LIVE Interview With Russell Brunson // Andy Elliott

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Hey guys, welcome to the One Center Podcast. Andy Elliott, Jacqueline Elliot, Jacqueline Elliot, Jacqueline, the cartel leader. Elliot, that's right. And we got the man, the myth, the legend, Russell Brunson, right here.

Okay guys, so number one, really, Russell Brunson? It's me. I'm real. Yeah, it's really Russell Brunson. And guys, listen, so number one, the last uh, four or five years since I started my entrepreneur journey, his course, The Broker Blueprint, 2019, with him, Dean, and Tony Robbins. First course I ever bought, spent three grand. And here we are, a few years later, nine-figure business. I, I want, I want everybody to know this. All right, self-development changed my life. It is the secret. Right? It's not about what you, uh, try to achieve, it's about who you become that determines what you achieve. And I think there's a lot of people that want to win that are watching this. I promise you today, I'll bring more value, Russell will bring more value, and Jack will bring more value to you than we brought on any YouTube video since I've ever posted.

I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to tell you why. Number one, because I had a talk with Russell this morning. He flew out from Boise, Idaho, which is where he, he lives. Left his wife, left his kids to come out here. Um, he's met our team. We worked out this morning. He's been out to dinner at our house last night. Got quite, he wrestled my team today, right? We wrestle, literally wrestle, like they're all in their singlets out there on the asphalt. Yeah, you, you'll see. We, we had a killer day. Um, but the coolest thing is, is that I want to go to a conversation I had with him in the gym, right? And, um, we were talking about self-development. He's like, "Hey man, I want to create, uh, a self-development museum for, uh, I don't know if you call it like Prime Leaders, Prime Movers." Prime movers? Yeah, Prime movers. People that are going to move this next generation, that are going to really truly lead people. And the only way you can do that is to lead yourself. The first law in leadership, self-leadership. And then you can lead others, right? Yeah.

And so I want to talk about self-development. How does anyone, right now, right, um, go if they're not who they want to become? If they don't have the results that they want? If they don't have the lifestyle that they want to live, but they know they're capable of more? Where, where, where do you begin? Yeah. Where did you start? Yeah. And I began, um, with my wife. She said, "Hey, buy the course." And I was scared. It was $3,000. Yeah. Um, I had no idea what said on the other side. Matter of fact, I'll even say another thing, and because I want to make sure I get this out there to relate with anyone. On my 29th day, I'd watched the course 10 times. I'd learned a lot. I was a new person. I asked Jacqueline if I could get my money back because that's how limited my thinking was. 30-day money-back guarantee on the 29th day, ready to cancel. That's crazy.

No, but I want to tell you why. Because this is important. Because a lot of people, they see like, "Oh, these guys got these big businesses, they're killers, they're doing badass stuff." And they don't understand that we were all once not that person, right? Right. Like, like I just need everybody to know that who you become determines the information, the experiences, of the people that you're with. And, and the information, really, and the people. And I learned from you guys all this stuff. But, but I had this scarcity mindset that there wasn't, like, maybe I needed this back. Like I, and by the way, if you don't give, you're never going to get. Yeah. I think the secret to life is giving. If you, right now, don't feel fulfilled, go give something to somebody. You'll feel amazing.

I was going to take back what you guys had given me. My wife, she said something really good. This is why you got to have a good running mate. You got to have a good partner. That we're all together, we're family, we're brothers, we're going to grow. She said, "Is that what you want? Is that how you want your customers to treat you? Your future customers when you build your business?" So she's like, "If you're not willing to invest in yourself, then no one's willing to invest in you. And if you're going to invest when these people, and then when they, when they give their word and do a good job, you're going to go take back the money." She goes, "That's the karma. It's a reality that you're going to have for the rest of your life." Sure. You don't attract who you want, you attract who you are. So if you are the person who refunds, you're the person who cancels, like that's exactly the client you attract. It's crazy. D. Exactly. She made me break that weakness. And I, I obviously didn't cancel it because I do whatever she says. You know, best decision of my life. That was a pivotal day. That could have ruined my whole life. And because I stuck through it, and I had the abundance mindset, and I knew it was going to pay off, self-development changed my life.

So what I want to talk to you about today, obviously, uh, you built ClickFunnels. Everybody in the world knows ClickFunnels. If you don't know who Russell Brunson is right now, um, it's just Russell Brunson on Instagram, right? I mean, he's got a million-plus followers, but he's built a massive company, okay, that's taken over the world. It's called ClickFunnels. If anybody's going to start their own business, you're going to sell a product in any way, shape, or form, you're going to use his product, ClickFunnels, because it is the best.

Hey guys, what's going on? It's Andy. A lot of you leave comments, tell me that you need help. Do me a favor. I'm going to tell you the best way to get a hold of me. Shoot me a text message right now. 918-212-5491. 918-212-5491. I'll help you with whatever you need. I got your back for life. Let's get back to the video.

Um, but I want to talk about, like, your self-development journey because, you know, you're a wrestler. You wrestled. I heard you downstairs talking about the day that you had your hand raised in a match, the way that it felt to win. Everybody hates losing. And there's a lot of people right now that are winning and kicking ass, and there's a lot of people right now that want to and kick ass and they don't know what to do. So I want to talk about our self-development journey, right? Maybe talk a little bit about mine. Jacqueline can talk a little about hers. But I want to talk about yours because you, you really intrigued me with being, like you said, "I'm a collector of books." Like, I try to get my hands on everything. You started, and you started talking about, like, Earl Nightingale and a lot of these guys back from the old days and getting their manuscripts and they wrote their books. And I'm like, "Dude, whoa." No, but I was like, "Dude, like, you're a real student of the game." Yeah. Like, you're a real student. And so talk to everybody, talk to me, my wife, talk to, you know, our audience about, like, about your journey and self-development and ways that you've been able to educate yourself to build such a great life.

Yeah, I think for me, it started initially in growing up in sports because that's like the first time I'd done something. Prior to me being a wrestler, I was just a kid who'd go to school, come home, watch TV, you know, that was all I would do. And then my dad got me involved in wrestling. And it was the first time that, like, I had something, something to, to do and to be excited by. And I, I remember, um, very first time, uh, I was in, I was in ninth grade and I made the JV team. And I remember going to weigh-ins. And I get in the weigh-ins and, uh, I jump on the scale, I make my weight. Next kid gets on the scale, the kid I'm going to be wrestling. And the guy comes out, he's got a mustache. And I still to this day cannot grow a mustache. Like, I have no facial hair. And I remember sitting there, I'm a ninth-grade kid. I'm like, "This is a grown man with a mustache. He's going to destroy me." And he weighs in. And I remember getting there and going up, you know, uh, my wrestler was in the basement over high school, and then the mats were up in the, in the gym. So we, the match, and we go out there, we shake hands, we start wrestling. And I'm going out there and we're flirting this huge thing. And I, I don't remember what happened. I remember we got done, we stand up, and I don't know if I won or if I lost. And the ref raised my hand. And I looked up and, you know, it was JV, so like three people in the stands. My dad was one of them. He's jumping around. And I was like, "This is the greatest feeling I've ever felt in my life. Like, I want this as often as possible." And then I became obsessed. And so that was the first time I ever had something that was like, "All right, this is, there was like, Russell before that moment, and Russell after that." That was the transition point. And I just became obsessed. And so, and back then, I didn't know about personal growth, or I didn't know, like, you could go study or read things. But I had really good coaches around me who, who instilled a lot of those elements. And then, um, later, when I got into, into business, the first thing I leveraged, like my wrestling career, like what I learned, the skill sets in wrestling, into business. And those things started helping. And then, um, and then what, what were some of those things?

Just a couple. I think the biggest one for me is, uh, and it's, I, I coach a lot of entrepreneurs right now. And the biggest thing I see with entrepreneurs is like, um, especially those who never competed in anything in their life, like they have so much fear that, that if they fail, they're going to become a failure, that they don't try. So they sit in this, like, learning loop, or they're learning and they're reading books and watching podcasts, they don't do the thing because they're so scared. And for me, it was like, in wrestling, like, I lost all the time. Like, we'd watch, you know, my junior year, I remember the very first match of the season, I was like telling everybody, "I'm gonna be a state champ. It's gonna be amazing." First match of the season, I go out there against the kid who is a returning state finalist. He beats me in front of everybody. I remember going to school the next day, like, "I thought you were going to be a state champion. You lost to this kid." And I was just like, it was really hard for me. But my dad, luckily, my dad, um, he filmed the match and he started like watching like what I did and what I was out of position, what the other kid was doing. And so every single morning, I wake up, my dad would get me on the carpet. You know, I didn't want to be there. Like, "Okay, we're gonna drill the move, drill this move, drill the move." And after practice, we'd done practice, I'd see my dad coming in the wrestling room, like, "Oh man, we're gonna drill it again." And drill that for four months. And four months later, I end up meeting that kid in the state finals and I end up beating him. And I, and I learned it was like, "Okay, if I fail, I'm not a failure. Failure is like the most data-rich source we have. It's like, it shows us everything. And then we can go out there and we can do things." So for me, when I started creating businesses, I create something, put it out there, and I, I didn't know if it was going to work or not, but I put it out as quick as I could. And then I would just watch and see what happened. And I see the failures come back and say, "Oh, let's tweak that. Let's change that." And so, like, that's one of the hardest things, though, to instill in people that have never done that. Um, they're so afraid of like losing their dream, they just, they just dream out and don't ever do anything. And so for me, that was like one of the biggest aspects I brought into, into entrepreneurship, business for me, was was really understanding that.

