The Russell Brunson Show - "Outwitting The Devil" with Josh Forti - Part 2 of 3

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

Welcome to the second part of a special three episode series! On this episode, Russell and Josh talk about their biggest “take-aways” from the book. Russell talks about a difficult time when Clickfunnels was down and instead of choosing fear and running from the problem, he chose to have faith in his business and fight to make it better. 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 Secrets podcast. I hope you enjoyed the first part of my interview with Josh Forti, on Outwitting the Devil. This episode, I'm excited, because we're going to go a little bit deeper. We're going to start talking about some of my stories, and practical applications of how I was able to use this in my past. This story I tell, I wasn't expecting to tell this. I didn't know where he was going to go with the interview questions. We got a little emotional, but I think it was good. So I'm excited to share it with you. I'm a little nervous, but a little excited at the same time. So with that said, we're going to cue up the theme song. When we come back you can listen to episode number two, from the Josh Forti interview, about Outwitting the Devil. Josh Forti: I had a very definitive takeaway from the book. You could read a million times, and keep getting gold nuggets, but what was the thing that stuck out to you, that was the most powerful of it? That caused you to literally go on Instagram, be like, "Yo, everybody read this book right now." Russell: Everyone's in different spots, so I think it's good to read this book for everyone to kind of see where you fit. Anyway, maybe I have a distorted view of myself, but I feel like I'm somebody who acts in definitive purpose. I feel like I act in faith, most of the times. So, I feel like I'm on the side. So the thing that was so powerful for me, if you look in the middle of my thing, there's two columns here, was he started saying, he asked, he's like, "When someone uses definitive purpose, does that mean they're free from you?" He's like, "No." He's like, "As soon as they're using definitive purpose." And he's like, "These are the tools I use to try to get them to become drifters." And I started looking at the list of things he uses to get them to become drifters. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, I see those patterns in my life. I see the things that are pulling me to that side as well." And it became this warning for me of like, "Okay, these are the things to protect yourself from." Because, we're not free, it's not like, I do good things therefore I'm to be good forever. It's like, no, the entire time he's trying to get you to the other side. And so for me, it was interesting. You can see some of these ones I list up here, like the temptations he uses to get someone who is free, to become a drifter. So number one, was flattery. And it was interesting, he said that the way he uses flattery, is in women, he uses vanity, and in men, he uses egotism. And I've seen that so many times in my own personal life, where with your ego and you start reading your own bio, you drink your own Kool-Aid, and you're like, "I'm amazing." And as soon as you do that, it starts shifting you from this state of freedom, to drifters. And I've seen... I've got personal friends who have let ego destroy their families, destroy their businesses, destroy their lives. And I always have fear of that, and I see myself slipping into that often. It's definitely a temptation, it's one of the things for me, that pulls me in, I'm trying to be careful of. It's funny, people always tell me, like, "I feel like you're one of the few guys in the industry that doesn't have a big ego." I'm like, "I have a huge ego." I try to be aware of it. I'm grateful for my wife. One of my buddies told me, he's like, "It wasn't for Colette." He's like, "You'd have the biggest head in the world." She's the one that keeps me focused. Josh: I feel like that's Leo with me too, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Russell: But I think it was interesting for man, for egotism, and women, he said vanity, which is interesting too. So those are two things there. Next was failure, and he talked about failure from both sides. He said that failure can be something that actually serves you, because you fail, you see what's wrong and you read adjust, but some people go through failure, and then they slip to like, "Okay, this didn't work," and they're out. And you see that a lot. Josh: Well, and that's even here, it's learning from adversity. That's one of the key things, how do you use failure? If you're going to be a drifter, you're going to be like, "Failure. Ew yuck. I'm never going to do it again." versus a successful person. Russell: You see people all the time that fail, are like, "Oh, I tried the thing, and it didn't actually work." It's like, "Okay. It worked for 800 other people, but it didn't work for you. Maybe it was you, maybe the approach was..." It's so interesting where it's like, if... It comes back to, if you've read Jocko's book. Josh: What's Jocko's book? Extreme Ownership. Yeah. Russell: That's the thing, the failure happens, and it's like, "Oh, I going to blame it on them." Boom. Instantly you're a drifter. But if you're like, "It was me, I did it wrong. What am I going to change?" The extreme ownership, that's the shift from failure. Whereas you take extreme ownership, boom, you're staying over here, but, if you don't... And I have a problem all the time. I think something that's happened to my team, or whatever, and I want to point the finger, and it's like, "But I'm the leader of the team." But it's so much easier to point out, than point back in. And so for me, that was the one. Again, another one I noticed, when I had my failures, did I point out or in? Because if I point out, I'm slipping into drifting. Propaganda, bribes, food, sex, all these different things he was using. The food one was interesting, he was talking about, he's like, "When men and women become rich, and they have all these things, I get them through food, when they start eating and get gluttonous. And all of sudden their body gets not healthy, and then it's harder to move." And I'm sure you felt that, when you're not eating healthy, your mind gets cloudy, and all these things, it's very easy to become a drifter. And so, it's just all these tools he's using to try to get you to shift from one another. Those things were... In my time in my life right now, where I was just like, "Okay, cool. I've got walls, I can start protecting myself up. I can become more aware of it." When you're aware of something, it's so much easier to fight it, as opposed to when… Josh: Yeah. And when you're successful too, everything's convenient. And that's one of the things that he brought up in the book too. I noticed in my life, I was thinking back to when I first started, I was like, "Man, I was sleeping on my buddy's couch." For three months, and I worked my butt off, and everything like that. I'm like, "Why do I lack that drive sometimes?" Like, "Why don't I have that anymore?" It's like, "Because life is convenient." Because if I sleep until eight o'clock, or if I don't perform today, my life doesn't change at all. But back then, it did. And so when things become convenient, it's super easy to come back into that drifter mode. Russell: Yeah. A hundred percent. And that's one of the hardest thing. I think, at least for me, when I was growing up, I always thought there's a point where you made it. In fact, I remember this one time, my business was doing well at the time, we had a bunch of employees. I remember hiring this guy to come consult me on something, and he came out, and he's looking at all this stuff. And he's like, "So tell me, when was he felt like... When did you know you made it?" And I was like, "Oh, I..." I'm still freaking out. I don't feel like I made it. And I think, in my life, I always thought there's going to be a point where I'm like, "I made it, or figured the thing out." Or whatever, but I never got there. I feel like the second I do, that's when it's going to start... That's the thing. And so, I think being more aware of that, just like, this is a constant thing and that's okay, but, it's a constant between God and Satan, there's this constant... Every moment is like, each of them are fighting for. It's like, if you give up here, then you slip back over to there. You can't just... There's no neutral ground. Josh: So, I just want to talk about that, because I think one of the biggest... Well, the number one thing, like you said, of a non drifter, is the definitive purpose. And I have noticed that in my life, even recently... Over the past year, year and a half, I've been working with Katie Richardson, you know that, just really getting clear on what the next steps of things are. And my definitive purpose, if you will, when I first started my entrepreneurship journey, was this, "I just don't want to be poor anymore." I go like, "My definitive purpose is to not worry about money, and to get out of debt, and just be free. Then be able to make decisions or whatever." And then I got there, and then there was this next definitive purpose. And they were incremental, almost goals, but not like this overwhelming definitive purpose. And so, going through the process of that, of course, with my brother dying, and that whole shattering of everything. Like for you, you've