The Russell Brunson Show - Purpose, Charity, and Creation: A Deep Dive of “Atlas Shrugged” with Josh Forti (2 of 5)

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Welcome back to part two of my deep dive with Josh Forti into Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. This conversation is a continuation from the first episode, where we explore some of the philosophical themes in the book and their real-world applications. If you missed part one, I recommend starting there before diving into this episode—it’ll give you the full context of our thought-provoking journey. In this episode, Josh and I discuss topics that go beyond just the book itself. We explore ideas about ambition, productivity, and personal fulfillment, as well as how these concepts influence the way we build businesses and lead our lives. It's not just about scaling companies but also understanding the motives behind why we create, strive, and continue to produce—even when it seems like we've already achieved success. Key Highlights: Greed vs. Growth: We question how ambition is often misinterpreted as greed and explore how personal growth transforms with life stages. Sedation vs. Creation: A deep dive into why so many people stop producing, and how fear or discomfort drives them toward sedation instead of action. Government and Charity: We challenge traditional views on taxes, charity, and responsibility, asking if personal giving should replace government intervention. The Producer's Mindset: We unpack why some people are naturally driven to create and keep building, even after reaching financial success. If you’re interested in how philosophical insights can shape your personal and business decisions, this episode will definitely give you some powerful takeaways. Listen in, and let’s continue pushing the boundaries of what’s possible! Don't forget to check out this awesome deal from Mint Mobile! https://mintmobile.com/funnels And if you want to enjoy the Marketing Secrets Show ad-free, check out https://marketingsecrets.com/adfree Get 70% off on Welch Equities' retail price at wealthyconsultant.com/secrets Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to Marketing Secrets Podcast. I hope you guys enjoyed part one last week of the Atlas Shrugged series with the interview between me and Josh Forte. I wanted to post part two. A lot of you guys have been messaging,

asking, waiting for the exciting conclusion. Or not conclusion, just part two. With that said, I'm going to jump right into this episode. This is the second hour of my interview with Josh Forte going deep into Atlas Shrugged. If you missed the first episode, make sure you go back one or two podcast episodes ago, watch episode number one or listen to episode number one, and then come back and listen to episode number two. And I hope you guys enjoy this episode. In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over a billion dollars in my own products and services online. This show is going to show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online.

My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Because like what I'm trying to figure out, this is, you know, it's an open discussion here. So like I am a pretty motivated, driven person, right? Like I would never have described what I was doing as greedy right because you thought that when you're an athlete that when you're yeah no but but what is it well yeah and that's why i asked you the question because i i don't know the answer for myself like i felt the same way because i i never liked it it wasn't until i was reading the book and said it started the the utopia of greed yeah yeah and also i started thinking i'm like all these things we're doing like

we call them growth we call them whatever which is But it is, it's a greedy time of your life, right? Like, um, I wonder what the definition, the actual definition of greed is. Yeah. I'm gonna look this up. Let's see. Definition of greed. It has a definite negative connotation in our world today. Intense and selfish desire for something, especially money, power, or food.

Well, all right. Money, money, power, or food for me thinking about thinking about the lens of wrestling when i was wrestling i had a selfish desire for i wanted to be a state champ and i want to be an all-american i want to be a national why because that why i wanted my hand raised like that was all i thought about so i dreamt about like i couldn't like i'm a very obsessive person that's why i don't gamble because i was like i put a quarter and i win i'm broke doesn't matter it's gone right and i know that about myself so like when i started wrestling and i got my hand raised the first time i was like

that feels good i want to feel that every day for the rest of my life and i just went blinders on and that's all i did that was my i you know and i was like and again i would have thought it was as greedy but by definition it's like singular focus on these things like about yourself right now i'm in the phase of my life where i'm coaching wrestling coaching my kids and stuff like that and it's like it's different because now like there's nothing in it for you right so if you've seen their hand raised and that light in their eyes go off and it's just like oh like that felt way better than than my own but you don't know that till you're yeah in that phase did having kids change that for you at all like that did it help solidify or give you a different

perspective on that shift from greedy to i think maybe not so much solidify or give you a different perspective on that shift from greedy to i think maybe not so much solidify as much like i'm experiencing now in multiple parts of my life not just not just the business part right um a lot of part you think about like our success stories in our business are our children right the children of click funnels or whatever you want to say you know the people that have come off it so it's like i think i'm experiencing it now uh with them and it And it's been interesting and fun. Yeah. How long did it take you to finish the book?