Yeah, that'll save a lot of people's lives. Yeah. Or make a lot of people make a move when they've been overthinking it. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's like, worst case. And the thing is, especially online, like you put out something and it fails, like no one really knows. I've had people like, "Oh, I saw that offer that was amazing." And I'm like, "Yeah, you, like, and they're," or they told me, "I bought that offer." I'm like, "Oh, you're one of like three people." I didn't tell them that, but they have no idea. Like, it didn't work. Like, it completely bombed. No one else knows other than you. It's just like, it's just testing things all the time. Jud. Yeah. You judge yourself more than anybody. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. So, yeah, I think sports taught you to lose, you know? And then even like Jackie, she comes from a failed entrepreneur family. So like, her dad failing a lot in front of her face, you know, like made her just be a risk-taker. Yeah. Was afraid of failure because I could just fail and nothing happens. Like, you just start over. Yeah. I, I came from a dad that, that worked the same job for 30 years. So my goal was to like, get a job and don't ever lose it. Yeah. Right? Her job was like, "Dude, if this don't work, we start." Exactly. So we're the opposite. So we have to break. Well, some people right now, they need to break the way they were programmed. Generational curses.

Do you think that you would have been where you are today without your dad like, really pushing you to recognize failure and getting better through it? Or I don't think so. That was a big cue. Like, my, the instinct for all as humans is not to go in, like, into look at things and, you know, look at your failures and figure things out. He was the one that was just always kept doing that. And like, again, my junior, that's what happened. I remember when I beat the kid in the finals, I was like, "Such a like," I remember driving home, I was like, "This is crazy. I could do anything I want. I just got to try something, fail. I fail, and then just fix it, and then do it again, and do it again." And, um, and that, that was the, that was the key for me, you know?

It was interesting. So, so getting out of sports, you go through college, wrestle. Yeah. Getting out, starting your own business as young, like, how did you, like, tell us, talk to us, how you studied and learned and what made you, like, attracted to that business? Like, did you, did somebody else teach you that? Or how, how did you come across? So what happened? I told you guys, my wife's, uh, five years older, five and a half years older than me. And so we got married. She was working, supporting me. I was still wrestling. And I always had this, like, "I want to be the man. I want to support her." But she was supporting me, which I'm grateful for. But, um, but I was going to school full-time, I was wrestling full-time. So I had to figure out some way to make money. So I did what most people do, which went to Google and "how to make money." You know, start searching. And there's tons of, anyway, for like a year, I was just trying all sorts of things that didn't work. And then eventually, um, uh, I found some people who, who were doing really cool things. They were, they were making these little, these little niche products and they were selling them. And so, uh, at the time, my buddy and I, it was spring break. I remember we spent the entire spring break making potato guns. And that was just like, uh, our wives were both working, supporting us. And we were just like, "Let's make potato guns while they're at work." So we made all these potato guns. We were like searching the plans online and figuring things out. And so, um, and that was like, just a fun week. We did that, went out and shot him that weekend. And then I remember afterwards, uh, I was back in school the next Monday. And I was like, "I wonder if anyone else besides us were searching for how to make a potato." Like, that was. And so, uh, I went online and there's, there's some sites you can use. Back then it was called Overture, but you type in a keyword, it would show you how many people per month were searching for it. So I just typed in "potato gun." And there's like 18,000 people a month searching for potato gun, like 12,000 for potato gun plans, and all these different things. And I was like, and there was nobody selling anything. You got addicted to the data. And I was like, "No one's selling it. It's like, this could be maybe that's my thing." Yeah. So I called my buddy back up and I was like, "Hey man, um, we're going to make a DVD teaching people to make potato guns." And he was like, "Like, you thought it was so weird." I was like, "Please, like, it'll be awesome." He's like, "All right, I don't care. I have nothing else to do." So we borrowed a video camera from somebody. And, um, first thing we did, we drove up to Home Depot. And he pulled out the video camera, recorded. So I was like, "Okay, like, next to all the sprinkler pipes, like, these are the sprinkler pipes, this is the PSI you need." So all the stuff we learned the weekend before, we're making them. Like, we just regurgitated. And they took that. So we showed them up how to buy the pipes and the barbecue igniters and just all the things you need to make a potato gun. And then we drove to, uh, Colette, my wife's, um, work. She worked at this like motor shop. So we went in the back of the motor shop and then we filmed us like cutting the pipes and gluing them together and all that kind of stuff. And then, um, we snuck into the university because they had, uh, into one of the classrooms with their big whiteboards. We snuck in there. And then my bud filmed me and we were trying to act like we were so smart, like we had all the formulas, like the barrel to chamber volume ratio is, write it out on the board, like, just film this, making this, teaching people like potato gun. And so that was the first product. We took that, I made a DVD, we burned it, and I put up a website and we started selling it. And that was the first thing. People started buying it. I was like, "This is the greatest thing in the world. Someone bought something I created and they paid me like 20 or 30 bucks for this DVD." We'd ship it out to them. And that's kind of how, how the whole thing started for.

That's funny. We started the same way with the DVDs. A DVD burner. Did you have like the one on top and the 10 under? For the first one? We probably had the same one. And they can't burn them after you make them. Like, they can't copy. They couldn't copy them. It's so cool. That's awesome. They're not going to pirate my DVD. My potato. You can tell we're all around the same age. It's awesome. We're all 40. I'm 44. 44. Yeah. 42. 42. But yeah, I would burn the DVDs. That's awesome. I, the stickers you put the stickers and put them on top of it. You would buy them. Jackie was so good at all. And then I got the one that can etch actually the DV. There was never had it. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. I love it. You're jealous to this day. This day. But that's how I started. And then I shared the story with you guys this morning. But then I remember like, I was trying to figure out make how to sell these things online. And so I went to a seminar. And I remember there was a speaker got up and he was like, "I don't remember what he was talking about, but he was like, 'I tested a red headline versus a blue headline, increased my conversions by whatever percent.'" And I was like, "Huh?" And it was the first time, cuz probably I didn't like studying or learning or reading or any, I, I want to make money, but the rest of it, I wasn't into. And remember he said that. So I went back to my to my website and like changed the headline or whatever. And sure enough, like I had like a 50% increase in sales. And I was like, "I just gave myself a 50% raise from one little idea." And then it like, light bulb went off. I was like, "I wonder if there's any other ideas." So I went to another seminar. And I sat there for three days. I remember like, day two and a half, someone said something. I was like, "That's the thing." I went back, I applied it, and then I made more money. I was like, "This is crazy. I learned something, I apply it, I make money." And then I was like, "I wonder if there's anything good in books." So I found a book, I read it, and like 100 pages, I'm like, "There's an idea." Took it, applied it, made more money. I was like, "This is insane." And so I became obsessed with that, just like scouring info anywhere, just looking for the nugget I could apply to what I had and see if I can get myself a raise. And so I had this mantra. I was like, "How do I get myself a raise every day? Every day, how do I get a raise today? How do I get a raise today?" So I'm scouring, scouring, find, make, get.

