Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - Q&A: Do God And Business Go Together?

Episode Date: June 28, 2018

I did some rare Q&A for a group talking about business and how it relates to God that I thought was unique and I wanted to share with you. On today's episode Russell talks to the Duck Dynasty audience about faith and business. Here are some of the questions he answers in this Q&A: How Russell prioritizes his with with his faith? Did he ever lose faith when business wasn't performing well? And does he feel he faces more temptation with higher levels of success? So find out the answers to these and many more questions on this special faith based episode of Marketing Secrets. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/q-a-do-god-and-business-go-together Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today, we're gonna be talking a little bit about faith and how it relates back to your business because people always ask me, like, Russell, I know you believe in God. What does it have to do with your business? How does it tie together?

So I wanted to share with you guys this really special episode and I hope you get a ton out of it. So the big question is this. How are entrepreneurs like us who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, we're spending money from our own pockets, how do we market in a way that lets us get our products and our services

and the things that we believe in out to the world and yet still remain profitable? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets. Hey everyone, alright, So this is the deal. We have a fan page that has, I don't know, like half a million fans. In fact, I've got a bunch of them. So it's one of my secret little ninja marketing strategies on the side. This one is a fan page for people who are followers of Duck Dynasty. And so I made a video that went out to these guys that was talking about faith in business because obviously Duck Dynasty fans believe in God, as do I. And I shared something there that I don't normally share typically, but after we recorded it, I thought

it was really good. And I thought it would be helpful for a lot of you guys who try to reconcile God and business and how those things fit together. And so I want to share with you. So I get emotional in this episode. It does start with me welcoming the Duck Dynasty fans. That's why there's some context. You're not like, why is Russell talking to us like we're watching a TV show? Anyway, I hope you enjoy this episode. I hope you love it. And if you like it, please share it with others. Thanks so much and enjoy this episode. What's up, Duck Dynasty fans? This is Russell Brunson again and I'm so excited to be back with you guys today. After our last show, which was all about entrepreneurship, we had tons of you guys asking questions, leaving comments and private messaging us, asking

us a whole bunch of different questions and we decided to come back and do another show today, very specifically on one set of questions that a ton of you guys were asking about, which is entrepreneurship and faith. Do they work together? Are they not? How does this whole thing work? And I thought it'd be a lot of fun to answer some of the questions. So I have the top question you guys asked here, and we're going to go through them right now and spend some time together because I know so many of you guys have strong faith. I have a very strong faith. I have a belief in God and in Jesus Christ. And a lot of times people ask, like, do those coincide with business or do they not? Should they be separate?

And so I want to kind of give you some of my ideas and feedback. And so that's kind of game plan. So the first question he has asked was, do you believe that your level of success is based on your level of faith? And I think that's a very interesting question. It's one that makes me,

I'm also a little nervous to answer that because I personally, it's a tough one because you see people who don't have faith yet have huge successes, right? And sometimes I know for me, like, that was confusing. I was like, well, this person is not necessarily doing what's right. Why are they having all these huge successes? And other times I see people who are doing everything right. They're following God.

They're living the commandments. They're doing all these kind of things. And then they're struggling in business or their finances or their companies. And so sometimes it's like it doesn't correlate. Why do those things work together? I think my personal opinion is I think that when we're doing the right things, God blesses us, right? I've seen that in my life over and over and over again. But a lot of times he blesses us in different ways.

We work with an organization called World Teacher Aid. And about once a year I have a chance to fly with this organization out to Kenya. And we actually build schools for these kids in Kenya. And I remember the first time I was there, I was in this little, they're called IDP camps, which is basically they're internally displaced people, people who the government, there's a big, huge war. And they pulled these people out and they threw them out in the middle of literally nowhere and said, hey, good luck, hopefully you can survive. And so we came in later, you know, a few years later to these IDP camps.

