Podcast appearances and mentions of josh really

Show notes:Links:Snohomish Centennial trailIndie Hackers AMAIntro CRMFull transcript:Starr:All right. Welcome back. Welcome back, everybody. So we took a little break. We're going to have her hot vax summer, but that-Josh:Hot vax summer.Starr:It turns out that was the mirage. It turns out that was a mirage.Josh:Well, it did reach 112 degrees in Portland. So it was hot.Starr:There you go. Yeah. The summer never existed. It was just an illusion caused by our overwhelming thirst for lots of things.Josh:Mirage.Ben:Well, there were a couple of weeks there that I thought, "Yeah. This is going to work out. And then Delta.Starr:Yeah. It was a couple of nice weeks, wouldn't it?Ben:Yeah. It was. It was.Starr:Except for the panic about, "Oh, crap. I need to learn how to deal with people again."Josh:Wouldn't it be wonderful when we can just look back on those two weeks and just remember those last good two weeks?Ben:Yeah. Went 112 in Portland. That's pretty bad. It got to 116 in my garage.Starr:Yeah.Ben:It's pretty warm.Josh:Yeah. That's like melt some things if you're not careful.Ben:I did not know this until well, at the beginning of the pandemic, that there was actually a special class of freezer called the garage freezer because at the beginning of the pandemic I wanted to have a freezer in my garage. I'm like, "Okay. I'm just going to go to Home Depot and buy a freezer." Oh, no, no, no, no. You can't just buy a freezer to put in your garage. You have to have a garage freezer to put it in your garage. So we have a garage freezer and even with 116 in the garage, the stuff stayed frozen. So I guess it actually works.Josh:Nice. Yeah. My freezer survived as well.Starr:I mean, not having a garage freezer in your garage is almost as bad as wearing white after labor day, or is it before labor day? I forget.Josh:I don't know. I never wear white.Starr:I just don't wear white.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah.Starr:Stains too easily.Josh:I just always dress like I'm going to a funeral.Starr:All right. So today's going to be a little bit of a short episode. So we should probably get to the content.Ben:I thought we were already in the content.Starr:I know our reader.Josh:Yeah. It might be short. I don't know.Starr:Oh, we are?Josh:Our podcasts tend to have a mind of their own.Ben:That's true.Starr:Well, that's true. But we've got this Ask Me Anything schedule.Josh:Oh, yeah.Starr:20 minutes from now.Josh:Well, the great thing about asynchronous ask me anything is that they're asynchronous so you can post them even while you're on a podcast and answer the questions whenever you want.Starr:Yeah. Maybe you can, but my brain does not work that way.Josh:Oh, I've got it all queued up.Starr:I've got a one track mind.Josh:It's just a button press. We're locked and loaded.Starr:Oh, you're like Kramer. You've got the button.Josh:No. I'm ready to go.Starr:Sell sell sell!Josh:So yeah. At 10:30, we're recording this podcast. It's 10:08 right now. Pacific. And we're going to be doing an ask me anything AMA on the indie hackers forums.Starr:Yes. And it's a last minute affair as of 20 minutes ago. I didn't have an indie hackers invite code. We're running around scrambling.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah. Ben wanted to try a new podcast recording software, and I'm just like, "No. I can't handle this amount of change in my life right now."Josh:We need to title this episode, live from the indie hackers backstage, by the way.Josh:[crosstalk]Starr:Oh, yeah. I don't know if you like a live album.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Okay.Josh:We're doing it live.Starr:Well, so Ben suggested, when you talk about one work thing and one vacation thing we did. And I guess, I'll start because I didn't actually have a vacation. I just got sick a lot, which I didn't get COVID, but there was some sort of bug that was going around and I got it and I was out for a couple of weeks. And so I guess that was my vacation. I don't know. I just played a lot of Diablo III.Josh:That's cool.Starr:Yeah.Ben:We got our worst vacations in Diablo III.Josh:Yeah. We got away for a few days. We went to this lake up north of Spokane in Washington and just five nights or something. But on the trip there, we're looking at our friends who were already up there, sent us the fire map of Washington. And we are traveling, literally our destination is in the middle of six fires.Starr:Oh no.Josh:We're like, "Should we be turning around?" I don't know. But it turned out all right. We breathe too much smoke the first couple of days, but it cleared up and-Starr:Yeah. After the first couple of days you hardly notice it.Josh:I only got a minor headache.Starr:Your nerves just die. The nerves in your lungs.Josh:Yeah.Ben:It's okay. We have good health insurance.Josh:I'm an ex smoker. So I'll just tack it on, it's just like adding a couple of days.Ben:It's like getting that upgrade package when you're buying a $30,000 car. And it's like, "What's another thousand dollars?Josh:Yeah. I've already got the risk.Ben:Yeah. I stayed closer to home. I read a bunch of books and I got out for a nice bike ride, went to the Snohomish Centennial trail. So it starts in Snohomish and it goes up through Arlington and it's rails to trail conversion. So there used to be railroad tracks there, but now it's a paved trail. And the thing that's neat though, they have a bunch of trail heads and a few of them have the recreations of the old train stations. So it's like, you can act like you're getting on board that train and actually getting on-Josh:Oh, that's nice. Really nice.Ben:Yeah.Josh:That's cool.Ben:That's a lot of fun. Let's see, a work thing that I did. It's a blur.Josh:Yeah.Ben:I probably migrated something somewhere at some point. And back-filled something-Josh:You were busy.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Yeah. You did a lot.Ben:Yeah. I can't remember what I did.Starr:Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things, right? We're working with that sales consultancy, what is it? Intro CRM people?Ben:Yeah. Did do that.Starr:Have you done some outreach? You got some replies even?Ben:Yeah. Yeah. It's been kind of a mixed bag. So I've gotten some replies, but also the outbound stuff has not really been all that productive. So I'm questioning my life choices at this point.Starr:Have you had any overt hostility though?Ben:No overt hostility.Starr:Oh, you're not pushing hard enough then. You want your OH metric to be at least 10%. At least 10%, you want death threats.Ben:I will take that under advisement.Starr:Okay. That's how you know you're really-Josh:Really selling it.Starr:Yeah. I would say coffee's for closers, but you don't drink coffee. So there you go. Oh, cool. On my end, I don't know. We published our first batch of Honeybadger intelligence reports and I don't know. Loyal listeners might remember from last time, I mean, if you don't remember how loyal are you and how much should I even trust you, but yeah. You might remember that we were working on these things. Basically, they are quarterly reports for a certain programming language where if you kind of need to keep an eye on, I don't know. Front-end JavaScript, but you don't want to just inhale the feed of news that's constantly coming out, you can just look at this beautiful quarterly report. And we are publishing them quarterly now on our blog. And the first batch went out three weeks late, maybe a month late, I don't know. I didn't give myself enough time to get them ready for publication. And then I got sick for two weeks and just could barely crawl to the computer. So I'm sorry. I'll do better next time.Josh:If that's you're going to say, if you don't want to inhale the whatever weekly newsfeed, you can inhale it once a month or once a quarter. Just all.Starr:Well, no. We're not just collating everything together.Starr:[crosstalk].Starr:We're concatenating together.Josh:It's like a curation of curation.Starr:Yeah. We're not just a pending three months worth of Hacker News together. We're going in and applying some real intelligence to it. We have real domain experts.Josh:Editorial.Starr:Curating.Josh:Occasionally?Starr:Yes. Providing you the choicest morsels.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:Hand crafted morsels of information.Starr:Yeah. Maybe I should be doing these outreach emails.Ben:Yeah. I think so.Ben:I've got the wrong person writing this stuff.Starr:Yeah. They'd be like, "Are these people even professionals?"Josh:Well, that should be obvious from our website.Starr:Yes.Josh:I'll let you decide which way that goes.Ben:Wow. I've been sitting here while you're talking, thinking, what did I do? I'm like, "This is not good. If I can't remember doing anything useful for the past three months, that's probably a sign that I'm doing the wrong things."Starr:I mean, it could just be, you did a lot, Ben. I can remember things you've done. Can we got set up in a new compliance automated thing?Ben:Oh, yeah. Then the compliance-Starr:Yeah. An automated compliance thing. So you don't have to juggle all that stuff manually.Ben:Yeah. We got our SOC 2 type two report done. So we're legit now. We're officially doing the things that we said we would do.Starr:We're enterprise.Ben:Yeah. Full on enterprise.Josh:That's amazing.Ben:Yeah. And it wasn't a particularly painful process. I mean, it wasn't pleasant, but yeah. We survived.Starr:My favorite part of that was that, so as part of this automated security, your automated SOC 2 compliance stuff, all of the employees I guess, have to do mandatory security training once a year now. And it's this automated quiz where you have to read something and then it asks you questions. So it was a really weird big business moment, where I just felt, okay. I'm watching this training video. It should have 50s music in the background of it. And I hate to admit that I got stuck on the first question for 10 minutes. For 10 minutes. Because it was an easy question, but it was one of those things where it's like, "What's the correct answer? Choose one or more." And the correct answer was all of them. But for some reason, I had selected them all with my keyboard and that wasn't good enough. I had to click on them to show I really meant it because hackers generally use keyboards. So they're not really trustworthy devices.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Starr it was like a JavaScript bug.Starr:So eventually, I literally tried every combination. Eventually, I was just like, "Okay. I'm just going to try the first one again," and it worked. So there you are. There you are.Ben:I can't believe you're giving away the answers to our security questions on the podcast. That's a breach of security.Starr:Yeah. I mean, I think our security questions have some security vulnerabilities if, you can manually brute force them. You have four binary options. That's what? Four factorial combinations? You can knock that out in an hour.Ben:Starr is hacking the mainframe.Starr:I am hacking the planet.Josh:That's how Starr passed the security test.Starr:Yeah. That's also how I got such a great score on the SAT, by the way. You just take it, I don't know. 128 factorial times and then you just brute force it.Josh:Nice. How long did that take you?Starr:I don't know. I still haven't graduated from high school.Josh:I sort of graduated from high school.Starr:Well, you can tell you've been away for a while. Because I just have all this bullshit that I've saved up for you all, and it's just all coming out now.Ben:So I was surprised to learn. I don't know why this surprised me, but it surprised me nonetheless, when we had our all hands meeting recently that we have three Honeybadger employees that have children starting kindergarten this year.Starr:Oh, my God. Yes.Ben:That's pretty wild.Starr:It's pretty terrifying. It's pretty terrifying. I'm glad that I live in Seattle. You guys don't. Josh and Kevin don't, but I mean, you all live in fairly reasonable places where governors aren't banning masks in school.Josh:Yeah.Ben:As they themselves are going to get advanced treatments for their COVID infections. Yeah.Starr:Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's okay. We love you Texas. We just don't love your governor.Ben:Speaking of Texas. So this random tidbit I saw the other day, Austin, Texas of course, you know the housing market has been crazy. As far as prices go over the past several months, people have been overbidding regularly on how to just be able to-Josh:Oh, I read that.Josh:A hundred grand?Ben:Yeah. So Austin, Texas.Josh:That's what I'm asking.Ben:A hundred grand over asking price. So you have a $400,000 list price, but you actually got to pay $500,000 to get the house. That's crazy.Starr:That is wild.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah. I had to drop off my car at the mechanic to get its normal service and I was walking by, and this was this morning and there's this kind of older condo building. It's not great looking or anything. And it's two bedroom condo, 900 square feet is now selling for the same price that I bought my single-family house with big yard and everything three blocks away. And that was five or six years ago? Six years ago?Ben:Crazy stuff.Starr:It's bizarre. Totally. I don't know. It's the sort of thing like it feels kind of gross even. Just because I was able to scrape together a down payment for a house, suddenly I get, I don't know. A hundred grand a year extra just in appreciation.Josh:You just hit a jackpot.Starr:Yeah. But it's just like, okay. I literally did nothing to deserve that. And meanwhile, people who could use that or I mean, I could use it, but I'm not in dire straits. I don't know. It's just like, "Wow, this whole system is just kind of backwards and weird."Ben:Yeah. It's to the point I'm getting unsolicited offers to buy my house, right?Starr:Oh, me too.Ben:I'm getting these letters in the mail like, "Hi, I'm Bob and my wife is Alice and we'd like to buy your house." And I'm like looking at the letters, "Is this is really an automated thing or do they really write this by the hand?"Starr:I've had people call me on the phone, in person.Ben:They called you?Starr:Yeah. They called me. Three houses on my block have been demolished in the past two months, three older houses, one of them was just really messed up. But two of them were these small houses on big lots. And essentially what happened is a developer bought almost every house on the opposite side of the street from me and is now basically filling up the lots with as many units as they can. So I think they're going to end up with like 18 units out of these five or six houses, which is fine. I guess. I don't mind density and everything, but it's just so wild because it's like, "Oh, it finally caught up with us." Because for a long time we were just over the edge where things were nice, we were just one block over from the nice stuff. And it finally caught up with us. So we're going to have to move now because we're not fancy enough for the neighborhood anymore.Josh:Yeah. Just cash out.Ben:Yeah. Move to Kansas.Starr:Yeah. I mean, that's the problem though. It's like, "Okay. Great." I get all this appreciation, but if I ever want to get a new house, it's like, "Okay. I've got to pay those new prices."Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Yeah. We've looked at that too, or you could sell and rent for a few years and see if anything happens. That would probably be a gamble.Starr:That would be a really bad gamble I think. I mean, I don't know.Josh:Yeah.Starr:Yeah.Josh:Considering no markets decline anymore.Starr:I mean, they, they could decline, but you're trying to time it.Josh:Time the housing the market?Starr:Yeah.Starr:Maybe it'll decline, but yeah.Ben:This got me thinking, real estate agents, they want you to trade up, right? You buy your starter house and then you buy your bigger house and then eventually you downsize again because hey, why not have another transaction that a real estate agent can take a commission on, right? And it just got me thinking, why don't we have that for businesses? Why can't you trade up your business, right?Josh:Like trade it?Ben:Yeah. It's like, "Honeybadger, that's a nice little business. Why don't you trade it on up to a bigger business?Starr:So we sell Honeybadger and then by a larger business.Ben:Right. Right. Like that. Rolled into a down payment for a bigger business, yeah.Josh:Yeah.Starr:I'm not sure if you're very good at that.Josh:I love it.Starr:I don't know.Ben:Maybe this is a new marketing thing we can try. We can figure out new business models.Josh:Because we're getting trade-in program like the private equity firms.Ben:You're slapping the top of your business. You can fit so many customers in here.Josh:Might be our best bit yet.Ben:Well, I guess, we better get ready for our ask me anything session. Got a crack the knuckles and get ready to type.Starr:Crack the old knuckles.Josh:Almost time.Starr:All right. Okay. I will sign us off. All right. So this has been FounderQuest back from hot vax summer, back from vacation or being sick or whatever we call it these days. If you want to give us a review on Apple podcasts, whatever they call it, go for it. If you want to look up this AMA we're about to do on Indie Hackers, we recommend that and yeah. Otherwise, just stay cool, stay safe, and we will see you next week.Ben:Catch you later.Josh:See you.Starr:Bye.