built ClickFunnels, you have a wildly successful company and people look up to you, and are like, "Oh my gosh, Russell, you're on top of the world. You're amazing. You've made it." At now, you've just said, "Hey, I don't feel like I've made it yet. I still feel like I have a long way to go." How do you... A, has your purpose changed since you started, compared to where you're at now? And B, how do you continue to remind yourself of that purpose? Or how do you find that purpose? When you could do nothing for the rest of your life, and be totally fine. How do you find purpose in that? Russell: I'd be a drifter at that point. Josh: Right, you wouldn't be a drifter. I can just see Russell sitting on the beach. No, actually, I can't even imagine what that would look like, for Russell on the beach for long periods of time. But, what would that look like for you? Or, how do you find that purpose? Russell: So, you asked about if my purpose has changed. So I would say, in my mind, it's two things. There's the people that I've been called to serve has not changed, I feel like I've been called to serve entrepreneurs. Those are my people, those are the people that I'm here... And so for me, it's like, what are all the ways I can help them? So, initially it was like, "Do seminars, write books." That was the first thing, and then it's like, "Oh, we're going to build software." And then it's like, "Oh, we're doing events." And, we kept adding these things on. And so, that was the thing. And so my purpose was like, what are all the things I can do to help an entrepreneur to be more successful? That's my vision. That's my mission. That's my thing. And I feel like now that, again, after I finished the three books, I was like, I feel like that, again, that the trilogy, that's what people need. And then we have Funnel Hacking Live, that's amazing. We have these things in place, all the things there are... they're there. And I think there's things, where there's big updates, we have to company click funnels. There're other things we do to make things better, but for me, it's like, there's not a lot more, again, it's not like I'm going to come out with some magic funnel, I'm like, "God, it changes everything again." Like, it's there. Right? So for me, it's like, "Okay, I'm still called to serve these people. What's the next level of success? What's the next thing I need to do?" And for me, I started looking, like what were the things that I struggled with? And so much of it was not... It was like, I didn't have the tools, I didn't have the information, which is why the last two decades has been focused on that. But, the next thing was like, I had to become someone different, who did I have to become to be successful? I look at so many entrepreneurs who are coming into my world, these people that I'm called to serve, and giving them funnels. Man, they don't believe in themselves, they have horrible identities. They're choosing fear over faith, every single time, and they're not having success. And so, for me, it's like, "Hey, I still have the same people." So-called same.. served the same people. But, what am I... What's the next thing I need to help them with? And if you just look at my book trilogy, the first one was dotcom secrets. It's like, "They need to understand funnels." That was the book. And it was like, "Hey, now I understand funnels." And now everyone's like, "I'm building funnels." But then their funnels weren't working, they weren't converting. And I'm like, "Oh, they don't know how to tell stories, right copy, or..." So, Expert Secrets, I'm like, "Expert Secrets." It's like, "Okay, now they understand that." And I thought I was done. And then I'm like, "Okay. Some people have these funnels that have really good copy, but Facebook shut down their account and they're screwed, or they have no traffic, or whatever." And I'm like, "Oh, my people in the traffic." So, I'm getting traffic, and that was Traffic Secrets book. And so for me, the last year, year and a half, especially, as you know, we've been in this insane environment of insanity… Josh: How do you even describe it? Russell: And I'm watching these people I've been called to serve, melting down, choosing fear in every single direction, over, and over, and over, and over again. I'm seen people who don't have an identity, they don't have beliefs, they don't have rules, they don't have values. And I have all these things they need to actually have the structure, to implement. It is what we talked about. And that's why I started geeking back to this personal moments, and partially because it's for myself, because I'm trying to protect myself and strengthen myself. But for me, Hill doesn't really go deep on anything. If you look at my disc profile, one of my things is I have very, very high... my highest value is ROI. If I don't see return on investment on something, I can't do. That's why I struggled in school, that's why I struggled with so many things. That's why when I started trying to read scriptures again, I struggled with it, until I started a podcast, because now there's return on my investment. I'm going to learn this thing, but I'm going to give it to somebody else. And there's my return on investment, now I can do it, and I feel fulfilled by it. Josh: Which by the way, I'm going to plug, podcast number three is going to be about that. Russell: And the same thing here. So, I started going back through, started reading these things. And for a while it was tough, because I'm reading these things, and for me it's like, what's the return on investment? It's good for me, but, ah, I've been called to serve. It's not just... Again, I talk about this in the new book, we'll talk about it a minute. But in Expert Secrets I talk about growth and contribution. I love growth, because good for me, but I thrive on the contribution. It's me sharing that gets me excited. So I was going through these things, and that's when, probably three or four months ago, is when I was like, "Hey, I'm learning all these principles, these things, I'm doodling all this stuff." I need to have something I'm putting it towards, or else I'm not going to be able to continue the momentum I need to keep doing this, and keep figuring out these things. And so, that's why I started, as you know, on my fourth book, which is not a marketing book. Josh: Yeah. I want to talk about that. Okay. I really do want to go there. However, there's one question I want to ask you first, I want to pull back another layer of Russell, that people... I don't know. Maybe, you've told this story before. I don't know. I don't even know what the story is, I'm about to ask you. So, my number one takeaway from the book, was how much fear controls people. That was my number one thing. And, for me, and this has come through a tremendous amount of mental work, and tremendous amount of personal identity work, over the course of the past 12 to 16 months, of just tears and just facing my own fears and insecurities, and bringing them to light and working through. But, there's not a whole lot of things I'm afraid of. There're very few things where I'm looking at them, I'm like, "Oh my gosh." I just do me, and whatever. Like criticism, it doesn't really bother me, or whatever. But, there's certain instances that come up where I'm like, "Ooh, I'm afraid of failure in that specific scenario, for that specific thing." And I'd be curious to know, for you, as you built ClickFunnels, I'm sure there were moments of fear. And I'm sure there were moments, when this side of things started to creep in, but you worked through that. And so, I'd be curious to know, what was one of the biggest times when you were building ClickFunnels, that you were afraid? And how did you work through that? What's that story? Russell: Oh man. Josh: Because I feel like we hear the marketing version of it. Russell: The highlight reels. Josh: We do, right? And they serve a very specific purpose. And I always laugh when people want to criticize, like, "Russell only tells this part of the story, or whatever" I'm like, "Do you understand why he's doing that?" Like, "Do you understand it's fitting into... It's at Funnel Hacking Live, or it's at this, or whatever." I'm like, "There's a purpose for that." It's not like he's trying to do that, but I want to know the other side of it. I want to know the behind the scenes of, what was that moment where you're like, "This is not worth it. I'm going to shut it all down. Or I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able..." I don't know what the story is. Russell: Yeah, definitely for me, the part that was the hardest, it was the first year of ClickFunnels, we just launched it. And I remember, because when Todd built it he told me, he was like... And in my head, I thought we're going to get 10,000 members month one, that was in my head. And Todd was like, "Okay, well, just so you know, as soon it past 10,000 members, the way I coded it, it's going to have to be different." And I was like, "I don't know that means, but I'm going to get 10,000 members. Right?" So we go and launch it, we don't get 10,000 members, kind of depressed, but we started pursuing this thing, start working towards it. And within about a year we got 10,000 members. And during that time, ClickFunnels started doing weird things, where it would just go down for five minutes, and be back, like, "What just happened?" And like, "Oh, some blah, blah, blah, techie thing happened." And yeah, so they fixed