I think about two months. Oh, wow. You read it way faster than I did. Well, okay. So it's one of those things that's funny because my mom's like, have you even read the book? I'm like, what do you mean? You made me read it in high school.

Like what? And I went back and I was like, oh, I didn't actually read. Like I knew the book. And so I assumed I had read it. And then I realized it was 1,200 pages. And I was like, oh, I don't actually read, like I knew the book. And so I assumed I had read it. And then I realized it was 1200 pages. And I was like, Oh, I don't think I've,

I don't remember reading a book. Like, I feel like I would remember that. So I don't know if I'm going to go to you right now. Cause Russell's going to be talking. Well, and that's exactly what happened. So it was like,

Oh, I'm going to like, we want to do this. Cool. And like, I, like I could have sat down and have the conversation without reading the book. Like,

you know what I mean? Like, because I knew the, like I knew the concept of the premise. And so then I went through it and it was like every night, two to half, I couldn't sleep. I'd get up and like, Oh man, it's three o'clock in the morning. Close the book like you know what i mean like because i knew the like i knew the concept of the premise and so then i went through it and was like every night two to half a minute couldn't sleep i'd get up and like oh man it's three o'clock in the morning close the book you know go back back in there so i want to kind of interject because when you started on that i want to make some real myths because i think it was you started leading really good there's something when i wrap it

like it's an open loop my head now okay you start talking about how you agree on the left side of social helping people, but not the way that they do it. Is that how you say it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I agree with what they want to do. I don't agree with how they want to do it. Okay. So this is something that was powerful. So after I read the book, I was a geeking out and I'm like, who is this? I ran, I want to see. So I started searching her and I found an interview she did on Donna who Donna

Hugh in 1980, like three months after her husband passed away. And it was fascinating. And if you guys know, she, she she she is um she's atheist does not believe in a god all these things like that right so she even like made a statement about how like part of the reason that she wrote the book was to like to prove that religion was fake and like to like destroy all belief in any form so once again this is not the bible for me this is just like a simulating book that just got my mind spinning but one thing she said during the interview that was like so cool because now he's like so based on this you believe that we should all be producers and greedy and keeping all our money and we should never we

shouldn't help anybody and she's like no no that's not what i said she's like i never said that so what i did say is that it should not be the government coming to you with their guns saying give me your 50 of your taxes like that the, that's what's messed up. Right. You think about this, like if you give a gift, like if someone comes to you and gives you a gun, like, Hey, give your, give your, uh, your friend a gift. Like, are you actually giving them a gift? No, you're not. And that's like, if you don't pay the taxes, they put you in jail. Like that's the thing. She said,

should people should go and support people on their own. Right. This is, this comes back to, this is the whole thing I talked about before. Like the natural, natural man's enemy to an enemy to God has been, you know, less yields enticing Holy spirit. So us yielding saying, Hey, I have all this money. I should go help other people with this. That's the, that's God saying you should not be greedy. Use what you've been blessed with and help other people's lives.

Right. Them coming to you with a gun saying, pay your taxes. You go to jail is not you giving a gift. Like's them taking it from you giving away so like you're not a better person because you did it right so um and then we can get the whole depth of like this is the government now who's the the worst run organization in the history of all time which i only ran on that but that's like do you want to trust them with the money right and so i just want to share a practical example so because people like well you wouldn't give money if you didn't you know whatever and i'm like right now i'm taxed more than 50 so more than half my income goes to uncle sam right he's doing whatever

the crap they do you just need some casual tactics yeah shameless plug yeah anyway i have no tax i don't do my tax um that's the tax bracket so um um but then you look at like like when you yield enticing holy spirit so there was a time when my friends through mclaren is like hey um we're building schools in kenya and this is mission and we believe in it will you help right it wasn't greedy rustling i'm gonna help and this is gonna be awesome yeah i felt something i was like oh my gosh that is a great cause yeah here let me, let me, how can I support you, right? In that process, you can see here's pictures of Stu and Amy in Kenya.

We've been to Kenya four times now. We don't even, we built schools. Like that is a gift versus like give us money so we can go do something with it, right? And then a couple of years later, I heard about Operation Underground Railroad. And I was like, oh my gosh, I felt the spirit saying, this is a good cause.