We started building these schools for him. I remember the first time going there, I was looking at these people and I was like, God, like, what did they do wrong? Like, why are they in this horrible situation where they're lucky if they get one meal a day? Like, they're lucky if they're able to survive the summer heat because sometimes they don't have access to water. I'm like, why? Like, why is God so upset with them? I remember feeling that. And, um, and the second day we were

there with these people, um, was Sunday. And it was really cool because, um, they wanted to do a church service with us. And most of the people, they were Christians. We all got together and we did this church service. And I see these people who are like the lowest level of poverty I've ever experienced. People who, um, literally don't literally don't have a meal every single day. People who, like I said, most of them, they don't have fathers. They have brothers and sisters who are dying around them. It's just a sad thing. And we met together for this church service. And I see these people with these bright, the whitest smiles you've ever seen, singing and praising God and having this amazing thing. And I remember

as I was sitting there, I was just like thinking about the fact that because they were here, it wasn't that God was upset at them or anything. It was like, God, I felt that God had protected them. I kept them away from so many other things in the world that, that a lot of times we have to deal with, right? We have to deal with the internet and pornography and crimes and all the stuff that we deal with here in our, in our first world countries. And I was thinking about these people. I'm like, man, God loves them so much. He's protected them. And so, um, I don't think that necessarily, um, you know, our, our level of success is tied to a level of faith. Again, I feel like we're blessed, but blessing isn't always financial, right? Sometimes blessing is

not having finances. I've learned during the times of my life when my businesses were, my businesses were struggling. A lot of times is the time where I had the biggest growth and the times where I felt God closest in my life. And so that's kind of my beliefs. I do think he blesses us, but it's not always financial. A lot of times it's from other things. And so that's kind of my opinion on that. All right. Question number two, where does my personal motivation come from? You know, I'm going to be completely honest and vulnerable. Initially, my initial motivation, I first got started, my very first business was I just met my beautiful wife. I fell in love with her.

I proposed to her. And we're going down this path and we're going to get married. And at the time, I was wrestling at Boise State University. I didn't have a job. She was making $9.50 an hour. And as soon as like reality clicked in after like we were engaged and we were getting ready to get married, I was like, how are we going to live on nine 50 an hour? Um, I'm either going to have to quit my wrestling or

quit, you know, I, it didn't like the numbers didn't add up. And I was like, I figured a way to make money. So my first initial motivation was I got to make money. I got to make money. I think a lot of times that's what happens for entrepreneurs because like that's the initial need. Right. And so initially we started, I started making money, trying to start businesses and it took a while. Um, but after it started working, then it was nice because I was able to let my wife quit her job. And then I was able to like start building a company and then hiring employees and started getting better. And there came a point where, um, where finances didn't really matter to me. I'm going to point my life now where like my house has paid off, like my car's about any debt. Like, and so it's really weird where there's a transition point where money doesn't really matter to you anymore. And so it's

like, well, why am I in, in business? And why am I doing this? Why am I working late nights and early hours and doing all the work behind this? And, um, it's interesting because, um, there comes a transition point, I think in most people's lives, especially entrepreneurs who are going through this, where initially it's like, I need, I'm trying to figure out a way to make money so I have freedom. I have these things. And then when you get that freedom, um, there's this, this shift. And if you've read my book, expert secrets, I talk about the shift. Like there's this shift from growth where you're trying to figure out how to grow as a person, like financially and get education and learning all sorts of stuff. But eventually like you get a point where like you can't grow anymore in and

of itself, right? There's, there's a point where where like you're going to be as good as you are at that thing. The only way to continue to grow and progress in life is to transition from like trying to make yourself better to this concept of contribution. Where it's like now how do I help other people? If I can figure out how to help other people, that's how I continue to grow. I don't continue to grow by getting smarter, reading more books or making more money. I start growing by helping other people. And so for me, my contribution came from like, I want to help other entrepreneurs. Like I figured out this process and this path. I've done it over and over and over again in my companies. Um, how do I help other entrepreneurs to have the same kind of success? How do I

contribute to them so they can have the same kind of impact that I was able to have? Because if I can help them feel that same freedom, I felt like, man, that lights me up on fire. And so, um, I do think that for me, my motivation initially was about getting myself, my, my life in order, my marriage in order so that we could, we could survive. As soon as those needs were met, then it transitioned to contribution. And what fires me up today is I look at the entrepreneurs we work with inside of our software company, ClickFunnels. We have over 55,000 customers who use our software. These are all entrepreneurs who are using our software to get their messages out to other people. And for me, that's what fires me up in the morning. I hear stories about all these.