Russell Brunson, just one thing. Just one thing you can pick from everybody. I love that you said that. One thing that I can learn from every single person I encounter that I can apply. Well, I mean, that, that right there will make you rich. We have a lot of people that go to seminars and go to places. If they just did that one thing, got one thing from every event that they went to, they, they'd all be rich. But I love that he said it because when he worded it, "How can I get myself a raise every day?" Exactly. It makes every day for you to be aware of the true of the place where can you find it. And you also mentioned another thing that you did, you multiplied it into like money. If I had a job, how many hours would I have done? You know, and that was really cool that you did that as well. Like, you picked that one thing. He said, "If I translated to a normal job, it would take me these this amount of hours." And I just changed the color on this website, and it just gave me that much. Yeah. That was, yeah. Any other profession, someone have to go back to school for five years to get double their, you know, whatever. Exactly. Or wait in line for a rank. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. To move up. Yeah. That's how you entrepreneurship. You can just learn. Yeah. Instant upgrade. Instant upgrade. Just keep going. And people don't like that because they, they think that it's like fake. It's not fake. It's called self-development. It's just real as it gets. Yeah. It's crazy because like, you can get, there's so much, especially nowadays, like, there's so much. I mean, just this podcast is free, right? Like, it's insane. Back then it was harder, but it's like, there's so much stuff. And I think the biggest problem, those people listen, they don't apply. It's like, I'm, I'm actively listening with intent to, to, like, not on every, I'm not going to apply everything, but I'm looking for like, "What's the thing that, like, that's a needle mover?" Like, "Oh yeah, that's the thing. If I grab that, like, I mean, the whole day today with you guys, like, I'm looking at all these things. I'm like, I had four or five things. I'm like, that's like, those four or five things." You got four or five, not just one. Yeah. You guys have a lot of cool stuff happening. So that's awesome. I love that. I'm an overachiever now. That's good. You, you've made a good teacher and that, or a good student. A lot of people are always just like, "Hey, I've," they get that "I've arrived" mentality. Obviously, you do very well for yourself, but you're always constantly looking at how to get better. And I think that's what keeps people like selling, which is really, really cool.

I heard someone one time talk about, they called it a teachability index. I don't know if he made it up or whatever, but he was like, "When you're young, your teachability index is really high. Like, everyone said something, like, the excited." Then the worst thing happens is like, you go through school and then you graduate, someone gives you a degree, and you're like, "Ah, I'm smart." And then your teachability drops to zero. That's in the rest of people's lives. They stop there. And remember we said that I was okay, how do I, I need to keep that, whatever that index, that window open. Um, because I look at, I mean, I love my kids. I got 18-year-old kids. On like, when I was 18, I thought I knew everything. Like, I look at them now, I'm like, "I love them, but they don't know anything." You know what I mean? Like, they have new experience that. And it's like, that's most people. Like, 18, they graduate high school, they're, they, they stop learning. Or maybe it's 22, and they graduate college, but then it's done. It's like, how do we keep that open? Because there's, there's so much growth. And then you see the people who are, who are the hyper-achievers, it's not that they're smarter or better, they just like are open, like listening and paying attention versus like, "I know this thing." You know that? They haven't arrived yet. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. It's super dangerous to ever think that you know, you've made it. And people that aren't working very hard think they're working too hard. And people that are working too hard don't think they're working hard at all. You, people that aren't that smart think that they're the smartest. And people that are super smart, they actually are just looking every day for new information because they don't think they know enough. Right. Well, that's how fulfillment comes. Fulfillment comes from stretching yourself, getting new goals, and setting different things and reaching things that you didn't know you were capable of.

Do you ever feel like you're just afraid somebody knows something you don't know and you just have to know it? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Like every time. I, I have so many books. We have these, okay, so Andy and I, we don't fight very often, but we fight over books. Like, "You took my book. I'm not done with that." Like, "Hey, quit stealing that. Let me finish it." It was like, it's the craziest thing. She'll, she'll ask me, she's like, "Where's the book I was reading?" I'm like, "Babe, I, uh." She's like, "Where's the book?" "Bed, honey." He'll go, "You need me to make the bed?" And I'd find him like making the bed but hiding, reading my book. And I'm like, "You're reading my book." It's the funniest thing. Well, listen, because I'll go to the seminar and I'll like drop something out of a book she was reading. She was like, "Dude, how did you know that?" You're not owed to read any of the books. I'm not allowed to tell him what I'm going to talk about ever. Rip you off because, yeah, exactly. I told you I have a photographic memory. So I remember everything you say. I'll never forget anything. So whatever she tells me, I'll remember it word for word, every story, exactly the same way I was told it or read it. Crazy. And then I'll tell it. So before she'll go speak, uh, she's like, "I'm not." I'm like, "What are you going to talk about?" She's like, "No ways. No, because you're going out before me." And I'll go, "He said, he, I go before him. It's a different story. I won't even talk about what I was going to talk about. I'll just talk about what she was going to talk about." That you have two presentations just in case. And anyways, but, uh, but no, self-development is the way.

So, um, so, so you started learning, obviously, ClickFunnels. You started learning, um, internet marketing, right? How to get people to make decisions without really a sales coach necessarily involved, face-to-face, right? Like, people like to buy online. People go on Amazon all the time. But if somebody's got a product and nobody's saying yes to it, and it's available for sale, that's a problem. Then you're going to have to go hire a massive sales team, right? And that's very expensive, and it's hard, and it's human capital. You, you've done insane with your sales team. Like, it's interesting because I'm definitely more introverted than you guys. And so, but I didn't use that as a crippling thing. I, okay, I don't feel as comfortable selling one-to-one. Like, how do I sell one-to-many? Like, what's that look like? And it's different. That's how you scale too. Sell one to many. Yeah. Sell one to a million. Yeah. The find people. Like, how many sales people work for ClickFunnels? I'm like, "There's just one. It's me. Like, I do it all." Like, but I do one-to-many, right? We do a webinar every single week where I have, you know, four, five, 6,000 people on a webinar, do one presentation. And I'm probably not good as closing one-on-one on a phone, but I got 5,000 people. So I don't have to be, you know, if I close a thousand to 5,000, like, it's a big payday. And I can do that every single.

Okay, so let's, let's go there for a minute. Yeah. Okay. You're extremely good at communicating, right? Yep. You're an introvert, so you weren't always that way. Mhm. Right? How'd you learn how to communicate? Because being one-to-many, you have to communicate product very well. Yeah. Right? Let's talk about this. You have to understand, because like, when you're talking one-to-one, on some, you can ask some questions, find out what their concerns are, and then you can resolve them. Whereas when I'm speaking to a thousand or 5,000 people, I don't have that ability. Like, how do I, let's talk about that. What does your sales process kind of look like when there's no back-and-forth dialogue? Yeah. Right? So, yeah, I'll explain how it looks. So for me, it's like, when I'm creating a sales presentation, it's typically 90 minutes long. So that's the framework. There's 60 minutes where I am teaching, and there's 30 minutes where I'm selling. And so, they're in that 60 minutes, though, I have to go and figure out what all their false beliefs are, and I have to reprogram those false beliefs in someone's head, right? That's the whole key. So the way I structure it, it's pretty simple, like, um, the entire hour-long presentation is about, um, convincing that, that the framework that I'm introducing them to is the best way for them to get the result they want, right? So you look at, like, somebody comes into your world, there's a result they want. They want to make more money, they want to lose weight, they want to do whatever. And I'm coming saying like, "I have a map. I've gone to this place before, and I've got a map." And then they be understand in the market, there's a hundred people. There's, think about the weight loss market. There's like, there's the keto map, and the Paleo map, and the so many weight loss. There's a million maps. So my goal is, I, my whole presentation is to convince them that the map that I have to the result they want trumps all the rest of them. Like, that's the entire goal of it. I'm not trying to, most people make, make presentations to masses, they, they're trying to convince people what five or six different things. And it's not that. My only goal is I convince you of one thing. So like, when I talk about ClickFunnels, you know, someone wants ClickFunnels or a funnel because they want to grow their company. So there's a lot of ways you can grow your company. You build a sales team, you could drive more traffic. So I had to convince them all the ways they could possibly get that result, that the funnel is the most important thing. So that's the number one. That's the framework. So when I start my presentation, first thing I have to, I have to tell the backstory about how I discovered this framework because that syncs with them. So I'm like, "You know, I was just like you. I tried this, I tried this, I tried this, and no, those things were working for me, whatever. And then here's how I discovered the framework." So it's the backstory. So for me, if you watch my presentation, I tell the potato gun story because I started the potato gun and then, uh, stopped converting because Google Ads got too expensive. So I had an upsell, and that became a funnel. So I tell the potato gun story and I show that. So then I tell the backstory and this is how I discovered, uh, what a funnel is. And I use this in all these other markets. I did it in speed reading, I did it in dating, I did it in couponing, I did it in like all these other markets. And, and then I have clients say, "If this is so." So I show all the, the proof that my framework works everywhere. Yeah. And then I'm like, "So that's what I'm going to teach you guys today." So that's like the first, you know, 20 minutes of the presentation. They're sucked in. They're like, "This is great." Like, they not believe it, but they saw the result. They saw that I got a new map to that result. And they're freaked out about that. So that's the, that's the intro. Then from there, I transition to like, "I'm going to go and start teaching the framework." And so I teach it, though, it's a, it's a little different. The first thing I do, um, so there's kind of three sections. This is the first section out of the actual content part of the presentation. First section is I'm going to teach them the framework. But so I'm going to tell them the, like, how I, how I discover, you know, how I, like, kind of tell, explain that framework again. And then step two, then is I teach them the strategy. Like, here's the overarching strategy, what the framework is. And then third thing, this is where most people make the mistake, is I do not teach the tactics. The tactics are thing they're buying in the future. And so I, I don't talk, I don't share the tactics. And then from there, then I share, uh, success stories of people who, who have used the framework. And so that's number one. So by the time that section's done, I want them to be like, "Oh my gosh, like, I get it. I see the strategy. It makes total sense. Like, I will, like, I believe that this is the right map." And so at that point, a percentage, say 50% of the audience is ready to buy right then. But the other 50% like they start kind of freaking out. So then the next part of the presentation is, um, what, what people do after they, after they hear the presentation about the map that you have. Then the first thing that they're afraid of is like, "Well, that's cool that that map, you know, Russell can do a funnel, but I can't because I'm not technical." Or, you know, "Andy can do that, but I can't because of this." And so they start looking at themselves like they're not able to do it. So the next 15 minutes of the presentation is all about showing them that it's actually possible for them, right? So ClickFunnels, I'm showing them a demo. Like, let me show you. I just go like this, and I drag and drop, and it's so simple, right? Or I'm showing, like, um, if it's, if it's sales, I'd like showing them like, like, here's five people I took off the street that were really bad at it, and like, here's the script they follow, the thing, and this is how it worked. And the goal is to be like, "Oh my gosh, like, I could actually do that." So you think about the presentation so far, they, I explained the framework, they're pumped about it. I, I walked them through the, I walked them through it, they're like, "Okay, I do believe this will work. I actually believe I can do it." And then the third piece, and this is the last 15 minutes of the content, is they're looking, their brain's looking for some other out. So usually they're trying to blame some external force. So the first is like, "No, it's me. I can't do it." Like, "I, I can do it, but my wife, I don't have time." 100%. And so then the third thing I'm teaching is I'm, I'm taking that false belief. I got to tell the story that's going to rewrite that false belief. So in my world, it's always traffic. Like, like I believe funnel is the best thing in the world. I believe I can actually do it. Now, I don't know how to get traffic. So I got to show them like, "How simple is to get traffic?" In the weight loss market, it's usually like, "Here's the diet. It's like, I believe I can actually live this way, but my spouse buys cookies every single day, and I'm not, my kids are always eating ice cream. Like, it's not going to work." So I got to address that. And if I can convince them the framework's the right framework, this is the map they need, they could actually do it. There's no external forces holding them, then they're in. And then after that hour's done, now I transition to the, to the pitch. And that's what I do. And so it's, it's simple, but it's, uh, but you know, but it's understand the psychology of that. That's what we have to break. It's breaking all those false beliefs. If we can do that, then at the end of it, they're just waiting.

