't know how big it got it as peak, but 10,000 plus members. And it was because they took a newsletter and they made it an offer. And that's how they launched initially. And so the MIFGE is how they did it. Now, fast forward to Russell gets access to all this stuff. I'm like, "This is amazing." So I'm trying to sit... I sat down Monday morning. No, sorry. It was last Saturday. Saturday. I wanted to write... I didn't want to do all the pages in the offer. So I have some of my team do the upsells and down-sells. I was like, "The landing page, this is mine." I want to write because I want to make sure I get the offer right and everything. Because this is... everything hinges on this. The landing page is broken, nothing works. And so I went and I funnel hacked. I every newsletter, sales letter, I could find throughout time. I just went deep in my archives, way back machine. People I knew who publishing newsletters, looked at every variation of theirs for the last 10 years. I totally geeked out like Russell does. Funnel hacking. I want to understand how people are structuring their newsletter offers. Gore's got a ton of them. So I'm looking at tons of them and everyone I looked at, I come back to like the Dan Kennedy one I'm like this offers just not sexy. More like $630 of money making information sounded cool in 2003. But today, it's like every opt-in, people are giving a thousand dollars worth of free crap. It wasn't that sexy- Josh: Right. Inflation, baby. Oh my word. Russell: Yeah. And then I'm like, "Now my funnel nerds are going to go and they're going to sign for this newsletter, and they're going to get this newsletter from Dan. He's talking about direct mail and faxing. And they're going to be confused and they're going to cancel." I have this weird opportunity. I was like, "This is just not the right thing." And I was like, "How do I make this sexy excited? How do I get myself excited to email about it?" And then Dan's email. I got to get affiliates on board and other people. How do I make this sexy so that I can create the noise? So that when there's an ad, there's a good enough hook in the ad that people are going to click? Because if the ads like, "Old marketing, grumpy marketing genius is going to give you 300 or $639 money making material for free when you join this newsletter," no one's going to click on that. The hook sucks now. It was good in 2003, horrible in 2021. And so I'm like sitting there and I spent three hours just going to yourself. And I was like, no matter how I tried, the offer just didn't feel right. And I explain to other knight, I was like, "I know I wouldn't click and I know I wouldn't buy it. And I don't want to even email my list tell them about it because it's not that exciting. How do I structure this in a way that's going to be really exciting?" And so that the problem. This is where I got stuck at. Right. And then, after about three hours of it is when I had the light bulb, I was like, "Oh my gosh." So all of the current Dan Kennedy customers, they love Dan. They're obsessed with them. And actually, this is a fascinating step. You'll appreciate this. Have you read a thousand true fans? Josh: Yeah. I love that book. Russell: It was crazy. So Dan's company was sold initially like 10 years ago, from Bill Glazer sold it. In the last 10 years, they haven't bought a single ad. So that's the attrition of the company, that's been happening. And I'm acquiring it like, "Oh, let's buy some ads." But what's crazy is 10 years since they bought the last ad, there are almost, to a T, it's like 990 something active paid subscribers still on a newsletter a decade later, without any ads at all. A thousand true fans. Is that crazy? Josh: That's insane. Russell: Really? Josh: And you're one of those true fans because you bought the whole company. Russell: Yeah. I thought that was a fascinating side note. So anyway, that's crazy. Like Dan's people love Dan. They love him talking. If they want Dan, but they need funnels. And I'm like, I don't want to come and be the guy who acquires the company and just starts emailing his own offer. I need them to.. I need to indoctrinate them to want it. So it's like, they're going to read Dan's newsletter and how do I bridge that to ClickFunnels? And I'm like, my funnel nerds are going to read his newsletter and be like, "I don't understand. This isn't..." They need it. They don't know they want it yet. If I can indoctrinate them for a while, they'll be like, "Oh my gosh, I get this," but it's going to take a while for them to really respect it enough that they'll get it. I was the same way. First time I heard Kennedy, I was like, "This guy's old, boring, and doesn't relate to what I'm talking about." And after I went deep in, I was like, "Oh my gosh, everything he says is literal. He's handing gold nuggets out." And I was just like, I didn't notice them. Now I'm like, "Oh my gosh." And so I was like, "I need this bridge." And some people know, when I first joined the Kennedy world, we actually launched my first print newsletter right afterwards. It was called The Dot Com Seekers Journal. It morphed from The Dot Com Seekers Journal to eventually call it, The Dot Com Seekers Labs. And then it became a Funnel Report and then it became Funnel University. So I actually ran a print newsletter for 14 years. We shut it down two years ago, but 14 years I ran a print newsletter. Josh: Yeah. I remember when you shut it down actually. Russell: Yeah. And I loved it, but I just, anyway... There's reasons like the person who was publishing it, she had a baby and she retired and all these things. I was just like, "Ah. I'm, I'm focusing ClickFunnels. Don't even worry about this right now." So we shut it down. But I loved that part of it. And I was like, what if I create an offer where the concept, the story, the hook of this whole entire thing is like, "Russell bought Dan company and they're coming together to give you two things like the best foundational direct response in the world. Plus the best in the marketing, the cutting edge, the new things are happening. So you can have both sides. So you understand the foundation you need to be able to survive Facebook slapping you and all these things happening and media shifting and changing. But you also have like what's working today so you can capitalize on things in real time." What if we took those two worlds together? The baby. And so instead of just being like, "You're signing for the new, from the Dan Kennedy newsletter," what if it was like, "Dan Kennedy, Russell Brunson?" Two different newsletters. You get two newsletters for the price of one. I was like, "That's the offer. That's the hook. That's what gets affiliates excited, to get ads excited, everything gets excited around this offer." And then, every mornings at 5:00 in this morning, or 5:00 AM every morning this week, I woke up and I'm writing copy for this page of like, "Okay, here's the hook. They're coming in. And there's Dan and there's Russell." How these things are coming together. And the story behind that, how it worked and then the offer instead of just like, "Here's $697 worth of free stuff," it's like, "you get two newsletters. You get the best direct response, best of Russell, every two weeks." So you get one in the mail and then 14 days later, you get the next one. And you're getting both of these. You get the old and the new but you only pay one price. You get both for the price of one. And then you get all Dan's bonus, all Russell's bonuses. Now becomes this like insane offer where, now, it's like, "I'm excited to mail my list." We bought Dan's company, you get all my best stuff in this to get, and it's this combination. And then affiliates will be excited. It just... And maybe the hook bombs, I don't know. But it gave me the energy, just like, "Okay, now, this is exciting and sexy." And so I can turn that into webinar where it's just like, "Dan Kennedy and Russell Brunson coming together to literally blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever." Like, "Opt in here to find our webinar," and people would opt in because the story, the hook is exciting or I can do a challenge like, "The seven day challenge. Me and Dan are going to go through how to destroy your business and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And in the end, I'm selling a newsletter or it could be a VSL telling the story with a newsletter or could be... all of them work. The book is the secrets of story. Josh: Well, what it sounds like... Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it sounds like you just created this story about the offer. And now that you know what the offer is, and there's a reason that that came together and like, "That's what it is," now, you understand the story behind that. I'm trying to think of it like an analogy. For example, Disney world. That offer is so good. You're literally going into a different world that pretty much sells itself once you put it out there. And so once you have the story, once you have that idea around what the offer does and how it's unique and how it's it's own unique thing, then you can just take that and then it fills the rest of the funnel. Because everybody wants that thing because now the offer itself is so good. And I think one of the problems that I had, man, for so long is, I was trying to convince people that they wanted my thing be... Or convince people that they had this problem, and then that they wanted this thing, and then I would make them an offer on it. And they wouldn't get to... they wouldn't even know about the offer, or what the offer did, or like anything about it, until like forced or like right before the offer. And they'd be like, "And then I've got this offer? Boo." And because of that, there was no story around it. There's no congruency with it. And so then it was like, "Oh, I didn't even know. That's what I was here for." And then I would like try to sell them something and it wouldn't sell. And I feel like that's the problem that got solved right there, is like first you created the offer and the story around the offer and you made it sexy. And then that made everything else on the funnel super, super easy, because you were just pointing them back to that. Russell: Everything, the funnel plus all the ads. Because now the ads are fun. "Why Dan Kennedy came out of retirement? Dan Kennedy almost died. What's he doing today?" All a sudden, all these hooks that tie into that. "Why did Dan Kennedy partner with the owner ClickFunnels? Why did... Is it true that ClickFunnels was built off the back of all Dan Kennedy principles?" There's so many stories I can tell now that are hooks. That'll grab his people in or my people in or... And then the landing page. And then... It creates everything. And the people that the best in the world of this, and they also make the most money, is Agora. The good Gora publishing. They're selling newsletters. That's all they sell. Right. But every single time they have these insane stories like Porter Stan's got... I think maybe not still, but for like a decade and a half, the highest of all the Agora divisions. I think he'll do like 1.5 or 2 billion dollars a year. Like these are big divisions. Porter's letter one. And, the story was like, "The railroad across America." And it was talking about like, "The original railroad, how it happened and all the people made money along the way. And this is the next railroad that's being built. It's the digital highway and all this stuff." And that offer was selling a newsletter. But it's the story behind it that became this thing that built a billion dollar company. And they're good. They're so good at figuring out the story, those kind of things. And I think sometimes we're like, "Hey, I've created a course in the passed. You should create a course too. I made money. It's going to be awesome." And then like, "You should buy my course creating software or whatever." Like, "That's not the thing." We're so bad at telling stories. We brag about our result. We tell them making the same result and that's it. It's like, no, that's not the key. It's the story. It's the entry. It's the... We want to be entertained. We want to be courted. We want to be... that's the game we're playing in marketing. And so when you figure that out... The offer is actually sexy. And then why is that sexy? The sexiness is not just, "You get a bunch of crap." The sexiness is the story about like how this was created. Josh: Literally what it does that. Russell: That's the fascinating part. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Catherine Jones. One of her favorite things is, "When your stories become their stories, then your solutions become their solutions." and that's literally what this is. If you can tell them a story where they like it and they're like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing," then, go and do it. So for example, Harry Potter world. The story, it... My wife freaking loves Harry Potter world. I mean, that was her thing. When we went down to Funnel Hacking Live, it was like, we were going to take a half a day just to go to Harry Potter world. So we showed up and then it was like, "Hey." Miles is like, "Dude, the buss is leaving for Harry Potter world." There wasn't much convincing that has to be done. The story is, "Oh my gosh, Harry Potter world's amazing. It's Harry Potter. I want it" She wanted that thing because of the story that was leading up to it. There was no, "What's Harry Potter world? Is it any good? What's this?" It's like, "No, it's Harry Potter world." And you're like, "Oh, okay. Yeah, I want it." That's like the story with that. So that's super, super interesting. So where do you see the future of funnels going? Because obviously there's a lot of changes coming with ClickFunnels and ClickFunnels 2.0, which, oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Gusting. Gusting hits me up. Probably... Dude, he probably hits me up once a week and is like, "Hey, guess what? ClickFunnel 2.0 is awesome. And you don't have it." And I'm like, "I heard you. Stop." Russell: He actually built out the magnetic marketing funnel hub right now for me, which is cool. Josh: So, yeah. So anyway, but what's the next evolution? And we don't have really have too much to talk about metaverse and where that goes. But we're entering this new world. I mean, the world is changing very, very, very rapidly. COVID is one of those things that we thought the internet was a big deal, and internet marketing was a big deal, pre-COVID, and then we watch zoom blow up by like 3000% or something like that. And they ruin zoom for us. But anyway, so where are things going that people should be paying attention to and going actually studying and understanding about the future of funnels? Because one of the things that I've been really, really focused on and we're kind of getting dialed in, is community funnels, Specifically, I think for me, one of the things that I've noticed is that it's very, very... It's getting increasingly harder to sell things unless you have a community that's tied with it. And so like for me, one of the things we're focusing on is how do we build funnels inside of our community where our community actually becomes part of the funnel? Which is kind of a cool concept. What do you see as those future things of where funnels are headed, where the big opportunities are going to be? What's the next add to webinar to a 9 97 course? You know what I'm saying? What's the future? Where we're heading? Russell: I hate to make it sound simple, but if I come back to the fundamentals we talked about the beginning of this call. Like Dan Kennedy, whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins. So you look at it through that lens. Went from a product, to an offer, to a funnel. And now with the funnel, I have more ways to make money. And then, from there, the next evolution was like from funnel to value ladder. Right now, it's like, I have a break even funnel and move people up a value ladder and that's how I may lose money or break even on my book funnel, but then my webinar funnel's going to make money or vice versa. Right? Josh: Right. Russell: That was the next phase. And I think, for me, where I'm playing because I'm trying to play for the next 10 years. How do I win this game? We're doing well. I want to.. How do I get a point where, Shopify, or Salesforce is like, "I want to write you a check for 20 billion because you're such annoyance." The way I'm going to do that, for me, is... and it comes back to why did I acquire Magnet Marketing? Why did I buy Brad Callin's company? Why am I doing this? Because I'm not looking at