Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - The Roundtable of World Changers (Part 2 of 4)

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

The roundtable interview with Matt and Caleb Maddix and a small group of people who are trying to change the world. Enjoy part two of this special 4 part episode series. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Seekers Podcast. So I have got to ask you, what did you think about episode number one of the World Changers Roundtable? Hopefully, you loved it. There were so many things covered in that 42 minutes. Anyway, we are moving on to the next part of this interview. As you know, this is going to be broken down into four parts because they kept me there, handcuffed to a table, until 3:00 AM. I'm just joking. They didn't really. But, the question was so intriguing, we were having so much fun, we just kept going and going until finally I was like, "I have to fly out in three hours. I need to get back to my hotel." But now we're going to go dive into the second part. This next episode is probably another 30 to 40, 45 minutes or so as well. So these are some things we'll be covering in this one, which is really fun. We talk about, number one, why my business partner, Todd Dickerson, is so amazing, and hopefully give you ideas about if you're pursuing opportunities and trying to land your dream job or partnership or whatever. Number two, we talked about personality profiling, how we actually are hiring here at ClickFunnels. We talked about where my love for learning came from. We talked about transition for me, going from an athlete to a business person and a marketer. We talked about some of the lessons I learned from Lindsey Stirling, things I was not expecting to hear from her that totally changed everything for me. We talked about people who intrigue me, my interest in health and bio hacking. We talked about is there anything that happens inside of this business that gets me as excited as what I felt in wrestling. We talked about what thing is close, but nothing actually has ever hit it. We talked about the first Two Comma Club Awards. We talked about how to upgrade your identity as you grow. We talked about the fact that you have to cycle and fail and rebuild in your businesses. We talked about the launch of ClickFunnels and how it wasn't just the fact that I was a genius, because I wasn't. There are so many things. Talking about the grace of God and how it tied into the launch of ClickFunnels. We talked about some of my early products, like Zip Brander and Forum Fortunes. We talked about my Christmas Grinch sale, which was the very first big sale, big launch I ever did, to my little tiny list that made enough money to cover Christmas for my wife and I when we were first getting started. We talked about becoming worthy. We talked about list building, how it's better than buying ads, and a whole bunch of other things. It's amazing, this could be 40 courses all wrapped into one super podcast episode. So if you liked the last episode, I think you're going to love this one as well. And I've got two more after this, coming back, going deeper into this conversation with the Roundtable of World Changers. So, that said, we're going to cue the theme song. When we come back, we'll dive right into the second section here of the interview. Matt Maddix: Dave and Todd, I mean, just wow. Those dudes are like... But what about those guys? Russell: So here's Todd's story. So the real long story short, I bought some software, it was coding Ruby on Rails, didn't know that. Bought this company with the last... I didn't have the money. So I borrowed money, bought this company, coded on some platform we didn't know, and I was like, "Screw it," right? And I tried to hire people to fix it, nobody could fix this platform until finally I was leaving the office one day. I literally emailed the people saying, "Turn off the servers." We lost all of our money to this company. They shut it down. And I'm walking out of the office and I had this impression of like, "There could be someone on your email list who knows Ruby on Rails." I was like, "That's weird. I had a bunch of internet marketing nerds. There's no one that's like, 'Ruby on Rails...'" Anyway. It was starting with the impression from God, I stopped, turned back around, set the computer to open back up, sent an email to my list. "If you know Ruby on Rails, I'm looking for a partner. I bought a software company and it's not working. Please send me a message." Send. Matt: And that's all you said? Russell: Yeah. And lo and behold, three years earlier, Todd bought some random thing from me, happened to be on my email list. He built the website three or four years earlier that was making six figures a year on autopilot. Hadn't worked in four years. Just hanging out relaxing with his wife and his daughter. And an email comes in and it says, "If you know Ruby on Rails, I'm looking for a partner." He's like, "I know Ruby on Rails. I can be Russell's partner." Emails me back. And at first I see him and his beautiful wife and I'm like, "There's no way he's a programmer. There's no way." That was literally my thought. But he was the only person that responded back so I was like, "Okay, well, here's the login to the site. Fix it. I don't know what to do. I'm not a coder." I went to bed, woke up the next morning. He's like, "Cool, I fixed the site. Plus I found this, this, and this. And I changed this. And I moved these things,", and all of this stuff. He's like, "It's working now. Do you have anything else you want to do together?" I'm like, "Huh." And so I give him another project, another project. And for an entire year Todd and I worked together, and never once did he ever ask me for money, ever. Matt: Wow. Russell: Not a penny. And I remember he started finding Boise to work on a project together ... Matt: You're telling me he worked for you for an entire year? Russell: For free. More than a year. Caleb Maddix: Why was that? Russell: I don't know. I found out later. He'd gone to Robert Kiyosaki at this event and he said, "Find someone who's doing what you want to do and work for them for free." So he told me that years later. I didn't know that. Matt: Todd, if you're watching dude. I love you man. You're legit. Russell: And so he kept coming and he started coming to Boise and we started becoming friends. The smartest developer I've ever met. Literally the smartest person I've ever met. I'll go that far. Just genius. And he'd come out to Boise and we'd work on projects and ideas. We tried to launch a couple of things. None of them really worked. And we were just trying stuff. He was just always there, always serving, always doing stuff. And one day were in Boise and I was looking over his shoulder cause we're looking at stuff and I saw his email. And there's all these emails from some recruiting site or something. I was like, "What's that?" He's like, "Oh, it's people recruiting me for a Ruby job." And I was like, "Do you get a lot of those?" And he's like, "I get three or for a day." I'm like, "Really? Are they good offers?" He's like, "I don't know. Let's check it out." He opened it up and the first one was like $400,000 a year starting salary. I'm like, "What?" The next one is $350,000. The next was 5 ... Insane things. I'm like, "Why don't you do that?" He's like, "I don't want to work for them. I want to be your partner man." I'm like, "What?" And then I all of a sudden had this realization that I hadn't paid him in a year. We didn't have much money at the time, we're still at the backside of a business failure when we met. I'm like, "I can pay you maybe $50,000 a year. Can I pay you that?" He's like, "Whatever." So I told our little bookkeeper, "Pay Todd $50,000 a year." And they're like, "Okay." So he did that and next year we're paying $50,000 a year. We're doing stuff and we have more things. Started to get a little success here and there. Making more money. Back in Boise again. And I'm like, "Can I pay you some more?" And he's like, "Whatever." Matt: So he wasn't ever just asking? Russell: Never in his life has he asked me for money. Ever. So we bumped it up to $100,000 a year because that's what we got, the year before that, after a year or two working together. And then, it was crazy, the day Leadpages got the first round of funding for $5,000,000, the same day Todd was flying to Boise. And he gets the email. It's east coast so he's two hours ahead. He's awake and on the plane, he sees the email, forwards it to me, and then jumps in the plane. He's flying for four hours. I wake up. I see the email and I was like, "Leadpages? Got 5 ..." I was like, we built landing page software in the past. I was perplexed and angry. And then Todd lands. And Todd, he's a little guy, he comes into the office all angry. He's like, "Leadpages got 5 million!" He's like, "I can build Leadpages tonight. Do you want to build lead pages?" I'm like, "Yeah. Let's compete with Leadpages." He's like, "All right." Matt: No way. Dude. I love this. Russell: This is like angry Todd. I love angry Todd. I like all Todds, but angry Todd is the best Todd. Matt: Is it? Okay. Russell: He's just pissed because he's like, "I can build this tonight. Everything thing they got we can have done tonight." So we're getting all ready. What should we call it and everything. And then he's like, "Wait, we're building this. You want to add anything else to it?" And I was like, "Oh. Yeah. What if it did this? And what if it did this?" And we spent a week in front of a white board saying, "What if it did?", and we mapped out ClickFunnels. Matt: So you're talking about a week where you guys just locked in and you were just having fun. Just doodling and whatever. Russell: Yeah. He's like, "Oh, I can do that. We can do that." We're brainstorming all sorts of stuff so we map the whole thing out. Matt: Did you know at that moment you were onto something big? At that moment right there, when you guys were like ... Or was it just still like ... Russell: All lot of people have tried something like that. I tried before other people tried. No one had done it. So I was kind of skeptical but Todd's like, "I can do this. This is easy." I'm like, "Okay because I tried it ..." He's like, "No dude, I can do it. This is easy." So I was, excuse me, optimistically hopeful because he's a genius but I was also nervous. But anyways, we map it out and then we bought Clickpros.com. I wanted to call it ClickFusion because I own ClickFusion, but we'd had three failed businesses called ClickFusion. All of them failed and Todd was like, "No. It's bad karma. We can't." I'm like, "But the logo is so cool dude." Matt: I love it. You love the logo. Russell: And he's like, "No, we can't." He's like, "It's got a jinx on it or something. We can't do that. You have to come up with a different name." I was like, "But ClickFusion is the coolest name ever." So we're trying things. Click everything and then ClickFunnels. We're like, "Ah." That was the thing. We're so excited Matt: Who first said it? Do you remember? The words ClickFunnels. Caleb: It's almost like God saying, "Let there be light." Russell: I would assume it was me but I'm not positive. I'll have to ask Todd on that one. Caleb: Well, when you said it, was it instant? Like fire? Russell: It was insane, it was available. Matt: Oh, you know that feeling, right? Checking domains. You're like… chills. Russell: How has no one thought of this before? And so we got it and I remember I was driving him to the airport at the end of the week to take him back home. And we got to the airport. Boise airport, It's a small airport. So we pull up to the thing to get out and you can tell he's probably nervous waiting. And before we get out of the car he's like, "I really want to do this man. I'm excited." I'm like, "Me too. Me too." He's like, "I don't want to do this like your employee though. I want to do it as your partner." And in that moment, I was just like all the fear of ... I'd tried partners in the past. It hadn't worked. All this stuff and all the everything. And it was just this weird thing of just all the emotions were hitting me as he sat in the car, about to get out the car. I have 15, 20 seconds before he's going to to go. I was just thinking about him. I was like, he's never asked me for money. He's never done anything. He's served. He's given everything. I was just looking at him. I was like, "All right let's do it." He's like, "Cool." And he got out of the car and he's gone. Matt: Wait a minute. So at that moment? Is was that quick? Russell: That was it. Matt: It was a gut feeling that you just knew. That he was ... Russell: It was him. Yeah. And I was literally... I said this on stage at Funnel hacking live, outside of marrying my wife, it was the greatest decision I ever made. Matt: Yeah. I remember you saying that with tears. Russell: Yeah. Matt: Why though? I'm curious because it's not just ClickFunnels. Russell: He's amazing. If you look at our personality profiles, it's fascinating. We have the same personality profiles. The Myers-Briggs. Except for one letter's different. Where I'm a feeler he's a thinker. And it's been magical as a partnership because we both have so much respect for each other that we don't try to fight each other. And it's very much like if I wanted to do something, I'm like, "This is what I want to do. This what I'm feeling. What do you think?" And he'll come back and be like, "Well, I think this." And so I come up from feeling instead of thinking and it's really cool. So sometimes his thinking will trump my feeling. And I'm like, "You're actually right. Let's not do that." Or vice versa. Where he's like, "I'm thinking this." And I'm like, "I don't know why but I feel this." And he'll be like, "Okay." He respects that. We just have such mutual respect that we've never been in a fight. We've never argued. We've never had problems. It's been amazing. Matt: Wow. Russell: And he's similar to like we talk about with Dan. He went back home after us white boarding that, sat in his basement for five or six months and built ClickFunnels by himself. Caleb: Really just by himself? Russell: 100% by himself. Caleb: No other team. No other dev? Russell: It was just him. And the right before we launched, we brought in another partner, Dylan, who built the front-end editor and did a lot of the UI. And so then it was those two as we got closer and closer to the launch. And then for the next year it was just those two that did everything. And then after a year, we started bringing in other developers. But it was 100% Todd. Matt: Wow. Russell: He's amazing. In all aspects. You know you have friends you think they know everything about everything. That's like Todd except he actually knows everything about everything. You ask him anything and he's just like ... I don't know how he does it. And I'll always fact check him, like, "Oh my gosh. He's right again." He's brilliant. It's amazing. Matt: So for those of us who have partners or are maybe going into partnership, what's your best advice? And what do you feel like he does right that other partners don't do? Russell: I think the hardest thing with partners is typically we want to partner with someone who is just like us. We did a podcast most recently. Dean, Tony and I, right? We've done two partnerships. Both partnerships made it through the launch and they stopped. Made it through the launch and stopped. The podcast was like, "Why?" I love Dean. I love Tony. They're amazing. The problem is that me and Dean had the exact same skill set. Matt: Oh. Russell: And so the problem is that both of us are right. We both understand it right, but we do it differently. And so it's like You have two people, and so typically you want to partner with those people who are like you. You're like, "Oh, we think the same. We should be partners." But that's not necessarily the right thing because then you've got two alphas with the same skillset, and someone has to win and someone has to lose. And it's hard. Whereas me and Todd, we have different skill sets. There is never a winner or a loser. We can both win because different skill sets, both the same mission. It's really easy. So I think the biggest thing is you're trying to find the yin yang. You're not trying to find someone who thinks like you or acts like you. In fact, this is true in most hiring processes as well. I used to have people like, "Send me a video if you want this job." Right? So I get these videos, and the people that I wanted to hire were the people like me. I'm like, "This person's awesome. They think like me. They're a genius. They're amazing." You'll hire them, and within a week I'm like, "I hate this person." It's horrible. So we started shifting the way we do our hiring based on personality profiling instead. DISC profile drives most of my own personal hiring so I know that I'm a high D, high I, high S. No C at all. Right? And so the people I need to hire around me are high S, high C. The problem is the people I who I watched their videos and I'm pumped, they're high D, high I. So I'm like, "Yeah. These people are awesome. They're charismatic. I'm going to love them. They're drivers, they're awesome. Worst employees ever. Matt: Right. Russell: Right? So when people send us this profile, first I find the right profile and then from there I do interviews. Because if I interview ahead of time I get sold by the people who sell and then they're horrible employees. And so I make sure they're high S high C, because I know that if I talk to high S high C, I'm going to be kind of bummed out. Like, "Oh, I don't know if this is the kind of person that I'm going to jive with." But they're the best people to surround myself with because I'm such a high D high S. I'm a creator. I'm throwing things up in the air and I need people who are S and C, who are faithful finishers, who are going to take the things, capture them, and make sure that it's amazing. Matt: Do you feel like businesses and entrepreneurs are making a mistake by not having their employees and their team take these tests? Russell: 100%. I have a new company we're launching all about personality profiling because I'm such a big believer in it. Matt: Really? Tell me why. Top three reasons. Russell: It's in all things in life. If you're going to be a partner. If you're going to date someone. Understanding who they are is such a big part of it. Right? Because we think everyone sees the world the same way we see it and it is not true at all. The way you see it, the way we all see is so different and so if we don't understand that at a deep level, then I get upset by what you do and at what everyone's doing because it's like, "Don't you see what I see?" And the reality is no they don't. So if you start understanding people better ... In fact, the software can be called Understand About Me. It's a place you go and you take all the personality profiling and it gives you a page that can show somebody this is me. So in five seconds I can understand you perfectly they're like, "Oh, now I know how to work with you." Because I understand what you are, what your beliefs are, what your values, all the things I need to know about you, I can find it really quickly. Where normally you're going to go years with somebody before you understand them. I can look at a thing and get pretty dang close in a minute. Matt: Wow. Russell: Now I know hot interact with you and spend time with you and work with you. Things like that. Caleb: Question. Where does your love to learn come from? Because one of the things I noticed from being around you, it's always like