How long did it take you to figure that out? Like, it say, it seems like it's something that you're constantly evolving at, right? But how long did it take you to figure that part out? It took me long. So, so my background is, uh, after I, potato gun thing, I went to a seminar. And I remember this is back when they used to, uh, seminars, like multi-peer, every speaker would speak and sell. I didn't know that's how it worked. So I went to this first seminar, I'm like, "This young kid in college, I had glasses and a shaved head." And I'm sitting there like taking notes. And the first speaker gets up and he talks for 90 minutes and he pitches something. And I'm like, "So confused." And everyone's jumping up, running to the back of the room. And I was like, "What's happening?" I think it was a $2,000 thing he sold. And run the back of the room. I remember looking back and I was doing the math. I was like, "Two, four, six, eight." I'm like, "That guy made $60,000 in 90 minutes." I was like, "What in the world?" Next guy gets up to speak, starts speaking, he sells a $5,000 thing, and people start running at the back. Same thing. I'm looking back, "Five, 10, 15, 20." I was like, "He made $120,000 in 90 minutes." And so the next, I was like, I was like, "I'm scared to death talking to people, but this is a skill set. If there's a human being who puts his pants on the same way I do, who can stand on stage and in 90 minutes make $100,000, like, I have to learn the skill at whatever it takes." And so that became like, "This is the skill set I have to learn."

What did you study to, to help with that? So initially, so initially, I did a lot of people like, I was like, "Oh, I can do this." And so I got invited to speak an event. I remember getting there and I did my first presentation. And then, um, I remember thinking like, "Oh, these speakers don't talk about like, I, I taught the best stuff. I'm like, I'm gonna blow their minds." And then I remember I did my pitch at the end. And I was like, "I'm not going to insult you guys like the other speakers are. This is the price. That's what it is. Go buy it in the back of the room." And then nobody moved. It was just like, that awkward crickets. I was like, "I'm standing on stage, you know, and there's people, nobody's moving." And I think normally they turn on music at the end. The guy didn't turn the music on because he didn't know what was happening. And I stood there like, so kind of awkwardly walked off stage. It was so embarrassing. I remember, uh, I remember I ran, I walked off and I ran to my hotel room. And I was there for two more days for the event. I stayed in the hotel room. I sat there eating. I remember ordering room service for the first time in my life. I ordered room service for two days. I ordered coconut shrimp and Hog and Dos ice cream, watching movies. I was like, "I'm never going to speak again. This was the worst thing ever." Like, I was like, "I'm never gonna do this again." You said nobody moved in the music. It was the worst. It was like, especially as an introvert, I'm like, "Now what do I do? Like, how do I get off the stage out of this room without anybody seeing?" Slapping. They're all just like sitting there looking at me. I'm like, "Yeah." It was, it was bad. And so I was like, "I swear, I swear I would never do it again." And then a couple months later, I went to another event. I saw it happening again. I was like, "There's got to be a way." So, um, I started finding the people who were good at speaking. I was like, "How are you? Like, what am I doing wrong?" And they're like, "Oh, you think this is about teaching. It's not. Like, this is about breaking their false beliefs. Like, you come showing them all this stuff. He's like, you can't serve someone in in 60 minutes. Like, you cannot give them the tactics they need to be successful. That's not your job. Your job is to prove like they can actually do it. And then take that, that conversation separately. We can actually work with them." And they told me that. And so I started, I started trying like understand that. And then, uh, I made my next presentation. And I remember I asked a bunch of speakers, got some feedback. And I did a presentation that time. I remember I sold six people at a thousand bucks. I was like, "Six grand." Like, "Okay, this is working. Start somewhere." Yeah. And then, um, for, for the next three or four years, I was on the road once a month speaking at some event. And I would always go the day before and I'd listen to every single speaker. And I just sit there and watch them. I was like, "What are they doing? How are they doing it?" I watched how some people speakers were really good at NLP and they would use commands. Some people were very hypnotic, they'd use hypnotic language. I saw some people have the anchor stage in the back of their room and all these things. I was just taking notes on everyone and I would model them and I would do my presentation again. And all of a sudden it would make more money. And then every presentation, every time I get a presentation, I would save the PowerPoint slide, put the new data on it, and then I would make tweaks. Do it again. Do it again. And so it's was like four or five years of doing that a couple times a month and just kept getting better and better and better. And then 2008 hit and live events disappeared. Like they were just gone overnight. And so I was like, "Well, I guess I'm retired as a speaker." Cuz it was over. And but, um, that then people were doing tele-seminars. You guys around doing tele-seminars? It's just pre-webinar. It's like, you promote a phone number, everyone would call in and they'd listen in. So, uh, and you had no idea how people were listening. You just knew that I told them the call starts at 9:00 and hopefully they're there. So like, you do this, you talk for an hour to yourself, hoping that.

Someone's there, and then you sell them something. And you just look to see if anyone bought. I like, "Oh, somebody bought." And like, people would buy. And so I started doing those. And it was really weird because, like, a tele-seminar, yeah. And you never see anybody. And so it's like I got really good at, like, pretending like I'm standing in front of an audience, even though it's me on my phone in my house. Just because, like, and I got really good at that. And then eventually it morphed to webinars. And then we did webinars for a long time. Um, and just kept getting better and better. And, um, when events started coming back, it was cool because all the old dudes who I was learning from had all retired when events ended. And then, like, they started coming back again. And I was like, "I'm the only one that knows the skill set. This is crazy." And I started going to events, started speaking. And then I remember went to Grant Cardone, uh, his first 10x. Remember his second one? He didn't know how I was. And I got on stage, and all the speakers are selling, and like, just, it was a nightmare. No one's closing anybody. It's just like, it was, it was embarrassing. So I got out there and I did it my way. And I remember, 'cause I asked Grant, I'm like, "I need tables with papers people can like fill out the forms." He's like, "You don't get any tables." So I had Alex L Heros, had a box of order forms on one door. And then Dave Woodward, my partner, had a box of order forms. They had a handful of pens. I did my pitch, and we freaking closed half of that room. People were running, they're handing out pens and throwing them. And, and Grant came over afterwards. He's like, "I've never seen that in my entire life." I was like, "I know. No one knows how to do this anymore. It's a dead art." A year later, took me to, uh, the big 10x, and, uh, we did $3.2 million in sales in 90 minutes. Set a world record. Wow. And, uh, and now we've trained people in every, every market you can dream of, like, how to do the pitch. And it works. It works everywhere. It's flawless. We call it "Perfect Webinar" because it's perfect. It's just, it's a script. It's, it's, it's awesome. The psychology behind it is just, it's really simple.