it, like, "Hey, good." And then it goes down, this time it's down 15 minutes, and 15 minutes down.... It's funny, because one minute I'm everyone's hero, they're like, "We love you, Russell. You made our lives so much easier making money." I'm getting the messages, and just feeling the ego, and all the things they're just like... This is amazing. And then it goes down, and I want you to understand, when ClickFunnels would go down, it wasn't like, "Hey, man, it's down." It was like, "I want to kill you." Like, "You owe me $2,000 in ads for my 15 minute window that it's down." Like, "I'm going to sue you." Like death threats, I went from the hero of the day, to, "I want to kill you." And messages coming in are like... And I'm getting things, and Todd's not getting them, because no one knows... He's kind of behind the scenes, and I'm just like, you want to kill me? They're that angry? They want to sue me, they want all these things. And then, publicly posting everywhere, how horrible and how bad.... And the second someone slips, everyone wants to jump up and start throwing daggers at them, it's insane. I seen it happen to so many people. I have friends who I've seen it happen to recently, where it's like, everyone loves until they do something, and then it's just like everyone wants to pounce on- Josh: And half the time, it's not even their fault. Russell: It's crazy, if that's happening. And so, it's happening, we get back up, and then, "Is this is going to work good?" Like, "Yeah, fine." I'm like, "Okay. It's going to be good." So then we plan on that, and then again, it would go good for two, three weeks, then something happened, and it just kept happening. And the longer we go, more members happened, it would more often, it would happen longer. And, it was just horrible. Because I remember one time I was speaking at a Dan... GKC event. And I'm in the hotel room, we just got there, Dave and I were there, we're getting everything ready. And it goes down, we're down for like 30 minutes. I'm freaking out. I'm supposed to be on stage in 30 minutes, or like an hour or something, and it's down, and I messaging and I remember voxing Todd, I'm like, "Hey, it's down again." He messaged back all nice like, "Oh yeah." Like anyways, he was just like, he's like, "Oh yeah, it's down again. We'll work on it." So I messaged back, I was like, "This is happening a lot. Are you sure we're okay? You seem a little nice and calm, you okay?" It's funny, because Todd's super respectful, he doesn't ever swear around me or anything. And he messaged back, and I've never heard Todd scared before. And he messaged back, and he was... I won't repeat what he said, but it was just like, what he said and how he said it, was just like, we're screwed. He said it four or five times in a row, and then he ended. And I was just like- Josh: And you're about to go on stage? Russell: Yeah, and I was like… Josh: Oh my gosh. Russell: And I was just freaking out. I'm like, "I'm about to go on stage, and try and convinced all this audience that I've got the greatest thing in the world. And my partner who built it, is freaking out, and doesn't know how to stabilize this thing. And he's..." I remember just being sick to my stomach, scared, all these fears, all the anxiety, all the inadequacy, all those things. And I remember I'm just freaking out, and then we got it back up, and then Dave's like, "Hey, you're on in like 10 minutes." I'm like, "Oh." So, I do my things, run downstairs and then come on stage. And I was just in my head, and my mind, and my body just freaking out. And, do the presentation, I know the presentation, even if I'm scared, it's going to come out pretty similar, it converted well, people bought it, everyone's excited. I remember afterwards, it was weird, this is one of those weird things, I don't even know who it was. If you're listening, she messaged me, some dude lingered afterwards and he's like, "Um, you okay?" I'm like, "Yeah. Fine. How's it going?" And he's like a chiropractor, but like a “woo-woo” one, were they do energy stuff. And he's like, "Can I adjust you?" And I'm like, "That's weird." He's like, "No, I don't really do normal adjusting, it's this other weird kind." And I was like, "I don't know what's happening. This guy is creeping me." But for some reason, like, "Sure. Whatever." So he takes me in this other room, he starts doing adjusting, he's doing the muscle testing, and all sorts of stuff on me, which I- Josh: Just some random dude? Russell: Yeah. I'd never had that happen before, he was attending the event, so he was there. Josh: Right. Russell: And it was weird, because he starts... He's just like, "You have all this tension here, here, all these things." And he's trying to figure out why. And so, eventually, and again, some people think that that's crazy. You think that's crazy? Nowadays, I don't know, Because- Josh: No. I don't think it's crazy. Russell: Anyway. It's interesting. But, he's doing this muscle testing, and he muscle tests, and he's like, "The thing that you're experiencing right now inside your body, is a reflection of something that happened." I can't remember, it was like 3.6 years ago, or something like that. He's like, "What happened three and a half ago?" "I have no idea." I couldn't remember. And all of a sudden I was like, "Oh my gosh, that was the last time my company collapsed." And we had to... We didn't go through bankruptcy, but had to fire almost a hundred people. We had to shut everything down. It was all this stuff. And he's like, "Your body's experiencing the same things right now, that you experienced at that moment. And that's this tension and these things." Josh: Oh my gosh. Russell: It was crazy. And he did all this stuff to try to release it, and everything. But also I realized, it's like, oh my gosh. My biggest thing is, I built this thing up, people think I'm a hero again, right now. And I remember what happened three and a half years ago, when I lost everything and how much pain, and how much... All these things, the poverty I got, the criticism I got, the ill health I got, the loss of love I got, friends, family, coworkers walking out on me. I wanted to die. I'm over the edge. All my greatest fears came back in that moment, and I'm in this spot, and I don't know how to fix it, because I can't code. I go to college and learn how to code? I don't what to do. Josh: That's the worst, oh man. Russell: The next week… Josh: It's out of your hands. Russell: We're flying to London, to speak in London. They invited my family to come to me. So, my wife and kids were all flying in London, and I told parts of this story before, but we're in the air, everything's good. The kids are having so much fun, they're flying. And we land, we get to London, and there's... In your phones, the chips don't work, so you have to- Josh: Yeah. You got to swap them. Russell: So we're driving around, and finally get our chips in there, and as soon as it does, all of a sudden, my phone was just like... And I don't know what it is, so I'm looking, and there's text messages, there's instant messages, there's voxers, there's all these things, hundreds, I'm not exaggerating, people are like, "A hundred's, probably like 10." No, hundreds and hundreds on every platform, where people sending me death threats, sending me they want to kill me, send me the hate me, send me I'm screwing them over, sending me all that... just this stuff, and I'm looking at my phone, and I'm just like, "I don't even know what happen." So I'm finally trying to get Todd, I got ahold of him, and he's like, "Yeah, we're down. We've been down for four or five hours." He's like, "If we're able to get it back up." And all I remember him saying, if, and not when, and I was just like- Josh: And you're in London. Russell: With my family. Josh: About to speak. Russell: And so, I don't even know. I went back to the hotel room, and we had two hotels conjoining for the kids. I was like, "Hey, I'm going to go in this room for a minute." And I shut the door, and I'm just like, I don't know what to do. We're down. I don't know if we're getting it back up. So, to speak the next day to talk about click funnels. And it was one of the things where I was just in so much fear, I wanted to hide. I just wanted to not say anything. I just wanted to be quiet. Josh: Yeah. Especially as an introvert. Russell: Yeah. Especially and introvert who's got literally hundreds of people telling me how much they hate me. And, I don't know want to do. And this one of those moments where it's just like, the fear and the faith, I wanted to go to fear. That sounds so nice, just to hide and... But I was like, I can't, because this is my life. This is all this stuff we've worked for, for so long. And, in that moment I had impression of, you should go live on Facebook. I'm like, "I don't want to live on Facebook." They're like, "You have to. You have to tell people what's happening." I was like, "What kind of CEO, in the middle of this crash, gets online and like, Hey, our company's down." And put on the happy face, like, "It's okay, because... let me blame the servers." I had a million people I could blame, because it was... Josh: It's not your fault Russell. It's never your fault, right? Russell: So, finally, I was like, "All right." So I just, I told the kids, "I'm going to be on in 15 minutes." So I clicked go, and all of a sudden I'm live. And of course, because it's live, everybody pops in, because they're trying to figure out... Because they