yeah, so I had this moment where I geeked on this and I geeked out on this. It was health and suppliments, and marketing and personality types. There's all these different things you geek out on. Have you always been that way? Is it like you geek out on marketing, you saw the rewards from it, and you're like, "Wow, what if this goes into other areas?" Where does that come from? Russell: Yeah, I didn't always have my life. In fact, I had a fascinating conversation with Tom Bilyeu about this, because when I was growing up in high school I always thought I was a dumb kid. I thought I was an athlete, so I focused there. I thought I was an athlete, so I was a wrestler, that was my identity, that was where I focused at. I thought I was dumb. Because of that, straight C student high school and college, my cumulative GPA graduating from college was 2.3. Straight C's and one B maybe somewhere in there, right? Because I was a dumb kid. When I got done I ended my wrestling career, so I stopped being an athlete, and I was like, "Oh crap." I started to learn this business stuff and I don't like to read. I'm a dumb kid. What do I do? It was fascinating. Tom told me, because I had this epiphany, I'm not actually dumb. He's like, "Actually, the reality is you probably really were dumb. But then you changed, right?" So for me it was like I shifted. It was fascinating. Do you remember the Funnel Hacking Live where we had Lindsay Stirling perform? One of my favorite parts of that, she did a whole performance. If you guys don't know, Lindsay does violin dancing stuff, and afterwards I had a Q and A with her afterwards. I had this question I was so pumped to ask. I was waiting for her just to like, the question is, she was on America's Got Talent, and I think she took 7th place. When she got kicked off, Pierce Bronson or whatever said, "You've got no talent. You're no good." Whatever, right? So I was like, do you remember that time when he said that? What I thought she was going to say was, "Yeah, I proved him wrong. Yeah." I was like, "What did you feel after that?" She's like, "Yeah, I got home and I realized he was right. I wasn't very good. So I went back and I started practicing and I started working harder and eventually I became good enough." It was like, oh my gosh. I got chills when I was saying it again. Matt: Yeah. Russell: I remember when Tom said it to me, he was like, "You probably were dumb." I was like, "I was." Because I wasn't reading things. So with marketing that was the first thing for some reason that caught my attention, that got me excited, right? And then if you look at my DISC profile, ROI is my highest value. I have to see ROI in something or I don't want to do it. So when I saw an ROI on this reading, I was like, "Oh my gosh. I read a book, I got one little sentence, changed a color, made more money. Oh my gosh." That is where it started, 100%. I started learning that and I started getting obsessed with those things. As this business grew for me I started being more, I always joke that crazy people got attracted to me, right? The best health people, the best fitness people, the best in every market kind of came into our world somehow. So I started getting to meet all these people. When you're around someone who's the best in the world at the thing, and they start talking about the thing, you can't help but be like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing." Right? You zone in on that. So whenever I meet someone that's amazing and I have a chance to talk to them like this I just geek out. Like when I met your dad the first time with you guys. That's when I bought your parenting course and everything. I was just like, I saw you and I saw him and I was like, "I want that." So I started going down that rabbit hole, right? I met Anthony DiClementi, I was like, "I love this guy. I have respect for him, I love him." Every time he talks about anything, he fascinates me, when he talks about something it fascinates me. I have to look down those things, right? When people fascinate me, the things that fascinate them start fascinating me and that's when I kind of go down those rabbit holes. This person is so intriguing and fascinating. What makes them that way? What are they doing. It's interesting. I'm not a good question asker. You guys are so good at question askers. I've never been good at asking questions, but I'm really good at watching what people do and then seeing it and trying to go down the rabbit hole. What are they doing, why are they doing it, that kind of thing. Caleb: He’s a true master in it. You can just tell. What are some things you want to take the time to geek out on? I'm sure you see something and you're like I want to get on that but it's not a priority, I've got to do this. What are some things, if I had a week or two? Russell: Just free time with nothing else involved? Caleb: What's the next thing you're going to geek out on? Russell: Oh. I would say every probably three years I get re-excited about SEO, for some reason. I start going down that path again, because I love it. There's times in my business when that was the focused. It's not now at all, but I went through a couple ... Brian Dean’s a real cool SEO guy, couple guys… I started dabbing my toe in again and I'm like, I just want to get back into it so bad. Right now SEO is actually our number 11 lead source as of today in ClickFunnels, which is amazing. So we handed SEO the first four or five years, now we're focused on it again. It's doing really well for us. I want to go deep there because I like that. Anyway, I haven't had a chance to do that. Any of the health stuff really, really fascinates me. Matt: Why? I'm curious. Why are you drawn to that so much? The health stuff. Russell: Because I've seen with myself ... My history is I got in wrestling, at the PAC 10 tournament was my last actual wrestling match. My wife was giving herself fertility shots in the stomach during PAC 10 so the next month se was pregnant. So I got done wrestling, got done competing, got done running, got done lifting. All my athletic career ended, and then my wife got pregnant. She's eating for three kids, and I'm pumped because I don't have to work out right now, she's hungry, I'm hungry, we're eating. We just kept eating and eating. So over the next seven to eight months my wife gained like 60 pounds, I gained like 60 pounds. We were doing it together so who cared, it was amazing. Then one day she has two babies and she loses like 45 pounds and I'm like, oh crap. I'm stuck here. Where did you go? This for me? Matt: Yeah. Russell: Thank you. Then at that time the business was starting and I was stressed out trying to figure it out and I didn't get healthy again. I just was in that state of being 65 pounds heavier for years. But I didn't know the difference, I didn't know that I felt differently, because I'd never been in a spot where I spent eight hours sitting behind a computer, so I didn't know what good felt like or bad felt like. I knew if I tried to wrestle I'd puke, so I was like I don't feel like I'm an athlete. I just felt normal, I thought. Eight years in I was like, I don't know, I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like, "Oh, what happened to you?" You know what I mean? I'm sure hopefully everybody's had a chance. I was like, huh. It was hard because in my head I knew how to work out, I knew how to train, I knew these things. Finally I was like, "I need to get a trainer." So I got a trainer for the first time. I'd never really done that before. Started going, and got me from I don't even know, 27, 28% body fat down to 12% in a matter of seven or eight months. I looked better, I felt better, but what's crazy is I could work twice as hard and twice as long. I wasn't tired. I was like, "I can keep going. My brain's on fire. This is amazing." Matt: Wow. Just from the ... Russell: I had no idea until I lost all the weight. All of a sudden it was just like, I can do so much more. I think, when I first met Anthony DiClementi the first time I was like, this is my problem right now. I am at work all day slaying dragons, doing all these things, I have this energy. I get home at night and my two little twin boys are there, and my little daughter, and I'm spent and I have no energy. How do I still be a present dad and how do I have these things? The next tier was the bio hacking stuff. How do you do these things? How do you increase energy? There's so many ways to do that, from light therapy to supplements to sleeping to sound to breath, all these crazy things that seem stupid. The first time Anthony's like, "We're going to do breath work." I'm like, "We're going to breathe? That's your bio hack? We're going to breathe together?" He's like, "Yeah, it's going to be amazing." I'm like super annoyed. What's the ROI on this, I've got to get back to work. So he sat me down in our gym. You've been in our wrestling room. He sat me down and he's like, "You have to sit because if you're standing you'll hit your head and you'll die." I'm like, what are you talking about? He sits me down and we do these breathing exercises where he's yelling at us and screaming. All this stuff is happening. If anyone's ever done deep breath work it's nuts. We're doing this thing where we're supposed to do this heavy, heavy breath work until he's like, what's going to happen is the world is going to ... Has anybody done jiu-jitsu here? Been tapped out before? Matt: Yeah. Russell: So you get choked out. What will happen, the carotid artery gets choked and the world starts shrinking like this. If you take pressure off it, it comes back to life. If you don't, it goes darker and darker until it disappears and you're gone, right? If you've never been choked out, that's what happens. It's a really fun experience. But you have the minute when you see it shrinking around you and then it's gone, right? He told me that's what's going to happen. You're going to breathe so much that the world around you is going to start shrinking. If you don't stop you're going to pass out. So we go all the way to where it starts shrinking, stops, and then when you hit that point you let me know and then you hold your breath for as long as you can. He's like, "How long can you hold your breath for?" I'm like, "Maybe a minute." He's like, "You'll do it for at least five." I was like, there's no way. So he says sit down, we're doing this breath thing, we're going like crazy and sure enough the walls start doing weird stuff. I feel like I'm on drugs. I'm sweating like crazy. We keep doing it. He's yelling at me. All of a sudden the world starts closing around me, I'm like, "What is happening?" And then he stops and is like, "Hold your breath." He starts the clock. I'm sitting here holding my breath forever, looking around. We had three or four of us guys all doing it at the same time. I'm freaking out. And then it starts getting quieter, things are slowing down, we're sitting there and then he's like let some of the pressure out but don't breathe in. Let pressure out, pressure out, pressure out, keep doing that, and it gets done and the stop clock is over five minutes. I'm just like, I just held my breath for five minutes. Matt: And you didn't even know it. Russell: Insane. And then the rest of the day we were on fire. It was just like, whoa. Right? We brought a cryo-sauna at our house and we go freeze in the cryo-sauna and the rest of the day you just feel ... That's the thing I love now, these little weird things. Light therapy, breathing, weird things that just seem stupid. You do it and you can go longer, you can think better, you can do stuff. All those things just get me so excited. Anthony's fun because he randomly will just ship me weird stuff in the mail. Just the weirdest things. It makes my wife so mad. It just shows up. There's a big old box. She's like, what's this from? I'm like, I'm hoping it's from Anthony, it's going to be amazing. Just weird things. Tons of stuff. I love that kind of stuff because the ROI on it is crazy. They're always these weird things. I have this headband someone sent me. You put this headband on, you put an app on and you start working and it just makes you not tired, makes you focused. These weird things. How does this work? I don't know. And they're like oh, it works because the waves over here sync your brain and change your brain waves and the creative state and all these things. I mean, I don't know how it works but I just wrote two chapters. Caleb: Do you do breath work every day? Russell: No, because it's so intense. If I had a coach who could walk me through it. I have a recording of Anthony doing it and I almost dread it because I know how hard it is. By the time you're done you're sweating. Caleb: I've got to get that recording. Russell: I'll get it to you. By the time you're sweating, you're like what just happened? I just breathed for five minutes. It's weird. Anyway, I would love to understand it on a deeper level but I don't understand a lot of the things now. Some of them I've gone deep on, but a lot of them I do without knowing why. I hate it because my wife will be like, "What's this do?" And I'm like, I don't know. Matt: Just love it. Russell: One of my buddies, Preston Eli, he wrote this blog post, he called it the Warriornaire Workout. In there he explains part of his morning workout. He's like, why do I do it? He's like, because Tony Robins does, and I obey all giants who fly helicopters and have stage presence. That quote goes to my head all the time. People ask me, why do you do that? I'm like, because I obey all giants who fly helicopters and have stage presence, that's it. I'm like, I don't know the reason why, Tony says so, therefore I will do it. I would like to understand it at a deeper level so I have a better response than I obey all giants with helicopters and stage presence. But that's a pretty good reason. Anyway. Matt: Real quick, does anybody else want to throw in a question for Russell? Anybody else here live with us? Caleb: Let me ask one more real fast. Because I want to. I want to ask this. We were just having sushi, I was asking you, what are some of the favorite periods of your life? One of them you said was wrestling, which I found funny because by far one of my favorite periods is baseball, which people wouldn't expect because obviously I've been on stage and all this other stuff and that should take the cake. But those moments when you're just on the field, you're in the zone, there's nothing better. Where, with what you get to do now, whether it's being live on a webinar or being on stage or whatever it is, where do you get the same feeling of wrestling? Do you know what I mean? You know, the feeling in your chest? Russell: Today while we were in line at the grocery store I talked to your dad about this. I said that the best feelings I ever had in my life were from wrestling. The feeling of winning a hard match that I wasn't supposed to win and getting your hand raised, I never felt something like that, that felt as good as that, ever. I've been searching in business to find that, and I've never found it. Speaker 3: Do you feel like sports is like business in any sense? Matt: Good question. Russell: For sure, yeah. There's a lot, for sure. What I was going to say is the closest I've ever gotten to feeling that is when you serve at an event and you see a table rush and you see not only people where they get the a-ha, but enough of an a-ha where it gets them to get up and to move. That's the closest I've ever felt to that. It's not as good, but it's the closest I've ever felt to that. Which is why I love doing the big things. I get a glimpse of that. Caleb: How close? Scale of one to 10. Wrestling's a 10. Where does that rank? Russell: If wrestling's a 10, I'd say it's about an eight. In fact it's interesting because when I first started in business I was racing for that, trying to find it, trying to find it, trying to find it. It took me years before I was like ... Matt: Is it disappointing? Russell: For sure, yeah. We launch today and make a million dollars and it's like, huh. That sucked. What else have we got. Give me something else. Matt: Exactly. Russell: The money goal is always what I thought was going to be the thing, and those always were just like, huh. In fact, literally one of the main reasons I did the Two Comma Club Awards, for me I need, maybe it's just from a decade of my life someone grabbing my hand and raising it. I was like, entrepreneurs need that. No one raises our hands. Two Comma Club Awards, for me, is me lifting their hands like you did it. I needed that, they need that. That's one of the main reasons I did that, because that's the equivalent of that. Anyway. Matt: How many millionaires have you created? Russell: This year we passed 1,000 people that won the two comma club award. We're over 120. Matt: How does it feel to say that? To say it? You know how sometimes it's like so many people that have passion or goals or huge dreams and visions, rarely do they really celebrate what's happening on the journey. Do you find yourself ever getting where your vision is so big and your passion is so deep that even saying things like there's 1,000 millionaires. Dude, that's huge. Man, 1,000 people that are millionaires because of you. Russell: I think the first time I really got that, probably the most impactful time, was the very first Funnel Hacking live that we gave away Two Comma Club Awards. It was the third Funnel Hacking live. It was a couple of months before that we had the idea of a Two Comma Club and an award, talking about that. I legitimately didn't know. I wonder if anyone in ClickFunnels has actually made a million dollars. I don't even know. So Dave went back and the database guys went through everything and I remember he came back and was like, there's 79 people right now that made a million dollars. I was just like, are you serious? Matt: Was it a boost of confidence? What did it do for you? Russell: It was one of those things, looking back on me doing these events where two people showed up and nobody showed up, hardly anybody, where I was so excited about this? I was like, how come nobody cares? To now it was like, this is actually, I've talked about this long enough people are believing it and now they're doing it. You start seeing it, and there's the fruits of it. In my mind I was like a million bucks, even then, ClickFunnel was new, I was like a million dollars is hard. Most of my friends I knew were like made somewhere near a million dollars. There were people who have been in this business for a long time. A million bucks is a big deal. That was most people's goal still. The fact that 79 people had done it, that was just weird to me. I think that was the biggest one, the realization that just like, oh my gosh. It's not just a theory and I think it works, it's working. It's working at a scale that was unfathomable to me at the time. 79 people. To go to 200 and then 500 and then 1,000 is crazy. Matt: What was your question, buddy? Speaker 4: You're talking about how at each level of success you hit, some of your mentors hit that ceiling, right? Because of the posturing, right? So ultimately I feel like when you get to a new level of success it requires you to upgrade your identity, your self image. What have you found is the number one routine, what's your process for upgrading the identity, upgrading your self image? Because I think that's so important because it can either hold you back and have you self sabotage and not take action and go after what you want, or it's going to be the thing that keeps you at that level