I love what you said, um, about killing their limiting beliefs. Right? You said, like, step one is, you first of all, you have to attack everything in their life that they believe is real that's not real. They have so much resistance coming into it. I'm sure it's the same thing. Guys are doing on the phone, right? Like, there's a reason why they're not doing this. And it's like, something you have, you have to rewrite that belief. And so it's me. I have to tell a story in a way where my story trumps the story they're already telling themselves. They already have a story. So it's been in there for years. I got to tell a story that trumps it. Like, I think about this, um, we wrote a pitch for the network marketing industry one time. And like, the story of the people who hate network marketing is like, "I tried before. I called my friends and family, and my mom and dad, and they all hate me." And like, so they have the story of like, "No, like, you, you lose all your friends if you're in network marketing." And so then I wrote, in the, in the presentation, wrote a pitch about how like, how the, the guy who was doing this, he, he built this huge network marketing company. Never talked to one of his friends. It was all degenerate leads online. And I showed like, like, "No, you don't actually talk to people. Like, these people actually will fill out a form, raise a hand, say they're interested in information, and you call them and you sign them up." And like, as soon as I tell that story, they're like, "Oh, that story disappeared. There's a better way. I didn't realize that." That's the thing. And also, now they're open. But until I show that story, they're not going to be open because they're fighting me back. Talking who are requesting information isn't a problem. Oh, so yeah, buzz. But wearing their family out. Yeah. So every time I do a presentation, that's a question. Like, what's the false belief they have? And what's the story behind, like, why do they believe that? Okay. What story do I have they can trump that story? And then break the false belief and rewrite it with the new belief they need. It's crazy. It's cool.

[ __ ] and then here, and then here we are. Common ground, right there. Yeah, yeah. And you, you've, uh, you've got five kids. Yeah. You're married. Yeah. Right. 22 years. 22 years. Yep. Going strong. You graduated, and you're 18, 17 from high school. Yeah. Uh, yeah, 17, 18, then went to college. You went on a mission after college or after high school? I went to, so I went to, so graduate high school, uh, and then wrestled one year at Brigham Young University. And then went on my mission for two years in New Jersey. And then BYU dropped the wrestling program. I was gone. So I came back, went to Boise State and finished my career there. Yeah. I love that. So you, you were in door-to-door sales. Yeah. Door-to-door sales. Religion. I, I tell a lot of people all the time, like, like sales is so good for you. Yeah. It's so good. A lot of people see you as a businessman today, and they know you work with technology and all kinds of stuff. You're a great sales guy. That's what you are. You're a great sales guy. Yeah. And, and you never gave up. Yeah. And, and I think that, you know, when, when you went to be a missionary, right, in New Jersey, um, you know, you're selling a very hard product. You're selling religion. You're telling people to give up everything in their life. I said, you last night, the pitch was like, uh, you, you have to give up alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, all premarital, extramarital sex, and 10% of your income for the rest of your life, in exchange, you may get salvation if you don't mess up. Like, that's the pitch. Like, that's the hardest thing in the world to sell. That's why you look at, like, the greatest salespeople are all Mormon missionaries. Like, they're selling Cutco knives, they're selling pest control, like all that stuff. It's so easy next to, you know, cut our teeth on. And I see that. I see these guys making a million, two million, three million a year. Yeah. And a lot of them, they learned it in, in their missions. And a lot of them went overseas, they became resilient, they're used to getting the "no." But they even had to learn a new language. And then selling it in a different language. Yeah. But you said you went to Jersey. New Jersey. A little different language there. And, well, I mean, you went from people being, you know, super loving, everybody waving at you, to being like, throwing you off. Yeah. It was a whole new world. And it comes back to the whole, like, failure thing, though, too, right? Like, the first couple days I'm out there, like, people slam the door. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, they hate me." And eventually I realized, like, they don't hate me. They hate the message. This has nothing to do with me. I was able to disconnect myself from that. I think that's a, a lot of times people struggle with sales because, like, in the fear of like, "Oh, they reject me. If they're rejecting me, it's like, no, they're rejecting the offer, the message, not you." And then when you can disconnect from that, then, at least for me, it became fun. Like, we're knocking on, you know, thousands of doors every single day. And it's like, it became a game. Like, who can we start a conversation with? Who can let us in the door? Who, like, who can we actually help and serve? And, you know, but when you can disconnect yourself from the outcome, it makes it way better. You didn't take it personally. And it became a numbers game then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it.

So, some skills that you would tell, right? Like, that you think are super important for anybody to be successful. Um, you know, this is like, this is like Value City today. What are some skills that you think someone needs to know? I mean, like, clearly mastering a stranger, right? Being able to say hello, say hi to people. You're an introvert, yet you're knocking on people's doors, right? Yeah. So like, I think mastering a stranger would be one. What are some other ones you can think of? I think, um, over, like, um, this is actually, so we do our big event every year, and, you know, we get 5,000 people at it. And every time I'm about to go on stage, like, I get, I get the nerves, anxiety, all kinds of stuff, right? I remember I was like, "Anyway, every time I was like, eventually I thought I would grow out of that, right? I get so nervous, so nervous." And I remember before I went, one of my friends, Annie Grace, she's like, the number one person on the planet helping people overcome alcohol addiction. She's insane. Uh, her mind is just so cool. But she told me, right, for, she saw me how nervous I was. And she's like, "How are you feeling?" "Like, I'm nervous." And she's like, "Do you realize that inside of your body, the, um, the chemicals and the feeling, everything that's released when you're nervous is identical to when you're excited? There's no difference. The only difference is the meaning you're attaching to it." From excited to nervous. And so, um, she's like, "Next time, instead of saying 'I'm nervous,' say 'I'm excited.'" And so I started doing that. And it was crazy. Like, literally, it feels exactly the same. I was like, "I'm excited. I'm excited." And then get more excited. You're just like, "That's crazy." So I think that as a skill set, like, "I'm nervous about this call." Like, "I'm excited about this call." Like, just the, the meaning you attach your thoughts to, everything. Yeah. It's so simple. It's, yeah. Basic thought control. The meaning. Yeah. Positive outlook on it. Yeah. I think that's a big skill. Like, I think fear is what keeps most people from doing everything. Like, like every single day, we have these two options: there's faith and fear. Faith and fear. And they're always just like this tug-of-war against ourselves. And some days we give to fear, some days we give into faith. And it's just like, the more times you can, you can overcome fear and go into faith, like, that's how you, how you level up every single day. Um, but it's so, that's, that's the battle, right?

What are some things you think you need to stay away from if you want to make it? Stay away from these things. Um, yeah, like some things that, some decisions you've made by, by, by maybe doing them wrong and then learning, like, "Don't do that. Trust me, I did it." Or like, just to say, "Hey, you know, I didn't do it, but I watched a lot of people do it." What are some things? I think the biggest one I see it all the time is, um, just what you put in your body. Like alcohol, um, smoking, drugs. Like, even, even like little ones, even like caffeine. Like, like all those things we put in our bodies, they give us an effect. Like, um, become dependent upon it. And it's like, it's crazy. And I don't know, I've, I've met so many insanely talented people who drugs and alcohol takes away these things. And they, like, sometimes like, "Oh, I smoke weed, I get more creative." I'm like, "Yeah, but you lose your desire. You lose your edge." And like, maybe you feel more creative, but now you lose, like, it's just like, those things always take more than they ever give. Um, the most successful people are the ones who are, that I've ever seen, the ones who don't do that, especially long-term. Um, so I'm a big believer in that. I try to, to protect myself, my mind, from those kind of things. Um, I think the big problem people have, one of the biggest problems is, uh, people are skeptical. Like, I've never in my life met someone who's skeptical and successful. They're just, they don't go hand in hand, you know what I mean? They're not risk-takers. Yeah. So it's like, people are like, "Oh, I'm skeptical about this." I'm like, like, I know exactly where you, like, where you function your entire life. Because, yeah, people who are skeptical are never successful. So it's like, and, yeah, sometimes you'll get burned. But I'd rather get burned, right, uh, one time out of 10 and actually, you know, progress, moving forward, versus, versus the opposite side. You never move. You're so afraid of, of it. You know, fear, faith. It's like, ah, like, I'm going to do my best, make my best decisions. And, and I mess up a lot. I'm sure you guys do too, right? Bring on the wrong partner, the wrong person, or whatever. And, um, but the fear of not doing it's almost worse. Probably is worse. It is worse. Yeah, for sure. Doing nothing is a lot worse. Yeah.