all want to kill me. Like, "Russell's here, this is our time." And first it popped up, you start seeing the comments, like, "You're effing killed... You killed my business." Like all these things, and just like, "You owe me, how much money." Like all these things, and I'm just like, "Okay." And instead of doing what I wanted to do, which was blame, point to other people. I was like, "I'm pissed." And I was like, "This is not okay." Like, "My business is down, your business is down. You trusted me. You trusted us. We are not doing this right. This is not acceptable." I'm not like... And I tried my best. In fact, the video's still live, it's on... If you go to my Facebook page, and go to videos and scroll down to year one of click funnels, the video's still live there. Josh: That's crazy. Russell: And, basically I just tried… Josh: Somebody go find it and post in the comments. Seriously. I'd love to see it. Russell: Yeah. And I just posted it, I can't remember if I posted in the ClickFunnels group, or maybe it was in my... Anyway, I remember I found a little while ago to look at it again, I remember watching it, I was just like, "Whoa, that sucked." But I did my best, try to take that. Definitive purposes, this is not okay, this is what we're trying to do. I'm just going to take faith. And it was crazy, because I remember we posted that, while Todd and the team was working their butts off. And luckily through so many miracles, they got everything back up. We had a backup from right, for a hit. We didn't lose anything, other than the eight hours we were down. And we expected the next day that half our members would cancel, everything's going to be gone. And it was crazy how by taking the action of faith, people came in, and instead of being upset, they're like, "You know what, thank you. Thank you for not hiding. Thank you for telling us you're upset. Thank you for understanding this is not acceptable, and not trying to be like, oh, thanks for taking responsibility. And over the next week, we didn't see any... It wasn't like, signups and cancellation, we watched those two numbers all the time, it wasn't a big drop. It was just like... It didn't change. And, after that we made changes, we figured things out, we got things solid and looking stable. And that was the last time we went down for more than a little blip here or there. But that was probably the biggest thing, and I remember just being... Anyway. Josh: That's crazy. Well, I think, that comes back to having a definitive purpose, because you had a goal, you were all in. Because, without that, you throw in the towel, and you say this isn't worth it. If you are not crystal, crystal clear, or at least very, very emotionally attached to that outcome, or to that goal of that definitive purpose of where you're at, you should shut everything down there, and you walk. That's crazy. I've never heard that story before. Russell: I'm sweating reliving it. Thanks for that. Josh: No problem. I'm sure the audience loved it though. Russell: Anyway, it was a scary, scary time in between those two things happening back to back. And like I said, and then we started working towards it, and man, Todd and Ryan, and all the people on our team who went and who figured out the problems, and solidified things, and brought in the right people. It's crazy, because people with click funnels are like, "You should know how to not go down." It's like, "You don't understand. At that point, we went from a bunch of entrepreneurs trying to make something, to like, at that point we were like the 300th most visited website in the world." And there's not many people on this planet who know how to handle the database architecture behind that. We didn't know how to do it, and so we're trying to find people. We literally hired people who, they're charging 10 grand an hour to do database administration. So, you hire them, like, "Okay, here's 20 grand. You get two hours to look." So they log in and look around, like, "Here's all the mistakes." And then they go back, and go try to fix them. Then like, "Hey, here's another 10 grand, another hour." Like that's the people who like ran eBay and Amazon. Those are people you have to hire to come and look at these problems, because they're not problems that most people deal with. And if you think about it, we tell you we have 120,000 members, that's true. That's 120,000 people's websites, most of them more than one, most of them 10, 20, 50, a hundred. There's... I don't know, quarter million, half a million websites running all on our servers. No one knows that stuff. Josh: Brad, how many do we have? How many? Brad's over here they already probably got 50, just there. No, we'll run it through. Russell: These are problems, not normal problems most people know how to solve. We don't know how to solve them. So it's like, "How do we do that?" Every level there's new level of stress and problems, and things that they keep coming up, that you just... If you don't have that definitive purpose, and that dream, and that vision, that thing, there's so many things pulling you off the path. There's a million things trying to pull you to become a drifter, from flattery, to failure, to propaganda, bribes, to... All these things are trying to do that, the world's stacked against you. In fact, according the book, 98% of people are there. Josh: Yeah 98%. That's crazy. Russell: So, first off, it comes back to, if you want to shift yourself back, the very first thing is, come back to very first questions, like, "Am I doing this decision based on faith or fear?" That's the transition point, it's not like, "Okay I got to fix all this crap. And I got to..." No, it's like, come back to the very beginning, and if you start shifting your decision making process, to like, "I'm scared." You can still be scared, you still have fear. I still have fear all the time, I'm sure you do too. I'm like, "Do I do that?" But, you don't act in fear, you act in faith. Like, "Okay, I could lose everything, I could be criticized. I could, I could, I could..." But, this is my definitive purpose, this is my vision, this is where I have to go. Therefore, I will act in faith, regardless of these things that they happen. I have to be okay with the worst case scenario. I have to be okay, that if I screw up people are going criticize me, or else I'm not going to be able to move forward in faith. And that's the conundrum. That's where you have to get thick skin, and be okay with these things. And I think for me, I've tried it, I spend time consciously thinking about each of these. Like you talked about death, you don't fear death, for me, for a big part of my life I did fear death. And there's parts of me... I'm thinking about it today, if I was to die, I wouldn't be scared of death, I'd be scared of my kids not having a dad. But, the thing, the belief that I have, and the new book goes deep into these kinds of things, that I'm real excited to share. But, my belief about death, we have to have beliefs, and values, and rules around all these kind of things. But my belief about death is, I strongly, strongly, strongly believe that none of us will live on this planet one second longer or shorter than God wants us to. I believe that to my core soul. So, because I'm okay with that... Because, it's not like all of a sudden accidentally I'm going to catch something and I'm going to die, and then God's like, "Oh crap, I missed that one." That's not going to happen. There's plans, there's purpose, there's things that are happening, and I have that as a belief. Maybe it's not true, but it's my belief. Therefore, because I believe that, I'm not scared of death. If it happens, that sucks, and be horrible for my kids, but, again, it's part of the plan, therefore I'm not afraid of death, because of that. Josh: Yeah. And I had never really even thought about death, until my brother obviously passed away. Russell: You came face to face with it… Josh: Yeah. Like, "Holy cow. Freak accident, helicopter crash, over in Kenya." It's like, "What the heck?" And, I flew around the world trying to figure out what I believe, and what I thought. And the conclusion, I don't know if it's a conclusion, but the belief that I have about death, is I'm like, "All right, when I die, that's when my life starts." I'm like, "Okay, cool." Like I'm, this is what I say? It's a whisper in the wind, like it's a flash in the pan. Life is, we're here, and we're given these choices. And God's like, "All right, here, you got your 80 or 90 years on life. And you get a choice, you can either choose to accept me, or reject me." And then eternity starts, or doesn't start, it always is. For me, I'm like, "Sweet." And coupled with, or partnered with, what you said of like, "I don't think God makes mistakes." So if I die, even if it's a dumb, stupid decision that I made that led to that, it's not like God didn't factor in my stupidity. And so, because I know that, it's confidence. Yeah. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Air Transat presents two friends traveling in Europe for the first time and feeling some pretty big emotions. This coffee is so good. How do they make it so rich and tasty? Those paintings we saw today weren't prints. They were the actual paintings. I have never seen tomatoes like this. How are they so red? With flight deals starting at just $589, it's time for you to see what Europe has to offer. Don't worry, you can handle it. Visit airtransat.com for details. Conditions apply. AirTransat.