Welcome to the first part of a special three episode series! On this episode, Russell and Josh start talking about the book “Outwitting The Devil” by Napoleon Hill. They discuss some of the background of how this book was published, and then go into detail about the premise and the lessons that it teaches. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. So I told you guys a couple episodes ago, I told you about one of my new favorite books, which is Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. I told you a little bit about the book and why you should read it. I told you I was doing a podcast interview with Josh Forti where he was going to ask me a bunch of questions about the book. We did that and it was really, really fun, and so I'm going to actually... I want to stream that interview to you guys over the next three episodes here on the podcast, and it's fun. The interview went way different than I thought it was going to go, and so I think you're going to enjoy it. The first part we talked about the book and the story behind it, and the breaking down the doodle and explanation, and the difference between faith and fear, some of the basic stuff. The second episode, we start talking about my biggest takeaways from the book and why personal development is important, and then Josh start asking questions about a time in my life when I used faith over fear and stuff like that. The story that came out, most people probably haven't heard this about ClickFunnels crashing and a bunch of other stuff, and so that episode two is going to be really fun for you guys. I'm excited, and episode number three is about my next book, so that was what the interview was about. It was really fun. It was a little over an hour long, and so we decided to break it up into three episodes for you guys, and so that's the game plan. So this is episode one of The Outwitting the Devil interview with Josh Forti, one of three. So when the theme song comes back, we'll cue that up. You'll have a chance to listen to the first one. Make sure you listen to all three episodes over the next week or so because I think you're going to enjoy it. The first one is really cool because you understanding why I'm so excited about this book, the biggest takeaways, but then some practical application, episode two and then episode three, we'll talk about the new book, why, what we're talking about, and a bunch of other cool stuff. So I'm excited. With that said, we’ll queue up the theme song. When we come back we'll jump into the first part of my interview with Josh Forti. Josh Forti: What's up, everybody! Russell: We're back. We're back. Josh: We are back. Russell: Four months, we're back. Josh: We're back. We're back guys. What is up? Welcome back to another episode of Think Different Theory, I'm going to claim this one, episode of Think Different Theory. Russell: And I'll probably also use it on the Marketing Secrets podcast; we'll use it for both. Josh: That's perfect, a dual episode. Guys. We are back. We were supposed to do this last week, but Russell's- Russell: Circumstances didn't allow it. Josh: Yeah. Russell was in a bad mood. So we have to do this, but guys, welcome back today. I'm really, really excited because we are discussing- Russell: One of my new favorite books. Josh: One of your new favorite books, Outwitting the Devil, which you recommended to everybody, the whole world, what? Like three months ago, four months ago. Something like that. Russell: Yeah. I'm shocked when people read it. If you haven't yet, go buy it on Amazon. There's two versions. I got to share this real quick. He'll share that while I'll tell you guys about this. Josh: Perfect. Russell: There's two versions of it. This one's got Sharon Lechter's notes, one doesn't. I'd get the one with Sharon Lechter's notes and oh, I talk to the camera here. Hey, what's up camera. And also you get the audio book. It's awesome. Because in an audio book, you can actually hear the two voices and one voice is the devil. One's Napoleon Hill. And it's amazing. Should I tell the story about the books? Josh: Okay. So actually I want to do that. I actually want to do this because how I want to open this up is, I want to take it back. Kind of take a step back because you've built Clickfunnels and now I feel like you've gone into kind of this new stage. You start reading a bunch of books and then you like geek out on Atlas Shrugged, and then you geek out on the next thing now we're at this book. So back us up, how did you find this book? Where did it come about? And then let's dive into it because I feel like context is important. Russell: Yeah. So, man, a lot of things. So obviously those who've read any of my books. I feel like I'm done. I wrote all the marketing books, I'm out of secrets. That's it. Trilogy is done. Work is finished. It's over. Josh: Guys, we're done with Russell forever. Russell: But then for me it's like, I don't know. I think in any area of life there's a point where you get mastery and it gets harder and harder to find new things. So there's all these incremental things, but there's not a whole bunch of new stuff I can discover, like oh my gosh, ah, freak out. Josh: Right, something about marketing you've never seen before. Russell: Yeah, so it's harder. And so for me, I'm a learner. I'm always pursuing education ideas and things. And so I started just kind of re geeking out on personal development stuff just because I miss it. I'm trying to think about things in my life. And so I was going through a bunch of different things and rereading a bunch of books I read back a decade ago, like Think and Grow Rich. Which by the way, that's kind of ... This Is the first edition printed Think and Grow Rich. Russell: Josh knows I'm kind of a geek with old books. You guys will see why more in about 18 months from now. We're doing some cool things, but this is first edition Think and Grow Rich. Think and Grow Rich was written by Napoleon Hill in 1937. It's the most, outside of the Bible, it's the highest personal development book ever sold. And it's really, really good. And so I was reading that again and then people kept tell me about this other book. And there's a lot of books. Right here, this is Think and Grow Rich, this is the Laws of Success. I'm trying to acquire a first edition Laws of Success, which is, I was telling you it's insane, expensive. Josh: It's crazy expensive. But Russell's over here, geeking out on all the books. Russell: I love old books. Josh: Actually a side note on that guys, the very first time ... So this is back at, I think it was the first or second offer. I can't remember mind lab mind, the big one. Offer mind you spoke at it and you were coming off stage. And I walked out and it was you and Dave and I like ran up to you as you were getting on the elevator. Do you remember this? Russell: Yes I do. Josh: And remember I was like Russell. And I didn't know you hardly at all this time. We kind of knew, basically, we had had some interactions. I was like, I'm trying to dream 100 you, what's a good gift? And you're like old books. Ding, the elevator door shuts. You're on the elevator, I'm off the elevator. And I was like, all right, that's all I have to go on. Russell: And you sent me some amazing old books. Josh: Yeah. Russell: So, very very cool. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Yeah. And so I just, again, I'm kind of going back through and I'm relearning from Tony again and from other people and stuff like that. But then this book keeps coming up and for some reason the title didn't grab me. I was like, Outwitting the Devil, it sounds stupid. I didn't want to read it. It never even crossed my mind as a book I was going to read. It's not something that I would really care about. And then one day I downloaded it on Audible. I download almost all the books I buy physical copies of- Josh: A hundred percent. Russell: I do it Audible too just in case. And I'm one of those kind of people that when I'm in a mood for something, that's why when I travel, it drives my wife crazy. I'll bring a backpack with like 40 books. I don't know what mood I'm going to be in. Russell: And she's like, why don't you bring a Kindle? I'm like, because like paper and I wanted to be able to hold it and see where the bookmarks at. Josh: Yeah, yeah. Russell: And the same thing is true with Audible. So I just download all the Audible just in case. And so one day I was working out, I was trying, anyway. This is a longer story, but I was trying to buy success.com at the time, it ended up falling through. I didn't get it. But Napoleon Hill was actually one of the original, he wrote for success in 1980. In fact, hold, this is kind of cool. This is Napoleon Hill's, he started a magazine. He actually talks about it in Outwitting The Devil. So he started a magazine called Hill's Golden Rule. This is one of the original, this one is from 1919. But anyway, he was also an author in the original Success Magazines back in 1800, I have a whole bunch of copies, actually 1800's and Napoleon Hill's articles in Success Magazine. Josh: Dang, that's so cool. Oh my gosh. Russell: So I had just gotten some of these things. And then one morning I was working out and I was looking at my playlist and Outwitting the Devil popped up. And for some reason I was like, all right. So I clicked it and it start talking about this magazine, talked about Hills Golden Rule, talked about Success Magazine, which I was trying to acquire the time and all these things. I was just like, oh my gosh. And so the very beginning he tells the story, he's kind of telling the story, I don't really know what I was going to go. He's telling this story about his life. And then all of a sudden transitions to this conversation is happening with the devil. Russell: And as you know, you've read it. Josh: It's so good. Russell: It's just like, I started getting like, oh my gosh. Why did nobody tell me about this before this is ... Let me put in perspective, I've read a lot of personal development books. I love Think and Grow Rich. This is so much better than Think and Grow Rich. Josh: It is, I agree with that. Russell: And, do you want me to tell the story behind or do you want to tell? What's the... Josh: Full behind... Russell: Just what the book is, where it came from. This is an amazing story. Josh: I just want to pass it over to you because I have questions about it. So I want to kind of hear things from your perspective here on this thing. I think a lot of people do as well. It's funny though, because when you put this on, gosh, I kind of picked up reading halfway through last year. I made a public declaration when I graduated from high school, I literally, I bought a pickup truck. Russell: I don't read anymore. Josh: And I put down the tailgate, I got up there, I stood up, I held my arms there and I literally yelled audibly out loud. I will never read another book ever again, outside of the Bible. Literally I was so done with reading my mom made us do all this reading in high school. Right. I was like, I'm so done. And thankfully that's not the case. Russell: Do you know what that reminds me of? I got done wrestling my senior year in college and after my last match. I've publicly said I will never run again. And then I gained 60 pounds, now I run. Josh: And now you run. Yeah. Russell: We had a similar experience. We were like- Josh: We'll never do that again. But six months into last year I started picking up reading more or whatever. And actually I've been averaging three books a month this year, which is freaking awesome. But, I'm halfway through. I can't remember what book it was. I see on your Instagram story. And you're like, everybody read this book. Russell: Every chapter, it was like, oh my gosh. Josh: Right. So I immediately go and buy it. And as soon as I finished the next book, I read the whole thing. And I think I read it in two sittings, right? Like the whole day I was like, oh my gosh, this is so good. So I do. I want you to kind of break it down for those people out there that don't know what it is. It is a story of Napoleon Hill interviewing the devil essentially. So I have a lot of questions just after you kind of explain the context of it all, but why don't you just kind of give people some context around what that is. Russell: By the way I spent last little while trying to take the entire book and put it into a framework like I do. So that's what this is back here, we'll talk about this. And some of the things… Josh: We have this here too. Russell: That hopefully serve as a framework for you guys. If you decided to read, here's some stuff to help. But, okay. Russell: So there's the story. So Think and Grow Rich was published in 1937, the next year. And if you've read Think and Grow Rich, there's times in here where he's like having conversations, people would pass away. People died, he's thinking about them and having these, in his head, these conversations that they come into the book. So it's pretty cool. So in 1937, 1938 he writes the manuscript for Outwitting the Devil. Josh: Yep. Russell: And so it's a year later. And the premise of this is literally, he talks about, I don't know if this is a little interview or if this was a physical, just something in my head, but this is the conversation I had with the devil. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And it's less of just an interview, but more like he's putting the devil on trial. He's on trial and he's like, you have to answer my questions. These are my questions. Josh: And the during this time, the devil, I can't remember how he explained it in the book, but the devil is forced to have to tell the truth 100% of the time. So any question that he asked him, he cannot lie. He has to be able to tell the truth. And that's one of the questions in there is he even says, it doesn't matter if you're religious or not. It doesn't matter whether you think it's a metaphor or whether you think he actually sat down and interviewed the devil. No matter what it was, the principles still reign true. Which is why I love the book. And you basically take that element out of it. Don't let that belief get in your way, still read the book. So, yeah. And 1938 is when he wrote the book, but didn't get published in 1938. Russell: Yeah. So imagine, this is one of the coolest stories ever. So 1938, he writes the book and in the book, he actually talks about the devil's like, if you ever publish this, it'll destroy your life, it will destroy your family it will destroy everything, because all the people fighting against this are going to destroy you. And so he finishes this book a year after Think and Grow Rich, has the manuscript. And he's so scared. He never actually publishes it. So he ends up dying. I think in '78, I believe. He passes away. His wife, second person gets the manuscript. She reads it. And she's like, I'm not publishing this. Josh: Yeah. Russell: She refuses to publish it. Later, she passes away. Napoleon Hill foundation gets the book. It gets to them, they read it and they're like, oh my gosh, this is probably the best thing he's ever written. Russell: And then they actually contacted, this is cool. I talked to Sharon Lechter last week. So I called Sharon Lechter. She's right here. Says- Josh: No way. That's awesome. Russell: Right here. Sharon Lechter. So she was probably the fourth person to ever read the manuscript. They sent it to her, what do you think we should do with this. So she says she got it. She sat down and she was reading it. And she's like, this is one of the greatest things ever published. If you don't know Sharon Lechter. She was the one who helped with all of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books. She was the CEO of the company for a long time. She helped build the biggest financial education company on the planet. And now she's coming over here to this mission and she takes his book and she's the one who takes it, gets the manuscript ready for print. Inside of here's got her notes, which is kind of cool. Her notes taking it from, it was published back in, the last big crash what were the two- Josh: Eight, yeah. Russell: 2008. So she's sharing things in here and how they relate back then, which is kind of cool. But anyway, so she published it. Josh: And it's in the audio book as well, she kind of goes through and comments. Russell: She jumps in. Josh: There's a devil's voice. And then there's Napoleon Hill's voice. And then there's her kind of commenting, which is actually kind of cool through the thing. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Yeah. Russell: It is kind of cool to make it natural or make it kind of tied to the time. But I think even nowadays, a decade later, whatever, it's even more- Josh: Well. Russell: Applicable. Josh: And that's, what's crazy is you read the book and if you didn't know that it was written back in 1938, you'd be like, oh, he's totally talking about right now. Russell: Yeah. Josh: You have no clue he's talking about- Russell: Because some of the references he's talking about Hitler and Mussolini. All of these people and we're like, okay, well, the dictators nowadays are different, but that was who- Josh: Right. Russell: The things that were happening. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Right then in time. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. And just the craziness of fear and economic turmoil and depression. I'm like, huh. Sounds like where we're at now. So anyway. Russell: So that's, the cool story about it. It's just this book that this manuscript has been lost for generations from literally the best personal development author of our time. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And to bring it back. I was just visualizing myself as Sharon Lechter reading that original. Can you imagine just reading the manuscript and be- Josh: Being the first part of the third or fourth person to ever read it? Russell: So insanely cool. So anyway, that's kind of the backstory and then you get into it and it's fascinating. So that's the story behind the book. Josh: That's why you guys have to read it, how cool is that? Yeah, it's super, super cool. And kind of what I'd love to do, I want you to go through, because I think this is important. For the sake of time, I mean, we could probably talk for four or five or six hours on this book. But for the sake of time, the time constraints, I think this summarizes the book super well. Josh: And so I'd love to go through the book. I'd love to see your interpretation of the framework and kind of explain it. And then, it's funny because whenever I go through personal development books, you see everything through the world of funnels and marketing and things like that. I cannot read a personal development book without looking at whether or not the fundamental principles of it are true or what they align with. Right. So they align with Christianity or Atheism or whatnot. So I have questions about, because I'm a huge fan of the book. You're a huge fan of the book. Right. But there's some certain things in here that he talks about that I have questions that I'd love to know your opinion on. So I think if we go through and kind of talk through the overall context of the book here and then kind of pivot towards that towards the end, I think that would be awesome. Russell: Well, one thing to just kind of address that before we get too deep into it. Because I know a lot of people have this fear of reading, anything of what if I don't believe it. Well, I'm not this belief therefore, I can't. And I'm such a big believer in there's truth in most things, I think there's truth in all things. And I can read something and be like, oh my gosh, 97% of this, I believe spot on. 3% I don't really agree with, but I can still appreciate the 97% and love it and enjoy it and be grateful for it. In fact, I do the same thing in my personal relationships, I can talk to somebody I don't agree 100% with. And I still like them afterwards, which is something I think our world needs to learn how to do better. But. Josh: Yeah, even if you lose Bitcoin bets. Russell: Hey, now. Let’s talk about frameworks… That's 3% of him I can’t stand right now. Anyway, okay. So the way my mind works, when I read it ... So I read the book first time and I was just in this whirlwind of, oh my gosh, there's so many things. And I was re listening today as I was working out, trying to ... This is a framework, but there's so many levels and layers and things go deeper and deeper and deeper. So the first time I listened to it, I was just kind of overwhelmed because there's so much good stuff. Russell: And the second time I was going through it, I was like, okay, if I was trying to doodle this to explain to somebody what's the overarching- Josh: Yeah, what's the promise of the book? Russell: The framework. Josh: Yeah. Russell: That's just kind of the way if you've read any of my books, that's how my brain works. I read like 30 books and from there I'm like, okay, this is what I think they're saying. So this is kind of the premise. I'll walk up to the board and kind of show you guys this. But the basic concept is all of us, me, you, anybody. Right. We have a decision comes to us and we've got two choices every single time. And that's kind of where this whole thing starts from. So should I go over there? Josh: Yeah. Yeah. You take my mic too. Russell: Okay, I'm taking mic. So I know you guys can't see this perfectly and this is going to be the words they're all small, so I'll kind of talk through it and hopefully that'll work. So here's me or you. And this is us and we have decisions come to us. They come to us. Am I audio right here? Can you hear it? Cool. So we have decisions all the time. So the biggest thing is, if something comes to us, we can make decisions based on one or two things. Right. We're either making decision based on faith or based on fear. That's it, those are the two things. And obviously, especially in the last year, we've noticed, I think that this has been amplified. Where do most of us make our decisions? I think the way you'll find is that people traditionally make their decisions one way or the other. Russell: Either they make all their decisions towards fear, or all of them towards faith. And so that's something start thinking about personally yourself, as I start thinking about when I'm making decisions, am I doing them through fear or through faith? And I feel like people, not a hundred percent, I think you tend to favor one of these. And it's important because when you start understanding Satan, how the devil is using these as tools, it starts helping you think, I got to start making my decisions differently or else I'm doing what he wants. So I'm going to start on the fear side. So his initial goal is to get people to make decisions based on fear. If he can get that, you become what he calls the drifter. So drift or somebody who's drifting through life- Josh: I'm going to stop you really quick. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Really quick. I'm just going to take my mic back really quick. I think one of the things I want to just cover here really quick, is kind of the premise of how this, even before we dive into this, how this came about. Because in the book, basically Napoleon Hill asks the devil. He's like, Hey, listen, I want to understand what you, as the devil are doing to try to control people. Because in the book, one of the things that he claims, and I guess you have it up here, the 98%. Is that the devil controls 98% of people on the earth by getting them to do drifting, which we'll talk about here in a second. Right? And so the whole premise of this book is basically Napoleon Hill is interviewing the devil and getting the devil to explain how the laws of the universe work and basically how the devil is using those laws of the universe to pull people towards him. And then he also draws contrast of that, of how God uses them to draw people towards God. And so it's basically understanding the laws of success, the laws of the universe, how they work and it's, what is it? The secrets of freedom and success. So if you understand he's asking questions with the specific intention of trying to figure out how the world works, how the devil is using those, and then how we can use those things to ultimately have success if we can figure out how they work. Is that? Russell: Perfect. Josh: Good. Yeah. Russell: Cool. Thank you for adding that. That was awesome pre-frame and I think that ... Hope that works. When you understand that it's like, that is this that's the war we're in every single day, right? I mean, it's every movie. Right and wrong, good and evil. Right? That's the fight. Right? And so the devil here is showing, this is my playbook. This is how I get people to come to my side. And so his side, he calls them drifters. Drifters, people who are drifting through life. They're not ambitious, not doing anything. There's kind of there. And when you're a drifter, he controls you. And he said, 98% of the population he controls by getting them to drift. The first thing does that by initially, decision comes, you act in faith or act in fear. If you act in fear, you are moving down towards being a drifter, okay. Now he starts going through what are the most effective ... Ugh, so good. So many good things. But so he said, how does he get people to act towards fear? So he's like, these are my six tools. I have six tools. Off camera: Are we good on volume? Russell: Is the volume good? Do I need to yell louder? Okay. These are the six tools, the most effective tools I use. I have to get people to act towards. So the first one is poverty. If you can get them to fear poverty, oh, if I do the thing I might could be poor. Then I'm going to be fearful instead of having faith. And, I don't care if I'm poor, I'm going to go for it. Right. So he gets people to fear through poverty. Through criticism. How many of you guys have had a decision to make, and you have fear. Oh, what if people criticize me? That's one of his tools, right? Health. Ah, I don't know if I can do that. Because I'm not healthy enough. Loss of love, old age and death. So those are the six most effective fears that the devil uses that get you to take fear over faith. And he said of those six, the two most powerful are poverty and death. He can get you to be scared of, I'm going to lose all my money. I'm going to be broke. Or, oh, if I do that, I might die. Or, I might not... Those things. Those are the two most powerful tools. So that was really fascinating for me. I look to that because I have so many times in my life when I have decisions, I am scared of criticism or I'm scared of loss of love or whatever those things might be, right. Entrepreneurship. How many times you trying to gamble everything. If you're scared of poverty, right? Then it's like, ah. In fact, I have entrepreneurs all the time. This is a conversation I have way more often than you would think where they're coming to me. And they built the business to a certain point and they're stuck and they're so scared. And the thing that I always had to come back to them, what's the worst case scenario? Because there's a spot where they're so fearful. They can't act and they can't make decisions. They can't do anything. And they just are frozen and they start shrinking right there. You see them going from people who have the presence to be able to take action. Do things. These people are stuck and frozen. And I literally, my conversation I have over and over and over again, it's like, well, what's the worst case scenario. Because if you're not okay with the worst case scenario with poverty, with death, these things. If you're not okay with those, there's no way you're going to have faith to move forward. You have to break yourself of the worst case scenario. And so I see this in my own life. I see it in so many entrepreneurs, coach, I see this as the cycle for them getting to fear. So everyone take a personal reflection. Which one are the ones that you're most afraid of, is it poverty, criticism, ill health, loss of love, old age or death. Josh: And I'm actually just going to stand up here. Because I think it'll be easier. And one of the things that... So what he's trying to do is he's trying to use one of these six things to get you to become a drifter. Ooh, we just moved the screen. That's the key thing. And I'm looking at this camera here. Okay. That's the key thing that he's trying to get you to do is the devil wants you to become a drifter because if the opposite of being drifting is, and it's the characteristics of a non drifter over here, is you have definitive purpose. You have mastery over self, you have a learning from adversity, controlling environmental influence, time, positive thoughts over time. And then thinking through plans before you act on them. So if you have those things, that's the opposite of being a drifter. If he can get you to drift, then you don't have definitive purpose, then you're not actually going after anything. Then you're not going to be able to have control over it. And then he has control over you. And that's the comparison that he keeps drawing in the book, right? If he can get you to drift, then he has control over you. But if you're not a drifter, then guess what? Then he doesn't have power over you. And then you're ultimately going to have success and freedom in life. And so, these are the things that he lays out in the book and it's like, okay, look, if you choose to be a free thinker, if you choose to be someone who is like, this is what we're all about. Has control of your mind. You're going to come into this spiritual, mental, and physical freedom category versus the drifter category. Russell: Yeah. It's amazing. And yeah, I think what... In fact, I almost called this column here, definitive purpose. Because it's so in fact if you read Think and Grow Rich, he talks to the whole chapter about definitive purpose. People who say, this is the thing I want going to go through it. I'm at a definitive purpose. No matter what happens, no matter what obstacles, trials I'm going to go get the thing that's definitive purpose, right? Again, that's the big premise of Think and Grow Rich. And here he comes back to it. Again, I almost made the title of this, but it's not- Josh: I think it fits better. Russell: It does. But it's not an opposite, where this is freedom versus drifting is the opposites. And this is what it actually says in the book. Josh: If we just summarized it as one word drifters versus freedom. Russell: Yeah, yeah. Spiritual and physical freedom. Yeah, because freedom of mind, this whole thing is he trying to control the mind if you control your mind, you win. Josh: Yeah. Russell: And so, yeah. The definitive purpose, that's the number one characteristic of a non drifter is definitive purpose. Right? So, you're coming here. I'm an act. And you're like, oh, I got fear. I got fear. What if, what if, what if they criticize me? And you don't act. Where here you're like I've got definitive purpose. This is my mission. This is the goal. I don't care what happens. I'm going to go for it and you just go for it. And that's where you're acting in faith. I don't know the path. I don't know where I'm going, but I believe in my skillset, I believe in my mission. I believe in my calling. I'm going to go and you start moving and eventually you show up and you end up over here. Josh: Yeah. Russell: So anyway, and then these other ones are all amazing. We can go deeper, but. Josh: Yeah, we can go deeper. And I think we can hold this. This is the same thing. Right? Russell: Okay. Josh: So we can hold up there? Russell: All right. Josh: And that way we can get kind of back to poor Brandon's over there. Brandon's over there like, yeah. Russell: You're ruining my mic. Josh: Yeah. So one of the things I want to dive deep down in on this is specifically on here, you have this thing called hypnotic rhythm. And if I were to do this, as an overview, it's basically, there's a human and then there's the devil. And then there's God, this is basically how he describes it in the book. Right. There's the devil and there's God. And there's the human and the human is going through life and there's the devil pulling for him and there's God pulling for him. Right. And then that person has the choice. Russell: It's like two angels, devil on your shoulder Josh: Yeah, pretty much. Right. And then you have the choice to either choose faith or choose fear, which is why, one of the things that I've been so adamantly kind of fighting right now is, don't live in fear. Why is anybody fearful of anything? And I know that's easy for me to say, because I'm not afraid of death. Right. And that's literally one of the top things that he uses to control the mind. Right. And you look around the world today and everyone's so afraid of dying or it's like, who cares? Whatever. I know where I'm going when I die. But, that's one of the things that I've been fighting so strongly. So, I have a fear and I become a drifter or I have faith and I become someone with definitive purpose and I have freedom ultimately in my life. But there's this thing underneath that is kind of the core crux of what ultimately keeps us there. And it's, I actually have notes on it, but it's this thing called hypnotic rhythm. Russell: It was interesting because he talks about hypnotic rhythm after he talks about drifters. And he's like my goal is to get them into hypnotic rhythm. He says that if you go from routines to habits you have, it's going to be habitual. And they're habitual, they become hypnotic rhythm where you're stuck in this cycle. And he says is that how you control the drifters. That's how the universe controls everything. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Positive and negative. That's why, if you look at the bottom here, it's got the little whirlpool at the bottom for hypnotic rhythm. It's the same thing. So if you have good habits and you're doing things, do you get a spot where eventually it's a pattern that you're just stuck in. It's easier to stay in the 2%. If you're in the 98%, it's easier to stay there too. Hypnotic rhythm serves all things. Josh: And that's the thing I think is so interesting about it is the way that he explains it is hypnotic rhythm is the thing that keeps the world in harmony. Right? And one of the quotes out of the book that I wrote down is nature, which in this particular case he's talking about nature in the form of hypnotic rhythm. "Nature is not interested in morals, as such she is not interested in right or wrong. She is not interested in justice or injustice. She's interested only in forcing everything to express action according to its nature." Right? So when you go into hypnotic rhythm, either positively or negatively, you get into the rhythm of nature, right. And nature is interested. And if you look at it purely from an objective standpoint, he's saying that nature is only interested in making the thing, the object, in this case you do what has been designed to do. So if you're choosing to be in hypnotic rhythm in the spiritual freedom side of things, nature is going to keep you in that. And that's why, it's almost rewiring your whole brain and your whole life for success. It's why successful people continue to have success. And it's why non-successful people do not have success. And I think understanding that and understanding that hypnotic rhythm is, I almost like to think of it as the subconscious mind. Right? Once your subconscious mind goes into the hypnotic rhythm to just do the same thing over and over and over again, it's very, very difficult to escape that. Russell: Yeah. And you see it happen in your life all the time. There's times in my life, when I was wrestling where I had so many routines, so many things where that structure in my life was just, it happens on autopilot because that was what I did. Right. And so it was perfect. I didn't have to everyday figure out, how am I going to be successful? How am I going to have definitive purpose? It become part of me. Right. Josh: Yeah. Russell: It’s something in business, or other parts. I think that it's true. We get these patterns, these ruts, these things, wherever it is. Either positively or negatively, but that's the hypnotic rhythm where that's the goal is to get in those. But in the positive side, not negative side. Because you see it's a downward spiral. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Right. Upward spiral positively or downward spiral negatively. But if you get into hypnotic rhythm, that's the thing that keeps you in that spot. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Does that make sense? Josh: Yeah.