I could share 100 different stories of entrepreneurs. One of my favorites is Brandon and Kaylin Poland, who are in the weight loss market. And they teach women how to lose weight. And Kaylin is a great success story. She lost a whole bunch of weight. And she's able to use her powers as an entrepreneur to other women. Like she lost the weight, she's in shape now. And now for her, it's hard to continue to grow. She can't lose more weight, right? Like she's in a spot where her body is perfect the way that it is. And so how is she supposed to

continue to grow? She can't do it. And by working out, lifting more, like you don't continue to grow that way. The way that she started to grow is turning outwards and started contributing to other women. And right now I've watched as in the last two and a half, three years, they now have over 100,000 women they've helped lose weight. And that's the motivation I have. For me, to be able to give entrepreneurs the ability to help share their message with more people is how I continue to grow. And that's my motivation right now.

All right. Number three. Do you feel you face? Uh, do you feel you face more temptation with higher levels of success? Okay. Um, so I would say, um, 100% true. Um, before I had success, like all my focus was on like having the success. When you start having success, um, it's interesting. Like, um, one of my friends once told me, he said, money is just an amplifier for who you are. And so I've seen people in my, the last 15 years I've been doing this, a lot of times younger people who make money really,

really quickly. And I've seen it completely destroy their life. Um, because suddenly they have the ability to things a lot of times, like when you, when you don't have a financial means, somebody is like, you may have desires for things that aren't right, but you don't have the financial means, you may have desires for things that aren't right, but you don't have the means to do it. I've seen 18, 19-year-old kids who make a million dollars, and all of a sudden they have the ability to do anything, to buy their own houses, get drugs, alcohol, women. Whatever they want is at their fingertips.

And a lot of times when they're not too young, but they're not mature enough to handle it, it completely destroys their life. And it's sad. I've seen so many people who have that. And so I definitely think that when you're, when you start having success, it's almost, it's almost like a double-edged sword. If you're not careful, it can be the biggest curse in the world. Or if you're, you're smart about it can be the biggest blessing. You can help you to serve so many more people and have bigger impact. But if you're not careful, it's, it'll amplify whoever you really are. And so if you're not a good person, if you struggle with the, with addictions or things like that, money's just going to amplify that. It's not

going to make it easier by any stretch of the imagination. If that was true, you look at all these celebrities who have insane amounts of money and you see them all happy, but instead you see them in rehab clinics. Why? Because now they have the means to do whatever they want. And if, uh, again, money just amplifies your tendencies anyway. And so I think a lot of times it's good for people to get themselves right. So that way when they do have more means, they're able to do good things with it as opposed to destroy themselves, which unfortunately happens way too often. We see it in pop culture. We see it in entrepreneurship.

But then the flip side of that, you see people, um, who, who get the money, get the means, and then they use it the right way. Like it's amazing because the impact they can have is second to none. All right. Um, question number four, do you have any advice for staying grounded, humble as you become more successful? Um, all right. So I have a really cool story about this. Um, my business has, uh, I've grown my business and I've crashed it now twice, big crashes. First one, uh, first one wasn't quite as big. Uh, it was probably the most painful though. Cause I, because it was my first one and my identity was so tied to my little business I was building and I built it up. I had probably 30 or 40 employees at a time. The whole thing crashed and had a reset and then built up

a new company. I had over a hundred employees and it crashed again. And I remember, um, because I think most of us entrepreneurs were building stuff, like it becomes our identity. Like it was embarrassing. It was humiliating. You know, um, it was hard to go talk to your friends, your family members. You see people at church, you were asking, Hey, how's business going? And you're just like, man, like, I don't really want to tell them. Like, it's not something I'm proud of right now. Um, but fast forward after my second, um, business failure, um, I was actually at a retreat in Mexico with some entrepreneurs. And we were talking about it.