You should serve. You should do this thing, right? And i put time and energy and money into this thing we raised multiple millions of dollars now to save children from sex slavery right and not everyone's willing to do that right like again there's a second people that will it comes back to your like um natural man's enemy god will be fall down and will be forever like a lot of people never get off the green boat but most people as you start making more and more money you look at anybody look at bill gates look at elon musk anyone's making much money what do they do with their money eventually start giving to charities are helping

people like all these things because there's that transition point where where you feel that you hear the voice you hear god or if you want to call it it's like like you should be serving more and i think i know that if my tax went from 50 to 20 20% to 10% or whatever that thing was, I would and could give so much more, and everybody could. Right now, half the money goes to organizations that – what's happening with the money? Do we know? Do we see any ledger of what's happening? No, it's insane. Even Bill Mayer, who – do you know Bill Mayer?

I know who he is. I don't know. Okay, I mean, like, stupid. I mean, like, super left, right? I mean, like, definitely would not align with our political views or your political or my political views but even him is like i have no idea what my tax dollars are going to i have no idea where my millions of dollars that i pay in every every that's scary that crazy as well like only the government it's crazy okay and then they look

like sorry this is a plug for oh you aren't tim ballard like tim ballard i know does not take a salary his payment for being ceo of operation ground road and risking his life day in day out is zero dollars they pay him he funds it himself like all of the money he makes is from his books he's speaking other things he does externally to pay for himself because he doesn't want to take money from the organization saving kids or can you say that about any of the government like no it's insane it's anyway but yeah so for me it's like somebody's gonna mention that trump takes zero dollar salary in there that's not what we're talking about So for me, it's like somebody's going to mention that Trump takes $0 salary in there. That's not what we're talking about. But for me, it's like, that's, that's my big thing is just like understanding that. I think there's, there's this blend of left and right. Like, right.

There's like, if we're not producing, like the fact that I'm going to wake up every morning and kill myself, even though I have more money than I'm ever going to need has now we have 400 plus people who have full-time jobs here. Excuse me. Full-time jobs here excuse me full-time jobs here click funnels there's a hundred and what's number 144 000 people have active click funnels accounts each of those people they have they have one employee it's 144 000 jobs right they have two to three i mean you're looking it's probably half a million to a million jobs have been created because of click funnels because we get up every day and we're you know we we're chasing this thing

we're producing producing producing right and it's like if you take away the incentives of that like i'd have to leave half my staff we have which then things and everything starts disappearing really quickly where it's like they took that away it's like now we can go and how much more could we do and we did the our uh we talked about your show the documentary for knocking live and since then i know four or five dozen people who were in our community show though your documentary at their events and made money it's like this ripple effect keeps growing growing growing versus the other side where it's just it shrinks and okay so i want to get non-specifically political here though for a second with kind of with this and i want to play the devil's advocate i just want to understand

like your thoughts on this so the argument on the other side if you will right the the people that are more traditionally like higher tax bracket like you know you should be taxed even higher right like we want to take more of your money away because it's this basically the thought process is like listen you have donated your money to kenya and to operation underground railroad and like things like that but like guess what there's probably like people here in your own community like in boise like for example right? Or wherever these entrepreneurs are that you have millions and millions of dollars.

There's people that are homeless. There's people that can't afford medical payments. So there's people that genuinely need help. And so the argument is, okay, yeah, you've given some, but you have so much of it. You could do that and be taxed higher, right? We could take even more of your money and your life wouldn't change it at all.

And we're also not talking about your business money. We're only talking about profit. Like we're only going to take like that part of it away. And so like the argument on the other side is, is if collectively, and I'm just going to make up a number here, let's just say there's like 10,000 entrepreneurs like you in America that have millions of dollars or billions of dollars. I know you don't have billions, but like billions of dollars, we could like take all that money. And hypothetically we could solve a lot of these issues, right? We could talk, tax the top 10 richest people, like whatever. Why doesn't that work?

Like, or, or a, I guess it's a two part question. A, are you, are you a, a, why doesn't that work? And B, what is your solution for that? If any, like what's your perspective, like your view, like how that would help? Yeah. Well, I think, or can you not help everybody? Uh, this is the fun part of politics, right? This is tough.