and continues to propel you forward. What's kept you ... Russell: That's good. It's weaved through everything, right? The one that's the most obvious external, especially in our world, because you see marketers, most people when they first start selling whatever it is they're selling they're bragging about themselves. Here's my ad, here's my name. It's all about them, that's the first tier of it. And then the second tier, when they start having the realization, I feel like is when they stop talking about themselves and start talking about the people they've helped. Speaker 4: Mm. Russell: You see externally. You don't hear me talking about how much money I make. I'm not like, oh, check out what I got. I talk about all the other people. It's like, that's next year, is that. And then for me the third tier now, which has been really cool, is talking about Lady Boss, right? The success story isn't Kailin, it's Kailin's customers, right? So it's like that next tier. What you're talking about is like the external version of that. There's a lot of internal things that you've got to deal with, but you'll notice it shifting in people when you look at just their messaging and what they're saying. From the way they podcast, they video, they market, their ads and everything, it's the shift of it's not about me, it's about them. It's not even about them, that's the external version of it. Internally I think it's really, it's what we talked about, I can't remember why, but we brought up yesterday or today I had this really successful guy I met one time who the first time we met he was like tell me your story. So I was telling him the wrestle posturing story about how great I was. He was like, no. Tell me about the time you failed. So I was like, well, I'm in the middle of one right now. So I told him let me tell you. I told this whole thing. I remember afterwards I was so embarrassed. He's going to think I'm an idiot. You know, that fear? He was like, good, you cycled. I was like, what? He was like, I will not work with entrepreneurs who haven't cycled at least once. Because if they haven't then they still believe their own bio, right? I think that's the biggest thing, the internal version is that. The first time around, before you cycle, you think it's all you. I know for me it was. I remember doing this the first time, I'm like, I am a genius. I'm the smartest guy in the world. And then when it collapsed I was like, oh, there's a lot of things outside my control. This is not me. There is a team, there's God, there's all these other things that are making this possible. There's a scripture, I can't remember where it's at, it's the Bible, Book of Mormon, but it says you can either be humble or God will humble ... Ah, I'm misquoting it by far. But it's like God will humble people. You can be humble or he will humble you. So it's like, looking at that, I'm like round two I'm going to be a humble person because I don't want to be humbled again, right? Matt: I still feel it. Russell: This is not me. I understand, I look around now and it's 100% like there's no way I would be where I am right now if Dan Usher didn't make videos the way he does. There's no way I'd be here right now if Todd Dickerson could not code software the way he does. There's no way, all these things are so many people. Matt: You're so right. Russell: Then there's so many success stories that inside of it there's just so many people. And then there's the grace of God. I just look at the timeline of when ClickFunnels came into the market. I've now got funnels for a decade, nobody cared. Then all these things were happening, we started having the idea for ClickFunnels, started building it, we're creating it, and then literally we go to traffic and conversion, Todd's halfway done building ClickFunnels, and Ryan Deiss stands on stage in the biggest event at the time and he spends the entire four days talking about funnels. Talking about how funnels are the greatest thing. Everybody's like, what's a funnel? They're all taking notes. Me and Todd are like, does he know we're building? He's talking about funnels. He's talking about funnels like crazy. And then the next day everyone gets home from traffic and conversion and everybody that day, the next day 8,000 funnel consultants pop up. Everybody's a funnel consultant. Everyone is on Facebook talking about funnel consultants and teaching funnels and all this stuff. We're like, oh my gosh. Todd, get this software done, everybody's talking about funnels right now. So he's coding like crazy, all this stuff is coming around, all of a sudden everyone's like, millions of funnel consultants, everyone's doing it, and all of a sudden we're like, hey, we created this thing called ClickFunnels, here it is. All of a sudden all of the consultants and all the people and everyone came and we were the only platform. I look at that, as smart as I think I am, there is so much grace and timing. If I'd launched a year earlier, a year later, it would not have hit the way it did. 100% it was the timing of all these things that have to happen. If it wasn't for that ... I can act like I'm smart, I'm a genius, but man, there's so much divinity that came into all the things. There's no way it could happen without that. Anyway, just understanding those things. Matt: What did you learn when you were cycling? Russell: So many lessons. Russell, you are not that good looking. Or cool. Or anything. Matt: It's basically not about you, right? Yeah, I feel that. So what was hardest? What were the tough lessons? Caleb: How many times did you cycle? Russell: Two big ones for sure. Matt: Really? Do you mind sharing? Russell: Yeah, the first time was after I was trying to figure this thing out. I remember one of my buddies was like, you're making money online? I'm like, yeah. He's like, that's cool. I'm like, do you want a job? He's like, what? I'm like, you're the first person I know who's interested. I'll pay you to come hang out with me. He's like, all right. So I hired my friend. He's like, I have some friends too. I'm like, okay. So I start hiring all these people because I want someone to talk to. Anyway, it was really bad. I ended up having a whole bunch of employees nobody knew how to do anything. I didn't know how to train anybody. I was hiding in the room trying to make money to pay payroll while they're standing outside like, do you want us to do anything? I'm like, don't talk to me, I've got to make money to pay your payroll. They're like, we can help. I'm like, I don't have time to explain anything to you. It was horrible. I built it up to the point where it was just like, I was launching a new thing as fast as we could just to pay payroll. As an entrepreneur, you kill something you get to eat, right? It's like the greatest thing in the world. Employees, they want to get paid every two weeks whether they killed anything or not. I did not realize that until they were like we need money and I'm like, but we haven't made any money. They're like you have to pay me. I'm like, what? I'm so confused. Like, okay. Anyway, it had grown and we didn't have a model, sustainable. Speaker 3: You just launched stuff to see if it works? Russell: Yeah. When I was by myself it was like, I had an idea today, let's try it. You launch it, it makes some money, sweet. And then it was like, I made 20, 30 grand. It was my wife and I, so it was like, that lasts nine months. You know? Caleb: What did you sell? Obviously I know the potato gun backstory. You said I talked about funnels for like a decade before that. What were you selling during that decade leading up to ClickFunnels? I know it's an inordinate amount of stuff. Is there anything not even close to funnels, like something ... Russell: Yeah. The very first, pre-potato guns, my very first big idea was ... Back then what everyone was doing, you know who Yanik Silver is. Yanik would write a book and then he would sell the resale rights to the books. Someone else would buy it and they could sell it. I remember I got online, I saw these books, I bought a book from Yanik and I'm like, I can sell this. I bought a book from somebody else. I was buying all these eBooks I could sell. But then inside the books they would have links back to all their sites. I'd sell the book and I was like, I made 10 bucks selling the book. And then inside the book Yanik is selling his thousand dollar course and seminars and things. They make all this money. I'm like, I got 10 bucks. He made like $1,000 off of me selling his book. I remember being mad. I was like I wish there was a way I could brand this ebook so that before somebody opens it and sees his ad they'd see my ad. That was the first idea I ever had, ever. So my first product was called Zip Brander, it was this little thing that would take an ebook and it would brand it. You open it up and it popped up an ad. You see the ad and you click a button and it would take you inside the ebook. It was my first thing. We launched that and I sold 20 or 30 copies of it. But that was the first money I ever made, it was amazing. I had a customer list, I was like this is amazing. And then the way I was selling those, I was going to forums. This is pre-Facebook, so all you little kids, before Facebook, before MySpace, before Friendster, we used to go to these things called forums. They were these things where people would talk all day. So we'd go to these forums. One of the rules in the forums is you could comment all you wanted but you could have a signature file. At the end you could have like, Russel Brunson, check out my new software Zip Brander. I'd go to these forums and I would just spend eight hours a day answering questions and asking questions and everything. People see my ad on every little thing. My footer was on everything. That's how I was selling Zip Brander initially. I was in 50 forums posting like crazy but I couldn't keep up with it. I was like, man, if I could create a software that would manage this whole thing, that would be amazing. So my second product is called Forum Fortunes. It was this little software that would manage your posting on every single forum. You post and you could see if someone responded back on Forum 49 it would pop up and you're like, oh, you can go find it and go back and comment and keep the discussion. I made it for myself and then we started selling that. We sold more of those because I now had a little customer base here and went bigger. After that it was the next. It was always what's the next thing. That's kind of how it started back in the days, little tools and things like that. Speaker 3: How do you know when you're shooting all these bullets, how do you know when you shoot a cannonball? Matt: Good question. Russell: The thing about it initially, I had been married, I was making zero dollars a year as a wrestler, so for me to make $600 in a month, that was a cannonball. That was insane. I thought I was the coolest kid in the world. $600 was insane. So I did four or five little things. I remember it was Christmastime and I remember my wife wanted to buy a couch and it was a $2,000 couch. I was just like, oh, I can't afford that. I don't have a job. I'm getting sick to my stomach. I had this idea, what if I do a sell and just sell a whole bunch of crap that we had. I had a bunch of eBooks I bought rights to, a couple of things I had created, so we made this Grinch sale. I remember I wrote the copy, it was like, it was the Grinch Before Christmas or something. It had a picture of the Grinch and his heart growing three sizes, I don't know. I wrote this copy. My wife and I had been married a year, she really wants a couch, I can't afford a couch, so if you guys buy this, if I sell 32 of these things, I can buy her a couch and put it under the Christmas tree. It will be amazing. Caleb: You said that in the copy? Russell: In the copy, yeah. It was the reason why. I still have the page, I can show it to you. I know exactly where it's at, I can show it to you. So I had the whole page and then only an email list of like a couple hundred people at the time. I still had an affiliate program, so at the top it had an affiliate link. So I sent an email to my list and went to bed that night. Someone on my list was a guy named Carl Galletti, I haven't heard about Carl in a long time. He was a big famous copy writer at the time. Carl went and saw the thing, bought it, and started affiliating. So he joined the affiliate program, he was like this is awesome. He took that email, sent it to his entire list of this huge thing. So I go to bed. I wake up the next morning, we're at $10,000 in sales. Matt: How much before you went to bed? Russell: Oh, like $30, $40 or something. I was like, what just happened. Did I rob someone? I didn't know what happened. I looked at my email and there's all these people who were like, hey, I bought two of them, I hope you can get your wife that couch. Oh, I sent it to my friend. All these people. Because Carl promoted it, all these other people who follow Carl saw it. Carl is like it's converting like crazy. Tons of people are buying it. I'm freaking out. I'm going to wrestling practice trying to answer customer support. I'm late for practice, I ran into wrestling practice, I get back out I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I made like $600 in sales." I'm freaking out. Anyway, the whole thing goes through and over that, I think it was a seven day sale or something like that, we made $35,000. Which is more money than I'd seen in all my lifetime combined times 100, right? I paid probably 10 grand in affiliates. We made, I don't know, $25,000 that we got to keep. I was like, "Oh my gosh." I told Colette, and Colette's like, my wife. I love her. She doesn't understand the business part of things at all. I was like, "We made $25,000." She was like, "Is it illegal?" First thing. "Are you going to go to jail? Is it illegal?" I'm like, "No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure." The first thing I did is I went and bought the couch for her, for Christmas. We got it back, I got a picture of her, sent it out to the list saying thank you so much, you got the Christmas gift, the couch. They all celebrated together, all the people. I was like oh my gosh, this is the greatest game of all time. This is so much fun. I was like, what's the next idea, what's the next thing. It was like that, these little things. After that one was done now I had way more customers, all these people that had bought my product knew who I was now so the next thing was easier so it incrementally kept growing and getting bigger. Somewhere along the line I launched the potato gun thing. Upsales of things. We didn't call them funnels back then. We called them sales flows or sales processes. Talk about your sales flow, what's your sales flow. Caleb: Sales flow. Russell: I remember Dylan Jones was our partner at ClickFunnels. Before Todd we tried to build something like ClickFunnels, we called it Click.com.com, which is a horrible name. But Dylan's, I still have all the UI images, and in there we had a whole section for sales flows and all these things. It's like, this was the first ClickFunnels. Because Dylan was on the UI eventually on ClickFunnels anyway, but we literally designed something like this five or six years earlier. Just crazy. Matt: Do you think that all those little failures and all the trying and that kind of energy is what brought you here today? Russell: For sure. It's the key. I wish I could grab everybody because everybody's like, okay, I'm waiting for my ClickFunnels, or I'm waiting for my thing. They're waiting and they're waiting and they're waiting. I was like, the reason why I got this thing was because I didn't wait. If someone were to give me ClickFunnels initially it would have been bankrupt in 15 minutes, right? You have to become worthy of the thing eventually. You don't become worthy by waiting, you become worthy by trying. And trying and trying and trying. Eventually, if you keep doing that, over time, then God's like, all right, he's going to do it. He's built 150 funnels, now I'll give him the idea. Matt: Wow, that's powerful. Speaker 3: How much more did you feel that all your other friends are in the same game? Matt: I hope you guys take there's more that's caught than Todd. That's some gold in what he just shared right there, what you were just sharing. But go ahead. What was the question? Speaker 3: I was just saying how much more would you fail if all your other friends were playing the same game? Russell: All my friends were like why are you launching more stuff? Why do you keep doing things? They do like one product launch a year. They got so annoyed. They were like, dude, stop doing stuff. I'm like, why would I stop doing this? This is so much fun. It was just confusing to me. Why don't you guys do more? Everyone, they make money they'd just be done. Caleb: Why would you keep doing more? Was it genuinely like one funnel away? Like this next funnel's the one. Were you just like you sold yourself on it, this is it, so you keep going? Or did you just really enjoy it? Russell: Well each one I thought was. Each one, every time I was so surprised, like this is amazing. That was the one. The next one's bigger. Oh my gosh, that was even better, who knew? And then I just kept going from there, you know what I mean? So I wasn't waiting for ClickFunnels or anything like that. I was just enjoying the journey every time. It was so exciting. Eventually it was like, oh crap, who knew that that was going to do what it did. Caleb: Was it all emails? Was there any ads or was there anything to scale the traffic? Russell: First 10 years was 100% emails, partnerships. There wasn't ads back then. I mean, there was Google ads, but the first initial Google slap happened about the time I was getting started. Prior to that a lot of guys I knew built their email list off of Google ads and then the slap happened. A lot of them had lists. I started getting to know those guys, going to events, meeting them, so that's how it started initially was tons of that. And then there was this big gap for years where paid ads weren't a thing. Some people did banner ads, but it wasn't consistent. It wasn't like it is nowadays. It was harder. You worked harder and all the stuff wasn't there. Mostly we focused on ... If you didn't have an email list, you weren't playing the game. It's like, who's got lists, how can you build lists, what can you do? Matt: You still think that's true to a degree? Russell: 100%. That's why the traffic seekers book was so important for me to write, I feel like, because most of the people in the game today have been blessed with Zuckerberg's simple Facebook ads that make the game easy. Matt: Wow. Russell: They've never focused on building lists. I was like, you guys, just so you know, Zuckerberg is going to screw us all. It's going to happen. Matt: Yeah. Caleb: It will happen. Russell: It's like, if you don't have a list you're all screwed. I've been through this for 18 years now, I've been through five or six cycles. I've seen people who made millions of dollars who now are not online. The people who have waded the storm the whole time are all the list builders. They're the ones who survived. Everyone else who's good at ads, they come and they go and they come and they go. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. So I gotta ask you, what did you think about episode number one of the World Changers Roundtable? Hopefully you loved it. There were so many things covered in that 42 minutes. So anyway, we are moving on to the next part of this interview.