13 year old Megan Meier had just started a new school after being bullied at her previous one. Missing her friends, she created a MySpace. Megan's parents took all the right precautions: only they had the password, they had to be in the room while Megan was signed on, and they had to approve all friend requests. But even with all their safety precautions, a boy named Josh Evans slid into Megan's DMs. Megan was in love with him and, as it turned out, was correct when she said that Josh was the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over. But who was Josh REALLY? www.patreon.com/hookedthepod SOURCES:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Megan_Meierhttps://www.meganmeierfoundation.org/megans-storyhttps://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/megan-meierhttps://medium.com/@alissaphillips/cyberbullying-and-the-tragic-case-of-megan-meier-9bb9d3611094

Ally and Leah recap MTV's The Challenge: Double Agents episode 11, and break down all of this week's news from the Challenge world.Starting out with some breaking news Lolo Jones spills the tea on why she "left" the challenge house. We debate the real reason and how far is too far when pressing current hot buttons like mental health. If Josh is labeled Goofy does that make CT Donald Duck? We have a few questions on how Josh REALLY pulls in women. In a fun daily challenge: Airlift we finally see Devin get instant karma, Anessa provides a good laugh, and BIG T shocks us all Another dramatic security breach happens in the crater before we can see who will face off against each other for a gold skull. Listen to hear all of this and more like what we think about the All-Star announcement. Support the show (https://tasteofreality.com/spill-it-sister/)

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

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

Welcome to the first episode in a special 5 part series. Over the course of these next 5 episodes, you’ll get to hear an interview between Russell Brunson and Josh Forti about the book “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. But this interview is much more than just them talking about the book, they are actually discussing business, religion, and politics (a subject Russell doesn’t talk about often) as they pertain to the concepts in the book. In this first section, you’ll get to hear the introduction and the basis for how the entire conversation will flow. The first main topic of the book, and the main concept for this episode is greed. Is it bad? Can it be good? Are we born with it? Can we change? So listen in to part one of this unique interview and start reading “Atlas Shrugged” (just read it, the movies aren’t great), so you can be ready for part 2! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. And right now, I have a treat for you. Over the next five episodes, I'm going to be taking you in behind the scenes of an interview that I did with Josh Forti about the book, Atlas Shrugged. And some of you guys have read Atlas Shrugged, some of you haven't. Some of you know the premise, some of you don't. And I want to preface this by saying I do not believe in everything taught in the Atlas Shrugged book. I love a lot of it. It talks about producers versus consumers, the looters and the takers versus those in society who are the creators. Right? And there's a lot of things I strongly align with. There's also things that I don't strongly align with. And so I love the book, one of my favorites I've ever read. And so that's the first thing. Number two is, as I finished the book, I remember Josh Forti, who's one of our funnel hackers, he wanted to do the interview with me and I was just like, "I don't have time for interviews." And we're getting closer and closer to the election, we talked on Facebook. We were posting some comments and I was like, "You know what? The interview that I would actually love to do would be about Atlas Shrugged, looking at the whole political thing as it's happening right now and the elections and everything, through the lens of Atlas Shrugged. That'd actually be fascinating for me," because I don't typically, as you know, talk about politics. Right? I do talk about religion, but I don't talk about politics. That's not something I typically go into, but I thought it'd be interesting to look at politics from the lens of Atlas Shrugged. And so in this interview series, it's a lot of fun. We talk about producers versus consumers. We talk about the left and the right. We talk about some political things. Now Josh, just so you know ahead of time, he's very pro-Trump, very much on that side of the discussions during this interview. And this interview, just so you know, took place before the elections. As of right now, I'm still not sure who won. You guys probably will know by the time you're listening to this, but as of when I'm recording this, we don't know, but he definitely leans on the Trump side. I don't really share much of my political beliefs, but you'll get kind of what I believe and why I believe it through the lens of Atlas Shrugged over this interview series. So I hope you enjoy it. It was a lot of fun to do, a lot of great feedback and comments. And again, we talk about stuff I don't typically talk about ever. So this may be a one-time shot to hear inside my mind when it comes to politics, religion, and all through the lens of Atlas Shrugged, the book. So with that said, I want to introduce you guys to the first part of this five-part interview series with me and Josh Forti, talking about Atlas Shrugged. Russell Brunson: Are we live? Josh Forti: We are live. Russell: What's up, everybody? Josh: Oh, my word, with the incredibly ... I don't know if long-waited. It hasn't really been that long. Two months ago. So much expected podcast with Mr. Russell Brunson, himself. How are you doing, dude? Russell: I'm doing amazing, man. Thanks for flying all the way to Boise just for this conversation. Josh: Yeah, absolutely. Dude, this is probably the conversation I'm looking forward to most, certainly in my life thus far, when it comes to business and philosophy and everything like that. Russell: No pressure at all. Josh: Well, it's funny. Your wife said, "Oh, thanks so much for coming out." I was like, "Yeah, it's certainly ... Yeah, because it's inconvenience to me to fly all the way out here." I will say, this is my first ever in-person interview like this. Russell: Oh, really? Josh: Yeah. Russell: We got the microphones set up. Josh: I know. We have- Russell: He’s a professional. I've never done this before. Josh: Literally, we have a soundboard down here. We've got Russell's mic. Can you guys hear us all right? By the way, guys, for all of you listening on audio, we apologize because we're going to answer some comments in the Facebook feed here because we've got everybody down here. By the way, you can see all the comments down here. Russell: What's up, everyone? Josh: All right, guys. If you are live, comment down below. Let us know where you're tuning in from. Let us know if you know Russell or if you know me or if you know both of us or what you're most looking forward to. And Russell, I'm going to be honest with you. We're just going to be super chill. Guys, we have a live audience back here. We've got Dave. Dave's over there. We've got Jake and Nick. Russell: What's up, Dave? Josh: Where'd Jake go? Russell: Jake's working. Josh: Oh, there we go. Jake's working late over there. Russell: Jake, by the way, designed these amazing shirts for this- Josh: Yeah, check us out. Russell: This is my Rearden Steel shirt. This is my Who Is John Galt shirt. Josh: Isn't this great? Okay, but I feel like the back- Russell: Yeah the back I’ll read what it says. It says, "I started my life with a single absolute, that the world was mine to shape and the image of my highest values never to be given to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle." So do you guys like these shirts? These are custom made for tonight. And you guys may have a chance to get one of these, but not yet. No, not yet. Josh: Not yet. Russell: We'll let you know when the ability ... If you guys ... Josh: Oh, man. Oh, man. Russell: Anyway, it's going to be fun, but these are custom ... We literally made these today. We needed some sweet shirts…for the show. Josh: Okay, Will says he got your text. Did you send my text to everybody? Russell: Yeah. Josh: Russell on top of it. I sent out a ManyChat, Russell sent out a text. All right, guys. Let's lay some ground rules here. So the quick backstory behind this ... And it's going to be weird. You've got to look in the camera here. Quick backstory behind this is I make a post on Facebook about, what, probably three months ago now or so? Russell: Yeah. Josh: Two, three months ago. And I go, "We need some epic people to interview for the podcast. Who do you know? Tag them all down below." And shout out, Georgie. Georgie comments and goes… "I coached Russell. You should totally interview me." And I was like, "You've got to be pretty gutsy to tag Russell in your comment and tell him you coached him," but then Russell comments back- Russell: And George is an Olympic wrestler. He was on the Bulgarian Olympic team. He wrestled at Boise State with me. He's the man. So yeah. Josh: I commented back. I go, "You coached Russel?" And then Russell goes, "Well, yeah. He coached me. He's awesome. You should totally interview him." And so I said, "Yeah, Georgie, of course, you can come on. We'll do an interview, but Russell, I've got an open invitation to you if you want to come back on." And then you were like, "Sure, if we can talk about…" or no, you didn't say sure. You said, "Can we do it about Atlas Shrugged?" Russell: Yes. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Because I interview a lot about business stuff and- Josh: I'll pull the microphone just slightly. Russell: Yes. I don't do a lot of interviews because ... I feel like I've said, but I don't want to say, but I just finished literally probably the fattest book in the history of books called Atlas Shrugged. And I was geeking out on it and I wanted to talk about it. I didn't have a way or someone to geek out with, other than some of my friends here. And I was like, "If you want to talk about Atlas Shrugged, I'm in." And then you started freaking out. Josh: The funny thing was is I go something to the effect of, "You want to talk about the fall of capitalism because of a boycott, because of a brilliant person and why socialism sucks? Yes, absolutely. I would love to do that," to which you don't give me a yes or no answer. You reply back and go, "Ha-ha. Oh, man. That'd be fun." I'm like, "Talk about an open loop, man. Come on." So anyway, I immediately messaged Russel and I'm like, "You better not be joking because that would just be rude." He goes, "No, I'm totally in." Josh: So about two months go by. You had a bunch of stuff. You had some fun stuff during that time, hanging out with- Russell: Lot of stuff is happening. Josh: Tony Robbins? Russell: Yeah, Tony, man. And it's been chaos the last couple months, not going to lie. And as we got closer and closer to the election, I'm like, "This is an interesting conversation, post-election, but I think it's more interesting before election." And so was it two days ago, three days ago, you're like, "I will fly to Boise to record this." Josh: Yeah. Russell: "What day do you have open?" I'm like, "Only Wednesday night." And now we're here. Josh: Yeah. It was Friday afternoon. We were Voxing back and forth and you're like, "Dude, we've got to get this done before the election." I'm like, "Before the election? Oh, my word." I said, "All right. Sounds good. What time do you have available?" And that's when I was like, "You know what? I was going to ask you creatively, but I'm just going to ask you. How about I fly out to you?" And you're like, "Heck, yeah." Josh: So guys, that's the backstory. That's how we got here. And so this is an open conversation about Atlas Shrugged and kind of everything that encapsulates. I think we'll talk about some religion, some politics, kind of both sides of the aisle there and open it up. Russell: Fun. Josh: Anything else you want to add to that? Russell: The only other thing I would add is, because this book, by the way, if you haven't read it yet, is very polarizing. There are people on both sides of it. Russell: And I think both of us wanted to stress ahead of time that I do not believe in everything in this book. A lot of things in this book, I do believe in. And it's interesting. One of the things I want to dive deeper in in this conversation, I'm excited for and I told you not to do Voxer. I was like, what's fascinating to me is not, "This is what we should believe." What was fascinating to me as I was reading this book, and we'll get into the premise of the book for those who haven't read it, but the big thing is producers and going out there and creating stuff and doing things, which is what entrepreneurs do. Right? And it gets in the part of greed is good. You should be greedy because it's going to create all these amazing things, which then the byproduct's really good. Russell: And part of me is like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes," and then part of me, as a believing Christian, I hear this message I believe in and then I hear in my mind ringing Christ, talking faith, hope, charity, and love. And I feel like they're these two polar opposite things, which by the way, we dive into politics a little bit. There are two polar opposite sides, one that believes one, one believes the other. Russell: And I think that there's a happy medium and that's what I want to dive deep into just because I don't want anyone thinking, "Oh, Russell and Josh just believe this," or whatever. It's like, no, there's sides of this and I empathize on both sides. I want to talk about both of them because they're fascinating. Anyway, I've toyed writing a boy about this concept, these two things. Anyway, I think it should be fun to first time verbally ever talk about this stuff. So I'm excited for it. Josh: Yeah. And I would just echo that, as well. I think one of the things that often happens with me, with my ... So funny. You, who never, ever talks about politics and me who doesn't know how to get on Facebook without arguing about politics, colliding here, but is that a lot of times I get grouped into, "Oh, you like this reading. Therefore, you believe with everything." "You read this book," or, "You support this person," whether it's a political figure or a book or something like that. It's like, by saying that you enjoyed that or that you learned a lot from it, that all of a sudden you suddenly believe everything in it. And that is not the case at all. And I've gotten a lot of criticism from people that are like, "How could you possibly like Atlas Shrugged?" And I'm like, "Well, this is the conversation that we're going to have." Josh: So real quick, before we dive in, I'd be curious ... I want to do a poll real quick. How many of you guys have actually read the book? I'm curious to know. Hold up here. There's two different versions of it, but if you've read the book, just comment below the number one if you have read the book, the number two if you have not read the book. I think that will just kind of give us a poll. We've got 200, 300 people. Russell: And if you listened to the audiobook, we'll count that as reading, too, either way. Josh: Yeah. Not if you know the premise of the book, but actually have read the book and have a deep understanding of it, or not deep understanding. But have like… Russell: Understand the stories them in. Josh: Yeah, things like that, because then it'll be interesting. Russell: One is read. Josh: One is read, two is not read. Oh, more ones than I thought was going to. Russell: Yeah. Me too. Josh: Russell's book is so underrated. Russell: We're 50/50. Josh: Ooh, yeah. I think we should take a poll at the end; what's better, Atlas Shrugged or Dotcom Secrets? That's the real question we should be asking right now. Russell: That would be good, that would be good. Josh: Okay. So we have a lot of people that have not read it, so we'll have to go into the premise of that. Okay. Russell: Are you ready to get started? Josh: Yeah. I'm ready to rock and roll with it. Russell: Oh I’m ready. Josh: Okay. Guys, we want to lay a couple ground rules. Okay? Because I don't know what it's like to be Russell, Russell doesn't know what it's like to be me, but I think we both have a mutual understanding that we could very easily be taken out of context here. Josh: I think the goal, and then I want you to kind of expand upon this, is we're not trying to take a side here. We're trying to have an open discussion about it. This could very easily turn into something that's like, "Why did you vote for Trump? Why Biden sucks, why Biden's great, why Trump sucks," something like that or certain religion. We're not trying to convince you of anything, really. In fact, this is honestly more of a conversation for us. And we're like, "We think it'd be cool to stream it out to a bunch of people because there's a reason for me to fly out here and do that," but the purpose of this is to have an open discussion about the book, the premise of the book, an understanding of it, and then honestly we're probably going to be in our own little world over here. Josh: And we want you guys to interact and comment and engage and push your questions. And we'll go back through it, obviously, but the purpose of this is not to try to convince anybody of anything. It's simple to, at least from my perspective, shed a new perspective and give the perspective of somebody who, for those of you that don't know who Russell is, the founder of a ... ClickFunnels is a billion-dollar company, SaaS company. You have 400 employees? Russell: Yeah. Josh: 400 employees. So from that perspective and from my perspective, to open your eyes to a new perspective of what we like, what we don't like and, like I said, more of a conversation for us. Russell: Yeah. I think that's good. And I think a big thing that we will talk about ... Our goal is not to convince you of anything. In fact, I think I'm still convincing myself of both sides. I believe both these two things that seem contradictory, but I think there's a middle ground and I'm excited to explore it. So it'll be fun. Josh: Cool. So I think we got to- Russell: Talk about the premise of the book? Josh: Yeah, we've got to talk about the premise of the book. Russell: I might have a little mini statue behind me that might help. Can I grab that? Josh: Ooh, yeah. Russell: Okay. So folks that have not read Atlas Shrugged, I didn't know what the premise was at first, but this is the story of Atlas. Some of you guys know Atlas was cursed to have to carry the entire weight of the universe, entire weight of the world upon his shoulders for forever. Right? And so this is where the premise of the book ... All of us, people who are listening to this might guess that you are a producer. Right? Otherwise, you probably wouldn't be listening to me or to Josh. I attract, I teach, I coach, I help producers, entrepreneurs, people who are trying to change the world. Right? Russell: I'm curious, how many of you guys have ever felt this pressure. Right? When you feel like you literally have the entire weight of the world upon your shoulders. And if you haven't, it's time to become a producer. That's first off. Second off, I can empathize, though. There's so many times, you can ask Dave or any guys on my team, there's days I come in, I was like, "I feel like I'm going to crack." There is so much weight to carry this around. And I'm guessing most of you guys have felt that. It could be with your family, could be in work, could be business, whatever, but you've felt the weight of the world. Right? Russell: So this is what Atlas had to hold. Right? And so the premise of the book, Atlas Shrugged, is what would happen if the producers, the people that are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, what happens if they were to go on strike and they were to shrug their shoulders and be like, "Meh." In fact, should I read your tile you gave me here? Josh: Yeah. Russell: So Josh, as a gift today, gave me some amazing tiles. This is a quote, actually, from the book, Atlas Shrugged, talking about this. It says, "If you saw Atlas, the giant holds the world on his shoulders. If you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling, but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater of his efforts, the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders, what would you tell him to do? Just shrug." That's things like, what happens to society when us, the