And I, and, um, I'll preface this before we dive into the actual question, but like, it's tough because there's good on both sides and there's bad on both sides. Like that's the hardest thing. Right. And, um, and so that's, that's the hard thing is, is you argue both ways, but, um, you know, it's, it's me as, so let's say me as entrepreneurs, I only know experience in my own self. Right. Right. I don't have paying taxes every single year. I know how much goes away. I know how much I make. And it's tough because like, um, the more, like the, the less you make

for the more you work, the less incentivized you are to keep working. Right. Like my take home was a hundred grand a year. I'd be like, well, why am I killing myself? Right? Like I could, I could work three hours a day and make that. So why would I keep doing this stuff? Right? Like if there's no, if there's no reward, then that's, it's hard, right? It's like, what's the purpose of doing any of this stuff? Right. Um, and it'd be really easy to then shrink back and company shrinks, employees shrink, everything shrinks because there's no incentive for us to risk everything. Right. I guess it's a,

it's a risk reward thing. So that's a big part of it. Like, how do you solve it? I don't know. I don't think the solution is the government coming with a gun and saying, give us half your money so we can go solve this problem. I think it's like,

man, what, what are the things that you're interested in saving? What are the things that touches your heart? What are the things that you're inspired to actually help? I mean, it's Kenya for me. It's this for me.

It's the other things that we give money to that I'll talk about publicly. But there's things that like, like, what are the things that you're inspired to actually help for me it's kenya for me it's this for me it's there's other things that we give money to that i'll talk about publicly um but there's things like like what are the things i care about like let me focus there because everyone's got different different agendas right like i had um uh matt maddox someone who i you know caleb maddox's father he's super awesome guy came to me and he's like hey my mission is to uh save these kids off the streets and this stuff you know all these kind of things i think that's amazing like can you help me i'm like like that's not my calling my calling of these things here that's your calling dude i respect it i support it like i'll help you with money or whatever i can do to help but that's your calling like god gave you that like that

was the thing that you were given yeah that's the mantle you're in charge of and everyone's got different mantles so like your calling to be different than mine like like people come all the time like oh like that charity's cool but i would support this like good i don't care who you support right everyone's got different callings and they're all good like so i think we should be able to say like what's the thing that speaks to our heart thing that we're we're passionate about and that's where we should focus our time and our energy and our money on um not again don't come with the gun saying give me a 50 because i think you should go over here like hey funnel hackers let me paint you a picture you're running a business your funnel's

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Head to Northwest registered agent today and start building something amazing. So what about the people though that like, let's pretend. And I have guys, I love Elon Musk. I'm going to use him purely as an example. Clearly I have no idea what he does with his money, but let's pretend,

right? So Elon Musk makes all his money. Like what if he wasn't charitable? Like should the government or anybody be able to come in and be like, yo, you have so much money, right? Or Zuckerberg, right? You have so much money, right? Like we're going to, you got, I don't know, he's worth $90 billion. Let's say he has $3 billion in liquid cash. I'm just hypotheticals here, right? Like you got $3 billion, like slowly sitting here. We're going to take that away. And we're going to give you, like, you can have 500 million of it, but we're going to take 2.5 billion.

I can give it to people that actually need it. Like, do you think that there needs to be some overriding law or powers on this? Like, yo, you can't just hoard. You got to, like, you got to, if you have more than enough, like you got to go and give it back. Or do you think that's a personal choice? I think it's a personal choice. you gotta like you gotta if you have more than enough like you gotta go and give it back or do you think that's a personal choice i think it's a personal choice um because think about how many how many jobs has he created like he's giving that stuff and this is the reward for the that's

the risk and reward side of things right and like his three billion let's say like what's his next thing like he's not just gonna sit on it like that's stupid for him for anybody right it's like he's gonna go invest the next thing to create more jobs to do more things so they stimulate the economy in different ways right like he's going to go and start paypal they just start tesla they start sending rocket ships to the space like you know like a producer is going to produce because they want to produce like it's the art for them right it's like let them create art because the byproduct of art is jobs it is stimulation economy all those things happening and so it's like for me like building funnels is my art i couldn't care less about the revenue that comes from it like but i need the

revenue to be able to hire the teams and the people and the things we need to be able to continue the arts paid zuckerberg by the to show my ads on the thing you're like all these things are are part of it so i think yes he's sitting on three billion just sitting there um but producers don't typically do that they're reinvesting they. They're doing stuff with it. So it's more. I want you to come up with a story on the spot. Go. Which you're pretty good at. But like, I want you to talk about that. Producers produce.

