Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - The 500th Episode!!!

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

Holy cow, I can't believe it's been 500 episodes! On today's episode we talk about where we came from, what we're doing here, and where we're going. I can't wait to take you on the ride with me. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com Magnetic Marketing Wow, 500 episodes is a huge milestone! It's fascinating to hear about your journey from the ups and downs to your current focus on personal development and building your library. Collecting those rare books sounds like an incredible adventure, and it's inspiring to see how passionate you are about sharing knowledge and helping others grow. It's also exciting to hear about your plans for NFTs and other projects associated with your library. Your dedication to serving your audience is truly admirable. Here's to the next 500 episodes and beyond! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson, and welcome to the 500th episode of the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I cannot believe we're in episode 500. Excited to be hanging out with you guys here today, and I'm going to talk about my future, my plans, what I'm working on, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. So with that said, let's cue up the theme song, and we'll come back. We're going to be hanging out, having some fun here inside of my private library. 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 in this podcast. We'll give you the answers. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to Marketing Secrets. All right. I can't believe it's been 500 episodes. That's just the Marketing Secrets podcast. Prior to that, we had the Marketing Your Car podcast, which was probably another 300 or 400. We're probably close to 1,000 podcast episodes since I started this crazy journey. Um, man, almost a decade ago, it was

after some of you guys know the story, we had built a big company up and we were on top of the world and the whole thing crashed and crumbled and moved from a huge, you know, 20,000 square foot building down to a little tiny 2000 square foot building. Um, and for some reason I had this impression that, Hey, you should start a podcast right now talking about your marketing. I was down to a little tiny 2000 square foot building. Um, and for some reason I had this impression that, Hey, you should start a podcast right now talking about your marketing. I was like, this is the worst possible time. I literally basically just went bankrupt and the whole thing went apart. Like this is the worst possible time I could do this. And, um, for some reason I was supposed to do it. So I started and I started publishing and I started talking and I started

sharing what we're working on, even though there were ups and there were downs. If any of you guys go back to the old marketing in your car podcast episodes, in fact, oh, we just got, so sorry, I digress. Marketingsecrets.com is basically the brand new funnel hub we created on ClickFunnels 2.0. It's the first ever ClickFunnels 2.0 site ever. So if you go to marketingsecrets.com, you can see it. But on there, if you click on the podcast tab, it shows you obviously this podcast you can subscribe to. But we also have links for the original Marketing Your Car podcast. All of the old episodes are back live. You can go back and binge listen to them if you want. So I recommend doing it because it's really fun. But back then, I remember what episode I did was like, only morons would want to make more

than $10 million a year. All the reasons why you should never try to make that a goal. Anyway, it's just funny now because, yeah, just how my ideas and beliefs and things shifted along the way. But it's a whole fun journey. And we were talking about ideas like, oh, we have this new project working on. I think it's going to change the world. And it was ClickFunnels.

It's just a crazy journey going back and thinking through all those kinds of things. So yeah, now we're, after running out for 300 or whatever episodes, we decided to rebrand and call it the Marketing Secrets Podcast. And now here we are, 500 episodes later, which is insane. So thank you for listening. If you missed any of them, make sure you begin at the beginning and binge listen to all of them. I've tried to make them all entertaining and good, but also sure enough that, you know, like Joe Rogan, for example, I love Joe Rogan. I think he's awesome. And I loved listening to his podcast more, but first off, each episode is like four hours long. And then there's so many, I'm

like, it would take me the entirety of my life to catch up where you guys could catch up, you know, within a couple of months if you just listened, you know, a couple of days. So there you go. Go back and binge listen. But I'm here today in my makeshift library. You may be saying, what do you mean a makeshift library? Well, I, in the last four or five months, have purchased, I'd say, conservatively probably 3,000 to 4,000 books. And I am in the process of building an actual huge library here in Boise. But right now we have a temporary office rented where I'm storing all these books. And I'm working on some really cool projects that you guys will see coming to fruition over the next little bit.