breakeven funnels anymore. Breakeven funnels, awesome. I'm going one chair back or I'm building breakeven businesses. So magnetic marketing, the only gold magnetic is to break even. The entire company, the value ladder, the coaching, the everything. So every penny made side of magnetic marketing be dumped back into ads, want 100% of the profits dump back into ads. So this company's blowing up. And I get now all these things dumped into my value ladder for ClickFunnels. Like that's it. Voomly doing 40 million a year? Why do we acquire that company? Tons of lead flow. Now, right now there's... it was 10 million dollars a year net profit. All that money now is being dumped directly into lead flow as a breakeven business, to acquire customers for ClickFunnel. So I think it's going deeper. It's looking past... from product to offer, to funnel, to value ladder, to how do I buy or acquire or create something where the only goal of this entire business is just get customers for free that can put into here. And I thing, for me, that's the next level is just like that thought. Josh: You just blew my mind, dude. Holy cow. You're creating an ecosystem, but in a very specific way. It's interesting, as you just told that out, just, "First, it was this. Then, it was this." The thing before it didn't change. That's still part of it. Russell: It's both the same. Yeah. Josh: Right. But it's kind of that next evolution, that next piece of where that comes out. That's fascinating. I think a lot of people need to just really rewind that, go listen to that clip again and let your brain sit on that. Russell: That's how I'm playing the game. Yes. Hopefully I'm four step ahead everyone else, but I'm all for showing that with you guys. And so I just... Again, for everyone to start thinking that, because it's going to get harder. It's going to get more expensive. It's going to get more... We've seen that this year. Ad costs have gone up. It's not going to get cheap. It's not going to bounce back down and be cheaper. It's going to keep doing that. The people who only had a product back in the day are out of business. People only had an offer back in day, they're out of business. People don't have a funnel are out of a business. People don't have a value ladder out of a business. So it's just thinking ahead of that. Metaverse or whatever next step is, doesn't really matter. It's the principle still is the same for me. For 20 years, whoever can spend the most money to acquire customer wins. Josh: Wins. Russell: How do I do that in a way that serves the customers, brings them in and then... I'll end on this, because it back to what you said. And I did a podcast on this. It's in the facts I got from Dan Kennedy. After the company sold last time, he was super mad at the company that had jacked up his brand and his legacy and stuff. And so like he sent this 25 page facts, like all the things to do to fix it. And there's one paragraph where he said, "There's difference between why customers come in and why they stay." He said, "People think they're the same things." He's like, "No, no, they're different." Why they come in is because they see the hook of like, "Ooh, the scene." They come in from that. They stay for something different. And you have to understand that. So like I had my inner circle meeting, right. Everyone paid 50 grand to be in the room. We had a hundred entrepreneurs in the room and I told them. I said like, "Well, you guys all because you want to learn funnels from Russell." But I'm like, "The reason why you came is not why you were going to stay here. The reason I get sick year, after year, after year is because of the community." That's it. That's why I sat in Dan Kennedy rooms for six years of my life is because the community built and I wanted to be around these people. I came for Dan stuck for the community. And I think that you start understanding that, that's how you get these people to come in on a front end, but they stay and they buy over and over and they stay on continuity. They stick because it's like.. They come in from a hook, but they stay for the something different. And so really understanding that and then weaving everything you're doing like you're doing now with the community funnels, which is perfect. Josh: That's amazing. That's amazing. All right. Well I think that's a good ending point for that topic. Russell: There's episode number two of our hangout today, which was amazing.

With everything we have to do... does podcasting really make sense? Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. We've got three special episodes for you. The first one, well, actually all three of them are with my guest host, Josh Forti. We're going to be breaking down some cool things. The first episode... What happened in the first episode? It was really good. Josh Forti: Yeah. We talked all about podcasting, why podcasting is important. Russell: Yeah, podcasting. So episode number one, we learned about podcasting, why we do it, how we do it, the reasons behind it, and a whole bunch of other things. If you haven't been doing a podcast yet, it's going to sell you on why you need to do one. If you have done one, it's going to show you guys why and how to amplify it, and why it's so important and how to find your best buyers from it. I hope you guys enjoy this episode. We'll cue up the theme song, and we'll be right back. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Like I said today, the next actually couple episodes, I've got a guest host with me, which I'm pumped for. We actually did two podcasts. Well, technically, they were podcasts episodes for your podcast, right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I ripped them off for my podcast because they turned out so good. One is after the Atlas Shrugged book, Josh Forti flew out, and we did... How long? We went for... Josh: It was three and three and a half hours. Yeah. Russell: Three hours. Yeah. Josh: Three and a half hours, yeah. Russell: Going deep into Atlas Shrugged, which was really fascinating. I actually just reread it recently, so if you want to do Round Two, we should totally do that. And then, after I read Atwood and the devil book, I freaked out, and then Josh flew out and we did one there. So you guys who have been listening to the podcast are familiar with him and his voice. But I asked him, I love doing the podcast, but sometimes I fall behind, and my brother who does our podcast settings, "Russell, any episode today?" I'm like, "Huh." I don't even know what to think. I want someone to help come up with ideas so it's not just me. And so Josh went out to the community, asked a bunch of questions and the next couple episodes are going to be some fun conversations. So I'm pumped, man. And thank you for doing this. I know this you're doing this pro bono to hang out and just to help me out, so I appreciate that. And I'm excited to find out what people want to know about. Josh: Yeah, for sure. I love podcasting. That's my life. If I could do one thing, it would just be, have a show that we just talk all the time. So this is fun for me. It's like asking you to come hang out and geek out about funnels. So I'm super excited, though. It's going to be super cool, and dive in further, and pick your brain, and open up a new world that I don't think a lot of people get to see. Russell: Yeah. It's interesting, because I feel that when it's me doing my own podcast, I pick a topic, I go into it. But it's fun when... Yesterday I had a chance to speak at a virtual event thing, and I did my thing and in the end people ask questions. It just opens up a different side that you don't normally do. And so I don't do a lot of Q&A stuff. So I'm excited to... Josh: Yeah. It's interesting. Russell: And maybe this is the only time we do this. Maybe it's a huge train wreck, and this is the only time it happens. Or maybe it becomes a thing. We'll find out. Josh: We'll try to make it not a train wreck. We'll try. We'll do our very best. I think one of the big things though that I want to start with and kick this whole thing off is why you spend so much time with podcasting. Because here's the thing, man. You're rich. We all know it. You don't have to do this. You have this company that you could. We all learned at funnel hacking live, you turned down a billion dollar offer, so clearly