Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - Truthful Advertising: Napoleon Hill’s Secret Strategies That Still Work 100 Years Later | #Marketing - Ep 51

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I share something I still can’t believe I own… The only known copy of a 1917 advertising course written and taught by Napoleon Hill himself, 20 years before he wrote Think and Grow Rich! This is more than just a cool collectible. It’s the missing link that explains how Napoleon Hill became one of the most influential personal development authors of all time. Before he shaped millions of minds, he was teaching people how to advertise. And not just the tactics, but how to become the kind of person who can persuade, influence, and move people to action. What he taught over 100 years ago still applies today, and in this episode, I break it down. What Hill got right, what today’s marketers are missing, and why timeless strategy beats trendy tactics every single time. Key Highlights: The real reason Think and Grow Rich has sold over 100 million copies, and it’s not what you think How Hill’s forgotten ad course focused on developing the advertiser before teaching any copy techniques The biggest mindset shift every marketer needs before they write a word of copy or launch a funnel Why so many entrepreneurs fail when platforms shift, and how to become “bulletproof” instead The powerful advertising principle Hill taught: help your customers visualize the outcome, not the process Why the best salespeople don’t sell products, they sell visions I’ve gone through every page of Hill’s original manuscript and taken notes on everything. If you want to understand the strategy that makes any tactic work and become the kind of person who can market, sell, and scale anything, this is where to start. This episode isn’t about chasing the next trend… It’s about learning what never changes! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sellingonline.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clickfunnels.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Special thanks to our sponsors: NordVPN: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nordvpn.com/secrets⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Northwest Registered Agent: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠northwestregisteredagent.com/russell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to start your business with Northwest Registered Agent. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Get a $100 credit on your next campaign at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn.com/CLICKS⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠RocketMoney.com/RUSSELL⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Indeed: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job’s visibility at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Indeed.com/clicks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is the Russell Brunson show If I went to the black market I could probably sell this I think pretty easily for you know A couple hundred thousand dollars. This is something that is insane that even exists And this is the only copy on the planet that exists. A lot of you guys know Napoleon Hill who is probably my favorite author. I've got the most Napoleon Hill stuff. I'm in my Napoleon Hill room with all his collectibles. But what's crazy most people don't know is 20 years before Napoleon Hill wrote Think and Grow Rich, he actually taught an entire advertising course at a

college. And this is the manuscripts from his advertising course. These were like the lesson manuals that he would hand out during school back then. The George Washington Institute founded by Napoleon Hill in Chicago, copyright 1917. So literally 20 years before Napoleon Hill wrote the book Thinking Girl Rich, he was teaching and studying and doing advertising.

In fact, a lot of people know Napoleon Hill is actually a copywriter first. He was writing sales letters, he was writing marketing campaigns. In fact, a crazy fun fact, my first mentor, Dan Kennedy and Napoleon Hill both worked for the same company writing copy for way different generations, but the same industry. So a lot of people think like, how do you write a book that sells a hundred million copies like Think and Grow Rich? Well, you do it by first becoming a really, really good advertiser,

learning how to advertise, promotions and campaigns and all sorts of stuff like that. So this right here, this book set is insane because it's the original manuscripts from him teaching the college university. The only place I've ever seen him actually teaching advertising. When I first got this, we started reading through them and it's just insane to see the way his brain worked way back then. It's funny now, how did he sell so many copies of books? How is he still relevant, you know, 40, 50 years after he died is because he knew how

to advertise, he knew how to get his message out there. And the principles that he taught in here are so fundamental and amazing that I'm excited to share some of them with you guys today. Luckily for me, I didn't actually have to pay for this. And we have a really cool partnership with the Napoleon Hill Foundation. A little while ago, I donated a half million dollars to them to help with the initiative they had.

And then since then, they keep sending me really cool things. Like for example, Napoleon Hill's actual typewriters behind me, a bunch of other different books. And one of the shipments came out and it was this. And I was like, what is this? And they're like, it's Napoleon Hill's advertising course. I'm like, Napoleon Hill taught an advertising course?

Like this is insane. I'm like, when? I looked it up, 1917. I'm like literally 20 years before Thinking Grow Rich, he was teaching advertising. And so this is something that it's priceless. This is the only copy. If I went to the black market, I could probably sell this, I think pretty easily for, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars. And right now it's locked away and safe, except for right now. There's controversy behind Napoleon Hill. It's just like anything. When you have someone who's out there, there are haters that come out.