But it's interesting. Some of you saw I've done two consults with Tony Robbins. We filmed and turned into YouTube videos. So if you go to our YouTube channel and search for me, you can see him. We basically had a chance to ask him a question. And crazy enough, I'm actually flying out next month to do it again. So I have a new time to ask him a question, which I'm excited for. But my first question was trying to figure out what to do with my life. Like, we built a cool company, ClickFunnels. What should I do?

And, you know, should i step down should i sell the company what should we do and tony's big thing was like well if you sell the company what's next and i was like i don't know like i love what i do he's like then you shouldn't sell it like this is your passion this is your dream he's like if you don't have the next thing you shouldn't worry about this thing and so you know that as well a bunch of other advice really made me realize like i'm not you know i don't want to sell this business that's not my plan but then the questions kept coming well what's next like what happens if click phones was a crash or you do sell it or it's like what's the next part of your mission I didn't know that for so long

um and it's interesting you know you don't know where things are gonna go it's just at least for me I like when things get me excited I pursue those passions and hopefully it takes me in a cool spot a cool direction and that's kind of what happened here. So some of you guys know, I started collecting old books. The first one I bought was actually a first edition Book of Mormon, which is super rare. There was only 5,000 of them ever printed initially. And there's only 350 left that people know of. And so I bought one of those on eBay and that was my first old book. And that was all I had. And then fast forward, man, probably four or five years later, six years later, I got a random message on Facebook from a funnel hacker. Who's like, Hey, don't you have a first edition book of Mormon? And you know, I don't respond to all my messages, but that one, I'm like, yes, I do. Why? And he was like, Hey,

there's this guy who, um, he was here in Utah and he's, uh, like the Indiana Jones of the Mormon church. He's got a whole bunch of old books. Do you want to see a whole bunch more? I'm like, heck yeah. So the guy came up and he showed me all these other books, like first edition Book of Mormon, also second, third, fourth, fifth edition, then the first edition Doctrine and Covenants. This is for non-Mormons, but all these books are.

But they're all like the books that we look at as scripture that are like our favorite things. And he had all these different books there. And then the first edition Doctrine and Covenants and Emma Smith hymnal, all these things and Book of Commandments. And I started looking at these things. I was like, these are so cool. I don't know what it was, but I felt this like pull towards them. And so I started buying all these first edition books. And that's how I started getting into this whole book thing. And then I started, you know, started thinking like, what do I do with these things? And I want to display them and show them and you know so long story short down a whole mental

roller coaster eventually I had they never wanted to build this library and in the library I would have different sections on the things I'm passionate about right so it'd be a business section a religion section a personal development section you know have these different sections and I was like would be cool is in the religion section I can show my my first edition books. But then I was like, okay, well, in the personal development section of the business section, like what would be cool things to show there? And I didn't even know. So I started going to eBay and started searching for a few of the authors I knew. One of them was Napoleon Hill. And I was looking, you know, I go to eBay, I type in the, I type in the author and then I always sort by highest price first, just so I can see like,

what are the rare things, the cool things. And the top of it, there was this first edition laws of success book series. And it was, uh, signed by him. It was three years before the first one was ever printed. And so this is like his rough, rough draft before I ever went to actual publishers and things like that. And there's only one of them on the planet. Um, and what happened is Napoleon Hill, he, he wrote the first version, and he hand-printed on his own printers. I think at a school nearby, printed these books, and then he sent them out to the president of the United States

and people that are head of businesses and kings and queens and just personally mailed these to them as gifts to try to get them to read his new book series, right? And there's only one that we're aware of on the planet left, and it's this one. I saw it and I was like, that would be the perfect piece for the future library, for the personal development section. But it was a lot. I'm not going to tell you guys how much, but anyway, it was kind of insane. And so I was like, well, I can't buy that, but I'm going to start buying other things. So I