you're not doing this for the money. And you've got a company. You've got a team. You've got all these resources. You could spend money on ads. You could do whatever it is that you want. Yet, somehow you are calling me up and are like, "Dude, I need to do podcasts." And to somebody who gets it, and I get it. I have a podcast. I dedicate time when it doesn't make sense. I put money into a podcast that doesn't make sense. On paper, I get and I understand content and putting it out there, and I've never been at your level either. I don't think a lot of people understand. Why do you do it, dude? Why a podcast? And why are you investing so much of the time that you have now, which is limited, I'm sure? There's a lot of people trying for your attention. Why a podcast? And why is that such a core, fundamental piece that you actually spend so much time on, when you clearly don't have to? Russell: I could probably, in fact, I'll probably give you four or five reasons, because there's not just one reason. There's a lot of them. And I actually, I remember when podcasting started. I was at at Armand Morin's BigSeminar, and someone was on stage, Paul Collier was on stage. He's like, "There's this thing coming. It's going to be the greatest thing in the world. It's called podcasting. And you're going to put these things in your ears and listen to people talk." I remember, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. No one will ever listen to that." I just didn't get it. He's like, "No, this is the future." And I remember because I was my roommate at the time was Josh Anderson, some of you may know Josh, and Josh went and bought every podcast domain he could think of. And I was like, "You're dumb. That's never going to happen." But I do remember, "Well, if I ever did a podcast, I'd call it the Marketing In Your Car Podcast, because when I drive my car, I could record it. And I remember thinking that. And I remember I bought, at the time, Marketing In Your Car, and I did nothing with it for, I don't know, eight or nine years. I just had it. In fact, I even paid someone to write an intro song for it. So if you ever go back to the first episodes, the first hundred-something episodes, there was this really... At the time it was so cool, and now it's corny, but there was this theme song that some guy wrote for me. And I had it for five years, this theme song, and I never used it because I was like, "I don't get podcasting." Then in my business life, we had grown up my company at the time. We had a hundred employees. And then, the long story you guys have heard before, is the company crashed. Everything fell around, and it went from a 20,000 square foot office to 2000 square foot office. I felt like an idiot. I was embarrassed. My status was at an all time low. I was weird. And for some reason in that season of my life, I had this impression, "You need to start podcasting and talk about marketing." And I was convinced at this time I was the worst marketer in the world, because I had just crashed my entire empire. I'm an idiot. I didn't want to, but I felt this impression like now it's time to start a podcast. So I literally, from the ashes of my business, started this podcast, and I had at that time a four or five minute drive to the office. Okay, I can be consistent with this. It's going to happen all the time. I'm going to do it. So I got my phone out, I clicked record, and I would literally just drive to my office and I would just talk about what we were trying to figure out. "All right. Today, we're going in the office and working on this new offer, and this is what we're thinking and da, da, da." And then the next steps were, "Oh, we launched the offer and it worked." Or it didn't work. So we tried this. It was just me documenting. It's funny. I heard Vaynerchuk talk about, "Document your journey." And I didn't know. That wasn't a thing at the time, but that's literally what I started doing. And it was nice, because it was something that was so easy. It was easy to be consistent with. I think if I would have had to do a podcast where, for me, if I had a studio and a microphone, all those things, I probably wouldn't have done it because I wouldn't have gotten enough momentum to stick with it. But it was easy. And at first the way we set it up, we couldn't track stats, so we had no idea if anyone was listening, which was a huge benefit. Because had I known how few people were listening, I probably wouldn't have kept doing it. But I just kept doing it and doing it, not really knowing what kind of return was going to happen. It's funny now. I had someone, about a year ago, go through and start from the very beginning and listen all the episodes. I was trying to get some notes and trying to remember. And it was cool, because they started coming back, reporting. He's like, "Did you know on this day you talked about why you thought anyone who wanted to build a company over 10 million dollars in sales was a moron? You should never try to grow company that big. And then over here you talked about, you're never going to hire an employee again." All my thoughts at the time, which have morphed and shifted obviously. But it's this cool thing where I have this record now of this journey from the ashes to ClickFunnels and beyond. So it's been very special for me. Josh: Okay. Sorry. I want to continue down that path, I want to interject right there. The reason I started a podcast is because, literally, you told me to. You didn't physically be like, "Josh, start a podcast." But all your books, all your content, you're like, "Publish, publish, publish, publish, publish." And I'm like, "Okay." And so it started on Facebook. It started on Facebook Live, and then it grew. And then my friend Daxy, he is like, "Dude, turn it into a podcast. Way more people would listen." All right. So I have, I don't know, four or five hundred episodes now on my podcast that I have done with you and all these different interviews or whatever. But what I tell people is, and this is true in all areas of my life, I'm so blatantly honest on my podcast. I don't filter or mince my words at all. Shocking. Russell: You're filtered on Facebook and Instagram, you're telling me? Josh: Just a little bit. But what's interesting is one of the things that you pointed out there was you have this document. You have this record of exactly where you were at at the time. And so for me, one of the things... And this is bigger than just podcasting. When you're just blatantly honest with yourself and where things are at, and you just turn on the microphone and you just talk, you actually can go back and you can watch your progress. And you can see. Oh man, when I was 26 years old, when this happened, this is what I thought about life, or this is what I thought about this particular topic, or this is what I was learning here. When I'm building a funnel or I'm building something that I knew I worked on in the past and I talked about it, I can literally go back, and I can remember the struggles. And I think it was you. It might have been. It might have not been you. It might have been Gary. I think it was you, though. You were like, "Imagine if Jeff Bezos would've documented every single day or every single week building Amazon." How much people would pay for that. That would be so epically cool. That's what it's like. So I totally understand what you're talking about there. I feel like people are embarrassed to start, they're embarrassed where they're at now. And so they don't want to put it out there. I'll never forget Liz Benny. Obviously, you know Liz. She's amazing. I had her on my podcast. This is probably a year and a half ago. And she's like, "Josh, I've watched you grow so much." And I'm like, "Really?" She's like, "Oh yeah." I'm like, "How do you know?" She's like, "Because I listen to your podcast." And it was like, "Oh, this is a long term thing." It was at that moment that I realized it. Russell: Uh huh. For sure. It's interesting because, if I haven't publicly talked much about this yet, but I've been acquiring old books. I just bought this whole, literally, library of Napoleon Hill books and stuff. And it's been so fascinating because I'm reading through and these are the records of these people and their beliefs and their thoughts. I've got old magazines from early 1900s, late 