Travel moves us. What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the first part of my interview with Josh Forty on Outwitting the Devil. This episode, I'm excited because we're going to go a little bit deeper. We're going to start talking about some of my stories and practical applications of how I was able to use this in my past. This story I tell, I wasn't expecting to tell this. I didn't know where he

was going to go with the interview questions. We got a little emotional, but I think it was good. So I'm excited to share it with you. I'm a little nervous, but a little excited at the same time. So with that said, we're in Cube Theme Song. When we come back, you can listen to episode number two from the Josh Forte interview about outweighing the devil. So the big question is this. How are entrepreneurs like us who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, who are 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. I had a very definitive takeaway from the book, right? Like I read it and there's so much, obviously there's like you could read a million times and like keep getting gold nuggets, but like what was the thing that was like stuck out to you that was like the most powerful of it that caused you to literally go on Instagram

and be like, yo, everybody read this book right now. Well, for me, so again, everyone's different spots. So I think it's good to read this book for everyone to kind of see where you fit, right? And anyway, maybe I have just sort of view myself, but I feel like I'm somebody who acts in a purpose. I feel like I act in faith most of the times. So I feel like I'm on the side.

So the thing that was so powerful for me, if you look in the middle of my thing, there's two columns here, was he starts saying, he asked me, so when someone uses definitive purpose, does that mean they're free from you? He's like, no. He's like, as soon as they're using definitive purpose, he's like, these are the tools I use to try to get them to become drifters. And I started looking at the list of things he uses to get them to become drifters. And I was like, oh my gosh, I see those patterns in my life. I see the things that are pulling me

to that side as well. And it became this like warning for me of like, okay, these are the things to be, to protect yourself from because we're not free. Like, it's not like I do good things, they're going to be good forever. It's like, no, the entire time he's trying to get you to the other side. And so for me, it was interesting. You can kind of see some of these ones I list up here, like the temptations he uses to get someone who is free to become a drifter. So number one was flattery. And it was interesting. He said that the way he uses flattery is in women he uses vanity.

In men he uses egotism. And I've seen that so many times in my own personal life where, like, you get your ego and you start, like, you drink your own bio, you drink your own Kool-Aid, and you're like, I'm amazing. And as soon as you do that, as soon as you do that, it starts shifting you from this state of like freedom to drifters. And I've seen – I've got personal friends who have let ego destroy their families, destroy their businesses, destroy their lives. And I always have fear of that. And I see myself slipping that often. It's definitely a temptation.

It's like one of the things for me that pulls me in. I'm trying to like be careful of. It's funny. People always tell me, I feel like you're one of the few guys in the industry. Don't have a big ego. I'm like, I have a huge ego. I try to be aware of it.

Yeah. Um, I'm grateful for my wife. And when my, one of my buddies told me, he's like, it wasn't for Colette. He's like,

you'd have the biggest head in the world. Like she's the one that keeps me focused. You know what I mean? I feel like that's Leah with me too. A hundred percent. Oh, it's so good. A hundred percent.

But I think it was interesting for, for men for egotism and women said vanity, which is interesting too. So those are two things there. Next was failure. And he talked about failure from both sides. He said that the failure can be something that actually serves you because you fail, you see what's wrong and you read just.

But some people go through failure and then they slip to like, okay, this didn't work and they're out. Yeah. And you see that a lot. Well, and that's even listed here where it's learning from adversity. So like, that's one of the key things. Like, how do you, how do you use failure? Like if you're gonna be a drifter,

you're gonna be like failure, ew, yuck, and I'm never gonna do it again, versus a successful person. You used to go all the time and fail, and like, oh, I tried the thing, didn't actually work. It's like, okay, work for like 800 other people, but it didn't work for you. Maybe it was you, maybe the approach was,

it's like, it's so interesting where it's like, it comes back to, if you've read Jocko's book. What's Jocko's book? Extreme Ownership. Yeah, Extreme Ownership. That's the thing. The failure happens and it's like, oh, I got to blame them. Boom.

Instantly, you're a drifter, right? It was me. I did it wrong. What am I going to change? The extreme ownership, that's the shift from failure. Whereas, you take the extreme ownership, boom, you're staying over here. But if you don't, and I have that problem all the time. I think something doesn't happen to my team or whatever, and I want to point the fingers.

And it's like, but I'm the leader of the team. But it's so much easier to point out than to point back in. And so for me, that was the one, again, another one I noticed. When I have my failures, I point out or in. Because if I point out, I'm slipping into drifting. Propaganda, bribes, food, sex, like all these different things he was using. Food was interesting. He was talking about,

he's like, you know, when men and women become rich and they have all these things, I give them through food but all of a sudden they start eating it, gluttonous and all of a sudden their body gets not healthy and then they're starting to move. And I'm sure you felt that

when you're not eating healthy, your mind gets cloudy and all these things and it's very easy to become a drifter. And so just all these tools he's using to try to get you to shift from one to the other, those things were, you know, in my time of life right now where i was just like okay cool i've got walls i can start protecting myself of i can become more aware of it when you're aware of something it's so much easier to fight it as opposed to when yeah and

like when you're successful too like everything's convenient and that's kind of like one of the things that he brought up in the book too like that i noticed in my life like i was like i'm thinking back to when i first started i was like man i was sleeping on my buddy's couch you know what i mean like for three months like trying to and i worked my butt off and everything like that i'm like why don't like why do i lack that drive sometimes like why why don't i have that anymore it's like because life is convenient right because if i sleep until eight o'clock or if i you know like don't perform today it's like my life doesn't change at all like you know what i mean but back then it did and so when things become convenient it's super easy to come back into that like drifter mode.

Yeah. A hundred percent. And that's the thing with the hardest things, you know, it's just, um, you know, I think at least for me, when I was growing up, I was thought like, there's a point where you're like, you made it. In fact, I remember it's one time my business was doing well at the time we had a bunch of employees. I remember hiring this guy to come consult me on something. And he came out and he was like, you're looking at all this stuff. And he's like, he's like, so tell me like what when was it you feel like like when did you know you made it and i was like oh i i'm still freaking out like i have no idea like i don't feel like i made it and i think in my life i always thought there's gonna be a point where

i'm like i made it or figured the thing out or whatever i never got there i feel like i feel like the second i do that's like when it's gonna start like that's the thing and so um i think being more aware of that just like this is a constant thing and that's's like when it's going to start, like, that's the thing. And so, um, I think being more aware of that, just like, this is a constant thing and that's okay. But, but it's a constant, you know, with between God and Satan, like there's this constant, like every, every moment is like each of them are fighting for it. Right. And it's like, if you give up here, then you slip back over to there. Like you can't just, there's no neutral ground. So I actually want to talk about that because I think one of the biggest, I mean, well, the number one thing, like you said, of a non-drifter is the definitive purpose. And like, I have noticed that in my life, even like recently.

So, I mean, over the past year, year and a half, I've been working with Katie Richardson, you know, that like, you know, just really getting clear on like what the next steps of things are. And like my definitive purpose, if you will, like when I first started my entrepreneurship journey, like was this, I just don't want to be poor anymore. Right. Like my definitive purpose is to not worry about money and to get out of debt and like just be free. Right.

They'll be able to make decisions or whatever. And I got there and then there was like this next definitive purpose. And they were like kind of like incremental, like almost goals, but not like this overwhelming, like definitive purpose. Right. And and so like going through the process of that, of course, with my brother dying and like that whole kind of shattering everything. Like for you, you've built ClickFunnels. You've, you know, have a wildly successful company. People look up to you and they're like, Oh my gosh, Russell, like you're on top of the world. You're amazing. You've made it like, like at now you've

just said, Hey, I don't feel like I've made it yet. I still feel like I have a long way to go. Like, how do you, has your, a, has your purpose changed since you started compared to where you're at now? And B, like, how do you continue to you started compared to where you're at now? And B, like, how do you continue to remind yourself of that purpose? Or how do you find that purpose? Like when, like you could do nothing for the rest of your life and be like totally fine. Like, how do you find purpose? I'd be a drifter at that point.

But right. But like, right. You would be a drifter. I can just see Russell's in on the beach. No, actually, I can't even imagine what that would look like for Russell on the beach for long periods of time. But like, what, what would that look like for you? Like, or how, how do you find that purpose?

So you asked about if my purpose has changed. So I would say in my mind, it's kind of two things. There's like, the people that I've been called to serve has not changed, right? So like, I feel like I've been called to serve entrepreneurs. Like those are my people, those people that I'm here. And so for me, it's like,

what are all the ways I can help them? So initially was like um do seminars need to write books that was the first thing right and then it's like oh we're gonna build software and then it's like oh we're new events and like it kept adding these things on um it's like that that was the the thing right and so my purpose was like what are all the things i can do to help to help an entrepreneur be more successful like that's that's my my vision that's my mission that's my my thing right and i feel like now that like again after i finished the the books, I was like, I feel like that, again, that's the trilogy. Like, that's what people need. And then we have Funnel Hacking Live.

That's amazing. We have these things in place. Like, all the things there are kind of, they're there. And I think there's things, you know, there's big updates coming to ClickFunnels. There's other things we need to make things better. But for me, it's like, there's not a lot more. Again, there's not like, I'm going to come out with some magic funnel. I'm like, oh, it changes everything. Again, like, it's there, right? So for me, it not like, I'm going to come out with some magic funnel. I'm like, oh, it changes everything again.