As you know, this is gonna be broken down into four parts because they kept me there, handcuffed to a table until 3 a.m., no, just joking, they didn't really. But the question was so intriguing, we were having so much fun, we just kept going and going until finally it was like, Iuffed to a table until 3am. I'm just joking. They didn't really, but, uh, the question was so intriguing. We're having so much fun. We just kept going and going until finally it was like, I have to fly out in like three hours. I need to get back to my hotel. Um, but now we're going to go dive into the second part. Um, which I think is the next, uh, this next episode is probably another 30 to 40, 45 minutes or so as well. Um, and so these are some things we're

covering this one, which is really fun. We talk about, number one, why my business partner, Todd Dickerson, is so amazing. And hopefully give you ideas about if you're pursuing opportunities and trying to land your dream job or partnership or whatever. Number two, we talked about personality profiling and how we actually were hiring here at ClickFunnels. We talked about where my love for learning came from. We talked about transition for me going from an athlete to a business person and a marketer. Talked about some of the lessons I learned from Lindsey Stirling, things I was not expecting to hear from her that totally changed everything for me. Talked about people who intrigued me, my interest in health and biohacking.

We talked about, you know, is there anything that happens inside of this business that gets me as excited as what I felt in wrestling? We talked about what thing is close, but nothing actually has ever hit it. We talked about the first two comic club awards. We talked about how to upgrade your identity as you grow. We talked about the fact that you have to cycle and fail and rebuild in your businesses. We talked about the launch of ClickFunnels and how it wasn't just the fact that I was a genius because I wasn't. It was there's so many things talking about the grace of God and how it tied into the launch of ClickFunnels.

Talked about some of my early products like Zip Brand or Forum Fortunes. Talked about my Christmas Grinch sale, which is the very first big sale and big launch I ever did to my little tiny list that made enough money to cover Christmas for my wife and I when we were first getting started. We talked about becoming worthy, talking about list building, how it's better than buying ads, and a whole bunch of other things. It's amazing. This could be like 40 courses all wrapped into one super podcast episode. So if you liked the last episode, I think you're going to love this one as well. And again, we've got two more after this coming back, going deeper into this conversation with the round table of world changers. So that said, we're in theme song. We come back, we'll dive right into the second section here of the interview.

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. Dave and Todd I mean just wow those dudes are like but what about those guys

so here's Todd's story so Todd so the really long story short I bought some software that was coding Ruby on Rails didn't know that bought this company

with the last more I didn't have the money so I borrowed money bought this company coded on some platform we didn't know and I was like screwed right and I tried to money bought this company coded it on some platform we didn't know and I was like

screwed right and I tried to hire people to fix it nobody could fix this platform and so finally I was like leaving the office one day I literally emailed the people

saying turn off servers like we just we lost all of our money in this company and they shut it down and I'm walking out of the office and I had this impression

of like there could be someone on your email list who knows Ruby on Rails I was like that's weird I have a bunch of internet marketing nerds there's no one that's like of like, there could be someone on your email list who knows Ruby on Rails. I was like, that's weird. I have a bunch of internet marketing nerds.

There's no one that's like, Ruby on Rails. Anyway, but it started with a question from God. I was like, I stopped, turned back around,

sat on the computer, opened back up, sent an email to my list. If you know Ruby on Rails, I'm looking for a partner. I bought a software company that's not working. Please send me a message.

Send. Right. And that's all you said. Yeah. And lo and behold, like three years earlier, Todd bought some random thing for me. Happens in my email list. He's, he's,

he built a website like three or four years earlier that was making him, you know, six figures a year on autopilot. Hadn't worked in four years. It's just like hanging out, relaxing with his wife and his daughter. And email comes in and says, if you know Ruby on Rails, I'm looking for a partner. He's like, I know Ruby on Rails. He's like, I'd be Russell's partner. Emails me back.

And at first I see him. I see him and his beautiful wife. I was like, there's no way he's a programmer. There's no way. That was literally my thought. But he was the only person who responded back. So I was like, okay, well, here's the login to the site. Fix it.

I don't know what to do. I'm not a coder. And I went to bed, woke up the next morning. He's like, cool, I fixed the site. Plus I found this, this, and this. And I changed this. I moved this in. All this stuff like that. He's like, it's working now. Do you have anything else you want to do together? I'm like a coder. And I went to bed, woke up the next morning. He's like, cool, I fixed this site. Plus, I found this, this, and this. And I changed this. I moved this in. All this stuff like that.

He's like, it's working out. Do you have anything else you want to do together? I'm like, huh. And so I gave him another project, another project. And for an entire year, Todd and I worked together. And never once did he ever ask me for money, ever. Wow. Not a penny.

And I remember he started flying to Boise. He was working on projects. He worked for you for an entire year? For free. More than a year. Why was that? I don't know. Well, I found out later. He had gone to a Robert you for an entire year. For free. More than a year. Why was that? I didn't, I don't know. Well, I found out later, he had gone to a Robert Kiyosaki event.

Robert Kiyosaki at this event had said, find someone who's doing what you want to do and work with them for free. So he told me that years later. I didn't know that. Todd, if you're watching, dude, I love you, man. You're legit. That's amazing. And so he kept coming.