started buying first edition Think and Grow Riches and other things. And eventually after buying a bunch of different things, one of the people I bought something from messages me and we started a conversation. It turned out he was the one who owned this first edition Laws of Success and he'd been collecting books for 20 years. And so I started texting him back and forth and eventually I decided to buy his entire library, his entire collection for 20 years. So I went out, we flew out in a plane, we got it all, we brought it in. And then I had, you know, 20 year collection of these old books. And most of them, I didn't know who the authors were. And these people were like, they're all brand new to me. So I, in my office, I laid them all out and I started like reading the books and going through them and, and started

like figuring out who the people were and like who the authors were and like where they came from and and it started me down these rabbit holes and I started going to ebay like okay I find out an author like the guy who started success magazine for example his name is orson sweet martin and I had a couple of first editions of success magazine and I had this guy's name so I started going to ebay and searching it out turns out this guy wrote tons of books I went buying all the first editions of his books and I found his mentors this guy wrote tons of books. I went buying all the first editions of his books. And then I found his mentors, a guy named Samuel Smiles. And I went and bought all his books. And then, um, you know, one of the Napoleon Hill magazines, Napoleon Hill talks about this millionaire gave him this book. And so I go to

eBay and I find the first edition of that book. And then anyway, it's just kind of crazy to now where in the last three or four months I've gotten, I'd say between three and 4,000 books here for the library that I'm going to build someday, which is not being built yet. But I got the books, so at least we got those. But as I'm going through this, it's been really, really cool. So me, as also I'm writing my very first personal development book, which has been such a fun process. I basically wrote the whole thing, and I decided I hated it, and I deleted it all, right in the middle of me buying all these books. Now I've got literally the first editions of every personal development book ever written from the 1850s till now. And I'm having a chance to read them and go through them and find

these different pieces and find things that are similar and different. And like, it's been magical if I like opened my eyes to, to just growth in a way that was different than I ever had seen before. Um, and it's cool. Last week we were in Mexico with our, with the Two Common Club, Inner Circle and Category Kings. And I did my very first presentation, my very first personal development presentation ever. And it wasn't perfect. In fact, I'd say probably a third of it, I was like really, really proud of. And two thirds, I'm like, ah, I didn't do it right. I didn't, you know, like just, you know, that feeling where it's like, it was good, but not like perfect. But part of it was great. My first session was like, oh, so proud of what happened

and what came out of it. But it got me excited. It's like last night I went to bed at like 11 o'clock at night or something. I couldn't sleep. And I got up and I rewrote the table of contents for the new book and I wrote it out. And like, I'm so excited now. Like I'm freaking out excited. And now I'm at the library walking my old books and I'm organizing them now. I'm freaking out excited. And now I'm at the library walking my old books and I'm organizing them and putting them in categories and trying to find the right authors

and trying to find these pieces and going deeper on these topics that people haven't talked about in 100 years. But I've got all the books. I've got everything from the beginning of this movement. In fact, they call it the new thought movement. This generation where people start thinking like, hey, if you think you can change your life and like what, and what came

from that are these amazing authors and books. And, um, anyway, so I'm here because again, I'm 500 episodes into the marketing secrets podcast. I still am obsessed with marketing and funnels and all the things, but I've always told you and I tell everybody, like, I feel like I've been called to serve a certain group of people of you, and I tell everybody, like, I feel like I've been called to serve a certain group of people of entrepreneurs, just like you have, you've been called to serve your group and they're different than mine, but we, we just get called to serve a group of people. Right. So for me as entrepreneurs and the next thing is like, well, how do I help them? And so initially it was like, okay, they got to understand funnels and they got to understand copy and

storytelling. They understand traffic and they need software to do these things. And while those things are now happening and they're in place and we're serving entrepreneurs, I feel like my next step in the calling is bigger, which is I need to develop these entrepreneurs, not just as business owners, but as people, as humans, help them to be able to do more and be more. And so that's where I'm at. So I'm 4,000 books deep into this new project to try to serve you guys at a different level. And I'm excited because, again, we have no plans to sell ClickFunnels, do anything, but now it's at least I know, like if that went away or something happened, like what's my next step? Like it's still serving the same audience. It's just, these are the new tools and the keys and the things I have now to