producers, when we no longer want to carry the weight of the world? We shrug and we walk away from it. Russell: And the book is a story about that. What happens when these producers start disappearing and they start leaving, they start going on strike? You see society, what happens when the producers disappear. Josh: Yeah. It's interesting because there is no one named Atlas Shrugged in the book and there's nobody named Ayn Rand in the book. And so there's concepts that she's writing about outside of that and it's this ... How do you summarize a 1200-page book? Basically, in the book, there is a main character by the name of Dagny. Russell: Oh. Yes. Josh: Oh. Russell: I was going to say John Galt, but you're right. Yes, Dagny’s the main character. Josh: Sorry. For the first two thirds of the book, the main character is a woman by the name of Dagny. And basically, she is one of the producers of society. And she's not the head boss of the railroad, but she's basically the person that runs this railroad company. And it is written, what, 1950 is when this was- Russell: Yeah. Josh: So 1950, and it's basically this forecast into the future of a government that is basically forcing super, super strict restrictions onto private businesses and making them do things, kind of like today in America, but super, super government overreach in a lot of ways. And so Dagny is trying to keep the world afloat, more or less, by getting the railroads done on time and getting orders shipped. Josh: And I'm super oversimplifying, but around her, all the people that she works with that owned all these other companies that she would buy copper from or she would buy steel from or buy the railroad track from or buy the coal from, all of a sudden all these head people ... Imagine people like Russell, all his friends just start disappearing. Imagine Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Russell all just started disappearing. Right? That's what's happening all around her and she doesn't understand what's happening to them because just, one day, it's up and it's gone. Josh: And so the premise of the first two thirds of the book is showing this story of this producer who is living in this world of super government tyranny, overreach that's super, super controlling and she's watching all of her friends disappear and she doesn't know why. Would you say that's a pretty good explanation of it so far? Russell: Yeah. And every time they disappear, they leave behind a note or something that says, "Who is John Galt?" That's this theme throughout the book, is who is John Galt? Who is this John Galt person that makes all the producers disappear? Josh: And Dagny has no idea who John Galt is. Right? She doesn't even know, actually, for awhile that John Galt's actually even a real person. And so once she does find out that John Galt is probably a real person, John Galt becomes her sworn enemy because she doesn't know who he is or what he's doing. All she knows and all she associates with is that John Galt is taking away all these producers of society and is making her life harder because ... Imagine you being an entrepreneur and all of your entrepreneur friends that you buy stuff from and that you send all your people to, your referrals and everything, you buy all your supplies from, imagine they're all just disappearing and you think it's because of this one guy who's taking them all away and you don't know what's happening to them. Obviously, they'd become your sworn enemy. Josh: So for the first two thirds-ish of the book, that's kind of this premise of they're painting this really, really vivid story of the ... what are they called, the great thinkers of society? Yeah, the great minds of society, basically disappearing. And Dagny and ... there's a guy by the name of Hank Rearden, I think. Russell: Yeah, Rearden Steel. Josh: Rearden Steel, yeah. So Dagny and Hank Rearden are the two major ones left right before the big plot twist happens and you're like, "Oh," and then you get introduced to John Galt. I'm going to let you explain John Galt now. Russell: Oh, man. Okay. So that's the first two thirds of the book. By the way, there's movies. Don't watch them. They'll ruin the book. The movies were really bad. Josh: Yeah. Read the book. Russell: So two thirds into the book, she starts trying to figure out this mystery of who's John Galt. She ends up finding him and turns out that he has been going around and getting all these producers to go on strike, convinces them to, "Look, it's not worth fighting for anymore. All your incentives are gone. Let's leave. Let's go on strike," and they leave. And John Galt's trying to get her to leave and she's like, "I can't. I have to do everything in my power." The last third of the book is her leaving John Galt's presence and going back and trying to figure out how to do this thing as she's watching just government regulations getting harder, and harder, and harder, and harder to the point where everyone just has to disappear. Russell: But one of the things John Galt and the people say, "When the lights of New York go out, then we'll come back and we'll rebuild society from the ground up, after the looters and the people are gone." Josh: And that's basically how the books ends is lights of New York go out and then- Russell: For such a long book, all of a sudden it just ends and you're like, "Oh, I need one more chapter. Come on. Just end it." Josh: And we're never going to get it. Ah. Russell: Well, maybe I'll write it. Josh: Yeah. So that's the storyline of the book, but what I think we really both want to focus here is kind of the premises and the overarching ideas that the book presents, and capitalism versus socialism, and I think we'll talk religion and politics and kind of everything that’s in that, but I kind of want to, if it's all right with you, I kind of want to turn the conversation more towards us now and just kind of start geeking out just about that. Josh: So guys, we'll obviously go back and ... By the way, we want all your comments if you're ... Actually, comment below right now. Where are you watching? Are you watching it on YouTube? Are you watching it on Think Different Theory page or are you watching it on Russell's page? Comment down below because we went to multiple different locations. So we have a bunch of different people tuning in for everything. So just comment down below. Leave your comments, leave your questions, smash the like button, love button, share this out, and we're going to be here. Josh: All right, Russell. What's up? Russell: Hey, man. Josh: All right. Dude, I've been wanting to, and I hate this terminology, but just pick somebody's brain like yours for the longest time. And this book, oh, my gosh. So what do you like about the book? What was your favorite thing? Russell: Yeah. Well, let me tell the backstory. So 2008 is when the market crashed last time, right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I didn't realize that, that year, over 500,000 copies were sold organically by people talking to me about it, talking about, "Everything's she's prophesying is happening right now." And so, back then, I remember all my entrepreneur friends, like, "You have to read this book." It was the word-of-mouth buzz that sold 500,000 copies of a book has been ... The author died, whatever, 30 years earlier. There's not active marketing out there. It's crazy. And everyone's talking about it, like, "What's happening in this book is happening in 2008." And it was just this prophecy that was being fulfilled. Russell: And so everyone in 2008 was telling me to read this book. I remember buying it and I was like, "This is a really, really big book." And it took me awhile to get into it and I could never get into it. I read the first, I don't know, first 200 or 300 pages four or five times. And then, finally, this summer, one of my very first trips where I didn't bring a laptop since my marriage. So my wife is very proud of me. Josh: Dang. Russell: And so as I was leaving the office, I grabbed this book. And I picked it up and I was like, "I have no computer, but I've got this." And usually, I bring 20 books just because I know I'm going to read. I just brought one and I was like, "I'm going to do this. I'm going to be forced. I'm on a lake for a week and a half with my kids and all I can do is read this book." So I brought it, got the audiobook, as well. It's funny, I do the same. I listen to the audiobook and I read along so I can listen to it way faster, that way. And I started going through it. It took me a little while. She does such a good job of character development at the very beginning, it took awhile to get into it. Josh: Yeah, for sure. Russell: And then the story hits and then you're just like ... And you couldn't- Josh: It's like thing, after thing, after thing. It's so quick. Russell: Oh, yeah. And it got crazy. So for me, it was interesting because I think, if I would've listened to it 10 years ago or read it 10 years ago, I had never experienced any of the things they talk about in this book. Right? Josh: Now you don't have to worry about it. Yeah. Russell: Even better. I never experienced government regulations and things like that or just those kind of things. And as ClickFunnels has grown from me and Todd to our first member, to our first thousand, 10,000, 100,000 members, 400 ... I don't know how many employees, a lot, 400 plus employees. As it's grown, it's been crazy because you would think all we'd be focusing on here inside ClickFunnels is the next feature in the app, next thing. Russell: And there's the year where we had to spend an entire year just refactoring the software for GDPR compliance. We have regulations that come in on taxes and this. It's constant where most of the battles we fight at ClickFunnels right now is not about, how do we make this thing better for the customer? It's, how do we protect our customers from the government? It's crazy. And just so many regulations and things. Russell: And so I have been feeling this pressure. Some of you guys may have seen my interview I did with Tony Robbins ... not interview, but Tony Robbins did an intervention with me last year in Fiji. Josh: Yeah. That was fascinating, by the way. Russell: I'm so glad we captured that. It was a really cool moment in my life, but if you listen in there, I talked about ... He's like, "Well, what do you want to do?" And I was like, "I don't know, but the pressure ... I love the same, so I love everything I'm doing. I love the people we're serving, but there's these other pressures that aren't the game, that aren't the people, that they just get so heavy sometimes where it makes me want to just walk away." And again, as I'm reading this book- Josh: You hadn't read the book at the time. Russell: I hadn't read it yet. Josh: Yeah, okay. Russell: As I'm reading this, it's like- Josh: Did you know anything about the- Russell: I did not know the premise, no. Josh: You knew nothing. Okay, okay, okay. Russell: I didn't know what Atlas Shrugged meant. I was just like, "Oh, it's Atlas ..." I didn't know ... And it was like, when I read this title, like, "What would you tell Atlas if this was happening? Just shrug." And I was like, "Oh, that's why they called it Atlas Shrugged." And then I remember vividly feeling the pressure of this calling and how heavy it is. Russell: And there's so many times I wish, like, "Okay, sometimes it'd be so nice to walk away or to shrug or whatever." And so I instantly, with Dagny's character, I was like ... I feel that with Hank Rearden. I had so much empathy and understood their characters because I feel that so many times. Hank Rearden just wanted to invent his steel and put it out. That's all he cared about, right? For me, funnels are my art. I can't draw, but funnels, that's my art and entrepreneurship. That's my art. And so I just want to do my art. That's it. He just wanted to create steel. And it's all these other things and it's just like, "I just want to do my steel. I just want to do my art. Why do I have to deal with all this other stuff?" Russell: And so as I'm reading this, I just had so much empathy for the characters because I felt like I was the characters, even though it was weird because it's railroads and stuff like that and I'm internet, but I think that's why I really got into it. And then I got just curious, what happens? How does this story end? Be I'm in the middle of it. And depending who's listening, you may or may not have felt some of these pressures. As you grow, you feel them. Russell: It's interesting. As ClickFunnels has grown, we've talked about the pressure that I feel today would've crushed me five years ago. Right? And so you have to go through this thing where you build capacity to handle the next set of pressure, and build capacity, and build capacity. And nowadays, stuff happens daily that's just like, "Man, that would've destroyed me five years ago." Russell: And so I think, if you guys haven't felt that, as you grow, as you continue to try to get your message out and try to grow your businesses, whatever, the bigger you get, the more that pressure comes. Josh: Do you think…with that ... And I want to continue that because it's such a good conversation, but with the pressure, the things that are happening now daily that would've wrecked you five years ago or three years ago, whatever it was, do you think it's good, though, that they would've? Is it good that, at the capacity that you understood, that you took those things seriously then or would it have been better for you to just be in this mindset? I know it's not possible, but looking back, if you could snap your fingers and back then would've had the mental capacity to just ignore all those things and go up, would that've been a good thing? Or the fact that you went through all those things, does that help? Russell: The going through it is what makes you worthy of the things, right? Josh: Being able to… Russell: It makes you ready for it. Otherwise, just like lifting weights, if you try to squat 800 pounds, that's what it feels like. Right? Your legs buckle and you die, but because you went through that thing, you're able to have the capacity to hold the weight. Josh: Okay. Russell: Yeah. So anyways, the thing for me that was the big thing is reading this. And so I was just fascinated because I was like, "This is kind of my story. How does it end?" Josh: How long did it take you to get through it? Russell: I'd say about two months. I got a lot of it done on the boat, and then I got into biking for a little while, so I was listening to it while I was biking. Josh: That's right, I remember that. Russell: I just kept biking and biking, like, "One more chapter, one more chapter." I'm in really good shape because of it. It's funny because one of the premises ... And they don't say greed is good, but there's a chapter, I think it's called Greed. And I remember, if you guys have ever seen Wall Street, Gordon Gekko talks about, "Greed is good," and I never understood that premise. Right? In the book, they start talking about that, how greed is what drives this whole thing. Is it called Greed? Josh: I'm trying to find it. Russell: Utopia of Greed, yeah. Josh: And then Anti-Greed. So Utopia of Greed and then Anti-Greed. Russell: So what's interesting is ... because all of us are taught that greed is bad, right? That's just, like, you shouldn't be greedy. That's, I think, a principle that's instilled in most of us, but then I think about, for me, when I started this business, why did I start this business? I wanted to make money. That's greed, right? And you think about any of us, we go through a phase in all of our lives that greed is the driving factor. Right? When I wanted to become a good wrestler, I wanted to become a good wrestler. It was greedy. I went and got coaches and spent all my time and it was a very selfish time in my life. Not that it's bad, but it's a very greedy time. Right? Kids, when they're first born ... I love my kids. They are so ... not in a bad way, but they're greedy. It's about them. Right? Josh: Right. Russell: And it's this growth phase where growth ... You have to be greedy. You're in the growth phase. Right? When you're trying to learn, you're sucking things and you're learning and you're not contributing it. You're just learning, you're growing. And it was interesting because, as I'm going through this, I'm like, the greed is what got me into business. Right? And it's what got these things started and then the byproduct of that is jobs were created and things ... All the byproduct of it is ... I think, in the book, how it justifies it, Hank Rearden going after ... he wanted to build his steel and make a bunch of money, created tens of thousands of jobs and changed the world and changes all these things. Russell: And so the premise of the book is that greed is this driving force that gets you moving. And it is. If you think about any aspect of your life, from sports to education, to business, to everything, it starts with greed. Now, we'll go deeper into this. I don't want everyone to think that I'm just into this for the greed, because there's a transition point. We'll talk about it in a minute, but there's a transition point from growth to contribution that happens, but that's in the book where it starts talking about that. Russell: And I remember I was on the greenbelt here in Boise, riding my bike with James P. Friel, listening to that chapter. And I was trying to think, "Is this true? Did I get started because of greed?" And it's like, yeah, I didn't start a business because I wanted to change the world. Eventually, that happened, but it wasn't like it was ... Greed was the driving force that moved me forward. I think it moves all of us forward such a long time. And as I was listening as I'm riding my bike, I'm like, "Yes, I understand this," and the other half of me was like ... I started thinking about my spiritual upbringing. Right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: I'm very Christian. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints and I started thinking about Christ and his teachings, which are, honestly, the opposite of that. Right? It's like- Josh: Really the polar opposite. Russell: Yeah. Josh: Which it's funny, whenever you say that, people are like, "You know, Jesus was a socialist." I hear that a lot. I'm like, "You need to read the Bible." Anyway, but I think a lot- Russell: But he definitely is way more liberal leaning, 100%. Josh: Right, right. And I think that that's where Republicans, conservative, traditionally on that side of the aisle, fiscally Republicans get into trouble is where we're like, "Yeah, we're Christians, but we also want to get rich," and they never talk about all this other ... People like to use Christianity, I feel like, when it's convenient. Russell: We call it cafeteria Christians. Josh: Right. Russell: They pick and choose the things off the menu they want. Josh: Right. And then they go through and do it. So I definitely want to dive further into that, but continue that. Russell: Yeah. So that started this question in my head, though, of just, so is greed bad then or is it good or where does it fit in the whole grand scheme of things? Because it is something that's instilled in all of us from birth. Right? When you're born, you're a baby, if you didn't have greed, you would just die. Right? It's me. I need food, I need love, I need shelter. It makes you cry, which creates people coming to you. Greed is a driving force that's instilled in humans from birth, right? When we come here, greed is what helps us survive the first part of our life. Russell: And first, I was having this conundrum. I'm just like, "God, is this book evil? I don't know what to do with myself." Right? But all good things in my life that happened happened initially because the seed of greed started me on motion, started me in momentum. And then I started thinking, if you've read the Expert Secrets book, which- Josh: If you haven't, come on. Russell: If you haven't, you must hate money. Come on. No, but in the beginning of Expert Secrets book, I talk about this concept, as well, where as an expert, there's two phases to go through. The first is a growth phase. Right? I want to be an expert in whatever. You go through and you're a consumer, consuming everything. And that's greed, right? And then there's this transition point where, eventually, you keep trying to grow, grow, grow, grow, trying to learn everything, going there. I'm listening to all the podcasts, I'm reading all the books, I'm growing, growing, growing. And eventually, there's this point. I remember feeling it in multiple parts of my life. In wrestling, I felt it. In business, I felt it where you can't continue ... The ability to grow through consumption slows to almost a halt where you can't continue to grow. Right? Russell: I've shared this story. I think I shared it in the book with wrestling. I was a really good wrestler. I was a high school state champ. I took second place in the nation. I was an All-American. And my senior year, I got invited to go to a wrestling camp. My coach was like, "Hey, do you want to come coach wrestling this summer?" And I was like, "Why would I do that? What's in it for me?" Josh: Before you go on here, I want to ask you something. So you're riding your bike, wrestling with this whole greed thing. Is this the first time that you've thought about greed in this way? Russell: 100%. Josh: And this is, what, six months ago? Russell: Not even that. Maybe four months ago. Josh: So you've built most of what ClickFunnels is today and now this is the first time you're really sitting down and wrestling with this idea of greed and is it bad, is it good, what's the balance there and stuff like that? Russell: Yeah. Josh: That's fascinating. Russell: Yeah. It never crossed my mind, really. And then it became this thing where it bothered me because I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. I don't want to be a greedy person." You know what I mean? Josh: Right. Russell: I'm like, "I don't feel like I am," but I was stuck. I couldn't figure that out. Right? And so I'll rewind to the wrestling story because I think it will set it up. Josh: Yep. Russell: But my senior year, again, I'd been growing as a wrestler. I was going to camps. I was getting coaching. I was greedy. I was sucking up everyone's brainpower I could and I became a really good wrestler because of it. And then my coach asked me to go coach a wrestling camp. So I say yes, go to the wrestling camp, and I remember he's like, "Okay, I need you to teach ..." My best move… I'm really good at tilts. So for all the wrestlers out there, I'm really good at cheap tilts. And he's like, "Teach these kids how to do a cheap tilt." Russell: And I was like, "Okay." So I walk out, there are like 30 kids. I'm like, "Yeah, you do this. You just do it like that." And they all look at me and they go try and they try to do a cheap tilt and they all just fall apart. I'm like, "Are you guys dumb? This is not that hard." I'm like, "Come back in, come back in. No, you did it all wrong. This is how you do it." I show them again, like, "Go do it." They go back out, nobody can do it. Russell: And then, all of a sudden, I'm like, "Gosh, they're missing something. What is it?" So I have them come back in and I start breaking down, "Hey, for the move to work, your hips have to be here, your legs have to be here." I start walking through all the things. And as I'm doing that, I start realizing, "Oh, the season why I'm able to do this is because of this," and I started realizing what I was doing as I was teaching people. And as I taught it to people, then the kids started doing it and they got better and better. And all of a sudden, I started realizing, "Oh, my gosh. This move works because of this." Russell: And now that I was aware of the situation, now I was able to make these tweaks and stuff on my own. And I realized that, but coaching the kids, that was the next-level growth. It was a shift from selfish greed growth to contribution. So that's why I started coaching camps every year and that's why I went from slowing down my progression to, all of a sudden, it sped back up again by shifting from growth to contribution. Okay? Russell: And so I think the same thing happens in business, right? I got in business because that seed of greed is in us. It gets us moving, gets us in the momentum. And some people never get out of that. Some people live their entire lives chasing greed and they die and it's a tragedy, but I think for most people, there's this transition point. And I don't know where it happens. It happens different spots for everyone where, all of a sudden, you realize ... you make the money, you started the business, and you realizing how unfulfilling that is. You're tapping out. You're like, "I'm not growing anymore. I thought I wanted money, but I don't. I want growth. That's what we're here on this planet for, is to grow as humans. Right? Russell: You don't get that and, all of a sudden, you realize money's not fulfilling and then you start seeing the other people you're contributing to and you're helping. Then it shifts to ... We hear people talk about, "This is about impact, about growth, it's about helping other people," and that's that transition. That's charity, love. That's pure love of Christ. It's that transition, but greed is the seed that gets us moving, right? And so there's this handoff. It doesn't happen all the time. And are you guys cool if I share scripture stuff? Because- Josh: 100%. Russell: -all this stuff is scriptural. It's not just- Josh: They don't get to decide, Russell. I get to decide. It's my podcast. You can talk about whatever. Russell: If you hate scripture, just close your ears and go, "Blah, blah, blah." So I wrote down some scripture. This is a scripture because it illustrates this point. I think it's so good. Josh: Also, I just want to say, Russell Voxed me and he said that this is the first episode of a podcast that he's ever prepared for. When you said that, I'm like, "Ha! I was the first for something for Russell. Let's go." Russell: I want to be ready. Okay. So this is a scripture. It says, "For the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam and will be forever and ever." I'm going to stop right there. Okay. So natural man is an enemy to God. Why is that? We're born. We have this greed inside of us, so the natural human is the enemy of God because we're chasing after greed. Right? But God gives us that seed because it creates momentum. It creates motion. It creates us doing something. Right? Russell: And then it says in here, it says, "For the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam, will be forever and ever," and then this is the transition point, "unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit." So he's greedy forever, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and puteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ, the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." Russell: So growth is the seed. It's the natural man. It's the thing we have that's ... It's good, right? God gives it to us because it gets us to do stuff, gets us to learn, gets us to not die in our crib because we need love and attention and to get fed. Right? So then it gets us off our butts, off the couches, us being producers that gets us moving. And if we're not careful, though, the natural man will destroy us. You see so many people who made tons of money and they destroyed themselves in their lives because they don't do that second thing, which is, "Unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit." Russell: That's the thing saying this is not about money, this is about the impact. Look at the people you're changing. And it shifts, right? If you make that shift, all of a sudden, now this thing you’re creating is not about greed, it's like, "Oh, my gosh ..." I remember, for ClickFunnels, when I had that transition was when I started seeing Brandon and Kaelin Poulin. I started seeing the ripple effect of their business. And I can name hundreds of people, person, after person, after person. Russell: I was like, "This isn't about money. This is about the ripple effect of what we've created in each person's life." Now, that's charity. That's love. Now the mission isn't about money. We don't care about the money. We keep score with money, but that's the mission, is the people's lives and the impact. And I think that's that transition where greed is the thing that gets us moving, but if we don't have that ... Russell: I think that's happened in the book. We talked about it. You said this at my house earlier, like, "A lot of people in the book seem like they have a miserable life." And it's like, yeah, because they never yielded to the spirit. They never made that shift. It was all greed to the point where they let everything collapse as opposed to the charity side of things. Josh: Yeah. So one of the things about the book ... And I'm sitting on the plane on the way over here and I'm like, "How do I articulate this?" Because that's always the hardest thing. You have this idea in your head and you're like, "How do I get it out and explain it in a way that somebody else can be like, 'Yes, I understand that?'" I'm going to go kind of political here for a second. I'm going to bring it back, too, specifically to the book. So I am pretty vocally a conservative. Right? I'm a blatant Trump supporter, very much so conservative when it comes to everything fiscal, but I call myself a libertarian because I actually think that I lean left on a lot of social issues. I think the government should stay out of gay marriage. Right? There's a lot of things that I lean left on, but when it comes to money and finances and things like that, I lean to the right. Josh: But the reason I lean to the right and I typically go with the right is because I like what the left is trying to do in concept. It's like, okay, there's a bunch of people that are really truly in need. I agree. We need to help them. The problem is is that the way they go about doing it, I so radically disagree with it. It's against everything that I stand for. Right? I'm like, it's not that I disagree with what you want to do, it's I disagree with how you want to do it. Josh: What's interesting is I feel like, in this book, I feel like it's the opposite. I actually don't agree with why they're doing it. This concept of ... I mean, Hank Rearden says it over and over again, "Everything that I do is for profit." That is it. Even to his friends. He took a bullet for John Galt, right? He gets shot. And John Galt thanks him for it. He goes, "You know I only did it because it's what I wanted to do, right?" Literally saves a guy's life. Josh: So it's all about what he wants and only for him and that's it. And it's profit and money and dollars. It's not about everything that he helps. And I'm like, I disagree with that premise, but what that leads to, I actually do like. And I feel like it's flipped compared to the world I'm living in now. Half the stuff that the Democrats ... I hate to… oh I want to go into politics so bad… Russell: Left and right. Josh: Yeah, the left. Guys, we're going to say left and right. Generalized here, right? Oh, my god, but generally speaking. And so when it comes to the whole greed issue, I'm like ... It's interesting to hear your perspective because I never, even throughout the book, I'm like, "Greed is a bad thing." And hearing your perspective, I'm like, okay, I understand what you're saying, but is it greed or is there some other driving ... If I were to ask you a year ago ... When were you in the heart of ClickFunnels, like a year and a half ago, two years? There was a time of your life when all you ... I know all you do is ClickFunnels, but when- Russell: It's the last six years of my life. Josh: But you know what I mean? Wasn't there a year or two period in there, in the growth phase, where 100% of everything you do was just ClickFunnels, ClickFunnels, ClickFunnels. It felt like you were going nonstop. It feels like you're a little bit more balanced now. Maybe not, but from the outside perspective looking in, it does. Anyway, during that time of growing ClickFunnels, before you read that, would you have described yourself as greedy? Russell: No. Josh: What would you have described yourself as? What's the word? Russell: I don't know. That's a good question. I was always trying to create stuff. It's art for me, right? So it's like I was trying to create stuff. I think, initially, I was creating for myself as opposed to, "Oh, my gosh. I create this for myself, but look what happens to the people." Josh: What point was that shift for you, though? Russell: You can see it in my marketing, by the way. And by the way, for those who are greedy capitalists who only care about money, it actually is a better marketing way, too. My marketing went from- Josh: For all you greedy capitalists out there, switch to being a contributor, you’ll make more money. Russell: Well, think about it. My marketing is always like, "Here's Russell. Here's how much money my funnel made. Here's how much ..." It was me talking about me all the time. And then I realized, "Who cares about me? I don't care about me. Let me show you what this person ... Let me show you all the results of the people we're serving, what's happening there," which first off, is better marketing and, second off, it's that transition where I was literally like, "Everything I've accomplished is stupid. What they're doing, that's the real ... What we're doing, that's the thing that's amazing." Right? That's the spiritual side of it. That's the thing where it's like, the thing that got you into motion now is doing good in the world. And when you start seeing that, it's like, oh, my gosh. That's so much more fulfilling and so much more exciting. Russell: And people ask me, "The last six years, why'd you keep getting up? Do you need more money?" I'm like, "No, that's not what keeps me up," but I can tell you 100 stories of people who ... literally the ripple effect of how many lives they've changed because I did my thing. Right? We made a documentary of the Two Comma Club and Jamie Cross has this whole part there where she's bawling her eyes out and she said, "Where would my family be if Russell wouldn't have fulfilled his God-given calling?" And every time I see that, I start bawling, myself. That's why, eventually, you start doing it. Right? Josh: But when did that shift happen? Russell: I don't know. It wasn't a day that it happened. The energy of it shifted. Right? I don't know. It gradually kind of happened. Josh: What's that? Dave: Tell them about your dad. Josh: Yeah. Russell: Dave, come on in. Dave's here. Dave, take the mic. Here. Dave: Yeah. No, honestly, I think… this has been one of those things. It's been fun for me to watch Russell from the sidelines here. I think, honestly, it was your dad's 60th birthday. Josh: Which was how long ago? Dave: I don't even know. Russell: Three, four years ago probably. Dave: But it was the reflection on that and it was the difference from having your hand raised versus ... because I remember you… Russell: Yeah, you want me to tell that story? Dave: Russell is a much better storyteller. I'll seed the thought, but I'll let him finish. Russell: All right. Josh: Oh, thank you Dave. Russell: Thank you. Interesting. Josh: Guys, we have a live audience here. Russell: So yeah, my dad turned 60 and we have our little family reunion every year we do. And so it was during his birthday. And I remember my mom gave him $60, six $10 bills. And so she gave them to him one at a time and said, "Okay, the first decade was one to 10. Tell us something you remember about that." He's like, "I don't remember anything back then." The second one, he's like, "10 to 20, that's when I was a wrestler. It was so much fun for me." And then, 20 to 30, he was like, "Okay, that's when I was starting my business, trying to figure things out and trying to get our family stable." 30 to 40, "That's when my kids were wrestling and I was coaching them." And then 50 to 60, he kind of went through everything. Russell: And then, after it was done, I asked him, I said, "Well, Dad, of all the decades, what one was the best for you?" Thinking, in my world, the best was going to be when he was a wrestler because I was like, for me, the greatest part of my life was when I was wrestling. And my dad said, "The greatest decade was when I got to coach you." I forgot that story until Dave said that, but I remember coming back and telling Dave and other people that I always thought the best part was being the all star. For my dad, the best part was coaching other people and seeing their hand raised. Josh: That was a good interjection there, Dave. Huh. Russell: …which was really cool.

Josh: Hey, Shirley.Shirley: Hey, Josh.Josh: So how was your weekend?Shirley: Hmm, quite busy this weekend.Josh: Really? Those are hard.Shirley: Yeah.Josh: So what did you do on Saturday?Shirley: Well, Saturday morning, I usually clean the house.Josh: Okay.Shirley: Yeah. It's kind of boring, but I have to clean the bathroom and then the kitchen, and then the lounge room because I have lots of cats. And the cats leave hair everywhere. So I always have to clean on Saturday mornings.Josh: Yes, cats are messy.Shirley: Yeah.Josh: So after you cleaned, what did you do?Shirley: Well, in the afternoon, I went for a walk up the mountain. It was a beautiful sunny day. There were no clouds in the sky.Josh: Wow.Shirley: It was gorgeous. So I walked up the mountain and I saw a ferret.Josh: A ferret?Shirley: Yeah.Josh: Wow.Shirley: They're a little furry animal, four legs, tail—not like a rabbit, but about the same size as a rabbit.Josh: Okay.Shirley: And they're kind of gold brown color.Josh: Wow, did you see any other animals on your walk?Shirley: No. I didn't see any other animals on the ground. But I did see a beautiful bird flying in the sky.Josh: Wow. Do you know what kind?Shirley: I think it was an ibis. It's a big bird that usually walks in the water. It has long legs and it was white with a blackhead.Josh: Great. So after your walk, did you do anything else?Shirley: I went home and then I watched some TV.Josh: Okay.Shirley: That was about it for my Saturday.Josh: Okay. What did you do on Sunday?Shirley: Sunday, I went to the art museum.Josh: Really?Shirley: Yeah.Josh: Great.Shirley: I really like to go and see new art; pictures or paintings or photographs or sometimes sculptures.Josh: Okay. So who's your favorite artist?Shirley: I don't really have a favorite artist but I really like watercolors, so pictures that are painted with just soft—a kind of soft painting style.Josh: Do you like paintings of nature?Shirley: I do like paintings of nature. I especially like paintings of flowers and animals and places that have water like lakes or rivers or the sea.Josh: Oh, that sounds like you had a great weekend.Shirley: Yeah, it was good. Thanks.Josh: Okay.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Shirley: So Josh, where do you come from?Josh: I come from Tacoma.Shirley: Tacoma.Josh: Yeah.Shirley: I've never heard of that. It's in America, right.Josh: Yes, it's in Washington State, really close to Seattle.Shirley: Oh, okay, Seattle. I've heard of that. Well, tell me about Tacoma.Josh: Well, Tacoma is smaller than Seattle but it has many great things to do too.Shirley: Okay. So give me some examples.Josh: Well, there's a great par right in the center and at that park, there's a botanical garden.Shirley: Wow. So a little bit like Melbourne, in Australia.Josh: Yeah, it is.Shirley: Okay. What about shopping?Josh: Shopping? There's really one place for the best shopping, and that's the Tacoma Mall.Shirley: Mall. Hmm, what's a mall?Josh: It's a big indoor shopping center.Shirley: Oh, it's all indoor.Josh: Yeah.Shirley: Wow that must be a really big building.Josh: It's huge.Shirley: Okay. What kind of shops do they have there?Josh: Everything. They have lots of clothing shops, and they also have two sports shops and they have a food courtwhere you can buy any kind of food you want.Shirley: Wow. Well, that sounds convenient.Josh: It is.Shirley: Okay. Well, how about traveling around the city. What's the public transport system like?Josh: Mostly, we travel by car. But there are buses too.Shirley: Okay. So not so much public transport.Josh: Not really. The buses stop early in the evening.Shirley: Okay. I see. What about sports because, you know, in Australia, we have lots of places to play sport. We really like our sport. So what about Tacoma? Are there many places to play sport?Josh: Mostly, we have parks that have baseball fields and tracks. And those are the best places. But as far as professional sports, you have to go to Seattle.Shirley: Oh, okay. What about tennis courts?Josh: Tennis courts, I think there's one. But it's really expensive.Shirley: Really?Josh: Really.Shirley: You know, in Australia, we have lots of tennis courts everywhere.Josh: That must nice. I love tennis.Shirley: Yeah. It's kind of fun. What about eating in Tacoma because it sounds like it's a little bit of a small town, so is there any good place to go and eat food?Josh: That's one strong point. There are lots of restaurants. The best restaurant is actually near my house, and it's a barbecue restaurant.Shirley: Okay, lucky for you.Josh: Yeah.Shirley: Tacoma sounds like a nice friendly place to live.Josh: It is.