Then he started coming to Boise. We started becoming friends. And like, just the smartest developer I've ever met. The smartest person I've ever met. The smartest person I've ever met. Like I'll go that far. Just genius. And he'd come out to Boise and we'd work on projects and ideas. We tried to launch a couple of things.

None of them really worked. And we're just trying stuff. But he was just always there, always serving, always doing stuff. And one day we were in Boise and I was looking over his shoulder because we were looking at stuff. And I saw his email and there's all these emails from some help wanted from some recruiting site or something. I was like, what's that?

He's like, oh, it's people recruiting me for a Ruby job. I'm like, do you get a lot of those a day? He's like, oh,

I get, do you get a lot of those? He's like, I get three or four a day. I'm like, really? I make the good offers? He's like,

I don't know, let's check it out. He opened it up and the first was like $400,000 a year starting salary. I'm like, what?

Next was like $350,000. Next was like five, like insane things. I'm like, why don't you do that? He's like, I don't want to work for salary. I'm like, what? Next was like $350,000. Next was like $500,000. Insane things. I'm like, why don't you do that? He's like, I don't want to work for them. He's like, I want to be your partner, man. I'm like, what? Then all of a sudden, the realization, I'm like, I haven't paid him in a year.

Dude, I love a stoker. I messaged, so I told him, I was like, we didn't have much money at the time. It was like on the backside of a business failure when we met. I was like, I? And we didn't have much money at the time. It was still, it was like on the backside of a business failure, but we met. And I was like, well, like, I could pay you like,

I don't know, maybe like 50 grand a year. Like, can I pay you that? He's like, whatever. I was like, okay. So I told like, you know, our little bookkeeper,

like, pay Tom 50 grand a year. And they're like, okay. And so we did that. The next year, we're paying 50 grand a year and we're doing stuff and we have more things. And we started a little success

here and there and then make a little more money and back in Boise again. And I was like,. And we had more things. We started a little success here and there. And then we were making a little bit more money. We were back in Boise again. And I was like, can I pay you some more? He was like, whatever. So I was like, I think we paid him. So it wasn't ever his life that he was asking money, ever. And so we bumped up to $100,000 a year.

Because we were ready before that. After a year or two, we were working together. And then it was crazy. The day that Leadpages got the first round of funding for $5 million, the same day Todd was flying to Boise. He gets the email. It's East Coast, so he's two hours ahead of me. He's waking up, going to the plane, sees the email, forwards it to me,

and then jumps in the plane. He's flying for four hours. I wake up. I see the email. I was like, Leadpages? I was like, that's the... and I was like, Leadpages? I was like, we built landing page software in the past.

I was like, that's stupid. I was perplexed and angry. And Todd lands and Todd, he's a little guy, he comes to the office all angry. He's like, Leadpages, I have five minutes. I can build Leadpages tonight. Do you want to build Leadpages? I'm like, yeah, let's compete with Leadpages.

He's like, alright. And then so he's like, we're going to do it. And this is like angry Todd. I love angry Todd. I love all Todd's. Angry Todd is the best Todd. And he's just like pissed because he's like, I can build this tonight. Everything we could have done tonight. And so we're like getting it all ready. What should we call

and everything? And then he's like, wait, we're building this. Do you want to add anything else to it? And I was like, oh, yeah. What if it did this? And what if it did this and what if it did this and we spent a week in front of a whiteboard saying what if it did and we mapped out click funnels so you're talking about a week where you guys just locked in and just having fun just just doodling and just he's like oh i could do that i think we could do that he's like we're brainstorming all sorts of stuff and um so we mapped that moment you were onto something big? At that moment, right there, you guys were like,

or was it just still like? I think I had tried, a lot of people had tried something like that. I had tried before other people tried. No one had done it. And I was like, so I was kind of skeptical. Todd's like, I can do this.

It's easy. I'm like, okay, because I've tried it. And he's like, no, dude, I can do it. This is easy. So I was optimistically hopeful because he's a genius,

but I was also nervous. But anyways, we map it out and then we bought clickfunnels.com there because I wanted to call it ClickFusion because I own ClickFusion,

but we had three failed businesses called ClickFusion. All of it failed. And Todd was like, Todd was like, no, it's bad karma. Like we can't, I'm like,

but the logo is so cool, dude. I love it. He's like, I love the logo. I love the, I'm like, yeah. And he's like, no, you can't.

The logo, he's like, it's got like a jinx on it or something, we can't do that. He's like, you have to come up with a different name. I was like, but ClickFusion's the coolest name ever. And so we were trying things, Click, you know, everything, and then ClickFunnels, we're like, that was the thing, we're so excited.

Who first said it, do you remember? The words ClickFunnels? I would assume. It's almost like God saying, let there be light. So I mean, you know. I would assume it was me, but I'm there be light so I mean you know I would assume it was me but I'm not I'm not positive

I'll pass Todd on that one but when you said it was an instant like fire it was like it was like it was baleable

and like oh you know that feeling right when it's oh you're like there's a chill so like oh wow

no one thought of this before yeah exactly and so we got it and then I remember I was driving into the airport at the end of the week

to take him back home and we got to the airport and we're, at Boise airport, it's a small airport so we pull up the thing to get out and you can tell he's probably

like nervous, like waiting and he's just like, forgot a car, he's like, I really want to do this, man, I'm excited.

I'm like, me too, me too. He's like, I don't want to do it as like your employee though, like I want to do it as your partner

and in that moment I was just like, all the fear of like, I've never had a partner, I had, I tried partners in the past that hadn't worked through all this stuff and all the everything and all the, and it was just a weird thing of just like all the emotions were hitting me as he's like standing in the car about to get out of the car. And I had like maybe 15, 20 seconds

before he's going to go. And I was thinking about just like him. I was like, he, for the last two and a half, he's never asked him, he's never done anything, he's served, he's given everything, and I was looking at him, I was like, alright, let's do it, and he's like, cool, and he got out of the car, and he was gone. Wait a minute, so, at that moment, it was that quick? That was it. It was a gut feeling that you just knew, that he was... It was him, yeah, and I was like, literally, I was, I still was on stage at Fun Like Life, outside of marrying my wife, it was the greatest and I was like literally I was I said this on stage outside of marrying my wife

it was the greatest decision I ever made yeah I remember you saying that with tears yeah why though I'm curious because it's not just

click photos he it's he's just he's amazing like if you look at our personality profiles

it's fascinating we're actually we have the same personality profiles like Myers-Briggs except for one letter is different. Where I'm a feeler, he's a thinker. And it's been magical as a partnership because we both have so much respect for each other that we don't try to like fight each other.

And it's very much like if I want to do something, I'm like, hey, this is what I want to do. This is what I'm feeling. What do you think? And he'll come back and be like, well, I think this. And so I come up from feelings to thinking. It's really cool. And so like sometimes you think? And he'll come back and be like, well, I think this. And so I come up from feelings because of the thinking and it's really cool. And so sometimes his thinking

will trump my feeling and I'm like, you're actually right. Let's not do that. Or vice versa where he's like, I'm thinking this. I'm like, I don't know why, but I feel this.

And he's like, okay. And he respects that. And we just have such mutual respect that we've never been in a fight. We've never argued. We've never had problems. It's just been, it's been just amazing.

Wow. And he's similar to like talking with dan like he went back home after us whiteboarding that sat in his his basement for five or six months and built click runs by himself like just literally just myself hundreds of myself no other team no other dad just him and then uh right before we launched we brought in another partner dylan who built the front-end editor and did a lot of UI. And so then it was those two as we got closer and closer to launch. And then for the next year, it was just those two that did everything. And then after a year, we started bringing in other developers, but it was a hundred percent, a hundred percent

Todd. Wow. So he's, he's amazing. Like he's in, in all aspects, like, you know, you have friends who think they know everything about everything. That's like Todd, except he actually knows everything about everything. Like you asked him, except he actually knows everything about everything. You ask him anything, and he's just like, I don't know how he does it. I always fact check him. I'm like, oh my gosh, he's right again. Fact check. So for those of us who have partners or are maybe going into partnership,

what's your best advice, and what do you feel like he does right that other partners don't do? I think the hardest thing with partners is typically we want to partner with someone who's just like us. We did a podcast with us recently. Dean, Tony, and I had done two partnerships. Both partnerships made it through the launch and then they stopped. And the question of the podcast is like, why? And it's not like I love

Dean, I love Tony, they're amazing. The problem is that me and Dean have the exact same skill set. And so the problem is that both of us are right. We both understand it right, but we do it differently. And so it's like you have two people. And so typically you want to partner with people who like you. Oh, we think the same, we should be partners. But that's not necessarily the right thing.

Because then you've got two alphas with the same skill set. And someone has to win and someone has to lose, and it's hard. Whereas me and I taught it with different skill sets. There's never a winner and a loser. We can both win because different skill sets,

both same mission, it's really easy. So I think the biggest thing is you're trying to find the yin yang. You're not trying to find someone who thinks like you or acts like you.

In fact, this is true in most of our hiring processes as well. We used to hire based on, I used to have people like send me a video if you want this job. So I'd get these videos and the people that I wanted to hire were the people um, I used to like have people like send me a video, um, send me a video

if you want this job, right? So I get these videos and I, the people that I wanted to hire were like people like me. I'm like, this person's awesome. Like they think like me, they're genius. Like they're amazing. You hire them. And it's like within a week I'm like, I hate this person. It's horrible. And so we started shifting the way we do our hiring based on personality profiling instead where it's like, um, I know that for this position, this profile drives most of my hiring, my own personal hiring. So I know that I'm a high D, high I, high S. No C at all, right?

And so the people I need to hire around me are high S, high C. And so nowadays, the problem is the people who I watch their videos on, I'm pumped, they're high D, high I. So I'm like, yeah, these people are awesome, they're charismatic, I'm gonna love them, they're awesome, worst employees ever.

Right? And so I do not look at like, so people send us this profile first. I find the right profile. And then from there, they do interviews. So if I interview ahead of time, I get sold by the people who sell and then the employees.

And so I make sure the highest I see. And cause I know that if I, if I talk to highest, I see, I'm going to be kind of bummed out. Like, Oh, I don't know if this is the kind of person I'm going to jive with,

but they're the best people to surround myself with because I'm such a high, high D, high S. Like, I'm a creator. I'm throwing things up in the air. And I need people who are S and C, who are faithful finishers. We're going to take the things, capture them, and make sure that it's amazing. And so, like, that's, anyway. Do you feel like businesses and entrepreneurs are making a mistake by not having their employees and their team take these tests? 100%.

I have a new company we're launching all about personality profiling because I'm such a big believer in it. Really? Tell me why. Top three reasons. It's in all things in life. Like, if you're going to be a partner,

if you're going to date someone, understanding who they are is such a big part of it, right? Because we think everyone sees the world the same way we see it, and it's not true at all. The way you see it, the way we all see it is so different. And so if we don't understand that at a deep level,

then I get upset by what you do and what everyone's doing because it's like, don't you see what I see? And the reality is, no, they don't. And so if you start understanding people better, in fact, the software is called Understand.me, and it's a place you go and you take all the personality profiling and it gives you a page that can show somebody, like, this is me. So in five seconds, I look at you and understand you perfectly.

And now I'm like, oh, now I know how to work with you because I understand what you are, what your beliefs are, what your values are. All the things I need to know about you, I can find out really, really quickly. Where normally you're going to go years with somebody before you understand them. Where I can look at a thing and get pretty dang close in a minute. Wow. Now I know how to interact with you and spend time with you and work with you and things like that. Question. Where does, like, your love to learn come from?

Because one of the things I noticed from being around you is I was like, yeah, so I had this moment where I geeked out on this. And I geeked out on this. And you were like, it was health and supplements and then marketing and personality types. Like, there's all these different things you've geeked out on. Have you always been that way? Is it like you geeked out on marketing, you saw the rewards from it, and you're like, wow, what if this goes into other areas of life? Where does that come from? Yeah, it didn't always happen my whole life.

In fact, I had a fascinating conversation with Tom Bilyeu about this because when I was growing up in high school, I always thought I was a dumb kid. I thought I was an athlete, so I focused there. I thought I was an athlete, so I was a wrestler. That was my identity. That's where I focused at. But I thought I was dumb. And so because of that, straight season high school and college. My cumulative GPA in graduate school and college is 2.3.

Straight season, 1B, maybe somewhere in there. Because I was a dumb kid. And then when I got done, I ended a wrestling career. So I stopped being an athlete. And then I was like, oh, crap. And then I started to learn some business stuff. I'm like, but I don't like to read. I'm a dumb kid.