1800s. I'm reading. I found articles from Thomas Edison, who were in the publishing these. I'm reading this stuff and it's so cool. And one thing, this is Russell guilt. In the Mormon church one thing they always talk about is, you need to keep a journal, so that way your posterity has this thing. And I've never been good at keeping a journal. And what I started realizing as I'm going through all the Napoleon Hill stuff, I'm so grateful that they wrote these things down and they have this journal. And I started from that guilt again. And all of a sudden I was like, "Wait a minute. I don't have a journal, but I've been podcasting now for seven years." This is my record. This is, when I'm dead, my kids or my grandkids or my posterity or people, whoever it is. This is how they're going to learn about me and figure out who I was. And hopefully I shortcut them some trial and error. Here's the journey I went on, but here's what I figured out. I can help them. I think all of us are always talking about wanting to leave an impact. I think my podcast episodes, I'm hoping these are my journals. These are my records. This is like what I just bought from Napoleon Hill. I'm hoping that this becomes something for the future generations that they can build their businesses off and their ideas and their plans. Because my podcast is... It's a marketing podcast, but I don't talk about marketing most of the time. I talk about my family and my kids, and I'm learning, and my personal development and all the things. Marketing is just the hook I got people in, but it's my life record. It's my journal, which is cool too. Josh: Yeah, that is super cool. It's funny. Quick side note, we have to shut down this indifferent theory, because Apple.... Russell: Just spell it different. Josh: Yeah. Believe me. We've tried some things. I'm not trying to push against the biggest company in the world. So anyway, we have a new name. I'm not going to say it yet, but it's coming. But anyway, in the last just couple weeks, I've had to pause doing podcasts. And it's weird because what you said right there is, "I don't keep a journal." But I know that I do keep a journal via that exact same thing. And it was weird. I went to my wife literally two days ago. And I was like, "I need you to, to help me create a system for the short term to be able to document my thoughts because right now I'm not doing it. And I have so many things that we're going through right now." So I totally get that. But I feel like there's got to be more than that. There's got to be another reason besides just the documentation process for the podcast for you. Russell: For sure. That's the first thing. Again, I got four or five that run in my head, so I don't know what the order they'll come out in. But the next one is eventually I wrote a book. And people were like, "These books are so good. How do you know all these stories?" And for me, I have an idea, and the idea percolates in my head for a minute, and I got to tell someone. So usually first person I tell is usually the podcast. I'm thinking about this thing and I talk about it. And so I tell the story the first time. The first time it may not even be that fleshed out. Then I get to the office and I see Dave over there. Dave's excited. I'm like, "Dave, check this out." And I tell it to him again. And then I tell someone else. And then I'm doing an interview and I say it again. And I tell the story four or five, six times, and I get better and better at telling the story. And then when I'm at a seminar and I'm on stage and I'm talking. I have no idea which direction I'm going. All of a sudden, this thing will pop up my head. I've told that story six times three months ago, and it appears. I remember Tony Robbins told me this. He said, "When I go on stage, I have a plan, but the plan, it never goes to plan. I start talking." And then he's like, "These downloads just come from God or from the universe, and they just show up." And for me, as I started podcasting and telling these stories over and over and over again, that's exactly what happens now. When I need something, I'm in a situation, I'm coaching someone, I talking, I'm on an event or a stage or something. I need something often that just, it appears when I need it. And I think it's because I didn't just think about it and forget about it. I think about it. I tell it on a story. It's published. I tell someone else. And then when I write a book, I've told the story 400 times. I know the best way to tell the story now. I've seen what people laugh at, what they don't laugh at, how to do it the right way. In fact, it's interesting, my next book is a personal development book. I've struggled with that one, because I don't have a personal development podcast. And I haven't tested these stories, these principles or these theories. I've been stuck, as you know. I sent you the rough draft eight months ago, and I haven't written a word since then. Part of it is I haven't had a chance to flesh these things out. So it gives me idea to flush out my ideas is another one of them. Another one that's interesting... I don't know the exact stats, but I read it somewhere. I think I talked about on Traffic Secrets.I put it in there. But conceptually, they talked about people who are podcast listeners versus the rest of humanity. And I'm going to tell you about the stat, and I'll tell you how the practical application of that stat, which is really fascinating. So the stat was something like the average person who listens to the radio makes, I don't know, $60,000 a year. And whereas the average podcast listener makes $120,000 a year. So the people you are getting and acquiring, they are people with more spending power. They're more affluent people that are the kind of people who are trying to develop their brain, their minds, things like that. They're more likely to buy a course or software or a Mastermind or things like that, because they're the kind of people who aren't just listening to the radio to numb themselves. They're listening to audio to grow. That's the fascinating thing that you're getting a better caliber customer who are listening. Number two, you are getting them in their most intimate moments. When do you listen to a podcast? It's when I'm working out and I'm by myself and it's me and them, and I have their full attention. I'm not listening to a podcast where I'm writing an email or texting someone. Or I'm in the car driving. I'm getting access to their brains and their minds in their most intimate moments. But it's just me and them. Even video. Josh: It's not even like that on YouTube either. Russell: Yeah. I'll watch a YouTube video while I'm cooking dinner, while I'm doing five other things. Josh: That's super interesting. Russell: I don't listen to podcasts with my kids in the room, because they're going to ask me a question. They're going to mess it up. It's when I'm separate and it's just me and them and that's it. I have a different level of intimacy with the podcast people that I'm listening to. So the higher quality customers, better level of intimacy, and then the practical application. The first time I really got this, it was after I launched my Inner Circle the very first time. And again, it was funny, because I always told everybody I never money on my podcast. I'm doing this podcast, I'm not making any money from it… And as I did it for four or five years, and I launched my first version of my first version of my Inner Circle, and we had a point where we had about 33 people in it paying 25 grand. And I remember at one of the events, somebody asked, "How did you guys bump into Russell?" And all of them were like, "Oh, I saw something, but then I got on this podcast, and I listened to him every single day while I was working out for six months. And he kept talking about this Inner Circle and talking about this thing. He's going to get all these things." And it was fascinating. Almost everyone in the room, they didn't hear about my podcast. Podcast isn't good for lead gen. It's never. Josh: Yeah. It's horrible for lead gen. Russell: You can't just buy ads and blow up your podcast. But people find out about you. They plug in to your podcast. And the people who make that transition from, "I saw a book." "I saw an ad." "I saw something." And they make that transition where they actually