We're all back together this week! We find out how old Josh REALLY is, we tackle the win against the Baltimore Ravens, highlight the upcoming matchup against the New England Patriots, Alex Gordon retires, and we round it out with America's Favorite Segment, Drop the Ball (The name of the show!). --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Finance Alternatives with Paul Boyd-Skinner Josh: Everyone out there in podcast land, we've got a great guest for you today. We've got Paul here from NoBNK, and he is a bit of a wizard when it comes to looking at a different way that you can do finance. This is especially critical in today's financial climate. So Paul, tell me a bit about what it is that you do with NoBNK. Learn more about finance alternatives at dorksdelivered.com.au Paul: So NoBNK is predominantly a non-bank business and commercial finance solutionist. I've been involved in nonbank lending for around about 16 years. So I've done all sorts of finance. I've done everything from home loans to commercial development, construction equipment, finance, factoring, all that sort of thing. And I'm proud to say that I've never ever put anybody in a loan with the bank.  Josh: High five! Paul: Look, you know, my adversity towards banks. Back in the 80s, back in the day when I got my first home, which was in late 1988, 89. You know we will be excited about getting our first home and interest rates at that time were around about 12% when we went and got our loan. The way it sort of worked back then was you go to the bank. And you're begged for a loan and they'd say, ‘Yes, yes, we'll give you a loan.’ And it was usually, you know, like about 70% or something that they give you, but they will do on a bit of a special, at the time for first home buyers where they give you 100% at interest only. We were living in a caravan when we first got married, so that was a pretty good option to get our own homes.  Josh: Absolutely! And upgrading it’s pretty low friction option, I guess. Paul: The only thing was the in-laws had to go as guarantors. So I now know that today is like a parental guarantor. Really wasn't heard of back then. So it was a little bit of a product for first home buyers. So we did that. We jumped in and we got the house and everything was going along nicely. And then we had to have the recession that we had to have. And our interest rates went from 12% to a 7%, 8.5% in the space of about six months. And just to give you an idea, the loan was $105,000. My repayment was $1,560 a month. Yep. And I was on $33,000 a year. So when you take tax out, 80% of my income was going towards paying my mortgage.  Josh: Yeah. Far out.  Paul: And it wasn't knocking 1 cent off it. Josh: Yeah. Just sitting there as interest only. And that is a scary spot to be in, because you're not sure if it's going to go up or down or left or right, or what it's going to do. Somersaults.  Paul: That happened with a lot of first home buyers over the years. Eventually, you know, it just got too heavy. I had to do up to 30 hours a week overtime to make ends meet, I was a fitter-machiner at the time,and you know, we ended up losing it. It's just the way it was. There were a lot of people losing their properties.  Josh: You weren't the anomaly. I don't think so. Paul: I sort of didn't understand what happened to me. I didn't like the banks at all when I worked it out. I've done a lot of study on the banks since then, or the banking system, and, you know, my thoughts on the global financial system is, I believe it's a world's biggest Ponzi scam. I've been open and honest about this for quite a long time, about how I feel about the banking system and I'm a bit like the disruptor.. I'm all about wanting to make the change so that it's a benefit for us, not so much just for them.  Josh: Yeah, well, I guess like I've done a bit of research into things such as the fractional reserve system and how that works. Paul: Does it work?  Josh: Well, how it works doesn't mean it works. No, you're exactly right. It's not a very good system, which is based on, now, nothing really. It's just based on numbers in a computer. It's not weighted against any real thing of intrinsic value. Paul: Well, have a think about that. So what a lot of people don't understand is that when you deposit money into a bank, you're actually lending them that money. It's a loan. You become an unsecured creditor, yet there is no security for that loan to that bank.  Josh: Yep.  Paul: It's a promise that they give you. We'll promise that we'll give you your money back.  Josh: After changing you bank fees or having it in there. Paul: Well, what a great deal for them, isn't it? They say, ‘Joshua, can you lend me your $100,000?’ Josh: Yeah, no problem at all.  Paul: Now would you want to say, ‘Oh, I need a contract with that?’  Josh: Well, normally you would. Yeah. You hope so. Paul: No. So what's going to happen, Joshua, on the bank is you're going to lend me $100,000. You're the bank, though. Not as a contract, but I do promise that I'll give you your money back and I'll dictate the terms. Right? So you might want 10% interest, but I'm happy to give you 1 ½. And you'll say, ‘Yep, I'm happy to do that.’  That's really what you've done when you put money in the bank, and just remember that one critical part. You're an unsecured creditor. Meaning that secure creditors, in the event of the bank collapse or whatever, secured credit is paid first and then unsecured credits. Josh: Yup. So in the situation where shit hits the fan hypothetically, we can all feel the recession, we can all hear it being spoken about, we can also feel some pressures around the place. If shit hits the fan and everyone starts frantically pulling money out of the bank, they've already planned for that, and that's what's been going through at the moment. Am I right?  Paul: Yeah, correct.  Josh: Tell me a bit about that for our listeners. Paul: Well, long story short is that there's three generations of savers, so you've got you've got your builders, you've got your boomers, and then you've got generation X, which is me. We've all been bought up as a generation of ‘get yourself a good job, save for retirement.’ It was all about saving money. Okay. The other thing too is that we had our children quite young, so you know, I've been married 31 years and I've got married to my wife she was 19, and I was 23. And, we had our children when she was 21. So we had our kids young, and if you think about my father, he was one of 17 children, so they had big families. So they were called boomers, you know. Josh: Huge families, but small houses.  Paul: Can you imagine having 17 children? And the house, there were three bedrooms, one bathroom, right?  Josh: One bathroom, 17 people. 17 children! 19 people. Paul: It's 28 years from youngest to oldest. You know what I mean? Like it's just a constant flow of, you know, at least seven, eight, nine people in a 3-bedroom house.  Josh: Should have bought a TV, so that there's something else to do.  Paul: Didn’t have TV back in the day, so what they did was they went out into the world and started the businesses and all that sort of thing and created quite a lot of wealth. And they stored that wealth in the bank because that's what they were told to do, you know? And they'll get great returns. So when I had those interest rates of 18% of my home, you would get 16% return on money that you had sitting in the bank and you know that's a fantastic return. But look what's happened over the years. You know, that was 30 years ago. Now we're down to zero negative rates in other countries. Japan has been at negative rates for 20 years.  Josh: How much money have they reprinted over there? Paul: Does anyone know why? Does anyone really know why? Or is it just like it's a bad economy and all this sort of stuff? So what makes the bad economy? When people stopped spending! If you're not buying things at the shop, then retail starts to drop off. I want to spend the money. So they're trying to force you to get your money out to spend. Banks don't make money out of people saving and make money out of people borrowing. So they don't want you having money sitting in the bank anymore. Their fractional reserve system, that doesn't matter anymore because they're reprinting money off loans. They make more money out of loans than they do early use saving. So the idea is to try to get that money out of the system and into risky investments or to just get you out there spending.  But when you have the majority of the world's population over 45 years old, that's when our spending curve drops right off. We're not out there buying. We're not down to supermarkets every week, three times a week, or whatever at the big shops. I'd be lucky to go to near Robina. I'd be lucky to go there once a month.  Josh: Yup. For those listeners that didn't hear you. You were saying the GFC is a light rain comparative to what could be happening. And I always say if it's been 30 years since a major recession and it doesn't hit right now, all that means is we're going to be getting a slightly bigger downfall before we're getting absolutely torrential rain in 7 or 11 years time from now. Would that be fair to say?  Paul: It could be any time. When you think about in Australia, we've had 28, 29 years without a recession. What has stopped that recession from happening? So back in the 90s when it happened, like 1990, 91, we had the recession we had to have, but they didn't do anything to try to stop it. You know, and as I said, the interest rates are at 18% so what they've done to stave it off every year, you know, because the next government that comes in needs to be leaving it in a good place. They don't want to be the government that caused the recession. Right.  Josh: The inevitable recession. Paul: The inevitable recession. And when you look at what the US in particular, they've had about seven or eight in that amount of time. Australia have had none. So every time that you look at the interest rate table and you look at different things that's happened, like the 9/11, the GFC, they've dropped rates 3% to 6% in order to stave off that recession. Probably the other recession that we had to have. And now we're getting down to zero. We will be at zero. We're 100% going to zero. Where do they go? Where do they go if we had some major problem, like a GFC or whatever again or a reset? How do they fix that? Josh: I don't know. How do they reset that? They can’t.  Paul: They can't! There was a paper written 18 months ago by the IMF, and in that paper, they said that they are working on models to make -4% to -5% feasible. Josh: All right. Paul: So try to get your head around that.  Josh: I get paid to have a house. Is that right?  Paul: That's already happening overseas.  Josh: I have read up about that. So that would mean that the more debt you've got. Go and buy a house now, ladies and gentlemen.  Paul: Why would they want to do that? Why would they want to get down to -4% to -5%? Josh: Well, I always say if they're getting down to those numbers, it's going to mean that people are going to be more wanting to get loans and get things like that.  Paul: I think it's about getting rid of cash because if they could get rid of cash and move it into a digital world, get rid of the physical cash, then they've got complete control. Josh: Well, see, the problem that I, and this is something that's come about over the last 10, 12 years. When cryptocurrency started coming around, if you're comparing apples with apples, and I'm not going to say that they're both exactly the same, obviously. But when you have a digital currency being compared to a digital currency, which is, if they're getting rid of all paper and all money becomes more frictionless to be able to move from the AUD to a Bitcoin or any of the other cryptocurrencies that are out there without it being is in the power of the banks or anyone else. How do you think they are going to overcome?  Paul: Well, I believe cryptocurrency is a red herring. I believe that it's just been set up for you to play with while they build their real money system. And there's a little bit of a showing of that last week. So in this IMF paper, what they actually said is that they would introduce e-money. They call it e-money. And basically what that means is that that item there is $100. They say, ‘Joshua, you know, that's $100 if you pay cash or $95 if you use e-money.’ And you go, ‘Well, I'll use e-money.’ So that's how they destroy cash. So they make it worth less than what it is. That's how they get rid of it.  There's a bank in Sweden, and the currency in Sweden is krona. The central bank in Sweden has announced the e-krona and they're in the second phase of testing e-krona. Josh: The timing of it's great.  Paul: And of course, it runs on blockchain because blockchain is a great technology. But yeah, it's a decentralized system? I don't believe so. I think it'll be a very centralised system, but it'll definitely be electronic or digital.  Josh: Yeah. Okay. So I guess the recession at this stage, you're saying, is inevitable. It's going to happen. Got a beautiful way to at least have people that are struggling a little bit in their business, whether that be because they need to have more finances bought into it. Or maybe you've got people on the other side of the coin that have liquid assets or liquid cash where they want to be able to use that and invest into something that's going to be giving them a bit of a better return without having to put it into the big nasty banks. How do you go about? How does NoBNK work?  Paul: So the way that NoBNK came around is that many years ago, I looked at many of the managed funds and different places like that where they would collapse. There were quite a few here on the Gold Coast where a lot of those managed funds collapsed and the person who lost that was the investor every single time.  And it's only because the managed funds, number one, they think like a bank. And number two, they take their fees and everything out first. I'm not saying that all managed funds are like this. I'm just saying that when you get that real control freak at the helm, that's when there's a problem. So I designed a system where there is no control freak. So it's all about putting the control, the choices, the security back in the hands of the investor. And the number one thing is the trust. You know, because I think that we put a lot of trust in these organisations, in the corporate side, the banks and a lot of these managed funds. That's what we were told. You know, this is what you do. And I think they’ve broken our trust. I think they've broken our trust big time. You know?  The way that NoBNK is set up is that we make our number one product service. You know, everybody wants service. Well, the banking model can't give you service. It's impossible because of the way that their pecking order is designed. So their pecking order is profits first, shareholders second, then clients, then employees, that's the pecking order. They can't give you service. They don't make money out of service.  We're not about that. We're about, if we create that service for you, where you're having a great experience and you feel that you've got the trust and you will have to trust because what I say to people is, who's the one person that you trust more than anybody else in the world? To make the right finance decision for you. It's yourself, right? You trust yourself more than anybody else. So why are we giving that away? Why are we giving that trust away to the banks? So what we've done with this platform is that we're going to make you the bank.  Josh: Okay.  Paul: If I want to borrow money from you, why do I have to go to a bank to do that? You put your money in the bank and then I go and borrow the money from the bank. That's your money that's in the bank. That's not theirs. So why not just borrow directly from you? So the platform is set up where we facilitate accurate information between somebody who wants to borrow money and someone who wants to lend it. So the terms are all worked out, and if the borrower is happy to go, and the lender is happy to go, we just put those two together. That's all we do. And they've paid monthly returns in events on their investment. I don't know how many other investments you get paid monthly in advance, and it's direct in the security goes into the investor's name. Josh: Okay. So let's say I'm new to the idea and I'm going, ‘Okay. Yeah. Stuff the banks. They've stuffed me over too many times.’ Without saying the bank that I'm with, I can see the interest rates that I could be getting just changing to another bank, I could be saving $11,000 a year in mortgage repayments, and I had to look and I thought, ‘Ah, it's too hard.’ How hard is it? Or how would I go about moving a lot like a house?  Paul: The area that we're not going after at the moment is the consumer market. It's very regulated. There are a lot of rules around that market. We'll get to that. We'll get to that market. But the area that we want to look after, first of all, is the business and commercial arena. I think that if you look after the business side of things first and the business owner, they're gonna have to worry about their day-to-day things rather than worrying about when the next dollars, you know, how they're gonna pay their bills, if the bank's going to foreclose on them and the house is tied to that loan and all that sort of stuff.  So we look at things a lot more commercially and it won't always need to be property initially. There’s a lot of lending that happens out there that a lot of people don't know about, where you might have some text it or you need to, you want to jump on an opportunity pretty quickly and all this sort of stuff. So they use private, short-term lending and that short-term lending could be a loan that's anything from 3 months to 3 years. It’s not a 30-year loan and all that sort of stuff, and it's just about jumping onto an opportunity or it could be getting out of trouble. You know, ‘We're in a bit of trouble over here. We need to pay back the bank and get some cash flow into our business as well so that we can stay afloat.’ So really, we're more targeting that area there at first, which is perfect. Yeah. Well, I think it's an area that's very under-serviced.  And the other area that we're targeting, and this, as I said before, is those people all around the world, those high net worth investors all around the world that's got money sitting in the bank and it's getting them no return or very low returns. We want you to be able to negotiate the term between what sort of return you want. So really you get to choose the return you want. And the client gets to choose whether to accept it or not.  The way this platform is designed is that as an investor, we don't touch your money. So we never touch your money. We're not a managed fund. It's not a pooled investment. It's not a, you know, sort of property trust. It's not a contributory fund, none of that sort of stuff.  It's just one loan, one investor, one loan, one investor, one loan, one investor. So someone wants to borrow $1 million, the investor's gonna put up the whole $1 million, and we're just going to put those two directly. Josh: So it sounds like obviously it's a lot of advantages for both parties in regards to the returns that they're going to be getting, as well as the rates that they're going to be paying because you're cutting out the bank in the middle. What would be some of the, I guess, risks? Or does it take the same amount of time to process through if you wanted to get an equipment finance loan for $50,000 for a new digital printer or something like that. Paul: The process is quick, it all happens within 24 to 48 hours. You'll know how many people So as a borrower, you'll know how many people are interested in doing your loan and you'll get offered the lowest interest rate that they offer.  Josh: Is this a global thing or is this just Australia?  Paul: This will be a global thing. Initially, it's Australia, but we do want to take it globally because the problems that started in the world, the reason why I've talked a lot about Japan is because the reason why they've already experienced all this, what we're going through, is they’re the oldest population in the world, you know? So it all adds up to me. Their ages crossed over and over that 45-year mark, they're average age crossed over 15 or 20 years ago. So it comes in a lot sooner than what it has to us.  Josh: And their workforce is diminishing because of that. Paul: That's exactly right. And the wages aren't going up. All the problems that we're starting to have here in Australia, you know, property prices are going through the roof, but wages aren't going up. So the next step is how does somebody that's on 60 grand a year buy a million dollar property in Sydney? Well, I'll have to have a 70-year mortgage just like they have in Japan. You can see it. You're watching the pattern globally. It's happening all through Europe. You know, there are 30 countries in the Eurozone now that are on zero and negative rates and the lowest is -0.75.  Josh: All right. That's nuts. It's nuts when you think about it, and as you were saying, like it was only 30 years ago, we had the last recession, and so for Japan to be at the position...  Paul: 20% 30 years ago. Now the -0.5.  Josh: And that all comes down to the workforce and the economy, and that's where we're, as you said, we're heading towards the potential issue here.  If someone wants to jump in and jump onto NoBNK or hear any more information, how do they go about sort of doing that? Paul: The good thing about us is we can look after you no matter where you are in Australia and then as I said, that eventually, New Zealand will be pretty quick, but then we'll be going into places like the UK and America and things like that as well. This is something that can go global and that's the whole idea is that we're about like, you know, if you're going to disrupt your models and make it worthwhile.  Josh: Absolutely. If you’re going to kick the big in the head you may as well do it globally.  Paul: They had their place and as I said, we're not going to manage, we're not going to take your money and just go and do a hope and pray thing like many do. Your money stays in the bank under your control, so nothing changes, right? The only thing that changes is you get the opportunity to be able to have a crack at one of these deals and become the bank.  And your worst case scenario is you're sitting there with a security in your name and you're getting a return. Whereas what's your security in the bank? There isn't any, but if you don't win the deal, because it's going to be like an auction type system where you make a bid on what sort of return you want, then nothing's changed in your life. You still get your money sitting in the bank, you know? No one's touching it. No one's taking any fees off you or any of that sort of thing.  We're all about mitigating risks. We've got to mitigate the risk for the borrower, the lender, and for ourselves. So it's about everybody having this happy equilibrium, you know? That's how we're going to structure this thing.  We've got a whole website there. It’s NoBNK.com.au. And the reason why we got B N K is because ASIC won't let us use the word ‘bank’. It's a swear word. So we call ourselves NoBNK and we advertise as NoBNK does that, which has a double meaning. NoBNK does that. Josh: Perfect. As an investor and a borrower, what's the starting and ending amounts you can go for.  Paul: Because we're starting with the property component of it first of all, the minimum line would probably be around the $50,000 mark. This is why we're up to sophisticated investors. So this is some for your institutional versus, or you know, like your mum and dad's and things like that. You must be a high net worth. You know, I know people out there, they have tens of millions just sitting in the bank.  Josh: Yep.  Paul: Globally. So you might have somebody, you might have a deal here in Australia. There might be somebody in Japan that makes a bid on the deal and all of a sudden they're getting a return of 4%, 5%, 6%, 7%, whatever it is, whatever that agreed return is, where they're getting nothing over there, but they've actually got to pay to put their money in the bank over there. So it's a really good outcome because, you know, we just let the market set itself dynamically. There is no ‘ring Paul up and say, “Mate, what interest rate can I get?”’ There's none of that anymore. It's just like, well, it's whatever anyone's prepared to bid and whatever you're prepared to pay. Josh: Yep. So it's win-win. Paul: And look, there's rules for the investors. I've got a pretty good record. We're doing this sort of thing.  Josh: You've been doing it for more than 10 years?  Paul: Yeah, about 10, about 12 years now. I've been doing these sorts of loans for some high net worth. And in that amount of time, we've had no foreclosures and the investors haven’t lost money in the capital. And it's just about managing it.  Josh: That's a good run.  Paul: Yeah. It's just about managing. You don't smash people when they're down. You help them. You don't have to be all hard about it. You know, you're a day late or two days late with your payment. It's about managing it. Nobody gets hurt. You know what I mean?  Josh: So how do you guys come into it? Do they just clip the ticket on the way through?  Paul: You have a gross line amount. You have a net loan amount. You got to add that first month's interest. There's lawyers involved, there's all sorts of things, which for the investors, it's great for them. It's their lawyer. So it's a lawyer of their choice. And you know, usually there's brokers involved in all the research, so there's nothing under the table. So there's no hidden fees and charges and all that sort of stuff. In our letter of offer, it's like, say for example, you want half a million dollars and it might cost $520,000 you know, like when you add everything up. So you say, okay, so your gross loan amount is 520, that's what it is. You'll see all the costs that are involved, all the rest of it, and you get the choice to say, ‘Yeah. I'm happy with that.’ ‘Well, no, thank you.’  Josh: Fair enough. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. I think there's going to be a big help for a lot of people that are feeling a bit of pressure, whether that'd be as an investor or they're looking potentially down the barrel of a gun for a business. They might not be going as well as it was. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Paul: There's lots of businesses out there that need lots of help in different ways. It's not just about, you know, finance and properties and all that sort of stuff. It's just about knowing that there are people out there that, you know, we'll have a chat about it first. I mean, whether you've been rejected by a bank, don't want to go to their bank or can't go to a bank, that's why we're here. So pretty well covers everybody. When you do those things, we tell them, you don't go to the bank, come to NoBNK.  Josh: I guess back in the day, there was like no-doc loans and things like this. This is from a business owner's perspective. Paul: It's a very, very simple process. So you know, the information that we asked from you is not onerous. It's really quite simple. It's a very quick application process. This platform that we've built that we'll be releasing in the next couple of weeks, it'll be automated. It's just a quick, you know, fill in the application process type of thing and you'll get SMS and emails and all that sort of stuff, and then so will the investors and they'll be able to start bidding on your deals straight away.  Josh: Sweet.  Paul: It's a little bit of a game changer, come to the market.  Josh: Absolutely. Yeah.  Paul: That's what it's about, isn't it? It's about changing things up and seeing if we can do it better and make a change, you know, a different change for the better for once rather than just doing the same as everybody else.  Josh: Really enjoyed talking to you and is there anything else you'd like to add before we jump off? Paul: No, mate, I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. I'd like to wish everybody out there that, you know, there is hope. It costs you nothing to apply with us or to have a chat with us or anything like that. So, you know, your people wanting to, you know, they're welcome to have a chat anytime they like. Josh: Cool. Only advantages and as I said, a very welcome time for me to be talking to you about this sort of stuff for a lot of people out there.  Paul: Appreciate it, mate. Thank you very much.  Josh: If you have any questions and bits and pieces, we'll put a link down to NoBNK as well as Paul's details. If you've enjoyed this episode, jump across to iTunes, leave us a review, give us some love and stay good. 