What do I do? And it was fascinating. Tom told me, because I had this picnic. I'm like, but I don't like to read. Like I'm a dumb kid. Like, what do I do? And like, I, it was fascinating. Tom told me because I had this picnic, I'm not actually dumb. And he's like, actually the reality is you probably really were dumb, but then you changed. Right. And so for me, it was like, I shifted and it's fascinating. Um, uh, do you remember from knocking live where we had, um, uh, Lindsay Sterling perform. So one of my favorite parts that she did a whole performance of, if you guys know Lindsey, does violin dancing and stuff. And afterwards I had a Q&A with her afterwards

and I had this question, I was like so pumped to ask it because I was like waiting for her just to like, because the question was, she's on America's Got Talent and I think she took seventh place and when she got kicked off, Pierce Bronson or whatever said like,

you've got no talent, you're no good, whatever, right? And so I was like, do you remember that time when he said that and I thought she was going to say

yeah I proved him wrong like yeah and I was like what did you feel after that and she's like yeah I got home and I realized

she was right I wasn't very good and so I went back and I started practicing and started working harder and eventually I became good enough and it was like

oh my gosh. I got chills. And I remember when Tom said to me, he was like, you probably were dumb. And I was like, I was. Because I wasn't reading. I wasn't reading things. And so with marketing,

that was the first thing for some reason that caught my attention, that got me excited. And then if you look at my disk profile, ROI is my highest value. So I have seen ROI on something or I don't want to do it. And so when I saw an ROI on this reading, I was like, oh my gosh. I read a book.

I got one little sentence. Changed the color. Made more money. Oh my gosh. So that's where it started, 100%. And I started learning that and I started getting obsessed with those things. And then as this business grew for me, I started being more, I always joke, like crazy people got attracted to me, right?

Like the best health people, the best fitness people, the best, like in every market kind of came into our world somehow. So I started getting to meet all these people. And when you're around someone who's like the best in the world at the thing, and they start talking about the thing, you can't help them. Like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Right? And they, you zone in on that.

And then, so whenever I meet someone who's amazing and I have a chance to talk to him like this, like I just geek out. And like when I met your dad the first time with you guys and that's when I bought your parenting course and everything else. I was just like, I saw you and I saw him and I was just like, I want that.

So I like, I started going down that rabbit hole, right? I met Anthony Clemente and I was like, I love this guy. Like I respect him, I love him. And like, every time he talks about anything, I'm just like, just because he fascinates me, when he talks about something, it fascinates me.

I have to look down those things, right? And so when people fascinate me, the things that fascinate them start fascinating me and that's when I kind of go down those rabbit holes. I'm like, why? This person's so intriguing and fascinating.

What makes them that way? What are they doing? And it's interesting. I'm not a good question asker. You guys are so good at question askers um i've never been good at asking questions but i'm really good at like watching people do and then like seeing over and like trying to go down the rabbit holes like you know like what are they what are they doing why are they doing that and that kind of thing he's a true master isn't he what's up everybody

this is russell brunson i've got something really cool for you today from my friend taylor wells taylor spoke at our last funnel hacking liveunson. I've got something really cool for you today from my friend Taylor Wells. Taylor spoke at our last Funnel Hacking Live because I wanted him to share a really cool concept about what he calls the revolving pricing method. And today he decided to sponsor the podcast to give you guys more access to this super cool strategy that you are going to love. It's something we've been implementing into our high-end coaching program as well, and it is amazing. But to kind of give you some context about this offer he's making for you guys, as you may or may not know, a few years ago, JP Morgan Chase did a study and guess what they found? They found that the average small business only has about 28 days of operating expenses

in reserve. That's right. Less than a month of cash on hands. Now, if you're like me, the idea of your business being one bad month away from disaster is enough to make your stomach drop. Am I right? Especially with how the economy has been lately. It's not the time to be gambling with your finances.

So Taylor put together this book called The Revolving Pricing Method, and it's awesome. It helps you turn every client you close into a long-term profit machine. We're not talking about one-time paydays. We're talking about creating sustainable and real predictable income for the long haul. Now, here's where it gets even better. Taylor put together an awesome exclusive deal just for you guys, my Marketing Secrets listeners. And if you go over to wealthyconsultants.com slash secrets, you can grab the revolving price method book and over $150 worth of bonuses and get this all. It's at 70% off. And I promise you guys as a customer of this, you are going to love

it. So if you're serious about growing your business with real stability, this is the model you need to add into your funnels. So go over to wealthyconsultant.com slash secrets, grab your 70% off deal, and let's start turning your clients into long-term revenue. Again, that's wealthyconsultant.com slash secrets, grab your 70% off deal, and let's start turning your clients into long-term revenue. Again, that's wealthyconsultant.com slash secrets. Do not miss out. Hey, this is Russell Brunson, and I want to jump in really quick to share with you a new assessment I found out

that is insanely cool. You guys know I'm obsessed with personality profiles and assessments, but this one is different because not only does it help you understand yourself, but more importantly, especially for us who are entrepreneurs, it helps us understand our employees, our teams, and get people sitting on the right seats in the bus so they can get more stuff done.

I just had a chance to interview Patrick Lanchoni talking specifically about this new assessment they created called Working Genius. And the Working Genius is awesome. This test, I had actually blocked out an hour to take it because I was so excited for the new assessment. And it only took me like 10 minutes or less to get it done. Yet, even though it takes only 10 minutes, like you can actually apply this immediately. I took it for myself.

I had my team take it. And what's cool about it is from there, we figured out exactly what people's working geniuses are. And that's important because if you're building a team or a company, you gotta figure out, make sure that you have, first off, the right people, but make sure the right people are sitting in the right seats on the bus.

And this assessment will teach you how to do. Now, normally this assessment, you can go to workinggenius.com and there's two G's in the middle, workinggenius.com, but I got you a 20% discount on the assessment, which is only $25. So don't stress. It's not an expensive test at all, but you get a 20% discount off when you put in the keyword secrets at checkout. So go to workinggenius.com. Again, two G's, workinggenius, two G's in the middle, workinggenius.com, and then use promo code secrets, S-, two G's in the middle, workinggenius.com. And then use promo code secrets, S-E-C-R-E-T-S at checkout, get 25% off. But then we'll take the test. Again, it takes you 10 minutes. But even in a 10 minute session, you will get something that

is so insanely valuable to help you understand yourself, to make sure you're working in a spot that's going to give you the most joy, number one. But then number two, it's going to make sure that you are with your teams, getting them in the right seats as well. So, um, anyway, I love this assessment. Go check it out at working genius.com and enter the promo code secrets for 20% discount. Uh, take this test for yourself and for your team. And I promise you it will change the working dynamics amongst everybody and help your company to grow. What are some things you want to take the time to geek out on? Cause I'm sure like you see something like I want to get on that, but it's not a priority at the moment. What are some things like,

if I had like a week or two? Just free time with nothing else involved. What's like the next thing you're going to geek out on? Oh, I would say every probably three years, I get re-excited about SEO for some reason. And I started going out and having it because I love it. And there's times in my business

where I have a focus, but it's not now at all. But like, I went through a couple like Brian Dean's really cool SEO. A couple guys started dabbling my tone again. I'm like, I just want to get back into it so bad. Right now, SEO is actually our number 11 lead source

as of today in ClickFunnels, which is amazing because we've had an SEO the first four or five years and we're focused on it again. It's doing really well for us. I want to like go deep there because like I like that but I just it's I haven't had a chance to that um any of the the health stuff uh really really fascinates me why I'm curious why are you drawn to that so much the health stuff um because I've seen with myself like so okay so, okay. So my history is like, I got done wrestling, um, at the pack 10 tournament was my last, my last actual wrestling match. Um, my wife was

giving herself fertility shots in the stomach during pack 10. So the next month she was pregnant. And so I got done wrestling, got done competing, got done running, got done lifting. Like all my athletic career ended. And then, um, my wife got pregnant and she's eating for three kids and I'm like pumped because I don't have to work out right now. She's hungry. I'm hungry. We're eating. And like, we just kept eating and eating. And so over the next, uh, seven, eight months, my wife gained like 60 pounds. I gained like 60 pounds. We were doing it together. She didn't care. It was amazing. And then one day she has two babies and she loses like 45 pounds. And I'm like, Oh crap, I'm stuck here. Yeah. Like, where'd you go? Like, and, um, and then, um, it's for me. Thank you. And then, um,

thank you. But then that time the business was starting and I was stressed out trying to figure it out. And so like, I didn't get help again. So I was just, was in that state of being 60, 65 pounds heavier for years. And, but I didn't know any difference. I didn't know that I felt differently because I'd never been in a spot where I spent eight hours a day behind a computer. So I didn't know what good felt like or bad felt like. Like I knew if I tried to wrestle, I'd puke. So I was like, I don't feel like I'm an athlete, but like, I just felt like, um, I just felt normal. Right. I thought, and then for about eight years and then eight years in is where I was like, I, I just felt, I don't know.

I just, I remember looking at myself in the mirror and just being like, ah, like what happened to you? You know what I mean? It's like being, I'm sure most, hopefully everyone's had a chance, but I was just like, huh. And so I was like, I need to, and it was hard because in my head, like I knew how to work out. I knew how to train.

I knew these things, but I was like, finally I was like, I need to get a trainer. So I got a trainer for the first time and, um, had never really done that before. Started going and got me from like a, I don't even know, 20, 27, 20% body fat down to 12% in a matter of like seven or eight months. And, um, I looked better. I felt better, but what's crazy is I could work twice as hard twice. I wasn't tired. I was just like, I can keep going. My brain's like on fire. Like this is amazing. And I started, and I know I had no idea until I lost all the weight. And also I was just like, I can do so much more. And, um, I think when I first met Anthony committee for some, I was like, this is my problem right now. It's like, I, um, I have,

I'm at work all day, you know, slaying dragons, doing all these things. I have this energy. I get home at night and my two little twin boys are there, my little daughter and I, and I'm at work all day, you know, slaying dragons, doing all these things. I have this energy. I get home at night and my two little twin boys are there, my little daughter and I, and I'm spent, I have no energy. And I'm just like, how do I, how do I still be a present dad? And how do I have these things? And so like, that's when the next tier was like the biohacking stuff. How do you do these things? Like, how do you increase energy? And there's like so many ways to do that from light therapy to supplements, to, um, sleeping, to sound, to breathwork, all these like crazy things that, that seems stupid. Like the first time Anthony's like, we're, to breath work, all these crazy things that seem stupid. The first time Anthony's like,

we're going to do breath work. I'm like, we're going to breathe? That's your biohack. We're going to breathe together. He's like, yeah, it's going to be amazing. I'm like, super annoyed. I'm like, what's the ROI on this? I've got to get back to work, right?

So he sat me down in our gym. You've been in our wrestling room. He sat me down. He's like, you have to sit because if you're standing, you'll hit your head and you'll die. I'm like, what are you talking about? So he sits us down

and does these breathing exercises where he's yelling at us. All this stuff is happening. If anyone's ever done deep breath work, it gets nuts. And so we're doing this thing where it's just like do this heavy, heavy breath work until he's like, what's going to happen is the world's going to, anyone ever played jiu-jitsu here, been tapped out before? So when you get choked out, what happens? The carotid artery gets choked,

and the world starts shrinking like this, and if you take pressure off it, then it comes back to life. But if you don't, it goes dark and dark, it disappears, and you're gone, right? So if you ever get choked out, that's what happens. It's a really fun experience. But you have a minute,

and you see it shrinking around you, and then it's gone, right? And so he told me that's what happens. You're gonna breathe so much that the world around you starts shrinking, and if you don't stop, you're going to pass out. So you go all the way over and start shrinking. It stops.

And then when you get that point, you let me know. And then you hold your breath for as long as you can. He's like, how long can you hold your breath for? I'm like, maybe a minute. He's like, you'll do it for at least five. I was like, there's no way. So he sits me down. We do this breathing.

We're going like crazy. And sure enough, the walls start doing weird stuff. I'm like, I feel like I'm on drugs. I'm sweating like crazy. We keep doing it. He's yelling at me. And all of a sudden, the world starts closing weird stuff. I'm like, I feel like I'm on drugs. I'm sweating like crazy. We keep doing it. He's yelling at me. And all of a sudden the world starts closing around me. I'm like, what is happening? And then I'm like, I do something. So like he stops and holds you by the way. And he starts to clock. I'm sitting here like, you know, holding my breath forever and looking around like we had three or four of us guys all doing at the same time. And it's just like, I'm freaking out. And like, and then it starts like

getting quieter and things slowing down. We're sitting there and he's like, let some of the pressure out, but don't breathe in. Feel the pressure out, pressure out, pressure out. Keep doing that. And it gets done. And like the stop clock's over five minutes. I was just like, I just held my breath for five minutes. And you didn't even know. Insane.

And then like the rest of the day we were on fire. It was just like, ah, right. We bought a cryo sauna at our house and we go freezing the cryo sauna. And the rest of the day you just feel it's like, that's what I love now. Cause like these little weird things, like you like light therapy, breathing, like weird things that just seem stupid. You do it. And it's, it's like, you just, you can go longer. You can think better. You can do stuff. It's like all those things just get me so excited. It's Anthony's fun because he randomly will just ship me weird stuff in the mail. Just the weirdest things.