But it's fascinating because we actually had Napoleon's grandson came out. We spent like an entire day filming the entire timeline, going through like Napoleon's claims and what was true and like refuting all the different things that people said against him. But it's interesting because if you look at his life, like he got this commission from Andrew Carnegie to go and like spend 20 years to go interview the most amazing people in the world and then write this philosophy on personal achievement. That was his whole mission was to do that.

He'd go out there and he started doing some things. He wasn't getting paid by Carnegie, so he's freelancing, he's trying to make some money. He starts having success. He wrote this book, Laws of Success. He made a whole bunch of money, and then depression hit, and he lost it all. And then, you know, the next thing happens,

he starts going through his life, he writes Think and Grow It, he makes a bunch of money, and then his wife leaves him, and then it crashes again. Like, this pattern kept happening throughout his life. But then also, if you think about this, he was living like early 1900s. This is before most of like, the advertising laws were even in effect.

So a lot of times he would do stuff that was legal at the time and then the government would change the laws and then he would get hit for it. So he did multiple times where he ran into problems with the government. In fact, one of them was this college he set up. He set this college teaching advertising

and it was very successful, but then he had this idea. Like, what if I let the students go and sell access to the course and then it'll get more people in? And so he created this whole like multi-level marketing thing, had people out there, the students are selling more people in, there's having more and more success

and the government comes in like, you can't actually do that. You think about it back then 1900, like they didn't have the internet, they couldn't look at case law. They were just pushing the boundaries of stuff and you don't find out about what's legal or not legal until someone comes to you, you know what I mean?

Like it was such a different period of time. And so, but it's interesting because if you look at all of the critics, you look at the things that they bring up, like there's very good explanations for every single thing along the line. You know, it all said and done, Napoleon Hill is human, just like me and just like you. I make mistakes. I'm sure in 200 years from now, people write stories about the dumb stuff I've done and the mistakes that I made. But the reality is like, we're all making these mistakes. It's fascinating. You look at Tony Robbins, like 20 years ago, Tony Robbins was on Infomercial saying all sorts of stuff. And

they have to see him and hit him. But he's still Tony Robbins. It's fascinating. You look at Tony Robbins, like 20 years ago, Tony Robbins was on Infomercial saying all sorts of stuff. And the FTC came and hit him. But he's still Tony Robbins. He's still, he transitioned from that and he's become Tony Robbins. Trump, whether you love him or you hate him, like FTC came and shut down Trump University because they were making claims at the time, right? And he was able to evolve past that. So sometimes we're looking at someone's life as someone who's passed away and judging them

based on like our standards of today. This happened when he was, you know, 30 years old. He lived to be 80. Like, so there was a whole lifetime he lived after that to fix the things he did that were wrong, to make things right. I think one of the last claims that people always say is like, he died broke and that's not true.

If you look at like when he died, he was at the peak of his success. Anyway, so it's just kind of an interesting watching the critics with the realities. There's a grain of truth, but then when you hear the whole story, it's not the same outcome. I'm obsessed with this right now,

and we're literally like republishing this book over at truthfuladvertising.com in the near future. The reason why I'm doing this right now is because this book isn't just advertising. You may think like, oh, well, he's teaching advertising back in the 1900s, but what's interesting is a couple things. Number one is most of this course,

Napoleon Hill, again, he was obsessed with personal development. You look at most of his life work was laws of success, think and grow rich, outwitting the devil, like his other books about success. And so when you look at like the lens of the way he taught the advertising course, most of this curriculum was actually him trying

to develop the advertiser, which is I've never seen before, right? People talk about advertising and figuring out, right, better hooks and headlines and stories. And he does go into that, but the bigger part is like you as an advertiser, how do you become the person who can actually have the confidence enough in themselves

and the writing abilities to be able to write a sales letter, right? How do you develop yourself? And so he's weaving in all these personal development things into person to help them become the person who's able to do it, right? And I see this all the time. I see this in people coming to my world.