get the phone out, subscribe, and then plug you in. Those become your best customers, your highest buyers. They're the best. And so the practical application is yes, by doing this podcast, I'm taking... And I talk about this in Expert Secrets. And actually my Inner Circle meeting last month, we talked a lot about this. We talked about creating a new opportunity versus an improvement offer. And for the most part you want to create new opportunities. That's what gets people in the door. And I told everyone, your value ladder should be this new opportunity. There's opportunity stacking. The back of the value ladder, there's one section that's saved for people with ambition. New opportunity is all about getting people who have a desire to come in. But people with ambition, and the percentage of your audience is small. The percentage of people who have true ambition, it might be 15 to 20%, maybe. Josh: Yeah. Russell: But those are your most ambition. I told them my Master, I didn't sell you guys new opportunity. Do you want to come to Boise and talk to other entrepreneurs? Or are you going to get better and stronger and smarter, all the ER words? You guys are the ones at the top of the value ladder. You are ambitious. So I'm not selling you new opportunity. I'm selling you guys improvement. And it's the hardest thing to sell, but it's what one tier of your audience wants. I feel like same thing, the people who are listening to your podcasts, these are the people who want improvement. These are the ambitious ones. They're not the tire kickers. And so it's the best way to convert people in their highest ticket backing things as well. Josh: Yeah. And I also think, one thing that's very important to point out, I think here, is the style slash type of podcast that you particularly create. Because I've studied a lot of different podcasts. Joe Rogan obviously is a big inspiration of mine when it just comes to creating content or whatever. But what's interesting is that the type of content that a Joe Rogan creates, or that even a Logan Paul or any of the bigger mainstream podcasts, oftentimes it's much more for entertainment. And Joe Rogan, I think, maybe is the blend between the two. But a lot of podcasts, they're not specifically for solving a very specific problem. And so what I always say about specifically the type of podcast that you create, you or Steve or whatever, your type of podcast is horrible for lead generation, but is amazing for lead education. It's because once they're in there, you have that. And what's interesting is one of the times that I listened to your podcast most... I'm going to let you guess. I'm sure you're not going to get it. But what do you think one of the times I listened to your podcast most? Russell: When you're driving somewhere in your car. Josh: That's a time. Yeah. But it's when I'm in pain. When I have a specific pain around my funnel, I will literally go, "Russell has this podcast. He's got all these episodes. I bet you he's talked about it." And so I'll literally go on my phone and I'll keyword search for different things. And I'll specifically go. There was one time I was listening to, it was something about a webinar or something, and you were talking about how you wrote your headlines and basically how you came up with your framework for it. And I remember you did that one time. And so I was struggling with it, and so I literally searched it and I did it. And so the type of podcast that you create, in my head there's two different ones. There's one for entertainment. And then there's one for education. And you create one specifically for education. And when you do that, that's the type of podcast or that's the type of content that literally goes and educates your member. And when you have that, a hundred percent, my top buyers, anybody that gives me top dollar for my stuff, they all listen to my podcast or have been on my podcast and I'll pull something out of it. They're always the ones that pay the most money. For sure. Russell: For sure. It's interesting too. And there's, as you said, a lot of formats. When I did mine, I did a short form for a couple reasons. Number one is it was my drive to the office, so that's how it started. But number two, I love Joe Rogan and I probably listen to one of his entire podcast ever. Josh: Oh my gosh. I probably listen to a hundred of them at least. Russell: And I get overwhelmed, because each one's four hours long and there's all these different people. Everyone keeps talking recently about the Jewel one. "It's the greatest thing in the world. You've got to listen to it." Four hours. I could get a whole audio book, the entire book done in four hours. Is that worth the investment? I don't ever want to dive into it, because it's so big. Whereas mine, again, someone's in the car and only got a 10 minute commute. Boom. Throw it in. They get an episode. And then what happens is they get hooked, and then they'll listen for four hours. So it's different though, because if Joe Rogan's were broken up into even 20 minute blocks, I would probably listen to all of them. Josh: YouTube Joe Rogan clips. It's Joe Rogan experience clips. And it's literally 20 minute episodes. Russell: Oh cool. Josh: So if you ever want to. Russell: That's probably what I would do. And I think it's interesting. And then also another nice thing about short form is people come in, they listen to one... And I get this all the time. People are like, "I got your podcast, listened to three or four episodes, and I loved it. So I started at the very beginning and I binge-listened to all of them." It happens all the time as well. Whereas Joe Rogan, you're not going to binge-listen because that's 65 years worth of content you're going to go through. Mine, they're short. I'm going to go to the beginning. And they start and they binge listen. And then they've gone through your journey with you. And by the time they show up, they know everything that you've ever said. And they're so much easier to work with if they've got that stuff. I think everyone needs... It's one of the things where you're not going to see a big return or not initially. But over time, if you're consistent with it, it's the best thing. And then obviously, I don't use my platform for this, but you do and I think it's brilliant. It gives you access to all these people. Whereas the interviewing people, you get access to people you can't otherwise. Josh: Doors open that you literally can't even understand simply because you're like, "Hey, I have a podcast and hey, I've got these couple other cool players on here. You want to come?" Alex Hormozi is coming on my podcast. I literally reached out to him, "I have a podcast." And a hundred percent, I'm going to admit something to you right now. I was like, "Hey, I had a podcast, and Russell's been on a couple times. You want to come on?" He's like, "I love Russell. Of course I'll come on your show." Russell: That's awesome. Josh: Crazy big doors that get open simply because you have a platform to be able to allow someone to use their voice as well. Russell: I remember, before Tony and I were super close, we met a couple times and stuff, but I remember he was doing some launch. I remember Lewis Howes and him did a big interview. And three or four people they interview sound so annoying. Why is Tony hanging out with these people and not me? And now all of a sudden, I had the ahas. "Lewis Howes has got a big podcast. Oh my gosh. Okay, I need to be able to offer my platform to him to get in that door and really build that relationship." And that's one of the powers of it too. You have a platform, now you've got ability to access people you can't otherwise. As you know. Josh: All right. Two rapid fire questions here really quick. Because I want to move on to the next topic to keep us on track. But number one, what's the Joe Rogan episode that you listened to all the way through? Do you remember which one it was? Russell: Oh, I do know. Yeah. And I actually hate that I listened this one. It was the Gary Vee one. Josh: Oh. Yeah. Russell: And the reason why I listened, because I want to be on Joe Rogan's podcast someday. And I want to see what Gary talked about because... As you know, Gary and I have a... He probably has idea who I am. Josh: You have a light beef. Russell: We've got an interesting