He gets me something from my wife. So mad. Yeah, it just shows up. There's a big old box. She's like, what's this from? I'm hoping it's from Anthony. This would be amazing. Just weird things.

Tons of stuff. But I love that kind of stuff because the ROI on it is crazy. And there are always these weird things. I have this headband that someone sent me. You put this headband on. You put an app on. You start working. And it just makes you not tired. It makes you focus. And it's like these weird things. Like, how headband someone sent me you put this headband on you you put an app where you start working and you just makes you not tired makes you focus make and it's like these weird things like how does this work i don't know and they're like oh it works because

it the the waves over here over here they sink your brain and change your brain waves your creative state and all these things and i mean i don't know how it works but like i just wrote two chapters and i'm not and i'm you know like just, like just weird. So I don't know. Anyway, I think I would like to do breath work every day. Um, no, because it's so intense. Like if I had a coach, you could walk me through it. Now it's, I have a recording of Anthony doing it and like, I almost dread it. Cause I know how hard, like by the time you're done, you're sweating. I get to you. By the time you're like, you're sweating, you're just like, what just happened? Like I just breathed for like five minutes. It's weird anyway, but that that's what, because I do a lot of stuff.

I would love to understand it at a deeper level, but I don't understand a lot of things now. Some of them I've gone deep on, but a lot of them I do it without knowing why. And I hate it because my wife will be like, so what's this doing? I'm like, I don't know. I just love it. I have this quote. One of my buddies, Preston Eli, he wrote this blog post about, he called it the Warrior Nair Workout. And in there, he explains part of his morning workout.

He's like, why part of his morning workout he's like why do i do it he's like because tony robbins does and i obey all giants who fly helicopters and have stage presence and it's like that quote goes from ahead of time people ask like why you do that i'm like because i obey all giants who fly helicopters have stage presence that's it like i don't know the reason why tony said so therefore i will do it you know so i would like to understand him at a deeper level so i have a better response than I obey all giants with helicopters and stage presence. But that's a pretty good reason. That's a pretty good reason.

So anyway. Now, real quick. Does anybody else want to throw in a question for Russell? Anybody else here live with us? Let me ask one more real fast before we dive in. I want to. But I want to ask this because we were just having sushi. I was asking, I was like, what are some of the favorite periods of your life? And one of them you said is wrestling, which I find funny because by far one of my favorite periods is baseball,

which people wouldn't expect because obviously I've been on stage and all this other stuff, and that should take the cake. But those moments are just on the field, just in the zone. There's nothing better. Where with what you get to do now, whether it's being live on a webinar or being on stage or whatever it is, where do you get the same feeling of wrestling? Do you know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? Like the feeling in your chest. That's a good question. Today, while we were in the line of grocery store, I talked to your dad about this. I said that, um, the best feeling I've ever had in my life, work

and wrestling, the feeling of winning a hard match that wasn't supposed to win and getting your hand raised, never felt something like that that felt as good as that ever. And I've been searching in business to find that. I have never found it. Do you feel like sports is like business? In any sense, where business is a good place? Oh, for sure, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot for sure.

But what I was going to say is the closest I've ever gotten to feeling that is when you serve at an event and you see a table rush, you see not only people, they get the aha but nothing nothing aha where it gets them to get up and to move like that's the closest i've ever felt to that it's not as good but it's the closest i've ever felt to that which is why i like why i love being fun on my level i'm doing the the big things like that because it's like i get a glimpse of that how close a year like scale one to ten wrestling's a ten yeah or is that right wrestling's a ten I'd say it's probably an eight so it's that's

in fact it's interesting because when I first started the business I was like racing trying to find it trying to find it trying to find it and it took me years

before I was like was it kind of disappointing for sure yeah we launched something and make a million dollars and I was like huh that sucks what else we got

like give me something else. The money goals are always what I thought was going to be the thing and those always were just like, huh. I needed stuff. In fact, literally one of the main reasons why I did the Two Comma Club Awards, I was like, for me, maybe it's just from

a decade of my life someone grabbed my hand and raising it. I was like, entrepreneurs need that. No one raises their hands. So my Two Comma Club Award hand and raising it. I was like, entrepreneurs need that. No one raises their hands. So my Two Comic Club Award is me lifting their hands and being like, you did it. I needed that. They need that. So that's one of the big reasons why I did that, because that's the equivalent of that. So anyway.

So how many millionaires have you created? We passed this year, passed 1,000 people at Two Comic Club Awards. We're over 120 that passed Two Comic Club. What's it feel like to say that, though? To say it? You know how sometimes it's like so many people that have passion or goals or huge dreams and visions, rarely do they really celebrate what's happening on the journey. Do you find yourself ever getting where your vision is so big and your passion is so deep that even saying things like there's a thousand millionaires.

Dude, that's huge, man. A thousand people that are millionaires because of you. It's crazy. I think the first time I really got that, probably the most impactful time, was the very first Funnel Hacking Live that we gave away to Comical Boards. It was the third Funnel Hacking Live. And it was a couple months before that

we had the idea for Comical Club, and the ward talked about that. And I was like, I wonder if anyone, I literally didn't know, I'm like, I wonder if anyone in QuickFunnels has actually made a million dollars. I don't even know. And so Dave went back,

and the database guys went through everything, and I remember he came back, and he was like, there's 79 people right now who made a million dollars. I don't even know. And so Dave went back, and the database guys went through everything. And I remember he came back, and he was like, there's 79 people right now who made a million dollars. And I was like, are you serious? Was it a boost of confidence? Like, what did it do for you? It was one of those things, like, looking back on, like, me doing these events where two people showed up, and nobody showed up, and hardly anybody. Whereas, like, I was so excited about this and it was just like, how come nobody cares?

Now it was like, this is actually, I've talked about this long enough and now people are believing it and now they're doing it. You start seeing it and there's the fruits of it. In my mind, it was like a million bucks. Even then, ClickFunnels was new. I was like, a million dollars is hard.

Most of my friends I knew was like, a million dollars is hard. Like, most people would never, like, most of my friends I knew were, like, made somewhere hitting a million dollars. But it wasn't, it was, these people had been doing this business for a long time. Like, a million bucks was a big deal. Like, that was, like, most people's goal still. And, like, the fact that it was 79 people who had done it, like, that was just weird. Because I know the biggest one was, like, that very first realization of just, like, oh, my gosh, like, this actually, it's not just the theory that I think it works,

it's working, and it's working at a scale that was unfathomable to me at the time, 79 people. And then to go to 200, then 500, then 1,000, it's crazy. Anyway. Rachel, what was your question, buddy? Yeah, so you were talking about how at each level of success that you hit, some of your mentors hit that ceiling, right?

Because of the posturing, right? So ultimately I feel like when you get to a new level of success, it requires you to upgrade your identity, right? Your self-image. And so what have you found is the number one routine or what's your process for upgrading the identity, upgrading your self-image? Because I think that's so important because it can either hold you back and have you self-sabotage and not take action and go after what you want. Or, you know, it's going to be the thing that keeps you at that level and continues to propel you forward. What's kept you? It's good.

It's weaved through everything. And the one that's the most obvious external, especially in our world, is because you see marketers, like most people when they first start selling whatever they're selling like they're bragging about themselves right like here's my ads you know how much money i made here's like it's it's all about them like that's like the first tier of it and then the second tier like when they start having the realization i feel like is when they stop talking about themselves and start talking about the people they've helped you see externally it's like now it's no longer talking about like you don't hear me talking about which money i make like i'm not like oh check out what i got but i talk about all the other like now it's no longer am I talking about like you don't hear me talking about how much money I make like I'm not like oh check out what

like I don't but I talk about all the other people right it's like that's the next tier is that and then and then for me like the third tier now

which has been really cool is like talking about like we talked about Lady Boss right like Kay like it wasn't me then it was Kaylin

but now like the success stories of Kaylin is Kaylin's customers right and so it's like that next tier of like of what you're talking about is like the external version of thaten is Kalen's customers, right? And so it's like that next tier of like, of what you're talking about is like the external version of that.

So there's a lot of internal things that you got to deal with, but it's like, you'll notice it shifting in people when you look at just their messaging, what they're saying from the way they podcast, they video, they market, they're ads and everything. It's like the shift of like,

it's not about me, it's about them. And it's not even about them, it's about like, that's the external version of it. Internally, I think it's not about me, it's about them. And it's not even about them, it's about, that's the external version of it. Internally, I think it's, I think it's, it's really, it's what we talked about like, I can't remember, a while ago, we brought up, I think yesterday, today,

but like, I had this really successful guy I met one time who, the first time he was like, tell me your story. So I was telling him my, you know, the Russell Posturing story about how great I was. And he's like, no, he's like, because I know, tell me, tell me about, like, the time you failed. And I was like, uh, he's like, no, like,

so I was like, well, I'm in the middle one right now. So I told him, like, let me tell you, you know. So I told him this whole, like, the whole thing. And I remember afterwards, I was like, so embarrassed. And he's like, ah, he's going to think I'm an idiot. Like, just, you know, that, that fear is like, good. You cycled. I'm like, what? He's like, he's like, I will not work with entrepreneurs. Haven't cycled at least once. He's like, because if they haven't, they still believe their

own, their own bio. Right. And I think that's the biggest thing is just like, um, is the internal version is that it's like, is the first time around or whatever, before you cycled, you think it's all you. I know for me it was. I remember doing this the first time. I'm a genius. I'm the smartest guy in the world. And then when it collapsed, I was like, oh, there's a lot of things outside of my control.

This is not me. There's a team. There's God. There's all these other things that are making this possible. And there's a scripture. I can't remember where it's at. It's the Bible of the Book of Mormon. It says you can either be humble or God will humble you.

I'm misquoting it by far, but it's like, God will have a humble people here. You can be humble or he'll humble you. So it's like, looking at that, I'm like, okay, round two, I'm going to be a humble person, but I don't want to be humble again, right? So it's like, this is not me. And I understand that.

I look around now, it's like, 100%, there's no way I would be where I'm at right now if Dan Usher didn't make videos the way he does. There's no way I'd be where I'm at now if Todd Dickerson could not code software the way he does. There's no way. All these things are so many people. And then there's so many success stories inside of it.

And there's so many people. And then there's the grace of God. I just look at the timeline of when ClickFunnels came into the market. I've been talking about Funnels for a decade. Nobody cared. All these things were happening. Then we started to have the idea for ClickFunnels. We started building it. We're creating it. Then literally, we go to traffic and conversion. Todd's halfway done building ClickFunnels. Ryan Dye stands on stage in the biggest event at the time. He spends the entire four days talking about funnels. Talking about how funnels are the greatest thing. No one ever is like, what's a funnel? They're all taking notes. Me and Todd are like, does he know what we're building? He's talking about funnels. Talking about how funnels are the greatest thing. And like, everyone's like, what's a funnel?

They're all taking notes and me and Todd are like, like, does he know what we're building? And he's talking about funnels and then like, he's talking about funnels like crazy

and then like, and then the next day everyone gets home from traffic conversion and everybody that day, like the next day, 8,000 funnel consultants pop up

and everyone's a funnel consultant. Everyone's on Facebook talking about funnel consultants and teaching funnel and all this stuff and we're like, oh my gosh. And I'm like, Todd, get this software done. Like, everyone's talking about funnels right now. So he's on Facebook talking about the funnel consultants and teaching fun all this stuff. And we're like, Oh my gosh. And I'm like, Todd, get the software done. Like everyone's talking about funnels right now. So he's called my crazy. And like, all of a sudden it's coming

around. All of a sudden everyone's like all these millions of funnel consultants, everyone's doing it. And all of a sudden, right. Hey, uh, we created this thing called click funnels. Here it is. And all of a sudden all the consultants and all the people, everyone came in and like, we were the only platform. And I look at that, like, like as smart as I think I am, like there is so much grace and timing. And like, if I'd launched a year earlier, a year later, it would not have hit the way it did. Like a hundred percent was the timing of all these things that have to happen. And if it wasn't for that, like we wouldn't have, so it's like, I can act like I'm smart. I'm a genius, but, um, man, there's so much, there's so much, um, divinity that came into all the things, right? There's no way it could happen without that.

Anyway, just understand those things. What did you learn when you were cycling? So many lessons. Russell, you are not that good looking. Or cool, or anything. It's basically not about you, right? Yeah, I feel that. So what was the hardest what were the like

how many times you cycled yeah uh two big ones for sure really do you mind sharing like yeah the first time was um it's after i finally figured this thing out and i remember one of my buddies was like you're making money online i'm like yeah he's like that's cool i'm like do you want a job he's like what i'm like you're the first person i know who's like interested like i'll pay you to come hang out with me he's like all right so i hired my friend he's like i got some friends too i'm like okay so start hiring all these people because like i want someone to talk to you and um anyway it was really bad so i'm having a whole bunch of employees nobody know how to do anything i don't know how to train anybody so i was hiding in the room trying to make money to pay payroll while they're staying outside like do you want to do anything i'm like

like don't talk to me i gotta make money to pay your payroll they're like we. Like, do you want to do anything? I'm like, don't talk to me. I've got to make money to pay your payroll. They're like, we can help. I'm like, I don't have time to explain anything to you. It was horrible. So built it up to the point where it was just like, I was launching a new thing as fast as we could just to pay payroll. Because as an entrepreneur, you kill something you get to eat, right?