We're very similar in our journeys. I think the more you talk, it's crazy how, you know, we identify so much with what you're saying. It's just crazy. It's awesome. Um, what about God? Let's talk about God. Like, that's an important piece, right? For you. Let's talk about that for a minute. Yeah. So, because I think that's important to share with people because that's a foundation in our life. And I know it's a big part of yours. Yeah. A lot of people hide that. And I don't think that, to you, it's like, so important. And to us, it is as well. So it's like, you know, why not? Yeah. Let's talk about it. Yeah. So for me, it's interesting. Uh, I had a really good coach, luckily, who pointed this out to me. But my whole life, I thought there's like, here's me, like, Russell, doing his business, his mission, whatever you call it. And there's like, Russell who's spiritual. And like, these are two different worlds. Like, like they did not, they're different things, different parts of my life. And it was, I had this coach, and it was interesting because she was talking to me. She's like, "You don't see it, do you?" I'm like, "See what?" She's like, "You don't really, like, you don't see that, like, what you're doing here is 100% connected with what your spiritual mission is. Like, it's the same thing." Yeah. I was like, "What are you talking about? I help people build funnels." She's like, "No, no, no. She's like, you help people make money." I'm like, "Yeah, make money." She's like, "You understand, like, when people make money, then they're able to, like, not have the stress, anxiety of, like, trying to survive. And then they can grow, they can help people, they can serve, they can do things." She's like, she like, "What you are doing is something God wants you to do because it's like releasing people so they can be the people they've been called to be." And it was the first time I ever connected those two things together. And the more I thought about it, I was like, what I realized, and what I, I believe, like, deep in my heart, is like, every single person who comes to this planet, like, is called to serve a group of people. Like, and based on our, our circumstances, our trials, our errors, our mistakes, all kinds of stuff, it's like, there's a group of people who are specifically called that we are supposed to be serving. Right? So for me, it's like, like, I know who my people are. Like, they are, I call them my funnel hackers. That's my people. That's who I have been called to serve. And, um, and I think everyone's got that. And most people don't ever, don't ever pursue that. But we all have that calling. In the scripture says, "Many are called, but few are chosen." Right? Like, why are they not chosen? Because they're not willing to step into that. I think we all feel that. We feel that that pull. And most people don't, don't follow. So for me, like, I'm a strong believer now to my core that, like, God, like, this is the calling from God that these people I've been called to serve. And, and then what's interesting inside of that is, um, is, and this is, this is the thing. A lot of people who, who try to, who try to serve people, like, they, they struggle with is like, "I'm trying to serve people, but some people aren't listening, or they're angry, or they're mean to me, or they, they talk trash." And like, there's all that kind of thing. And, and I remember I was struggling with that too. One day, and I was reading the scriptures, uh, Christ was talking, and he said that, um, he said, uh, "My sheep will hear my voice and will be one fold with one Shepherd." And I remember thinking, I was like, "Think about with Christianity, like, Christ was there. He put his words out into the world, and his people found him, and they, they followed him, right?" And that's, and that's been happening for, for years. It's like, for us, it's the same thing, though. Like, it's an eternal principle. Like, like, we put our words out there, and then our sheep will find us. Our people we've been called to serve will find us if we're willing to put our words out there, right? Which is why podcasting, video, all this stuff is actually really, really important because it's you being able to gather your sheep. And it doesn't mean you're going to gather everyone. Like, there's people who are not my sheep. You go into Google and go five or six pages down, those people are not my sheep. They hate me. They don't like. There's people that don't like me. I understand that. I'm okay with that. But like, my sheep, like, they hear my voice. And so it's like, all I got to, I got to put my message up, putting it out there, putting it out there. And my, my people will come to me. I think that's the biggest thing. So for me, it's like, like, what we're all doing is is bigger than I think any of us actually realize. So it's like, but yeah, and so like, my biggest fear now is like, I don't want to someday, you know, when I return back to God, he's like, "Dude, like, you could have done so much more. Like, there's this, these people you're super out there, and you quit. You stopped doing it." Right? I asked all the time, like, "Why are you still doing this, Russell? Like, you've been doing this, you know, I'm 22 years in this business now. Like, you don't need it for the money." I'm like, "Yeah, it's, it's this, like, constant, for me, it's just like, yeah, I have my people. I got to figure out how to serve them." So that's, I love, I love how he, how he says that, though. It's like, you know, we talk about being one-dimensional and, and really focusing on business. Like, it, it's in everything. It's, it's in your belief in God, but it's also in your marriage. You don't, we don't separate any of that. We are who we are, and we grow everything at the same time, you know, with our people and everything. So it's, it's really cool. One, unified. It's all one unit. And that's how you really have sustainable growth because we've made money, lost money, weren't on the same page, and then, you know, things happen. But I mean, you don't have, we don't have actor switches where we're like, "Hey, we're going to show up to work, and we're going to act this way, and then turn it off and be different." No. If you really love what you do, and you really believe that you're fulfilling a calling from God, and you're helping people, I mean, you're going to share it with everybody. Yeah. And it's pretty awesome that you do that. So I think that's cool. Watching how you guys, like, I've never seen anyone do as well as you guys with, like, between your family and your kids and the company. Just me coming here, I was like, "This is like all your kids." It's insane. They are our kids. Cool thing. It's awesome. Um, it's really is created. Well, we always say, like, if you can't find it, build it. Yeah. Yeah. Build it. Yeah. Like, like, you can build it. You can do whatever you want. If you can think about it. Like, we're visionaries. Everybody's a visionary. But like, you said, most people see a dream and they don't do anything with it. So they just hold on to that dream. And then they don't do nothing. And then one day they're going to regret it. And, me and Jackie, you know, you can think about what you've been through and think, "What were the good, and then what was the bad?" And then we thought, "Man, how do me and her function the best out of love?" Mhm. And love is Christ-like. But love, like, it's all love. Like, me and her, we have, we feel no stress when we're loved. When me and her are close, we have no worries. Like, dude, when we're separated, and then there's a problem, it's like, it eats us alive and makes us sick. And it becomes a bigger problem as well. It's like, you're, you're talking about the people that don't like you or whatever it is. We focus on those people. We're not doing enough to actually change. So it's like, we're talking about stress. Like, I used to stress out about a lot of silly little things until I got a lot of stuff to do. And then those things were nothing. You just become adaptable. So it's, it's all about plus, when we stay close, I mean, like, so our team, the more the closer that we all are, the more powerful we all are, right? Yeah. And, you know, I think that's the key, man. I think, like, you know, building your unit, building your people, you're going to do life with. And I'm a, I collect people. So people may say, "Well, that's weird." No, no, it's actually not weird because, like, I know who I need around me. I know that I need, look, one friend in my life right now is dying out. And I don't mean physically dying. I mean, they're giving up. They're stopping. They quit believing. They don't want it as much. I don't know. They're full. Dude, I wake up, I go to bed, you know, exhausted. I wake up starving. I mean, I'm, I'm ready. I want to empty my tank every day. I don't want to waste any time. If God hasn't made me sick, if I'm healthy and I'm alive, I think it's disrespectful to sick people for me not to give everything that I have. That's what you have your purpose too. Like, you fulfill. That's how you find your fulfillment and purpose in life. Yeah. So you got to get around people that are psycho. You know, my, you know, like we were talking about psycho competitors all day. Like, like psycho, you know, like people who really want to live their life and who really want to make it count. By the way, this intensity, it's not always in business. Like, it, like, we're, when you're seeing everybody up here, like, we're intense in our marriage. We're intense with our kids. You know, we're intense with staying in love. We're intense with, like, the fitness side. We're intense with taking care of our customers. We're intense with, like, self-development, self-improvement, you know, growing. We're intense with being financially free. We're intense, you know, being mentally free. You know, we're intense taking care of our, our, our friends. You know, we're in. Keep it new. You know, it's like, we always talk about, what, what creates burnout? Well, what creates burnout? What did you want to do? What did you want to prove when you first got that job or that career? You started your business. You wanted to prove that you belonged, that that you were going to outwork everybody. When you got with your, with your wife, you wanted her to look up to you. You wanted her to admire you. You wanted to prove yourself. All these different things. You know, when you became a new dad, what did you do? You wanted to be the best dad in the world. All these different things. People lose their purpose when they quit trying to prove themselves. So we're constantly trying to stretch ourselves to grow, improve. That's what we do. We can't let, we can't get burned out because we don't let the newness wear off. So that's, that's, that's this is day one, baby. It's day one. Every day. Get married. Every day. Yeah. It's day one. And it's your last day. Yeah. Like, I, I was telling everybody, I was in, uh, Boise, right? And which is where you're from. And you were flying here, I was flying there. Right? So funny. Yeah. And I, I was telling, it's CBH Homes or something like that. Yeah. And, um, there's 78% women. Oh, really? Yeah. It's, it's like, an all, like, female alpha team. And I said, "Ladies, let's just pretend that it was your last year you were going to live, and you knew it. What would change? What relationships? How would you work? How would you take care of yourself? How would you want to go out if everybody was going to remember you? And this was your last year?" Year? Yeah. You know, would you lay low, or would you go hard as hell so everybody could, you know, be remembered, you know, of how much you cared, how much you gave, you know, your vision, your thought, you spoke your mind, you you changed people's lives? I'm like, "Come on, that's, that's how we got to play." Because the truth of it is, is that, look, it could be our last day. You know, we could shoot this podcast, and I go drop you off at the airport and die on the way back. I don't know. It could happen. We see it happen all the time. Like, [ __ ] happens. So it's like, dude, I just don't want to be that, that person that's like, "Disrespect the fact that we're still healthy. We can give all we got." And, you know, and if you're supposed to be dead, you'd already be dead. Yeah. But if you're alive, somebody's watching this right now, and they're like, "Oh, I don't feel worthy." Dude, listen, you wouldn't be here if somebody didn't have something big in store for you. Now, the devil is trying to kill, steal, destroy, and crash everything in your life. And God's like, "Come on, wake up. Go find yourself a buddy." And that's when it says, like, "Iron sharpens iron." Like, you came down here, us getting together, you know, you meet my wife. I mean, every time, everything from us, you know, from eating dinner last night, to working this morning in the gym, to being here, to going to lunch, she's been with me the whole way, dude. You can choose to do it however. How many guys do you go and you see, and you meet them, or you get together, but you don't see their wives a lot? It's like, dude, like, we're going to roll till we die. Like, we can do anything the way we want it. We can create whatever life we want. I was going on a private jet one time where this guy's like, "Hey, I want you to go on this private jet. There's this big, like, hundred million dollar deal. I want you to be a part of it." And I was like, "Cool, man. Let's go. Let's do this." I was like, "Yeah." And then, um, he's like, "Okay, awesome." I was like, "Yeah, remember, you got to my wife. Jackie will be there with me." And he's like, "Oh, yeah, it's, it's just guys." Like, we, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, "Hey, we love the wives. That's cool." I'm like, "Well, this ain't my wife. This is my everything. She rolls, or I don't roll." And she was there. And, and he's like, "Yeah, but..." I was like, "Dude, there's no butts. If she ain't there, I ain't there." And, and he's like, "No, we made it." And we're like, "No, we don't want to go now." Cuz like, I can feel. But then he met me later, and he loved me. So it's cool. Yeah. Yeah. But, but, but my point is, is that, is that people don't understand that you can have what they've never seen. Okay? And I think that that's the cool thing. Like, you built ClickFunnels, right? No one saw it. You saw it. You created it. You found the right people, right? You found the people that could help you build it. You know, you love those people. You take care of those people. You want to spend more time with those people. But sometimes people got to go too. I think only some, some people are on with you for a season of our life. There's a guy I started our company with when we first started it. And I'm saying, like, it's totally cool. People change over time. Look, you can't make people good people. People got to want to be good people. There was a guy who was an alcoholic. He drank all the time. He almost got a divorce. He was his kids hated him. And we turned him around. Got him to stop drinking. Made them fall in love with each other. Got him to be a great dad. And then at the end of the day, he just wants to go back to his whole life. Lost his whole purpose. But my point is, when that happens, you know what you do? You go find the, the person that's supposed to be. You're not going to change how you are with the rest of the people that are around you. That, oh, that's a fact. A lot of people get scarred and they don't let those scars, you know, heal. They, they're, you know, it's like your failure. You're talking about, like, when, if you would have failed and you wouldn't have kept chasing what you were after, you wouldn't be here today. You know, you need to keep going. And you need to keep proving that. And we, the team doesn't deserve it. We have to show them massive amounts of love. So what do we do? We go harder. We show them more love. Dude, I love it.