Like, it's there, right? So for me, it's like, okay, I'm still called to serve these people. What's the next level of success? Like, what's the next thing I need to do? And for me, I started looking like, what were the things that I struggled with? And so much of it was not, you know, I mean, it was like, I didn't have the tools. I didn't have the information, which is why in the last two decades has been focused on that. But the next thing was like, I had to become someone different. Like who did I have to become

to be successful? And I look at so many entrepreneurs who are coming into my world, these people I'm called to serve, I'm giving them funnels, man, they don't believe in themselves. They have horrible identities. They're choosing fear over faith every single time and they're having success. And so for me, it's like, Hey, I still have the same people. I'm still called to serve the same people, but, but what am I like, what's the next thing I need to help them with? And if you just look at like, just the, the, my what am i like what's the next thing i need to help them with and if you just look at like just the my book trilogy like the first one was dot com secrets right it's like they need to understand funnels that was a book and it's like hey now i understand funnels and now everyone's like i'm building funnels but then their funnels weren't working

right they weren't converting i'm like oh they don't know how to like tell stories right copier oh so like expert secrets like expert secrets like okay now they understand that and i thought i was done and then i'm like okay some people have these funnels that I can really get a copy, but they Facebook shut down their account and they're screwed or they have no traffic or whatever. I'm like, oh, my people need traffic. So I'm getting traffic. And that was Traffic Secrets book, you know?

And so for me, the last year, year and a half, especially, you know, as you know, we've been in this insane environment of insanity. How do you even describe it? And I'm watching these people, I've been called to serve, melting down, choosing fear in every single direction over and over and over and over and over again.

I'm seeing people who don't have an identity, don't have beliefs, don't have rules, don't have values, and have all these things they need to actually have the structure to implement any of the stuff we talked about. Yeah. And that's why I started geeking back to this personal development stuff,

partially because it's for myself, because I'm trying to protect myself and strengthen myself. But for me, like, the only reason I go deep on anything, like if you look at my disc profile, one of my, um, one of my things is I have very, very high, like my highest value is ROI.

Like if I don't see return on investment, something, I can't do it. Like, and that's why I struggled in school. That's why I struggled with so many things. That's why, um, when I started trying to read scriptures again, I struggled it until I started a podcast. Cause now there's return on my investment. I'm going to learn this thing, but I'm going to give it to somebody else. And there's my return on investment. Now,

now I can, I can do it. And I feel fulfilled by it. Right. Which by the way, I'm going to plug podcast number three is going to be about that. So anyway, yeah. Yeah. Um, and that same thing here. So like, I started going back through and start reading these things. And for a while it was tough because I'm reading these things. And, and for me, it's like, like, what's the return investment? Like, it's good for me, but like, I haven't called a serve. Like, it's not just, right. There's, again, I talk about this in the new book. We'll talk about it in a minute.

But growth and contribution, right. I love growth because it's good for me. But I thrive on the contribution. Like, it's me sharing that gets me excited. And so I was going through these things. And that's when probably like three or four months ago, I was like, hey, I'm learning all these principles and these things. I'm doodling all this stuff.

Like, I need to have something I'm putting it towards or else I'm not gonna be able to continue the momentum I need to keep doing this and keep figuring out these things. And so that's why I started, as you know, on my fourth book, which is not a marketing book. Yeah, I wanna talk about that. Okay, I really do wanna go there. However, there's one question I wanna ask you first

that I kinda wanna like pull back maybe another layer of Russell that people, like, I don't know, maybe, maybe you've told this story before. I don't know. I don't even know what the story is. I'm about to ask you, but like, so like my number one takeaway from the book was how much fear controls people, right? Like that was my number one thing. And like, for me, like, and this has come through a tremendous amount of mental work and tremendous amount of like personal identity work over the course of the past, you know, 12 to 16 months of, of just like tears and, and, and just facing my own, you know, like fears and insecurities and like bringing them to the light and like working through them. But like, there's not a whole lot of things I'm afraid of, right? Like

I mean, very few things I'm like, look at, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm like, I'm just, I just do me and like, whatever, like criticism, it doesn't really bother me or whatever. But there are like, there's certain, like certain instances that come up where i'm like oh i'm afraid of failure in that specific scenario for that specific thing and i'd be curious to know like for you as you built click funnels i'm sure there were moments of fear and i'm sure there were moments when like this side of things started to creep in but like you worked through that and so i'd be curious to know like what's like what was one of the biggest times when you were building ClickFunnels that you were afraid?

And how did you work through that? Like, what's that story? Oh man. Cause I feel like, I feel like we, we hear like the marketing version of it. The highlight reels. Well, we do, we do, right? And they serve a very specific purpose.

And like, I always laugh when people like want to criticize, be like, bro, so only told us this part of the story or whatever, I'm like, do you understand why he's doing that? Like, do you understand like it's fitting into like, it's a funnel hacking live or it's at this or whatever. I'm like, there's a purpose for that.

It's not like, you know, trying to do that, but I want to know the other side of it. Like, I want to know like the behind the scenes of like, what was that moment where you're like, this is not worth it.

I'm going to shut it all down. Or I'm afraid that, you know, I'm not going to be able, I don't know what, I don't know what the story is. Yeah. Um,

definitely for me, the part that was the hardest, it was the first year of ClickFunnels. We just launched it. And I remember because when Todd built it, he told me, the part that was the hardest, it was the first year of ClickFunnels. We just launched it. And I remember because when Todd built it, he told me, he was like, and I, you know, in my head, I, I thought we're gonna get 10,000 members month one. Like that was in my head. And Todd was like, okay, well, just so you know, as soon as the past 10,000 members, um, the way I coded it, it's going to have to be different. And I was like, I don't know what that means, but I'm gonna get 10,000 members. Right. So we go and launch it.

We don't get 10,000 members, kind of depressed, but we start pursuing this thing, start working towards it. And within about a year, we got 10,000 members. And during that time, ClickFunnels started doing weird things where like, it would just go down for like five minutes and be back. Like, what just happened? And like, oh, some blah, blah, blah techie thing happened.

And yeah, so they fix it. Like, hey, good. Whew, you know, and go down, and this time down 15 minutes. And 15 minutes down, it's funny, because one minute I'm everyone's hero, right? They're like, we love you, Russell. You made our life so much easier making money.

They're like, I'm getting the messages and just like feeling the ego and like all the things. They're just like, this is amazing. And then it goes down. And I want you guys to understand, like when ClickFunnels would go down, it wasn't like, hey man, it's down.

It was like, I want to kill you. You owe me $2,000 in ads for my 15 minute window that's down. I'm going to sue you. Death threats, I went from the hero of the day to I want to kill you.

And messages coming in, and I'm getting these things, and Todd's not getting them because no one knows, he's kind of behind the scenes, and I'm just like, these people want to kill me. They're that angry. They want to sue me. I'm getting these things, and Todd's not getting them, because no one knows, he's kind of behind the scenes, and I'm just like, these people want to kill me, they're that angry, they want to sue me, all these things,

and then they're publicly posting everywhere, how horrible I am, how bad I am, and the second someone slips, everyone wants to jump up and start throwing daggers at them, it's insane. I've seen it happen to so many people, I have friends who I've seen it happen to recently, where it's like, everyone loves them until they do something, and then it's just like, everyone to pounce and like half the time

it's not even their fault it's it's crazy it's less happening right and so it keeps happening we get back up and then i'm like this is gonna work good like yeah i'm fine okay it's gonna be good so like then we plan on that and then again it would go good for two or three weeks and something would happen and it just kept happening and the longer we go more members happen it would happen more often they would happen longer and it was just like horrible because I remember one time I was speaking at a GKSC event. And I'm in the hotel room. We just got there. Dave and I were there.