help serve you guys at a different level. Um, because I think the more, the more you guys are able to have the tools and the keys and the things you need to be, um, truly successful, not just like the business tools, like those we're going to continue to keep developing stuff, but it's like the mindset, the personal development, the, the things that, that the greats of our time understood that we're, that we're still trying to understand, like that's what I'm trying to give to you guys. So anyway, I'm excited. Is this, this 500 episode mark to really be able to say

that now. Like, okay, I do know what the rest of my life is going to look like. My plan is to build this library and inside this library is to go out and be able to bring these principles, these philosophies back to you, back from the dead and bring them to you guys and hopefully extend the legacy of these authors for forever. But then also in the process, hopefully extend the legacy of these authors for forever, but then also in the process hopefully extend my legacy. So I'm in a weird legacy-driven spot in my life where I'm like, man, I just want 500 years from now some kid on eBay to be Googling my name and finding old books that I published and finding them

and being able to use them to change his life, the next generation's life, just like I'm trying to do right now. That's what I'm developing. That's what I'm trying to create. So anyway, I just want to share that with you guys. I'm excited. There's going to be a lot of really cool opportunities for you guys to be part of what we're doing here. We're working on NFTs associated with the library, we're working on a bunch of other

cool things. But I think it's going to be magical. So anyway, we're going to keep doing what we're doing now. ClickFunnels 2.0 is launching soon. We're going to be amplifying everything on that side of the business. And then on top of that, it's come back to like my true calling, which is you guys, how do I serve you at the highest level? If it's through software, it's through software, it's through books or events or courses or whatever that thing is. We like, that's what I'm pursuing. Um, because yeah, that's where I'm at. So anyway, I just wanted to say that.

Thank you guys so much for listening. Thank you for being part of this. I hope for each of you that as you're listening to this, you start thinking about a couple of things like your legacy. Where are you going? What do you try to do next? Figuring out how to develop yourself. What other books could you read? What other courses, what other things could you go through to help sharpen your saw and make you a better entrepreneur, a better person? Yeah, anyway, I love this game. It's fun.

I love the honor I have of serving and sharing and helping you guys to the best of my abilities and just grateful for the journey. Grateful for your attention. Grateful for the ability to do something that means a lot to me. Anyway, thanks again for listening. With that said, I appreciate you all.

Again, go to marketingsecrets.com and check out the new Funnel Hub. Check out links to all the funnels, all the sites, all the blogs, the podcasts, the videos, the YouTube channels, like everything there is at marketingsecrets.com. It's the new Funnel Hub of everything Russell related. I'm also building out the new Funnel Hub

for my new personal development brand. That's not live yet, but it'll be coming soon as well. And my goal with that is you'll go to that site and you'll be able to click on like Napoleon Hill and find all the works from him and Albert Hubbard and Samuel Smiles and all these other people that I'm bringing back from the dead, find access to them and their minds as well. So I, that said, I appreciate you all. Thank you for everything. And I will talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to the marketing secrets podcast. If you've loved this episode, then please take a screenshot on your phone and post it to Facebook, Instagram, or wherever you post stuff and be sure to tag me and let me know why you like this episode and what you'd like to

hear in the future. That'll help me to know what to create for you. Also, Dan, Kenny, and I would love to give you the most incredible free gift ever, designed to help you make maximum money in minimum time. This free gift comes with almost $20,000 worth of pure money-making information for free, just for saying maybe. You can get this gift from Dan and from me right now at NoBSLetter.com. Not only are you going to get the $20,000 gift, you also can get a subscription to two marketing newsletters that will be hand-delivered by the mailman to your mailbox each and every month. One from Dan Kennedy and one from me. To get this gift and your subscription, go to NoBSLetter.com right now.