relationship. He's not my... Anyway. I've got to make sure I'm the next internet marketer who actually does a better job. Josh: Okay. Two things on that. One, anybody listening, I'm going to do this, so don't take it, but I'll beat you to it. If you ever can get Russell Brunson on Joe Rogan, that's a great Dream 100 gift right there. That would be amazing. Secondly, I've listened to so many episode of Joe Rogan. One of my favorite ones is actually with Kanye. I know everyone thinks Kanye's an idiot. But if you can, that's five hours. It's insane. It's one of the most intense episodes I've ever listened to. But one that is a must-listen to, seriously one of the best podcast episodes ever done is his first interview with Elon Musk. If you ever get the chance, just sit down and listen to it. It's three or three and a half hours, but understanding that dude's mind, Elon Musk, you will not regret that three hours of your life. It was a fantastic episode. So that's the one. Russell: Very cool. Josh: Okay. Last thing here before we move on, are there any other points that we didn't cover about why someone should have a podcast? Wrap up, make your closing arguments around why somebody should go setup a podcast. Russell: The last one I'll say, and I quote Nathan Barry, actually, in Traffic Secrets. And I'll probably mess up the quote, but it was interesting. He talked about how... I think the title of the blog post I share is, You Got to Publish Long Enough to Get Noticed. And he talks about how for most of us there's so much content out nowadays. There's all these things. It's hard to know what's going to be good. 5,000 podcasts launched today. How many Netflix episodes, all sorts stuff. He says most of us find out about a good show at Season Two or Season Three, because of this, we waited to see, our friends talked about it. All of sudden it gets a breaking point where everyone's talking about it, and then you become this overnight success. It's interesting. He said you have to publish long enough to get noticed. And I think that's the biggest thing to understand. Especially most people who are getting started and they're so scared. "I'm going to look like an idiot." "They're all going to make fun of me." "I'm just a beginner." Blah, blah. All these different excuses. The good news is, at the very beginning, no one's listening. Josh: No one's listening. Russell: It doesn't matter. Just do it. This is your chance to actually find your voice and learn how to speak and tell stories, and all those things. No one's listening. And if you keep doing it, I tell people all the time, if you publish consistently for a year, that doesn't mean once a month for a year, daily for a year, or three, four times, five times a week consistently for year. Two things will happen. Number one, you'll find your voice. Number two, your audience will have a chance and have enough time to actually find you. And so it's going out there and just setting it up, the ROI. And I'm a big ROI. You look at my DiSC profile, my number one value is ROI. If I can't see the return on investment on something, it's hard for me to do. It's why I struggled in school. It's why I struggle in awkward conversations. Because I'm like, "What's the point of this?" I don't get it. Podcasting was hard, because I didn't know what the ROI was. And luckily again, I didn't see the stats for three years. Josh: Is that how long it was? It was three years? Russell: Yeah, before we figured out how to get the stats on it. Josh: That's crazy. Russell: But because of that, because I didn't know what the ROI was, and I was just hoping and praying with faith that it would be good. Now I see the ROI. Now it's important. Now I do it twice a week. Regardless, it happens in the queue, in the can because it's that important. Josh: If your number one thing is ROI and you figured out the podcast is worth it, guys, there's your selling point. Go start a podcast already. Russell: Got a podcast. Let's go. Josh: Honestly, it's amazing. And it's so much fun too. You learn so much about yourself. And I think the one thing I'll say about podcasting is you've got to really find your own unique style. I was listening to, I know you know Alex Becker, but Alex Becker is probably one of the biggest influencers in crypto right now. Just insane. One of my friends who got his NFT, and he's up a quarter million bucks in three months. Just insane stuff. One of the things that he said is right now in the industry, everybody is trying to become an influencer. And so he says, "I see all these people trying to model exactly what it is that I do." And he's like, "I have no problem with you guys doing that because I get it." At the beginning, you don't know your voice yet or whatever, but he's like, "You'll never be me." And I won't use the language that he used. But he's basically like, "There's only one me, so eventually model me, do whatever you need to do. But eventually go find your voice. Go find your own thing, because that's why people are going to watch you. I'm going to make sure that you're irrelevant if you try to model me long term." And so it's giving you that permission to model somebody at the beginning, but then, people are not going to listen to you if they can go listen to somebody else that has the exact same style. So it allows you to really be yourself when you give yourself permission to just try different things. And at the beginning, like you said, no one's listening. Russell: Yeah. It's funny talking about modeling. I talked about this yesterday on a call I was on. It's fascinating because people, they're trying to copy or model somebody because they're trying to get those people to attract the right audience. And Myron said, "You don't attract who you want, you attract who you are." And so if you're trying to be someone else, you're not going to... Because you want those customers. It's going to be weird. I remember when we launched ClickFunnels, I was trying to be like all the other internet marketing guys, because I thought I was competing against Ryan and Perry and Traffic & Conversion. So I was trying to be more corporatey businessy, like they were. Wait a minute. That's not me. I'm not going to wear a shirt and tie on stage. I'm not going to wear a suit jacket. I'm going to wear my t-shirts and jeans. And I'm going to talk about my family and God and wrestling and things I'm excited by. And I don't care about agency, not that I don't care agency, but I don't care about... I'm going to speak to the entrepreneur, because that's who I want. Wherein Ryan and Perry, literally, one of their Traffic & Conversions were, "This is less for the entrepreneur, more for your teams and your staff." It's crazy now because you look at the... I thought we were in the same market, but as soon as I leaned into who Russell was, it's separated. And it's not that one's better or worse. They're different, but if you go to Funnel Hacking Live, it's my people. You're in the audience. Most of these people here are Christians, who are athletes, who've got kids, who are entrepreneurs, who are not doing this for the money, but doing it because they want to change the world. That's the overwhelming percentage of our audience. Not everyone. But as a whole we attract who we are. So lean into that, because otherwise you're going to attract people you don't like, and you're going to hate your life, and you're going to hate your business, you're going to hate your customers. But you put yourself out there, the people who do not resonate with you will leave on their own. You don't have to kick them out. They're be like, "Russell's annoying." I get people all the time, if I mention God on a podcast or anything, they're like, "If you're talking about God, I'm out." Sweet. All right. Bye. I'm good with that. I know people are like, "I don't believe in God, but I respect that you lean into it." They're cool too. But the people who are offended leave and the people who stick are the ones you want to hang out with anyway, because you attract who you are and not who you want to bring in. Josh: And I can talk about that topic super long, but I want to keep moving on the next piece here. Russell: That's it for the first episode then. Here with Josh on the Market Secrets Podcast. We're going to transition to the next one on the next episode.