We get everything ready. And it goes down. We're down for like 30 minutes. I'm freaking out. I'm supposed to be on stage in like 30 minutes, right? Like an hour or something. And it's down. And I'm messaging.

And I remember Voxie taught him like, hey, it's down again. He messaged back on my – it's like, oh, yeah. He was just like – he's like, oh, yeah, it's down again. He messaged back on the ice. Like, Oh yeah. Like, um, uh, anyways, but he was just like, he's like, Oh yeah, it's down again. We'll work on it. It's a message back. I was like, this is happening a lot. Like, are you sure? Okay. You seem all nice and calm. Like you. Okay. And it's like, is Todd super respectful. He doesn't ever swear around me or anything. And, and he messaged back and I've never heard Todd scared before. And he messaged back and he was, I don't repeat what he said, but it was just like what he said and how heaged back, and I've never heard Todd scared before, and he messaged back, and he was, I won't repeat what he said, but it was just like, what he said and how he said it was just like,

we're screwed. He said it like four or five times in a row, and then he ended, and I was just like. And you're about to go on stage? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. And I was just freaking out. I'm like, I'm about to go on stage and convince all this audience

that I've got the greatest thing in the world, and my partner who built it is freaking out and doesn't know how to stabilize this thing. And he's, I remember just being like, like sick, like sick, my stomach scared, all these fears, like all the anxiety, all the inadequacy, all the, all those things. And I remember I'm just freaking out. And then we got it back up. And then Dave's like, Hey, you're on like 10 minutes. I'm like, Oh, so like, you know, do my things running downstairs and then come on stage. And I was just, anyway, just in my, in my head and my mind and my body just like freaking

out. Right. And, um, do the presentation. Um, you know, it, I know the presentation, even if I'm scared, it's going to convert pretty similar. People bought it. Everyone's excited. And I remember afterwards it was weird. This is the most weird thing. I don't even know who it was. If you're listening, you should message me. Some dude like lingered afterwards and he's like, are you okay? Like, yeah, fine, how's it going? And he's like a chiropractor,

but like a woo woo one, right? Where they do energy stuff or something. And he's like, can I adjust you? I'm like, that's weird. He's like, no, I don't really do normal adjusting. This is other weird kind. And I was like, I don't really do normal adjusting. This is other weird kind. And I was like, I don't know what's happening. But for some reason, I'm like, sure, like whatever.

So he takes me to this other room. He starts to adjust. And he's doing like, you know, the muscle testing and all sorts of stuff on me. Which is some random dude. Yeah. I'd never had that happen before. He was attending the event. So, you know, he's there.

Right, right, right. And it was weird because he starts, he's just like, you have all this tension here, here, all these things, and he's trying to figure out why. And so eventually, and again, some people think that stuff's crazy. You think it was crazy, nowadays I don't know. Cause like- No, I don't think it's crazy. Anyway, it's interesting,

but he's doing this muscle testing and he muscle tests and he's like, the thing that you're experiencing right now inside your body is a reflection of something that happened, I can't remember, it was like 3.6 years ago or something like that. He's like, what, what happened three and a half years ago? I'm like, I have no idea. I couldn't remember. And all of a sudden I was like, oh my gosh, that was the last time my company collapsed.

And we had to, we didn't go through bankruptcy, but had to fire almost a hundred people. We had to shut everything down. We like, it was all this stuff. And he was like, he's like your spirit, your body's experiencing the same things right now that you experienced at that moment. And that's this tension in this thing oh my gosh it was crazy and he did all this stuff to try to release it and everything but also i realized it's like oh my gosh my biggest thing is i built this thing up people think i'm a hero again right now and i remember what happened three and a half years ago when i lost everything and how much pain and how

much all these things the poverty i got the, the criticism I got, the ill health I got, the loss of love I got, friends, family, coworkers walking out on me. I wanted to die. I'm old. Like all my greatest fears came back in that moment. And I'm in this spot and I don't know how to fix it because I can't code. I go to college and learn how to code.

I don't know what to do. Oh man. The next week we're flying to London to speak in London. They invited my family to come. So my wife and kids were all flying in London. And I told parts of the story before, but we're in the air. You know, everything's good. The kids are having so much fun.

They're flying and we land, we get to London and there's, you know, in your phones, like the chips don't work. So you have to get them. Yeah, you gotta swap them. We're driving around, if I get our chips in there. And as soon as it does, all of a sudden my phone's just like and I don't know what it is. I'm looking and there's text messages,

there's instant messages, boxers.'s all these things hundreds not not like i'm not exaggerating people like hundreds probably like 10 no like hundreds and hundreds on every platform of people sending me death threats sending me they want to kill me sending me they hate me sending me i'm screwing them over sending me all that like just this stuff and i'm looking at my phone and i'm just like i don't even happen so i'm finally trying to get taught i got a hold of him and he's like yeah yeah, we're down. We've been down for like four or five hours. He's like, if we're able to get it back up.

And I remember him saying if and not when. And I was just like. And you're in London with my family. I'm about to speak. And so I don't even know. I went back to the hotel room and we had like two hotels conjoining for the kids. I was like, can everyone go in this room for a minute?

And I shut the door and I'm just like, I don't know what to do. We're down. I don't know if we're gonna get back up. I'm supposed to speak the next day to talk about ClickFunnels. And it was one of those things where I was just in so much fear. I wanted to hide.

I just wanted to not say anything. I just wanted to be quiet. Yeah, especially as an introvert. Yeah. Especially an introvert who's got literally hundreds of people telling me how much they hate me. And I don't know what to do.

And this is one of those moments where it's just like the fear and the faith. Like I wanted to go to fear. Like that sounds so nice just to hide and like. But I was like, I can't because this is my life. This is all the stuff we've worked for so long. And in that moment, I had the impression of like you should go live on Facebook. I was like, I don't want to go live on Facebook. Like you have to. like you have to tell people

what's happening. I was like, what kind of CEO in the middle of this crash gets online like, hey, our company's down. And like put on this happy face like, but it's okay because let me blame the servers or blame the thing. I had a million people I could blame because it was, you know, it's not your fault, Russell.

But I was- So finally I was like, all right. So I just, I told the kids I'm gonna be on like 15 minutes like just so i clicked go and all of a sudden live and of course because it's live everybody pops in because they're trying to figure out because they want to kill me like russell's here this is our time and first i popped up like you start seeing the comments like you're effing kidding you killed my business like all these things and just like you owe me how much money like all these things and i'm just like okay and instead of like doing what i wanted to do which was like blame point to other people i was like i'm pissed and i was like this

is not okay like my business is down your business is down you trusted me you trusted us we are not doing what's right like this is not acceptable i'm not like and i i tried my best in fact the video's still live it's it's on if you go to my Facebook page and go to videos and scroll down to year one of ClickFunnels, the video's still live there. That's crazy. And basically I just tried- Somebody go find it and post it in the comments.

Seriously, I'd love to see it. Yeah, and I just posted, I can't remember if I posted in the ClickFunnels group or maybe it was in my, anyway, I remember I found it a little while ago to look at it again. I remember watching it. I was just like, oh, that sucked.

But I did my best to try to take that. Like the thinner purpose, this is not- Well, and thinner purpose is this is not what we're trying to do. I'm just going to take faith. And it was crazy because I remember we posted that while Todd and the team was working their butts off. And luckily, through so many miracles, we got everything back up. We had a backup from right before it hit.

We didn't lose anything other than the eight hours we were down. And we expected the next day that half our members would cancel. Everything was going to be gone. And it was crazy how by taking the action of faith, like people came in and instead of being upset, they're like, you know what? Thank you. Thank you for not hiding. Thank you for telling me you're upset.

Thank you for not, for understanding it's not acceptable and not trying to be like, oh, thank you for taking responsibility. And the next, over the next week, we didn't see any, it wasn't like, you know, you know, signups and cancellation. We watched those two numbers all the time. It wasn't, wasn't like a big drop. It was just like, didn't change.