[ __ ] don't go as planned means you're alive. You get hurt, that means you're alive. That means you have a heart. That means you, God gave it to you so you can use it well. Also, like, you got to look at, like, you always got to have this mentality. And I think, you know, we've been talking about self-development the whole time. Like, things that we've learned, things that we've studied. But like, also, I think to end, like, on this, on a good note, like, or on this note, like, you got to find the good in everything, right? For sure. Like, you got to find the good in it. You know, like, you know, I'm always like, "Where's the good in this?" And when that, I'm just giving an example, the young lady that we went to lunch with, right, that you met, she's super cool, right? Yeah. She's awesome. When that guy left, she showed up twice as much. We made a million dollars after that happened, additional per month, right out the gate. Hey, no, no, she, it was time to roll. It was, it just shows you when someone rolls, right, someone else is coming in. You know what I'm saying? Like, so instead of me saying, "Oh, man, that sucks." It's like, "Man, God's got something better for us." It's always like, that's what I'm saying. Like, God's got something better for us. So, you know, and, or, or maybe not something better, but maybe, you know, there's like, this needs to happen now. But how many people get turned off with the idea of, you know, going and chasing their full potential or doing something big because they have a bad experience? Like, that's just the thing. That's the whole lesson of this. You just got to keep going. If you, if you feel called to do something, you can't let those things stop you. Yeah. You have to just keep, keep running with people that don't quit eventually get what they want. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