Guest Katie Richardson Today's guest on the Prosperity Perspective is a wildly successful businesswoman, active wife/mother, coach, podcaster, and leader in her industry. Because of our guest's unique experience, host Liam Leonard leads a “different conversation” than the norm with Katie Richardson. Tune in today to talk about how your upbringing may be negatively affecting your investment decisions and how to avoid those same mistakes in the upbringing of your kids. Katie shares how she helps them to value what they've been given without squashing their belief that they can earn and deserve nice things. Katie also shares her philosophy of “profit first” and why this approach may just magnify your own business income as you decide which buckets to allocate your income into.3 Key TakeawaysThe 5 areas Katie always invests in.Where you may be harming yourself with “scarcity thinking.”Opening yourself up to the possibility of a third choice by asking one question.About Katie RichardsonKatie Richardson is a Powerful Business Coach to World Changers. She shows Superstar entrepreneurs the exact steps they must take in order to grow to millions+ in recurring revenue annually by using her Sequential Power Formulas.Her clients include Kathryn Jones, Josh Forti, Sarah Allred, Stephanie Dove Blake, Jenica Parcel, Paul Van Bloem, Andrea Befus and more. Her first business, Puj.com was a worldwide sensation. With a Sketch and a GIANT Leap of Faith, Katie Transformed an industry and became a Globally Recognized Designer and Entrepreneur. She has been featured on the Ellen Degeneres Show, Rachael Ray Show, Today Show and on the cover of Entrepreneur Magazine. Today, people seek-out Katie to learn how to Magnify Business AND Magnify Life. Katie strongly believes this way of living is possible for anyone who is truly committed. She is living proof that family, faith, and fitness can thrive AS the business grows. If she can do it, so can you. And she'll show you how.Connect With Katie RichardsonPODCAST: What's Working NowInstagram : @katie.liveFacebook : @katiericharson.liveWebsite: www.katierichardson.com

How many times have you asked yourself "why do I have such a hard time staying focused?"You get distracted, have a hard time staying consistent, or just can't seem to ever stay with something for long enough to see results... why is that?At first, I blamed myself. I said there must be a problem with my brain, or my life... but I realized that was just an excuse.There is actually a much deeper (and easier to fix) reason why this is happening to you.In this episode, I explain what that is.Enjoy!-------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.thinkdifferenttheory.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/thinkdifferenttheory/FREE RESOURCES:FREE MINDSET GUIDE: www.thinkdifferenttheory.com/playbookFREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: www.facebook.com/thinkdifferenttheoryInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti

What is your answer to this question? Have you ever asked it? If you have, what has the answer lead you to believe?This is a question that has continued to serve me well in my pursuit of success.Enjoy!-------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.thinkdifferenttheory.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/thinkdifferenttheory/FREE RESOURCES:FREE MINDSET GUIDE: www.thinkdifferenttheory.com/playbookFREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: www.facebook.com/thinkdifferenttheoryInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti

What is the ultimate goal in life? Is it success? Fulfillment? Wisdom? Achievement? Peace?And is your life in alignment with what you think it is?I have asked myself the same question, and came to realize one that I believe is crucial to the underlying success of all others.In this episode, I explain what I believe about this, and pose a question to you about how to look at life.Enjoy!-------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.thinkdifferenttheory.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/thinkdifferenttheory/FREE RESOURCES:FREE MINDSET GUIDE: www.thinkdifferenttheory.com/playbookFREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: www.facebook.com/thinkdifferenttheoryInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti

Are you struggling with trying to figure out life? What comes next in your business?In this episode I share how I am in that exact situation, and what I am doing about it. PLUS, I was sick last week, was it covid?Enjoy!-------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.thinkdifferenttheory.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/thinkdifferenttheory/FREE RESOURCES:FREE MINDSET GUIDE: www.thinkdifferenttheory.com/playbookFREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: www.facebook.com/thinkdifferenttheoryInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti

In today's episode, I share one of my easiest mindset hacks that you can start applying in your life right now.-------------Want to learn how to think?Get a FREE copy of my Mindshift Playbook: www.thinkdifferenttheory.com/playbookIf you haven't joined the Facebook Group yet, make sure you do that! www.facebook.com/groups/thinkdifferenttheory/FREE RESOURCES:FREE MINDSET GUIDE: www.thinkdifferenttheory.com/playbookFREE SALES GUIDE: www.salesandmindset.com/freesalesguideFOLLOW JOSH:Facebook: www.facebook.com/thinkdifferenttheoryInstagram: www.instagram.com/joshforti

My amazing coach Josh Forti dropped some gold last night and I wanted to share it with you. #faith #impact #income Connect with me on IG and Clubhouse: @dustinshill Want help building out your next summit, challenge or live event? Come to Build Your Event LIVE on March 27! https://pelvicimpact.com/live

Today I talk about the importance of knowing what you want and where you are heading. I share a story from Josh Forti that is super important to all of us!The purpose of The Go Big & Go Home Show is to help you discover and stick to your goals while deepening the connections with those you love. I'll be breaking down dreaming, sticking to your goals and making sure those you love stay relevant and important in your life. If you like this podcast, please rate, review and subscribe so that you continue to stick to your dreams! Awesome funk music from: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3788-funkorama

Today, I'm chatting with my friend Josh Forti - who's one of my original friends in the online space! We're diving into why success is overrated...don't miss this! Rachel Pedersen - Queen of Social Media, award-winning, international viral sensation, top social media strategist & strategist. Featured on TODAY Show, Cosmopolitan, Huffington Post, Glamour, The Daily Mail. www.rachelpedersen.com Founder and CEO of Social Media United, the leading online training program for social media. Join my signature program now for FREE:  https://joinsmu.com/smu-for-free Join the free community for social media managers: www.becomeasocialmediamarketer.com Social Media United Elite: https://www.theelitefunnel.com/smu-elite-value-offer ClickFunnels Inner Circle Member, 2 Comma Club Winner, Funnel Hacking Live 2018 speaker. Get the free book that started it all for me - just pay shipping: www.expertsecrets.com/rachel Email inquiries to rachel@rachelpedersen.com