And, um, and after that, we, we made changes. We figured things out and got things solid and nothing stable. And that was the last time we went down for more than, you know, a little blip here or there. Yeah. Um, but that was, that was probably the biggest thing. And I remember just being, anyway. Hey, funnel hackers, let me paint you a picture. You're running a business. Your funnel's finally converting like crazy and suddenly it hits you. You need to hire someone like yesterday. Maybe it's a copywriter to help you crank out more sales pages or a designer to refresh your

landing pages or someone to do customer support to help you to handle your growing audience. The problem is you're swamped and you don't have weeks to shift through resumes. So what do you do? You turn to Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all that you need. They make it fast, simple, and super effective. Stop struggling to get your job seen on those other job sites that bury your listing. With Indeed's sponsored jobs, your post jumps straight to the top of the page so that the right candidates see it first. It's just like pulling your job out on a billboard for the exact person you need to hire. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more application than non-sponsored jobs. Now here's the best part. With Indeed, there's no monthly subscription, no long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And let me tell you how fast

this platform is. Literally in the time that we've been talking right now, 23 people have been hired on Indeed worldwide. Imagine finding your dream hire while your competitors are still waiting through job boards and job boards that don't deliver. So here's what you need to do right now. Go to Indeed.com slash clicks right now and get a $75 sponsored job credit board to boost your post visibility. That's Indeed.com slash clicks. Support the show, save time, and find your next hire faster.

Remember, when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all that you need. Hey, funnel hackers, I want to talk about building your business. You've got the idea, the passion, the drive, but here's the thing. Setting up the legal stuff can feel like a total roadblock. That's why you need Northwest Registered Agent. They're like the dream team for business formation. With just 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can build your entire business identity. I'm talking about formation paperwork, a real business address, premium mail forwarding, and even a local phone number so you can keep your home address private and stay safe.

And it doesn't stop there. Northwest is your one-stop shop for business owners. They've been doing this for nearly 30 years, and they've got the expertise to back it up. From trademark registration to custom domains, Northwest does it all, and they do it right. You get more when you start your business with Northwest Registered Agent. Don't wait. Protect your privacy, build your brand, and set up your business in just 10 clicks in 10 minutes.

Head to Northwest Registered Agent today and start building something amazing. That's crazy. Well, I feel like that comes back to having a definitive purpose. Yeah. Because you had a goal. You were all in because like without that like you just you throw on the towel and you say this isn't worth it you know

what i mean like if you don't have if you are not crystal crystal clear or like at least very very emotionally attached to to that outcome or to that goal of that definitive purpose to where you're at like you should shut everything down there and you walk that's crazy i've never heard that story before who am i sweating reliving it. Thanks for that. No problem. I'm sure the audience loved it though. Anyway, it was a scary, scary time between those two things happening back to back. And like I said,

and then we started working towards it and man, Todd and Ryan, all the people on our team went and who figured out the problems and solidified things and brought in the right people. And it was crazy because people look at ClickFunnels like,

you should know how to not go down. It's like, you don't understand. That point went from a bunch of entrepreneurs trying to make something to like that point, we were like the 300th most visited website in the world. There's not many people on this planet who know how to handle the database architecture behind that.

We didn't know how to do it. And so we're trying to find people. We literally hire people who like, they're charging like 10 grand an hour to database administration. So you hire them like, okay, here's 20 grand. You got two hours to log in and look around like, here's all the mistakes. And then they go back and you try to fix them. They're like, here hire them like, okay, here's 20 grand. You get two hours to tell, look, say, log in and look around, like, here's all the mistakes. And then they go back and you'll try to fix them. They're like, Hey, here's another 10 grand, another hour. Like

that's the people who like ran eBay and Amazon. Those are the people you have to hire to come and look at these problems because they're not problems that most people deal with. Right. Like you think about it, we tell people we have 120,000 members. That's true. That's 120,000 people's websites. And most of them more than one, most of them 10, 20, 50, a hundred. So like there's, I don't know, quarter million, half a million websites running all on our servers. So it's like, like that's the,

like no one knows that stuff. Well, yeah, Brad, how many do we have? How many, like Brad's over here, we probably got like 50 just over there. So it's like, now we're running through. So these are problems like, it's not like not normal problems that like most people know how to solve.

We know how to solve them. So it's like, how do we do that? Like, yeah, every level, there's new level of of stress and problems and things like they keep coming up that you just and if you don't have that definitive purpose and that dream and that vision that thing like there's so many things pulling you off the path there's a million things try to pull you to become a drifter from from flattery to failure to propaganda to bribes to like all these things are trying to do that like the world's stacked to you in fact according to the book 98 of people are there yeah 98 that's%. So it's like, so it's like, first off,

it comes back to like, if you want to shift yourself back, the very first thing is like, come back to the very first question is like, am I doing this decision based out of faith or fear? Like that's the transition point. It's not like, okay, to fix all this crap and like, I gotta, no, it's like, Hey, come back to the very beginning. And if you start shifting your decision-making process, it's like, I'm scared. You can still be scared. You still have fear. I still have fear all the time.

I'm sure you do too. Like, do I do that? But it's like, you don't act in fear. You act in faith. Like, okay, I could lose everything. I could be criticized. I could, I could, I could. But this is my definitive purpose.

This is my vision. This is where I have to go. Therefore, I will act in faith regardless of these things that they happen. I have to be okay with the worst case scenario. I have to be okay that if I screw up, people are gonna criticize me or else I'm not gonna be able to move act in faith, regardless of these things that they happen. I have to be okay with the worst case scenario. I have to be okay that if I screw up, people are gonna criticize me or else, I'm not gonna be able to move forward in faith.

And that's the conundrum. That's where you have to get thick skin and be okay with these things. And I think for me, I've spent time consciously thinking about each of these. Like you talked about death, you don't fear death. For me, for a big part of my life, I did fear death. And there's parts of me, I'm thinking about today,

if I was to die, I wouldn't be scared of death, I'd be scared of my kids not having a dad yeah but but like the thing like the uh the belief that i have and and the new book goes deep in these kind of things i'm really excited to share but but like my belief about death like we have to have beliefs and and values and rules around all these kind of things but my belief about death is like i strongly strongly strongly believe that none of us will live on this planet one second longer or shorter than god wants yeah like i believe that to my core soul so because because I'm okay with that, because it's not like all of a sudden, accidentally, I'm going to catch something and I'm going to die. And then

God's like, oh crap, I missed that one. Like that's not going to happen. Right. We all, there's plans, there's purpose, there's things that are happening. And I have that as a belief. And maybe it's not true, but it's my belief. Therefore, because I believe that I'm not scared of death. Like if it happens, that sucks. And I like horror with my kids, but again, it's part belief therefore because i believe that i'm not scared of death yep like it happens that sucks and i like horror with my kids but again it's part of the plan therefore i'm not afraid of death because of that yeah and i had never really even thought about death until like my brother like obviously passed away and face face yeah like holy cow like freak accident helicopter crash you know what i mean over in kenya it's like what the heck and like i flew around the world trying to figure out what i believe and well like kind of what i thought

and like kind of the conclusion i don't conclusion, but the belief that I have about death is I'm like, all right, when I die, that's when my life starts. Like, you know what I mean? I'm like, okay, cool. Like I'm, this is what they say. It's a whisper in the wind, right? Like it's the flashing and flashing of hand. Like life is we're here and we're given some choices and God's like, all right, here, you got your 80 or 90 years on life and you get a choice. You can either choose to accept me or reject me. And then eternity starts, right? Or doesn't start always. You know what I mean? And it's like, for me, I'm like, sweet. And coupled with or partnered with like what you said of like, I don't think God makes mistakes. So if I die, like, even if it's a dumb, stupid decision that I made that led to that, like, it's not like

God didn't factor in my stupidity. Right. And so because I'm, you know, know that it's, it's confidence. Yeah. 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.

Now 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. I'll 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.