It's like the greatest thing in the world. Employees, they want you to pay every two weeks whether they killed anything or not. I had not realized that until they're like, we need money. I'm like, but we haven't made any money like you have to pay me i'm so confused yeah like okay so it was anyway so it had grown and then um and we didn't have a model it's sustainable so it um that was the first guy launch stuff yeah it was about myself

it was like uh and i did today let's try it was about myself, it was like, I had an idea today. Let's try it. We launched it. Make some money. Sweet. And then it was like, I'd make like 20, 30 grand. And it was my wife and I. So it was like, that lasts nine months.

What did you sell? Because like, obviously, you know, I know like the potato gun backstory. You said like, I talked about funnels for like a decade before that. Was there like, what were you selling during that decade leading up to? And I know it's like an unlimited amount of stuff. Is there anything not even close to funnels? Yeah. The very first thing, pre-PotatoGuns, my first big idea was this.

Back then, what everyone was doing is, like Yannick Silver. Yannick would write a book, and then he would resell rights to the book. Then someone else would buy it, and they could sell it. I remember I got online, and I saw these books. I bought a book from Yannick. I'm like, oh then he would sell, resell rights to the books. And someone else would buy it, and they'd, oh, and they could sell it. And so I remember, I got online, and I saw these books, and I bought a book from Yannick. I'm like, oh, I can sell this, and I bought a book for somebody else.

So I was buying all these e-books I could sell, right? But then inside the books, people have, they have links back to all their sites. So I'd sell a book, and I was like, I made 10 bucks selling the book. And then inside the book, Yannick was selling this $1,000 course, and seminar, all these things,

and then people, they make all this money. I'm like, I got 10 bucks, and he made like 1,000 these things, and then people, they make all this money. I'm like, I got 10 bucks, and he made like a thousand off of me selling his book. I remember being mad, and I was like, I wish there was a way I could brand this ebook so before somebody opens it and sees his ad, they saw my ad, and that was like the first idea I ever had, ever.

And so my first product was called Zip Brander. It was this little thing that would take an ebook and it would brand it, and you... You gotta love this. You open it up and it pops up an ad, and you see the ad and you click a button and it would take you inside the ebook. And it was like my first thing.

And so I sold, we launched that and I don't know, I sold 20 or 30 copies of it. Um, but that was like the first one I ever made. It was amazing. And then I had a little customer list. I was like, this is amazing. And then the way I was selling it, those, I was going to forums. This is pre Facebook. So all you little kids before facebook um before myspace before

friendster we used to go these things called forums and they're just you think where people would talk all day and so we'd go these forums and one of the rules in the forums is you could you could comment all you want if you could have a signature file so at the end you could have like russell brunson check out my new software zip brander so i'd go these forums and i would just like spend eight hours a day answering questions and asking questions and everything but people see my ad over like every single thing my little my footer was on everything and so that's why i was selling zip brander initially and so i was in like 50 forms posting like crazy but i couldn't keep up with it and so i was like man if i create software that would manage this whole thing amazing so my

second product is called forum fortunes and it was this little software that would like manage your posting on every single form so you're posting you could see if someone responded back on form 49 it would pop up you're like oh you can find you can go back and comment and keep the discussions and so i was i made it for myself and then we started selling that and then we sold tons like sold more of those because i had a little customer base here and went bigger right and then after that it was the next so it was always just like what are the thing what's the next thing and and so um that's kind of how how it started back in the day just like little tools and little things like that um how do you know when you get you know

you're shooting all these bullets right how do you know when to shoot a cannonball good question but the thing is the thing about initially is like i've been married i was making zero dollars a year as a wrestler and so for me to make you know 600 bucks in a month that was a cannonball like that was that was, that was insane. I was just like, I thought I was the coolest kid in the world. Like 600 bucks was insane. And then I, so I did four or five of these little things. And I remember it was Christmas time.

And I remember my wife wanted to buy a couch and it was like a $2,000 couch. And I was just like, oh, I can't afford that. I don't have a job. I remember being sick to my stomach. And I had this idea. I was like, what if I do a sale? And I just saw a whole bunch of crap that we had. So I had a bunch of e-books I bought at Rice.

A couple of things I had created. And so we made this Grinch sale. And I remember I wrote this copy. It was the Grinch before Christmas or something. And it had a picture of the Grinch and his heart growing three sizes. And I wrote this copy. And then it was like, my wife and I have been married a year. And she really wants a couch.

I can't afford a couch though. So if you guys was like, you know, my wife and I have been married a year and like she really wants a couch. I can't afford a couch though so if you guys buy this, if I sell like 32 of these things, I can buy her a couch and put it under the Christmas tree and it'll be amazing. You said that in the copy? I literally said the copy, yeah.

It was the reason why. I still have the page. I can show it to you. I still have the page. I want to see the page. I know exactly where it's at. I can show it to you. And so I have the whole page

and then I only have an email list of like a couple hundred people at a time. But I set up an affiliate program. So the top is like, it had an affiliate link. And so I sent an email to my list and I went to bed that night. And someone on my list was a guy named Carl Galletti, who is, I haven't heard about Carl in a long time. He was a big famous copywriter at the time. So Carl went and saw the thing, bought it, and saw an affiliate link.

So he joined the affiliate program. He like this is awesome he took an email sent it to his entire list of this huge thing so i go to bed i wake up the next morning we're ten thousand dollars in sales how much before you went to bed oh like 30 40 bucks or something and i was like what just happened i'm like did i like did i rob someone? I don't know what happened. I'm freaking out and I'm like, oh my gosh, I look at my email

and there's all these people who are like, hey, I bought two of them. Hopefully you can get your wife that couch. Oh, I sent it to my friend. Hopefully you can buy it. All these people and then other people

because Carl promoted it. All these other people who follow Carl saw it and Carl's like, it's converting like crazy. Tons of people are buying it. So then more people are buying it

and I'm like freaking out. I'm going to wrestling practice. I'm like, I'm like for practice, I'm running wrestling practice. I get back out. I'm like, Oh my gosh, I mean like $600 in sales and freaking out. Anyway, the whole thing goes through and over that little, the little, I think it was a seven day sale or something like that. It was like made $35,000, which is more money than I'd seen in all my lifetime combined times like a hundred. Right. And I was just like, and then I paid affiliates. I paid like probably 10 grand affiliates. But I like, so we made, I don't know,

20, 20, whatever it was, $25,000. And like, we got to keep. And I was just like, oh my gosh. And so I told Colette and Colette's like, so funny, my wife, I love her. She doesn't understand the business part of things at all. But I was like, we made $25,000. She's like, is it illegal? First thing, are you going to go to jail? Is it illegal? I'm like, no, I don't, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure like, yeah, I'm pretty sure. So I was like scared. But the first thing I did is I went and bought the couch for, for Christmas. We got it back. I got a picture of her and sent out to the list. Like, thank you so much. You got the Christmas gift, the couch. And like, they all celebrated together, like all the people. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is the greatest game of all time. Like, this is so much fun. And then

it was like, what's the next idea? What's the next thing? And like, but it was all like, it was like, oh my gosh, this is the greatest game of all time. Like, this is so much fun. And then it was like, what's the next idea? What's the next thing? And like, but it was all, it was like that. It was like these little things that kept like, but then after that one was done, like I had all, now I had way more customers. I had all the people with all the product and who I was now. And then, so the next thing was easier and just kind of like. Incrementally started, kept growing and getting bigger.

And somewhere along the line, you know, last week I launched a pedogun thing. And then some upsells, right? I had up Pedogun thing and then some of the upsells, right, upsells of things and just, and we never called them funnels back then, we called them sales flows

or sales processes. It's like, really? talk about your sales flow, what's your sales flow? Sales flow. I remember that Dylan Jones

was our partner at ClickFunnels. I had the, so before Todd, we tried to build something like ClickFunnels. We called it click.com.com

which is a horrible name. But Dylan designed all the UI, still have all the UI images. And in there, we had a whole section for sales flows and all these things. And it's just like, this was the first ClickFunnels

because Dylan was going to do the UI eventually on ClickFunnels anyway. But it's like, we literally designed something like this five or six years earlier. It's just crazy. But it's a lot of those, it's just like,

I don't know. Do you think that like, all those little failures and all like trying and just that kind of energy is what brought you here today? Like for sure. It's the key. It's what everyone, I keep, I wish I could grab everybody and like, cause everyone's like, okay, I'm waiting for my click funnels or I'm waiting for my thing.

Like, and they're waiting and they're waiting and they're waiting. I was like, the reason why I got this thing was cause I didn't wait. Like if someone were to give me click phones initially, it would have been bankrupt in 15 minutes, right? Like you have to become worthy of the thing eventually. And you don't become worthy by waiting. You become worthy by trying and trying and trying and trying and trying. And eventually if you keep doing that over time, then God's like, all right, he's going to do it. He's done it. He's built 150 funnels. Like now we'll give him the idea wow how much more did you feel that all your other friends were in the same game i hope you guys really take like there's more that's caught than taught there's like that's some gold in what he just shared right there what you were just sharing but go ahead what was the question i was just

saying how much more did you feel that all your other friends were playing the same game all my friends were like like why are you launching more stuff why do you keep doing things i'm just like they do like one product launch a year and they're like so annoyed. Like, dude, like you, like stop doing stuff. I'm like, why would I stop doing this? This is like,

this is so much fun. Yeah. Like it was just confusing to me. I'm like, why don't you guys do more? Like everyone, they make money and just be done. Why did you keep doing more?

Was it like, was it like genuinely like a one funnel way? Like this next funnel is the one. Like were you just like, you sold yourself on it. This is it. So you keep, why is that?

Each one is really enjoy. Each one. I thought was like, I was every just like you sold yourself on it this is it so you keep what's like each one did you just really enjoy each one i thought was like each one i was every time i was so surprised like this is amazing like that was the one the next one's bigger like oh my gosh that was even better like who knew and then i just kept just kept going from there you know what i mean so i don't think i was like waiting like i wasn't waiting for quick click funnels or anything like that like i was just enjoying the journey every time it was so exciting and then just eventually it was like oh crap crap, who knew that that was going to do what it did. Was it all your emails or was there any ads or was there anything like scalable traffic

source? First 10 years was 100% emails, partnerships. There wasn't ads back then. I mean there was Google ads, but the first initial Google slap happened about the time I was getting started. So prior to that, a lot of guys I to build their email list off of Google ads and then the slap happened. So a lot of them had lists and so I started getting to know those guys, going to events,

meeting them and so that's how it started initially, was tons of that. And then there was this big gap for years where there was like, paid ads weren't a thing. You couldn't, it was, some people did banner ads but it wasn't consistent, it wasn't like it is nowadays. It was just, it was harder. There was no retargeting, all that it wasn't consistent. It wasn't like it is nowadays. It was just, it was harder. There was no retargeting. All that stuff wasn't there. So it was mostly we focused on like, like how do you, if you didn't have an email list, you weren't playing the game. So it's like, who's got lists? How do you build lists? What can you do? Um, you still think that's true?

A hundred percent. That's why the traffic seekers book was so important for me to write. I feel like because, um, most of the people in the game today have been blessed with Zuckerberg's simple Facebook ads and make the game easy. And they've never focused on building a list. And it's like, you guys, just so you know, Zuckerberg's going to screw us all. It's going to happen. Yeah, I remember you saying this.

It's all happening. And it's like, if you don't have a list, you're all screwed. I've been through this for 18 years, and I've been through five or six cycles. And I've seen people who made millions of dollars who now work not online. And it's just like, and the people who have w waited the storm the whole time are all the list builders they're the ones who survived and everyone else who's good at ads they they come and they go and they come

and they go hey everybody this is Russell again and really quick I just opened up a texting community which means you can text me your questions and right now I'm spending anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes every single day answering questions through text message to people who are on the podcast. And so I wanted you to stop everything you're doing, pull your phone out and actually text me a message. Okay. And the phone number you need to text is 208-231-3797. Once again, it's 208-231-3797. When you text me, just say hello. And then what's going to happen is I'll add you to my phone. And then they'll send you back a message where you can add me to your phone.

And then we can start having conversations. On top of that, through this texting community is where I'm going to be giving out free swag, giving away free copies of my book, let you know about book signings, about times I'm coming to your local area, and a whole bunch more. So I want to make sure you are on this list. On top of that, every single day, I'm sending out my favorite quotes, my favorite frameworks, and things you can get for free only through my texting platform.

So what you need to do right now is pull out your phone and text me at area code 208-231-3797. One more time, that's 208-231-3797. I can't wait to hear from you right now.