And there was one guy who was very, very wealthy. He had bought and sold like 40 or 50 companies and made hundreds of millions of dollars. And it was interesting. We were sitting next to each other at dinner, and he was fascinated about my story. And he kept asking me these questions. And initially, a lot of times what we do is we talk about the highlight reel. Like, oh, I did this, and I did this. And we're proud of it. And He kept asking me these questions. And initially, a lot of times what we do is we talk about the highlight reel, like, oh, I did this and I did this and we're proud of it. And he kept asking me questions. He's like, well, tell me about the tough times. Like what happened?

And finally he got into me and I told him, I think it was getting late at night. I was tired. So I just kind of broke down. I was like, okay, this is the first time that my business crashed. And I went into the details and I told him, he asked me so many questions. I went into the pain of it. And I talked about the second time I went through the pain of it and what happened and why it was so hard. And afterwards he looked at me and he nodded his head. He said, good. I'm like, what do you mean good? He's like, I will never work with an entrepreneur

who hasn't cycled at least once. I was like, cycled? What does that mean? He's like, he's like cycled means that you built something up and it crashed. He's like, the first time someone builds something, they have all the success. And he said, the problem is they think it's because of them.

He says, they still, they read their bio and they believe it. They're drinking their own Kool-Aid. He says, until you've built a company and you've crashed it, and he called it cycling, which is such a better way than saying going through bankruptcy. He's like, until you've cycled once, he's like, you still believe that you are the greatest thing in the world. He's like, after you've cycled, you realize it's not you. There are other people that made this possible.

You were a piece of it, but there were other people. There were people on your team. There were employees. There were customers. There was inspiration from God. There were all these things that happened that made you successful. And just as easy as you were given it, you can be taken away. And he says that after you've cycled once, typically you're more humble. And so for me, my biggest advice is know that like you are not the greatest thing in the world. If you're building a company, there are so many external forces. I look at the companies I've built and a lot of it was, yes, we worked hard. Yes, we were smart. Yes, we did a good job. But a lot of it was we had really good timing. There were doors that were opened up that shouldn't have been there. We had inspiration or ideas that weren't from ourselves that just somehow showed up that gave us the ability to execute ways that we couldn't have done before. And so realize that it's not you. You are a piece of this thing, but realize that there's a lot more people behind you. And

if you have crashed, if you've cycled, if you've gone through bankruptcy, don't stress out about it. That was a gift our founding fathers gave us as entrepreneurs so we can risk things and try things and not have, you know, ultimate punishment where your business fails, you end up in jail for the rest of your life. If that was true, nobody would try to do anything. We wouldn't have that ability. So cycling, crashing, bankruptcy, those things, it's a gift from God, I believe. It's a gift from our founding fathers so that we as entrepreneurs have the ability to risk things and try things. And if it fails, worst case scenario, you cycle, you start over, then you can do it again. And so that's kind of my best feedback for staying grounded and humble.

All right, I got a couple more questions here that I want to go through. And these have been fun. I don't have a chance a lot of times to talk about the religious aspects of entrepreneurship. So I appreciate you guys sending these questions. It's really fun. Number five, did you ever lose faith when your business wasn't performing well? So this kind of reminds me back

to the second time my business crashed. And I don't think I ever lost faith. I know I have friends who have, when things have crashed, they've questioned God. They've been upset or angry at him as well. I don't think I ever lost faith. I know I have friends who have, when things have crashed, they've questioned God. They've been upset or angry at Him as well. I don't think I ever had that. I think I remember going through this process and feeling like I had to figure this out on my own. And so it wasn't so much I lost faith.