I thought about, like, just even the ideas. Like, I feel like God gives us ideas or gives us something, right? And he's like, "Testing to be like, I wonder if Russell's going to be a good steward of this idea, right?" So, he's like, gave me a potato gun idea. And then I did it. He's like, "Oh, he did something with it. Like, let me give him another one. It's a little better." And give me the next one, and the next one. And eventually, through that process, I became worthy of, like, "Oh, here's ClickFunnels." You know what I mean? But like, but he's trying to see because how many times have you, like, see someone do something? Like, "I had that idea too." And it's like, "Oh, crap. Like, I didn't do anything with it. That guy did. That's good." So I always think that as, like, I feel like God's given us ideas to see, like, are we going to be a good steward of that? So for me, it's always like, the same thing. Something shows up. Like, I'm going to do it. I got to do it because otherwise, someone else is going to do it. And then I proved I wasn't a good steward. The next idea is not going to come. Next one's not going to come. Like, I want to make sure I'm a good steward so the next one will keep showing up in front of me. And, uh, anyway, I was thinking that all the time. Yeah. You sometimes I get an idea. I'm like, "I don't want to do that one." I'm like, "All right, here we go." Right? You know, a lot of, a lot of times, I mean, it's timing, too, you know, when, when you do do things. I mean, I wrote something about that a while ago. Like, we get so many opportunities that come our way because, I mean, we live in the United States. I mean, you, you have so many opportunities. And we don't take action. We just kind of just let them fly by. You know, and then you become, you know, kind of like scarred to that. Like, you don't take action because you be, you're not open to it. You don't, your eyes aren't in tune with that. So the fact that you decided to be, you know, that, that means that you were in tune with that. So in turn, you get a lot of opportunities to do different things, which is really cool. Well, especially, like you said, when you're, when you're an action taker, everything goes back to that. You've taken action to everything in your life, and that's why you got what you got. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Because execute. It's like people that, you know, are learn, you know, how to achieve success. You know, they can go broke and then they'll make it up again. Like, and then people that really weren't meant to be successful, you take it away, and then they stay broke. You know? So if you really know how to do it, you can rebuild your wealth over and over and over. It doesn't matter what obstacle you run across. Doesn't matter what the economy does. Doesn't matter how many COs hit. Doesn't matter. You're going to rebuild every single time. Yeah. And I think a lot of the times, too, we'll say one last thing. When you were, when you were, uh, had these ideas, potato gun, this, that, this, remember? Oh, my gosh, I remember that. But, but, you know, how many times do you have an idea and people like say, like, "That's stupid"? Yeah. Right. All the time. Yeah. All the time. And so at the end of the day, I think, like, on your entrepreneurship journey, is that when you're pursuing something, like, understand it's just part of the game that most people in your life aren't going to support you. Okay? Like, you have to understand that. Right? And, um, as long as you know that it's going to work, nobody knows what's in you. They don't know your heart. They don't know your, your brain. They don't know you. They're not you. So they can't physically know that you're capable of pulling this off. Even though no one else is capable of pulling this off. You had your dad support you, you know, obviously during your, your wrestling career and all that. Like, did you have a lot of people tell you you were stupid for starting, you know, ClickFunnels? Because we had a lot of people telling us we were stupid when we started our business. Like, did you? We quit our job. Yeah. And they said, "Dude, you're [ __ ]." Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, every step of the, every step, it's been that way. Like, "Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this?" In fact, even we, you mentioned earlier, like, I've been buying these old books and collecting them. And, you know, I think I told you, I bought like 18,000 books in the last three years. These old first edition books. My whole team's like, "What is he doing?" And they're like, "Ask, like, you're crazy. Someone, one of my guys like, 'Do we need to hire a shrink? These books keep showing up.'" I was like, "I was like, 'Do you not trust me at this point?' Like, I have an idea. I have a vision. Something's amazing." "What's the vision?" "I'm like, I can't explain it. I can see it, but I don't know how to explain it. But like, I know where I'm going." And then it was like, two years later, uh, I was like, "Ready to explain the mission." And my team, like, "I think he's like lost his mind." So they set the cameras. I did a pitch for it on the camera. And it got done. One of the guys was crying. The other guy had chills. He's like, "Oh my gosh, like, I had no idea that's what you were doing." I was like, "No one did. Like, I didn't even know." But like, that's the, like, I don't always know. Like, I don't know the end of it. I just know directions. Like, that's the direction I'm going. Again, the idea shows up. Show up, show up, show up. And eventually, it becomes clear. But faith, you know, faith, that's how faith works, right? Like, you don't know the path. There's not faith like, "Oh, there's a path." It's not faith. That's, it's knowledge. So faith is like, I feel like I'm called to go that direction. I don't know. It's over there. A bunch of fog in between here and here. Now I'm going to take a step. And then the lights, and you take that step, and the fog clears a little bit. Like, "Okay, take another step." Another. And that's what faith is, right? So for me, it's like, it's that way with all these ideas. Like, even ClickFunnels, it was like, you know, when we started, it was like, "I don't know if people are going to buy this thing." And then we, you know, spent eight months trying it and then launched it. No one was buying it. We tried the next thing. And I was like, "I, we went this direction for a reason. There's got to be something here." Like, "Hopefully, because we're pretty deep into it now, you know." And then sure enough, eventually, if you just keep pursuing it, then it's like, "Oh, it all starts making sense." It's badass. I love it. That's you have a good support system along it. That's great. Amazing wife and kids. And then, uh, really good partners and people around us that, uh, yeah, it's nice because they let me do stuff that's crazy, doesn't make sense to them a lot of times, but they trust me now at this point where it's like, you know, which, which helps. That's hard initially, you know, before you had success, it's hard 'cause people don't trust you, don't believe you for times. Um, so you just got to kind of do it. And you got to be your biggest cheerleader, biggest believer first. And I think it's not giving up. It's like, for me, it's like, I know this works. I know it's going to work. I know it's going to work. I remember thinking about when I was first starting my business, I was in college, and I was watching other people doing like, "They can't be that much smarter than me. Like, even if I did half with their, a tenth with their drive, it would still be amazing. Can't them smarter?" So I kept trying and trying, and eventually was like, "Oh, it worked." You know? And, um, and then they all become, you know, same people are teasing you one day, the next day they're asking for a job, or they're telling other people how they met you one day, how they used to know you, you know? So that's it. Cool. Yeah.

I bought your training course, and now we're wrestling. You wrestle? Hang out. I know you wrestle. He's not a wrestler, though. No. I'll wrestle. I'm just not any good at it. I look, I, I know this. I know what I'm good at. I only take bets I know I can win. He does that. He's, I'm a sales guy. I only take bets I know I can win. So if I'm like, I'm, if you know, like, number one, I fought a lot as a kid, but I damn sure wasn't an MMA fighter, okay? And we're in an era right now where there's a lot of MMA fighters. So I'm not trying to fight anybody. Yeah. So but I'm really good at selling. So I like selling. I'm really good at communicating. So I like communicating. You're also good at triggering people. Yeah. I'm good at triggering. I, I like doing certain things. Wrestling, I mean, I wrestled as a kid, but I didn't wrestle, wrestle. You guys wrestled every day. I'm not going to wrestle somebody that wrestles every day. I'm gonna lose. There's no way. And that's, I'm gonna do what I'm tickle Andy Elliott, and he will kill. Like, he's not, if you tickle me, if you tickle him, he gets violent. I have some superpower violence over me. He is one that you can't just be like, "Hey, boom." I'm like, "Okay, we're not doing that again." Yeah. Go to S. Don't tickle. We've never gotten violent, but he will get violent if you tickle him. Don't tickle him. Yeah. So, but so I think I like to take bets I know I can win. You know what I mean? And I think entrepreneurship is a bet that everyone can take. Um, even in, in entrepreneur is is awesome, right? You can blow someone else's business up and be massive. Actually, I think that's the best way, right? And then being an entrepreneur, if you want to really be the massive risk taker, just know you're just going to have to not quit, right? You know what I mean? I, I think anybody that's smart, 99% of the people should be an entrepreneur for an entrepreneur and just become great. Just become the greatest son of a [ __ ] in that company. Become a really good leader. And you, you want to be an entrepreneur eventually. I think it's the best way to start. Like, I wish I had understood that. I would have gone an internship somebody and like done that for a while. You know, I tell people, I would work two years for free. Yeah. I would have loved to found someone that I looked up to and worked for them for two years for free, and that would have put me 20 years ahead of everyone else. You know what I'm saying? You know, 'cause you can't, you can't get close to people like that for free. And if you're a good dude, maybe it's, maybe it'll work. But, uh, that's actually my business partner, Todd. So when I first met him, he came starting programming for a year. He worked for free. Didn't ask me for money once. Wow. And then, um, eventually we started paying a little bit. So we have much money. Time. And then two years later, we did for ClickFunnels. He's like, "I, I don't want to be an employee. I want to be your partner." I was like, "All right, let's do it." And rest is history, you know? But yeah, smart. I couldn't afford him when he first came in. And so he didn't charge me anything. Just being served. That right there, that's that's the lesson of the whole podcast. He gave value. He proved his worth. And then you always say, always say, you'll never out-earn, um, you know, your value, right? So, you know, you got to build your value up. If you want to make more money, you increase your value. Right? And he obviously increased value big time with you. And you're like, "Dude, I owe you." You know what I'm saying? And I want you because you saw his heart too, you know what I mean? And most people, they want the money before they want to do the work. MH. It's pretty rare that people actually put the work in first before they want the money. And our whole team moved across the country not knowing what they were going to get paid. No, they didn't even ask. Yeah, but they didn't even ask. I mean, all of our guys were like, "We were, I was like, 'Hey, you know, I'd like to bring you on the team.'" They're like, "Done. I'm packing my [ __ ]." That's why we, I'm breaking my lease, selling my house, shipping my cars for not asking. Yeah. And they all moved. And they got here. And they worked. The first month, they didn't ask. Jackie gave them a check. And they go, "Dude, I didn't know we were going to get a check." Jack is like, "Well, of course, you're going to get a check." And they're like, "No, I don't even really care. I just want to be here. I want to help people." Yeah. Swear, every one of their stories.

So, guys, so entrepreneurship, right? Study leaders are readers. You're a hell of a reader. Um, you know, study people that are, you know, alive, still kicking ass, and study people from a hundred years ago. Um, study everyone. Right? The world is your library. If you know what you're looking for, it'll give you what you're looking for, right? If you want to be great, study the great. And then right now, I think everybody's asleep. So I think while everybody's asleep, it could be your time to really rise up. And, you know, two years of hardcore studying, recreating yourself, building a new identity, creating a new work ethic, taking good care of yourself. First thing you started with was like, "Eat good food." You know, "Don't do drugs." You know, you know, and if you're drinking alcohol and all that [ __ ], just self-correct. Just get rid of all the trash. If you want a great life, now's the time to pursue it. And, uh, I think right now, I think the market will really pay. Um, if you're, you ever want to be a killer, right now's the time. I think it'll pay you more money than you ever imagined in your life. But you got to be the best. In order to be the best, you got to all self-develop. Everybody. So Russell, we appreciate you, bro. Seriously, man. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you, guys. We love you. You'll see you in the next podcast. Make sure you go follow him on Instagram. And, uh, he's, he's crushing ClickFunnels. He's about to release some crazy [ __ ]. We'll see you guys in the future. And, uh, let's kill it.

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