They wanna build funnels. They wanna do whatever. And they're trying to learn the skillset or the tactic, right? What they don't understand is the thing that they're missing is who they have to become to be able to be good at that right if you want to be an expert be on stage speaking that's awesome yeah i can give you some tactics how to speak on stage but you have to go and like you have to earn your

expertise you have to go out there and do it over and over you have to become somebody to be able to be the person who can stand on stage and carry an audience and hold an audience and i think that's what people are always missing you are where you are and what you are because of your mental attitude in which you relate yourself to other people. Remember also, your mental attitude is the one and the only thing over which you have complete control. What's fascinating is just watching him

focus all his effort on developing the advertiser. And then from that, it's like now we can actually talk about and get into the tactics and the strategy of advertising. I think that's one of the most fascinating things about this book and why I love it so much. You're running Facebook ads or YouTube, whatever you're doing, your belief in what you are doing yourself is the key.

It comes through on the camera, it comes through when you're speaking, it comes through when you're writing copy. Whatever you're doing, it comes through. And so it's like, how do you develop that belief first in yourself? And then from there, now we can get into all the tactics of creating great advertising. One of the actual advertising principles

that Napoleon spends a lot of time in here, that is one of my favorites, is back then they didn't have video or YouTube or radio. The method of advertising was written copy. So it was magazine ads, it was sales letters. That was how they communicated, right? And so all communication came through some type of print. And so what he's talking about in here is

as you are learning how to write, he says there's two things. Number one, you have to get their attention. So you have to have a good hook. We talk about this in all my books, hook story off, grab their attention initially, tell them a story, then make them an offer. And the point of this thing,

you gotta grab their attention first, and then as they said, you gotta persuade them. But the way you persuade someone, this is the key thing he brought in, is you have to help them to visualize the outcome of what the product or the service you're selling is. How do you create that vision? And you do that through the written word, obviously.

And I remember when I read this, it reminded me of man, 18 years ago, if you guys remember Robert Allen who wrote No Money Down, he was the real estate guru back in the day. I remember I was funnel hacking him before funnel hacking was a word, but I was going through this whole process, like what is he doing?

How's he doing? How's he doing? How's he built this huge brand? And I remember going through it and back then they had these, you'd buy it when he's front in books and he'd invite you to a teleseminar. You jump on a teleseminar and it was so fascinating that Robert Allen was doing that's based on these principles from Napoleon Hill is he would have everyone sit down and create in their mind a vivid vision. That's what he called it.

And you sit down and say, okay, I want you to visualize the home you have. Now after you see the home, like what does it look like? What does it smell like? When you walk through the door, like you have kids, you have dogs, it wasn't, and he goes through this whole, it's like a 20 or 30 minute experience where he's creating a vivid vision in your mind. He calls that, he's like, we're creating your vivid vision. And so he goes through this whole process and by the time you're done on this call,

you know what you want, you desire this thing so much. And then he comes back and like, okay, now to make this vision a reality, invest in my real estate coaching, I'll help you like sell real estate so you can have the big, but he creates the vision first, right? And that's what Napoleon Hill is talking about in this book is like, you got to get your customer after you grab their attention, then you have to help them to visualize the outcome, not the process. A lot of times we get in the mistake of trying to sell the process.

Like I'm selling the course or I'm selling, you know, here's my step-by-step coaching program. Here's like, we keep selling the process versus helping people visualize the outcome. Alex Shormozy spoke at one of our events one time and he shared a really good principle. He talked about like, if you were a travel agent, the thing that you're selling is you're selling Hawaii, right? You're selling Hawaii, it's going to be beautiful, you're going to be on the beach, you're visualizing the outcome, you're selling the outcome, right?

You're not selling all this stuff that happens between now and you getting to Hawaii because that stuff's a nightmare, right? You got to get tickets and you get hotels and then you got to get on a plane and you're probably going to be sitting on the back row with your kids and carrying your bags and the pain of it. And then you have four layovers because you're from Boise and there's no direct flights to Hawaii. And then when you do get there, you got to come off and you sit through customs and it's

going to be hot and sweaty and like, you know, all this stuff. You're talking about all those things. You just paint the vision of the outcome and then people buy and then they'll figure out all the rest. They'll go through all the pain because the vision of the outcome. And so the key thing from the point here, here, after you like learn how to become the advertisers you believe in, number two is like we're going to grab their attention that we got to help them to visualize the outcome.