Emotional eating can be a real challenge in finding balance. Sometimes there is a sense of helplessness to it. In today’s podcast, Josh Hillis shares his emotional eating coaching strategy to help our listeners find new ways to cope with stress that doesn’t always revolve around food. What you’ll hear in this episode: How effective are cravings control strategies when you have emotional eating issues? Is the answer to emotional eating more control? The emotional release effect when you emotionally eat after tight control The role of acceptance in emotional eating Normalizing the existence of uncomfortable emotions. Diffusing uncomfortable emotions - what does that mean? Gaining perspective around the perceived urgency of feelings The role of mindfulness in managing negative emotions Defining emotional or disinhibited eating Learning to let the monsters ride the bus Being in the driver's seat of how you deal with feelings Introducing a waiting period to delay emotional eating The value of taking time to identify feelings Ways to scale and create distance between you and your feelings Three ways to feel comfortable with your feelings without using food Managing expectations of emotional eating - moving past all or nothing Psychological flexibility as a goal, defined. Identifying and being aware of your “monsters” Thought suppression and the health and wellness industry sales tactics Frequency and emotional eating Rules vs Self-Loving Guidelines Tracking progress - things you can track   Resources: Josh’s Blog Fat Loss Happens On Monday Everything You Know About Emotional Eating is Wrong - blog post Annie quotes Mothers, Daughters and Body Image - Hillary McBride’s book Getting Older: Hillary Mcbride On Women And Aging Episode 13: How Your Body Image Impacts Your Children With Hillary Mcbride Learn more about Balance365 Life here Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Android so you never miss a new episode! Visit us on Facebook| Follow us on Instagram| Check us out on Pinterest Join our free Facebook group with over 40k women just like you! Did you enjoy the podcast? Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Google Play! It helps us get in front of new listeners so we can keep making great content. Transcript Annie: Welcome to Balance365 Life Radio, a podcast that delivers honest conversations about food, fitness, weight, and wellness. I'm your host Annie Brees along with Jennifer Campbell and Lauren Koski. We are personal trainers, nutritionists and founders of Balance365. Together we have coached thousands of women each day and are on a mission to help them feel healthy, happy, and confident in their bodies on their own terms. Join us here every week as we discuss hot topics pertaining to our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing with amazing guests. Enjoy. Annie: Welcome to Balance365 Life Radio. I am so excited for today's guest because today's incredibly smart and talented guest goes way back with Balance365, so far back in fact that he knew Lauren, Jen and I before we were even a business. Josh Hillis has been a longtime friend and mentor to the three of us and I'm so excited for you to hear his wisdom on today's episode. Josh helps people beat emotional eating using a skill-based not diet-based approach that allows people to create a new relationship with their bodies and food and get results that have previously never been possible. Josh is the author of Fat Loss Happens on Monday and the upcoming lean and strong and yet untitled emotional eating book coming out in 2020. Josh has been writing for his blog losestubbornfat.com since 2004 and he currently attends MSU Denver and is doing his thesis on contextual behavioral science and emotional eating. He's the perfect guest for this topic. The current standard answer to emotional eating and the health and fitness industry encourages individuals to just have more control, more control over their diet, over their thoughts, over their emotions, more control over your cravings. But on today's episode, Josh shares why that advice usually doesn't work. For those who struggle with emotional eating and provides multiple practical tools to help you overcome it, I think you're going to love it and joy. Annie: Josh, welcome to Balance365 Life Radio. We're so happy to have you. You go way back with our team like way, way back. How are you? Josh: I'm good. How are you guys? It's so cool to see you guys again. Annie: I know, like, we're still, like, we're still together. The last time we were Facetiming was under a little bit different context. We were Healthy Habits Happy Moms then and we were, you've kind of helped us mentor us as far as like habits and skills and philosophies and you're just a really great coach. Just flat out really great. Josh: Thank you. From you guys, that's awesome. Annie: So we're so happy to have you and Jen and Lauren are here too. How are you guys? Jen: Hi- Lauren: Good. Josh goes way back to like before we were even a thing. Jen: We met Josh the same time we met each other. Lauren: Yeah. Josh: Wow. Jen: Years ago. Annie: Yeah. Josh: Oh Wow. That's awesome. That's amazing. Annie: So you're kind of a big deal to us, are we making you uncomfortable yet? Josh: That's awesome. Jen: When our book comes out we're going to have a page for acknowledgements and I was just telling the girls last week, like Josh Hillis is going to be my number one acknowledgement. Josh: Are you serious? Jen: Yeah, just like all your work and your blog, like it's been so insanely helpful to me. And even just watching you in conversation with people, like, as creepy as that sounds, but just how you handle people, how it's just and you're just so objective and, and really what we try to embody at Balance365 as far as there's no right one right way for every single person and just being open to tools and helping people build a, just a more varied toolbox and they currently have for their health and wellness. Jen: And also the other big thing that we come up against is that, because we're all about self acceptance and embracing oneself, we also often get lumped into a segment of this industry that we all know about, which is basically the anti weight loss movement, which is like weight loss is so bad. Why? Like nobody better talk about this. And a lot of dietitians are on that train as well as psychologists. And so it's just, it's like frightening for me at times. And I found myself questioning, you know, cause you go to the, you see these other professionals and you're like, "Oh man, like, she makes a good point, like what's?" And you've question your own values and what, but ultimately we have risen as like, look, we're just, we're just trying to take a messy middle approach. And there is really nothing inherently wrong with weight loss, changing your behaviors. Jen: And I so appreciate that and you, because I see you as a real leader and professional, not just in the health and wellness industry. Well the health and fitness industry I should say, but you are now a part of the psychology industry. Lauren: Say, "Hey, this is okay. Come on" Annie: And you're not a jerk. Like you're not, like you're not out there shaming people and you're like still able to like help them achieve the goals that they have in a really like compassionate, positive way, which is awesome. Jen: Yeah. And you've got a couple of clients I was reading yesterday on your page that you have a couple of clients that have lost over a hundred pounds. That's like, that's a, that's a life changing, values altering like those clients, like you've totally changed their lives. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Annie: So now are you uncomfortable? Josh: No, this is like the coolest, most thoughtful, most wonderful compliments I could ever get because you guys are acknowledging me for the things that I've worked the hardest at and that mean the most to me, like in the world. So I totally appreciate it. I totally, totally, totally appreciate it. Annie: Yay. Well, we're like, we can just be your ultimate hype women when you're having a bad day. You can give us a call. Okay. Josh: Can you guys introduce me on every podcast? Annie: We can. But peaking of podcasts, we should probably talk about the topic that I, that you actually wanted to talk about because we've been trying to get you on the show for a while and you're a busy guy. So, when I said, are there any topics that you wanted to jam on and you were like emotional eating, like top on your list. So what is it about emotional eating that you love so much? Josh: I think, so a couple of different things, on like the bigger, like zoomed out level, I think it's access to making the kind of difference that I want to make with people. If they can get, what's really neat is if someone really struggles with emotional eating and they can get that under control it tends to spiral out into other areas of their lives and they have like better relationships and do better at work. I mean like it's, it's really like I don't coach any of that stuff and that kind of thing shows up. The other thing that I like about it is I think it's a place where people feel so out of control and they feel like they can't be this kind of person that they want to be and like they're like, they're being driven by this other thing. And so I like it cause I want to put them back in the driver's seat. and then also the framework that I study, which is contextual behavioral science is just really good for that. And so that's- Annie: I think it's great because I, you have, you have an incredible blog. One of the blog posts you shared with me, you noted that the typical response in the fitness industry to emotional eating is like control, like just control more things and then like, you'll be fine. And,in order to control emotional eating, individuals just they need to control their diet, then control their thoughts, their emotions, their cravings, and you think that that's pretty much crap. Josh: Yeah. Annie: So tell us why, why do you think it's crap? Tell us more. I mean, we agree. Josh: Yeah. So, one thing I just want to preface this with, because it's the most surprising cause I do think it's totally crap and I've gone that way for a while, but I was really surprised this year that I found some studies where they separated out people that had a high degree of emotional eating and cravings, eating and external eating, which is like, you see food and you want it versus people that scored really low on that. And for the people that scored really low on that control was actually fine. Control actually totally worked just just fine. But that's not the clients that I get, you know, they don't hear me. So, the flip side is that control, if you do have issues with cravings or emotional eating, tired eating or and you're procrastinating or any of those things, then control will have an opposite effect. If it works, it always rebounds and the rebound is always, pretty un-fun. Like people really feel like a really, really bad loss of loss of control and they feel kind of gross and they don't feel good about themselves. Jen: So it's sort of that the more tightly wound you are, the faster, harder you'll spin out. And applied to eating, I think people get that release, like they're so tightly wound around food trying to control everything then getting out of control, they just, I mean in the moment it's like a release, right? Josh: Yeah. So you bring up these two really big points. Oh man, it's so cool. So on one hand you've got this like rule based way of living and the problem with having a totally rule based way of living is you break the rule and you're like, I'm off. I'm like explode. Like do it all because this is the last time ever. So, there's that huge like explosion release thing there. And then the other side is that, like, food really does work temporarily for numbing emotions. So, those two things kind of spiral together where people, like, break the rule and they're like, "Oh no, I'm, I'm off my diet and I'm going to go into all the things." And then they start to feel guilty about it. And then they actually are eating to numb the guilty feelings they have about breaking the rules. It's like- Jen: layer one and layer two. Lauren: Wow. The plot thickens. Josh: Totally. Annie: So I understand if you have emotional eating issues or cravings control strategies backfire, like they aren't helpful. What does work? Josh: Great question. So, it kind of all fits in the world of like acceptance based strategies and I get, I like, I have some clients to kind of freak out when I say, like, "acceptance", you know, cause they're like, "I don't want to accept." But that's just kind of like a family of strategies. And what kind of falls inside of that is, the first thing is actually normalizing. It's just recognizing every single time that you have uncomfortable thoughts and uncomfortable emotions, that it's normal to have uncomfortable thoughts, uncomfortable emotions and, like, the foundation is people, like, believe that that's not okay. You know, cause they've heard so much about, like, positive thinking or controlling their thoughts or all of these things or they were, maybe it wasn't cool growing up for them to have emotions or whatever. Josh: But for whatever reason, they think they're supposed to be a shiny, happy person. And just recognizing it's normal to feel sad sometimes. And the number of coaching calls I get on where something really bad happens to someone and I have to say like, "It's okay. It's okay to feel to feel bad. It's okay to feel sad. It's okay. It's okay to have all these feelings." So recognize that it's okay and normal and healthy. Sometimes we can even pair with, well, that's jumping to the next thing. So the next thing is getting a little bit of distance from uncomfortable thoughts and emotions, in act and acceptance commitment training they call it diffusion or fusion. So if you're fused with your thoughts, you feel like they're coming from you, you feel like they're true or true or false, and you feel like there are a command, you feel like there like something that like urgently needs to be fixed. Josh: Diffusion is getting enough enough distance from your thoughts. You can see that like these thoughts might have come from my parents or the media or magazines or whatever. But like, my automatic thoughts aren't me. Right. They aren't true or not true. They're just thoughts. They aren't an urgent problem that needs to be fixed, right? It's normal to have these thoughts and feeling and so diffusion is a matter of, if people have done any kind of like meditation or mindfulness and like, noticing your thoughts and like not so that's where people get caught up. A lot of people have done, I've tried to meditate or do mindfulness in such a way that they were trying to change their thoughts and not have thoughts. So, it's not that, but it's like being able to notice like, "Oh, here are these thoughts and these emotions." Josh: And it could be as simple as saying, "I notice I'm having the thought that blank" versus just treating the thought like it's true. Or probably a little later we'll get to, there's a metaphor for all this called, let the monsters ride the bus and it will kind of pull this together, but, basically get it, get enough distance from those thoughts that you can be with them and that they're not driving and then the third thing is you've got to drive. Like you're the bus driver, but like you can have these thoughts and still take actions that fit your values in your life. And then the last thing is that requires having actually, like, clarified your values. Jen: Right? Right. Annie: This is like my therapy. This is what I discuss with my therapist. Josh: Do you have an acts therapist? Annie: I don't know. But there's, it does feel very similar into that, like just acknowledging like, these are my thoughts. These are my emotions. What is this? Where did this come from? I don't have to act on them. I can just acknowledge them and, and then sitting with them, not like trying to numb them, not trying to run away from them or like avoid them. Yeah. Lauren: I've realized recently that my, I'm very prone to, what did you say? Fusion? Josh: Yeah. Lauren: Where I'm like, this is my thought and I have to fix it right now. Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jen: We know that about you. Annie: We could've told you that, Lauren. Jen: She's doing that thing again. Lauren: Well, I recently found this about myself. Jen: This is like my inner Spock. Like when my inner Spock is like, "Halt." You know what I mean? When we have to, "Let's analyze this." Yeah. Annie: So, okay, so Josh, what does this, what does this look like? So people have stress, they have an emotion. They have like, I mean, it could be emotional eating, it can be a wide continuum of emotions. It could be happy. It could be- Jen: We didn't define emotional eating either at the beginning. Annie: Yeah. Do you have a definition, Josh, that you, or a way to define emotional eating? Josh: So most of what I'm looking at is disinhibited eating. So that's, like, a feeling of loss of control with food related to strong emotions, good or bad? Good, good or bad. Wanted or unwanted would probably be more accurate, external, like, seeing things and cravings and so it'd be eating in response to any of those things. With my clients I also lump in, to me it's all the same thing. I also lump in procrastination eating, tiredness eating. Those are the other two. Yeah. Annie: Tiredness eating being that you eat when you're tired. Josh: Yeah. Annie: That's me. Annie: I do that I think. Yeah. Okay, so you experience these emotions, any of them. And then you have a behavior around food. Is that- Josh: Yeah. Annie: Any behavior or it could be a wider range of behaviors? Josh: Oh, it's typically like feeling some degree of loss of control. Like you're not, you don't feel like you're choosing to eat the Brownie, like, I woke up and there was brownies everywhere. Jen: It would be different than happy eating cause we had someone in Balance365. I feel like her emotional eating was out of control. She ate when she was sad, but she also ate when she was happy. But it's more of a loss of control aspect to it. Not a, "Oh, I'm so happy. Let's grab a cake. Celebrate." It's right. Josh: Yeah. It's not, "Let's have a bottle of wine at on date night." It's not, "It's my grandma's hundredth birthday. I'm going to have a chocolate cake." It's not that at all. Should I get into stuff like what, what we do about it? Annie: Yeah. Go for it. Jen: If you want to. Josh: So the simplest thing to do is to put in a waiting period. Right. Could be waiting. 10 minutes, could be waiting a minute. Does it matter? All we're trying to do is they've got this really, really ingrained pattern of have an emotion, eat and if we can separate that, we're good. So that means, like, if I've got clients with pretty legit emotional eating problems, we'll start off with, they have an emotion. They wait 10 minutes, they eat the thing anyway, almost every time. That's fine. We can totally start there. Jen: Progress being the waiting period. Josh: Yeah. Yeah. So, the progress is it's not automatic, they might have to like struggle with it for that 10 minutes or they might have to think about it for that 10 minutes, but at some point, but they've got enough time, they get to choose in that case where they're having it all the time, they don't, they don't have a lot of choice. But it's at least we're breaking that pattern where it's automatic, where they might not even know what they're feeling. They might not even know what they're thinking. Which is actually really common, which is really, which is why, another really, so things you can put in that 10 minutes, you can put it in like looking at a feelings wheel and being able to just like pick out this is what I'm feeling, which actually creates some diffusion that creates some separation. And there's something really magical about people being able to figure out like going from, "I feel bad" to "Oh, I'm sad. I'm sad because this the, you know, my boss yelled at me and that sucks." Right? Maybe it's normal to feel sad when my boss yells at me or whatever. Jen: I do this with my kids like they, but Brene Brown talks about how she has some research that shows, she's done research on college age students and they can only, they only identify three emotions and that's like- Josh: Really? which ones? Jen: Happy, mad and sad. And so she talks about how, you know, in order to be in touch with our emotions, we need to be able to identify emotions and we just aren't taught how to identify. I do this with my kids and we, like, talk about all these different range of emotions outside of mad, sad and happy because you can feel so many different things. But it's so interesting for you to talk about this because I also see so much child psychology stuff that actually applies to two grown ass adults as well. Like we need, you know what I mean, because we weren't taught in childhood. So it, yeah. So it needs to be brought in. Josh: All of the emotion regulation stuff for kids I use with adults. It's awesome. Annie: There's Josh Hillis' coaching secret. Kid psychology. Jen: Go grab your feelings wheel. Annie: Where are you on the spectrum? Jen: Next time Lauren has a meltdown I'm going to say "Go grab your feelings wheel." Annie: All of our slack community, our corporate communication is now going to be, "I feel because" statements, so Josh, you, so you create some distance, you identify some feelings or what your feelings, you get really clear on what that is and then you can eat the thing if you want to still, right? Josh: Yeah. And so they're sort of like these, like, kind of guideline-y things, like waiting 10 minutes. Another like guideline-y thing that I'll start off with, like, either don't do it, do whatever you want. If someone is eating the thing every time then we'll add in like a 50% guideline where 50% of the time they'll eat the thing and 50% of the time they'll find something else. And again, that's just sort of like some training wheels to have to like think about it and choose and be like, you know what, I ate the thing three days in a row. Maybe today I should try going for a walk. Jen: Right, right. Annie: And the point is to really just disrupt the autopilot, right? Josh: Yeah, yeah. Jen: Yes. Right. And also sounds like scaling a little bit. Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jen: Rather than, again, what we see big, big, big problem is people try to go from zero to 60 and it never works. It never works. And Lauren had a really good idea for bridging the emotional eating gap. She said if eating a piece of cake is your coping mechanism, try pair it with a bath, go eat your cake in the bath, and then eventually your association can be more, can become about the bath and then remove the cake and then have it be about the bath, right? It's about scaling that towards a healthier coping mechanism. Josh: That's awesome. Jen: Yes. Go Lauren. Annie: Are there, Josh, do you have any other ways to create distance or to even just feel comfortable feeling your feelings without food? Josh: Yeah. So there's always going to be three different things that you can do, three different effective things. One is you can create distance and just sit with it. Like, just accept this is normal. Right? And a lot of times that's really cool. If you're in a situation where you can't do something else, right, Like maybe you're at work and you've got to keep working, and so what you do is you notice those feelings and you come back to being present with your work or your family or whatever's going on around you. Like, you actually get present with that. The other thing would be to have a menu of different self care things that you can do. And so you notice you have those feelings and then you take a walk or do some deep breathing or take a bath or read a book or whatever. At this point I think I've got a list of like 70 different things in like 15 categories. Jen: I want to just say one thing for the moms who listen and the dads, when I find myself emotionally eating, my kids are often a trigger and alternative forms of self care are not available to me. Right? Like I can't go take, I can't check out of parenting and go take a bath or even go meditate or whatever. And so sometimes I'm just freaking eat a bowl of chips. One thing I would say is that I've scaled it from diving headfirst into a bag of chips to like getting out a little bowl and putting some chips in there and then just eating them and going, "Yeah." So I would say like, I mean my emotional eating skills are not, but they have greatly improved over the years. Josh: Well look at that. So there's a couple of great things about what you just said, right. Number one, parenting is a great context for, like, being able to just, like, accept it and be there. Also, you, you did look at, like, separating out the chips and, like, having a certain amount versus just, like, grabbing from the bag, which works for all kinds of treats all across the board. And then the third thing that that brings up is, it's actually, and this is another thing that's such an important thing. It's normal to eat to chill out your emotions sometimes. Jen: I totally agree. I don't think the goal is like 0% emotional eating. It's like, really, how often are you doing it and how, what is the loss of control there, right? Rather than- Josh: Yeah. Jen: Like emotional eating isn't all bad and it's like, really? Is it? Josh: Yeah. Jen: A couple of chips when my kids are losing it? Is that so bad. Annie: Is it problematic for you? Josh: Oh, and it's one those things where like, like the goal is psychological flexibility. So psychological flexibility is the ability to make different choices. Right. It's just an ability to make different choices. Jen: Right. Right. Josh: Like, never emotionally eating is rigid. Jen: Totally. Josh: Always having to, like, where most of my clients had is they've got like a rule, they don't, they don't say it as a rule, but like they've got a rule that if they have emotions they eat, totally rigid. Jen: Right. Josh: If we can get in the middle we're rocking. Jen: Totally. Yes. Annie: That sounds so familiar, Jen. Jen: The messy middle, yes. That's where we like to hang. Josh: I loved that so much. That is like the best phrase in the world. Jen: Brene Brown, I've brought her up a few times now. You can see I really like her. Josh: I like her too. Annie: But- Jen: Yeah, she talks about being in the messy middle, but when you're in the messy middle you get arrows from both sides, which we have also experienced as well. Being in the messy middle between hardcore health and fitness and hardcore body positive anti weight loss. Hanging out in the middle is can be quite lonely and you can get arrows from both sides. But- Josh: I get that. Annie: Okay. So say you're finding yourself, like, face deep in, like, cake or chips or whatever it is and you're, like, you have this, like, moment of, like, "Whoa, what am I doing?" Josh: Yeah. Annie: Like you're like in this middle, like an emotional eating extravaganza. Josh: Yeah. Annie: What do you do? Do the same thing, like, create some distance still or are there different rules? Josh: Oh no, that's, you nailed it already. It's the exact same rules. So, you notice you're in the middle, you separate yourself from it geographically. You give yourself some time to think about it. You do some sort of diffusion exercise. Whether that's, well, where I talked about, like, a feelings wheel, but also I've got some clients that will journal, they'll write out everything that they're feeling and just writing it out gives them a lot of distance. The biggest thing my clients use actually a metaphor called "let the monsters ride the bus" so we might as well dive into that now. So, it's a really, really common act metaphor and the metaphor is, you're a driving a bus and sometimes you get really cool passengers that get on the bus and they're like, "hey, you're great and we love you and high five!" Like that. Josh: And they get on and off when they want. And sometimes they get monsters, they get on the bus, they're like, "Hey, you're ugly and stupid and you always do it wrong" and they get on and off when they want. And your job as the bus driver is to drive the bus and you could always make a left turn towards, like, numbing and controlling, or you can make a right turn towards your valued actions. And what this allows people to do is allows people to realize like, "Hey, I've got these monsters that will get on, will ride along with me and I can still take a right turn towards my values. Even with the monsters on the bus. Like, my job isn't to get rid of the monsters. It's not to not have monsters. It's to let the monsters ride the bus." Josh: And my clients have identified, they almost always have identified, like, what their most common monsters are. And my clients get to a point where they have identified the monsters that they have in the middle of emotional eating. I've got a lot of clients that have a monster that's like, "One more will be fine, one more will be fine, one more will be fine." Or they might have a monster that's like, "You've already ruined it. Might as well go for broke. Let's start again Monday." And so when they have those feelings, again, they don't treat them as true. They don't treat them as, like, them. They're like, "Oh, there's that monster again. And that guy can ride along the bus. And I know that when I'm in, when I catch myself in the middle, my monsters are super loud." Annie: Are you familiar with Pema Chodron's work? She's a Buddhist nun. Josh: No. Annie: This is feels very similar because you have in that blog post, and I think, I think I pulled this quote from your blog posts it said, "The irony is that when people accept cravings as being normal" or I'm assuming these uncomfortable emotions, "they have an increased capacity to tolerate cravings" and that's just very similar to her work. That's like you actually, by just acknowledging the feelings and emotions you suffer less, like, and that's, like, instead of trying to avoid it or like do all these things like this contortionists, like, "I'm going to avoid it in any way possible. I'm going to do all these things so I don't have to feel the thing that I'm trying to avoid feeling." If you just like feel it and like acknowledge it, like, "I see you, monster, you're on the bus, I hear you, but I'm not going to listen or I'm not, you know, whatever." Josh: Yeah. Annie: It's like you can still take action as you notice, what did you, how did you say, that aligns with your values? Josh: Yeah. Annie: Yeah. Even though you hear them, even though they're on the bus- Josh: You nail. Yeah. Yes. The same. And that's a really, really, really big. So, here's the paradox there. You're 1000% right. The paradox is that when you allow the monsters to be there, it is a lot less painful and it's a lot less intense. The paradox is that you don't want to approach it as, "I'm going to allow the monsters" to like force it to be less intense because then it doesn't work. And so that's not actually doing it. But what you're talking about, which is really cool, it's really, really cool, is that there's two kinds of pain. There is normal human pain, which is like the feelings and an uncomfortable thoughts that we all have. And then there's like the added pain that comes from trying to, like, control and fore and not, you know, and so, you do get to avoid all of the added pain and you're not the first person to be, like, you know, there's this Buddhist that kind of sounds a lot like these acceptance and commitment training people. Annie: Well I think it's, I think it's, I don't know if it's just the universe, like, I've been doing kind of this emotional work to like make these messages become really clear to me. But it seems like I've been trying to, and I've talked about this on other podcasts, outsource feeling good or feeling great all the time. Like you said, like we get this message that like, "Maybe I shouldn't be feeling these things" or like "Everyone else feels great all the time and they never have bad days" or "They never have self-doubt" or they never have body image issues. And it's like, "That's actually just not the case. Like, just acknowledging that like you get to feel all the things and you still live, we're going to be okay," like that. It's like, that feels really powerful to me. But I like that you say like, I love that analogy of let the monsters ride the bus. I could see that becoming a big phrase in our community. Can't you Jen? Jen: Yeah, I was already picturing it as a hashtag soon. Josh: That's awesome. Jen: The other thing is I think when I was hearing you say, Josh, is because we have this other guests, she's been on twice now. Her name is Hillary McBride. We have to, we're going to call her Doctor Hillary McBride soon cause she's almost done her Phd and she is also psychologist and she works in body image and she has a book called Mothers, Daughters and Body Image. And so she has sort of encouraged the same process as far as thoughts about your body, like kind of stepping outside of it. But, and then I think her version of monsters on the bus is to acknowledge the monsters on the bus. But to say, is this really true? Just that simple question, is this really true? And I just sort of have this vision of being a driver on a bus hearing all the monsters in the back, but being able to say, "Is that true? Like, do I have to do that? Am I, you know, am I helpless to this? Is that true?" And you know, the answer is often, like, "No, it's not actually true." And then you can kind of just, yeah. Keep doing what you were doing. Josh: Yeah. Jen: Yeah. Josh: Just to, like, it's, like, notice. Jen: Yeah, just notice. Yeah. Josh: Like it's, it doesn't, yeah. Cause we, it is so normal for us to treat it like it's true. Like it's, like, it's so true. Jen: Right. It feels true. Right? Josh: That's awesome. Annie: Okay. So Josh, we discussed, being aware, creating distance, normalizing the experiencing of different emotions. Is there anything else that comes to mind when I'm addressing emotional eating? And again, I do want to recap that this is like as you, as you said at the beginning, that those are tools that work for people that have emotional eating issues. If you don't have emotional eating issues then, like- Josh: You probably don't have to- Annie: Then it doesn't apply. Or what was the difference that you said? That thought control or thought suppression would work for people that,- Josh: yeah. So, here's where it gets really funny. Cause I got really spun whenever the research that thought suppression worked for cravings and emotional eating for people that don't have cravings and emotional eating issues. And but, like, at first I was like, "thought suppression is always bad. Like how does that work?" And so I actually talked to my friend, Amy Evans, who's this brilliant behavioral analyst and she's like, "Well, of course not because the function is different, right? So if the function of that controllers is trying to like push away these uncomfortable emotions and cravings, then it's like an avoidance strategy. But if you don't have issues with those, then it's actually kind of like, maybe it's just like conscientiousness, right? Like it's a totally different thing." And I'm like, "Oh!" So it's good to have genius friends. Jen: Right? So can you give us an example in context? So person A doesn't have ongoing emotional eating issues, so we're talking about, but then something, a craving pops up or, or they're feeling emotional and they're feeling some kind of urge to eat if they don't struggle with ongoing emotional eating issues, then suppression works. Josh: Apparently. Yeah. I mean I don't coach that, but in the, in the research, yeah. Jen: So what would suppression look like for them? Josh: Yes. So, I'm guessing if they didn't score very highly than it's just a simple guideline that they're just like, "Oh, I don't, I don't eat between meals." I don't eat from the, you know, which is, which is totally fine. Jen: Right? Yeah. We call these self-loving guidelines in Balance365. They're not rules. They're flexible guidelines that keep you in a place of self care kind of thing. Josh: Yeah. So like- Annie: Oh, sorry, go ahead, Josh. Josh: I was just going to say if someone doesn't score really high on cravings and they have a little craving, it's pretty easy for them to go like, "Oh, I'm not going to do that." Jen: Right. Josh: "If someone scores really high on cravings- Jen: Then it's a bigger deal to say, "No, I'm not doing that." Yeah. Okay. Annie: I think it's important to note though, as you noted, as we noted in the beginning of the podcast is that that can work for some people, but right now the majority of the health and fitness industry are selling thought suppression. Josh: Yeah. Annie: To everyone. Like, that is, like, the widely accepted common answer versus, "Hey, like, maybe this is normal." Jen: They're also selling emotional eating at any point as as unacceptable. And so, you know, a person who is has an emotional eating episode one day, that's, you know, we're trying to say in this podcast that that's not wrong. And really, if you don't struggle with emotional eating, whether you do or don't engage in emotional eating is not a make or break for anyone's life. Right. It's not, whether you choose the chips or don't, it's just not really an issue. Like it's really a small, tiny little rock that really, you know what I mean? Like we're talking about, there's people that have real loss of control that going on, you know, sometimes daily for them around emotional eating. So, and it comes down to the frequency. How often are you engaging in these behaviors and ultimately what does that end up? What does that look like for you? After three months, 12 months, three years, 20 years, right? Josh: Frequency's everything. Jen: Right. Annie: Josh, you're so much fun to have on our podcast. Do you have more? Josh: Can I throw one other thing out there? The other thing that, the biggest misconception that I've gotten when I've talked to people about this and I've got it so much that I want to make sure not to miss it. This is still a behavioral approach, right? Like they're like, "Oh, you're like deal with your thoughts and like that" but you still, like, you still have to clarify your values and attach behaviors to that. But it's like, so self love guidelines was that? Jen: Self loving guidelines. Josh: Self loving guidelines, or like kind of like more, more intuitive skills or like, all these different things. The whole point of all this is to be able to do those things more frequently. Jen: Right? Josh: Right. So, all of my clients, I shouldn't say all of my clients. The majority of my clients track behaviors, right? So they track how often they have like a mostly balanced meal or how often they have vegetables or how often they, you know, snacked between meals or how often they noticed their hunger before they ate or how, you know, like how often they were full and stopped and like, they track actual behaviors and things that we can count the real world. Monsters on the bus is another thing that they track and count how often they use it. They also track if they didn't need it, like, "Oh, I didn't need it today," but- Jen: Oh interesting. Josh: If they're like, "Oh, I didn't need it and I used it" or "I didn't need it and I didn't use it." Those would be different things and it seems really weird maybe to use like a metaphor as a behavior to track, but it works really well. Jen: So ultimately you're tracking, the behavior change that you have people track is not necessarily emotional eating episodes, but how they dealt with those, whether they dealt with it in a manner that is more healthy than bingeing. Josh: Yeah. Jen: Right. Okay. Josh: Yeah. And so that could look really differently for a lot of different people, but it's like how often did you use this metaphor? How often would you use a diffusion technique? How often did you use your menu of things you can do? Jen: Right, right, right. Annie: Great. So, so you're putting behaviors with it. That's great. Josh: That's what grounds it in the real world. Annie: Yeah. Josh: Otherwise it goes way. Jen: Josh had a thread on his page, several months ago where you said, "sometimes I think" as far as your weight loss clients, you said "If we changed nothing at all except working on stress reduction methods, people would lose weight without changing anything at all." And then I had mentioned or just sleep, like, just a sleep habit, which is, you know, kind of goes hand in hand with stress- Josh: So good. Jen: Isn't it? So it just sort of like, yeah. So imagine if people just, so what we find is people hyperfocus on food, like they just are hyper focused on it and if you zoom out and you get back, if you just laid your foundations for say stress reduction, better sleep hygiene, anything you identify that helps your wellness wheel go, the food just doesn't matter. People will kind of eat until they're satisfied. Do you know what I mean? Like it's often these, the overeating tendencies we have are often a result of these high stress, sleep deprived, poor coping mechanism, lifestyles that we're living, the rest of the overeating issue. You don't have to be so hyper focused on the food or crank the wheel to the right and jump on the Keto wagon or cause you're really never getting to the underlying issues of why you're overeating in the first place. Right? Josh: Yeah. With my most successful clients, all these things we're doing show up as self care. Jen: Right. Totally. Josh: And it's like, and then the people that struggle are the ones that keep trying to do it as punishment. Jen: The food, the food. Yeah, totally. Josh: And the thing about sleep is no one makes phenomenally great food decisions when they're exhausted. Jen: Nobody. That's right. Yeah. Josh: I will throw out there in case there's any people that work like swing shifts or anything like that out there. For a while I had a ton of clients that were nurses that worked overnight and so for them, a lot of it was just acceptance of every time their schedule shifted they were going to be like unusually hungry. And so that is workable. But for everyone else, if we can just turn off screens like an hour earlier, like, man, this all gets easier. Jen: Totally. We just interviewed a sleep doctor before we interviewed you. Josh: Oh really? Annie: Yeah. He said the same thing. Jen: Same thing. Our podcast is the best. Josh: Your podcast is the best. This was so much fun. Annie: Are you always this energetic? I mean, every time, I've talked to you twice in five years, like you always have such great energy about you- Jen: And smiling. You're always smiling. Josh: You're super great. It's fun hanging out with you guys. Annie: You are welcome back here anytime. Josh: Also, this is, like, my favorite stuff to talk about. Annie: So yeah, you are, you're welcome back here. Anytime. Anything, any projects you're working on that you want to tell us about or where can we, where can our listeners find you or keep up with your work? Jen: You're working on a million books. Josh: I am working on a million books, so, losestomachfat.com is still my blog. I still do celebrity workout stuff and emotionally eating research, which is now a weird combination. I've got two books coming out. Lean Is Strong is coming out at the end of this year. And then the untitled emotional eating book is coming out next year. And that's my big stuff right now. It's top secret. Annie: Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Alright, well thank you so much, Josh. Josh: Thank you. Annie: We will talk soon, hopefully. Josh: Okay, cool. Thanks guys. Annie: Thanks. This episode is brought to you by the Balance365 program. If you're ready to say goodbye to quick fixes and false promises and yes to building healthy habits and a life you're 100% in love with, then checkout Balance365.co to learn more.

Tiffany and Josh take a nice trip back to school to discuss the week of September 6th 2003. Josh REALLY hates Adam Levine. Follow us on the social garbage Twitter/Instagram @WreckCollectPod Adam Levine being the worst - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYYYDmM0zBs Nyhm - M.A.G.E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov07yLusCKs

PC Perspective Podcast #404 - 06/16/2016 Join us this week as we discuss the new Crucial MX300 SSD, news on upcoming Xbox hardware changes, GTX 1080 shortages and more! You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE. The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends! iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store (audio only) Video version on iTunes Google Play - Subscribe to our audio podcast directly through Google Play! RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader (audio only) Video version RSS feed MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file This episode of the PC Perspective Podcast is sponsored by Lenovo! Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Allyn Malventano, Jeremy Hellstrom, and Josh Walrath Program length: 1:48:30 Join our spam list to get notified when we go live! We’re on Patreon! Week in Review: 0:06:27 Corsair VOID Surround 7.1 Channel Gaming Headset Review 0:11:00 SilverStone Strider Titanium Series 600W PSU Review 0:16:50 Crucial MX300 750GB 2.5" SATA SSD Review - 3D NAND on a Budget 0:32:20 ARM Introduces Egil Video Processor: 4K 120 Hz the Top! News items of interest: 0:39:00 Xbox E3 Hardware Discussion 0:49:50 GeForce GTX 1080 Shortages? 1:02:35 ASUS Plans a 27-Inch, 144Hz, 4K, IPS Gaming Monitor 1:07:17 Lenovo's PHAB2 Family Features Project Tango-Powered PHAB2 Pro 1:15:10 Leaked Intel Roadmap Details Upcoming Optane XPoint SSDs and Storage Accelerators 1:25:00 AMD "Sneak Peek" at RX Series (RX 480, RX 470, RX 460) 1:31:30 A sneak peek at two RX 470 benchmarks Hardware/Software Picks of the Week Ryan: Trackr Jeremy: This guy is horrible, I like him Allyn: Safely Remove USB devices (or figure out what’s stopping them) Josh: Really nice mobo with great features http://pcper.com/podcast http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper Closing/outro Subscribe to the PC Perspective YouTube Channel for more videos, reviews and podcasts!!