I think I kind of distanced myself because I felt like I had made this mistake and I had to fix it. And I remember for months going through this process of trying to fix it, trying to fix it, trying to fix it. And a lot of times not knowing what to do and being confused and being stuck and you got like hitting these walls and just like, uh, it was like trial after trial after trial. I remember one morning I was getting ready and I just, I didn't want to go in. I remember thinking in my head, like, man, I wish I had a boss so they could fire me, but I can't. Cause I have to like, I have to clean up this mess that we've created and I have to figure my way through it. And I was kind of lingering in my, in my room and it was just taking longer to get out the door.

My wife came in, and she could tell that I was in a good spot. And she looked at me, and when she looked at me, I kind of just started breaking down, and I was just like, I didn't know what to do. And I was scared, and I still remember this moment. It was one of the coolest moments with my wife. She came over to me and she grabbed me and she pulled me down to my knees

and she prayed with me. And she said, we need God's help. And she prayed that I would know what to do and how to do it. And that was this thing that brought me back to that point. And it was a turning point where it gave me the ability to kind of re-tap into that and me back to, to that point. And, um, and it was a turning point where it gave me the ability to kind of re-tap into that and know where to go and what to do. Um, and, um, and so that's kind of, that was kind of my, uh, my experience with that. Um, sorry, it's not normal

sharing some of those, uh, more emotional things. All right. I got two more questions here that I want to share. Um, uh, the next one, how do you prioritize your work with your faith and your religion? And so a couple of things. First off, you know, with me, like they're not separate. If any of you guys, you know, you're watching this show now, I talk about my faith openly. I talk about my faith on my podcast. I don't, in my books, I talk about, I don't hide it. It's not things that are separate. I honestly feel that God has given me gifts not because he cares if I'm an entrepreneur, cares if I make money, he cares that I'm having an impact on other people. And I feel like if I didn't talk about that, it would be a disservice to him. So I don't hide those things.

For me, they're very much one and the same. They work together. I know that in the society we live in now, it's scary because you can get sued for talking about God at work and things like that. And it's just, it's one of those things that I just think it's, they can, they should be together. I feel like business is a gift. Businesses, we're creatives, we can serve people, we can serve customers, which is what religion is, right? Religion is all about service. I look at Christ. He didn't come to this earth to like tell people how great he was. He

came to serve other people. And it's the same thing. Business is one of the most pure forms of service I feel. And so that's kind of how I tie them together. And then the last one is, what is your why? Is it to be rich, to retire young, to be able to have freedom to serve? What is your why? And so, you know, I'm in a spot in my life now where I've experienced things. Um, I am rich. I've retired. I could retire. Like those things don't motivate me. If they didn't, I would be retired. I would just close down shop. We're in a good spot where we could do that. Um, but for me, my why is all about, um, the contribution to entrepreneurship. I love entrepreneurs. I love what they can do. I know that one entrepreneur can affect hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people's lives in ways that I can't do. I told you

earlier about Kaylin Poland with weight loss for women. I can't help women lose weight. I have no idea how to do that. I don't know how the intricacies of the, of how it works, but I can help Kaylin to get her message out to more people. If I can affect her and help her to be able to share her message, she can help a hundred thousand women. If I can help somebody else with their message, like how many people they impact. And so for me, my why is entrepreneurs. I love entrepreneurs. I love what they do.

I love their ability to impact change. I don't think that the government is gonna change things here in this country. I don't. I think entrepreneurs are gonna do it. And so I love the ability to serve entrepreneurs, help entrepreneurs, give them the tools, the ability, the skill sets they need

to have legitimate change in the world. And so that's it for today's questions. I hope that helps you guys. Again, thank you so much for letting me be on the show. If you have any questions, comments, please post them down below, message us, and we will do another follow-up show with more Q&As, answering your questions.

Again, thanks so much for having me here today. Appreciate you all, and we'll talk to you soon. Would you like to see behind the scenes of what we're actually doing each day to grow our company? If so, then go subscribe to our free behind-the-scenes reality TV show at www.funnelhacker.tv.