Right? And they teach you inside here like in the written word, like what are you saying? How do you say it so that people feel this? And again, for me, it just comes back to Robert Allen listening on that call of him explaining the vivid vision. So think about it for your audience. Could be you on a webinar, it could be you speaking on a YouTube video,

it could be you writing a sales letter, whatever version of selling you have, like how do you help your audience see the vivid vision where they're literally like, it's like so tangible, they can smell, they can taste, they can touch it, because then the selling of the product is easy, right? Oh yeah, flights to Hawaii is this much money, right? That part becomes really easy when you've actually

helped them visualize the outcome successfully. You see people on YouTube, Instagram, podcasts, like they're all trying to give value and they're dropping these ideas and stuff, but what's interesting is that most of the things that people are sharing are very tactical, right? Oh, do this thing on Instagram, you increase your views by 5%, do this thing.

And so like they're all leveraging like the tactic or the hack of very tactical, right? Oh, do this thing on Instagram, you increase your views by 5%. Do this thing. And so like, they're all leveraging like the tactic or the hack of the day, right? The thing with tactics is they disappear and they shift and they change. I've been in this business now for almost, I think 25 years. And in 25 years I've been in this business,

I've seen all the gurus who come and gone and come, like they, and the reason why is because they ride a trend. Like, oh my gosh, there's this trend, Instagram reels the thing, they become the guru of that, they talk about it, they share it, and then like that thing changes, it shifts, and then they fall apart, and then they can't figure out next part of business and they disappear.

And I look at why is Napoleon Hill stuff still relevant? Why am I studying the old books and advertising? Russell, you have access to anybody you want. Why would you study Napoleon Hill, Robert Collier, these people? These people, when they were writing this stuff, they didn't have the ability where they could just throw up free stuff onto Instagram or Facebook or YouTube

and hopefully get traffic or get money, right? They had to test everything with their own dollar. So if they're writing a sales letter, they got to write it, they got to go get printed, they got to go like fold it and put an envelope, they got to lick a stamp and put it on it and send it out and hope it makes money. So they're not just like throwing stuff out there, they're thinking through it and the strategy and understanding, right? And there's this whole philosophy and strategy that was built in the early 1900s by these advertisers that was based not on ideas or hoping stuff worked or based on like, I just spent my last thousand dollars, do I get it back next week?

If they did, like, cool, what did I do? How do I double down on that? And they just thought through things differently. And these are the core strategies that don't shift. They don't change. They don't move when the algorithm changes. They're like the core foundational things. And so while it's great to like go study the fastest tactic,

what's happening, you know, like whatever, you know, that's working today, it's so much better to understand the core fundamentals. The reason why I have been in this business now for 25 years, number one is like, I had a bunch of mentors teaching internet marketing, right, I was going after like the shiny object of the day, but Dan Kennedy was my first real mentor.

And when Dan came in, he was like teaching me about how they did marketing with fax machines and direct mail. And I'm like, a fax machine, right? I'm like, how does this work? But he was teaching me the strategies that work regardless. And so when Google did the first Google slap, it hurt my business because the traffic I was using from that shifted, but it didn't kill my business. I just shift. I knew the strategy as I would move to different platform. Right. And when PPC shifted, and then when MySpace shut us down and then we shifted to Facebook and Instagram and Google and like the ups and the downs, like when you understand the strategy, it was what gives you longevity in this business.

Too many people, so many people, like hundreds and hundreds of people that I know who've came in, learned a tactic, capitalized on it, made some money and they disappear because they don't understand this foundational strategy is actually make it work. And when you understand that and you study it and you learn it and you master it, it makes some money and they disappear because they don't understand the foundational strategies that actually make it work. And when you understand that and you study it and you learn it and you master it, it makes you bold proof, right? It makes it so you will be here in the long term. And again, 25 years have I been doing this. The number of people who were in this business when I got started right now, I can count

them on one hand. So it's very rare because everyone's going after the tactics versus like really understanding and mastering the strategy. I have my notes. I think I'm the only person on planet who's gone through this entire thing. I have my notes and my doodles, everything I learned from here before we published this. This book, I don't think is live yet,

depending on when you're watching this, but this book's not live yet, but if you wanna get my notes from everything, there'll be a link down in the description. Click on that, take you to a page, you can download my notes, and then eventually when the book comes live, we'll notify you from that page

and let you guys know if you wanna get a copy and read these original manuscripts for the first time ever. And if you wanna really understand and master the strategy of advertising, this is the first place to start. Because not only does it teach you strategy, it's gonna develop you as the advertiser. It can help you to become the person you need to be

to actually have success in this game.