Like, I think that might be one of the, actually, I'm curious. Like, I feel like that is one of the most misunderstood thing about the ultra wealthy. The people that are like, actually, not like, okay, I inherited $200 million. Cause I'm a trust fund baby. Right. Like, but like the actual Elon Musk of the world, the Jeff Bezos of the world, the Russell Brunson's of the world, like what

ultimately drives you to go keep doing more? Like you have all of the money. And I, and like, and I know, like, I know we talked about like the like you want to contribute back for but like there's a million different ways you can contribute like why do you do the things that you do because i like i feel like one of the misunderstood things is and this is something that i don't know how to explain it to people that don't know i i told i told my fiance i was like you gotta you should like listen to russell because I'm like, I, he thinks like, I think like that, right? Like, you know what I mean? I'm like, you can't, if you don't understand me, like maybe you could like see it from somebody else and like, know that I'm like, I'm not,

I'm not weird. I mean, I am, but like, there's other people like me, you know what I mean? Like they think like this, but it's like, how would you explain to somebody that like, like Elon Musk is going to do what Elon Musk does, right? He's Elon Musk, right? Like Zuckerberg, like, like these guys, right? Like whoever, Russell Brunson, like you're going to do what you do because that's who you are. Like you build things and the result of, or like, because you need to build things, like you need resources. And so you're like, man, if I want to go build this thing over here, I need a hundred million dollars. I need $10 million. I'm just going to go make that money. I'm going to go do it here. And like, you're basically just like organizing things, right?

You're either creating or you're organizing. Like, how does that mentality work? Like, I don't think the average person understands that. And I think that's one of the big misconceptions of, because this goes back to the greed thing. And the reason I really don't like the word greed is because like, there is so much misconception about it. Although I will say the definition says that it's probably that, but it's like, it is a negative word. The connotation is super negative, about it although i will say the definition says that it's probably that but it's like it is a negative word the connotation is super negative but it's like

you don't exclusively do it because you're greedy it's like you do it because you don't know how to do anything else like you know what i mean yeah it's it's i'm sorry sorry alex charvin we can't turn it off and we don't understand why anybody would watch it like that like that yeah that's the thing we think about it, it's creation. Like why was man put on this earth? Like were we put on earth to like wake up, watch TV, go back to bed? Like no, like we have creative powers and a bias.

How husband and wife get together. We have children, like we create. Like that's the mission on earth. Like we're always creating, right? And it's like, you know, like any of us, like when you get married and it's like, we need to go create something. We need a house where we're going to live at. We need to create things to be a house where we're going to live at and you create things to be able to get a job to be able to

organize matter to be able to make oh we have a house now we can move into and and it's just like that's the thing i think that so many people though um they become um i think the word that garrett white uses he uses the best um sedated where like there's pain and so because the pain they're sedated so they just sit in this this moment of, of they don't want the pain, right? It's because the pressure was too heavy for them at one point. It hurts so bad that they say, I have to stop. Right. Versus what I talked about, like, like over the last six years, like I got destroyed and

then increased capacity and destroy it. And like, and so there's two sets of people. There's the people that aren't producing, they're sedating because they're afraid of the pain. They're nervous to pay. They're trying to hide from pain i get that like i there's been seasons of my life where i have felt pain and i just want to hide and i have right but then there's seasons of your life at least hopefully for more and i wish everybody could experience because

the the opposite we are in the creation zone we are creating you're doing and it's it's it's hard it's a different it's both of them are hard they're different hearts right one is there's so much fear there's so much like um just trying to get out of the pain and the other one is just like you create to create right like um you could ask my team like we build a funnel and for me it's just like look at this thing we created we'll create a product or an event or whatever and it's like the creation of the thing and then sharing with with people like that's yeah like i don't know and i think it was the same way when I was wrestling, that was my art at the time. And it was just like, like, I didn't want to do anything besides wrestling.

Like, we went to terms and terms. I'm like, what's the next term? What's the next thing? We're just like, we kept doing that and doing that my entire life because that was the art at the wild. And just you want to keep performing what you're doing, right? And I think that if you can get out of that sedation that most people live in, which I say the majority of humans do. And I think that's the issue is that, for you and i we create like entrepreneurs funnel hackers the free thinkers of the world like they go out there and they create because it's like that's what we do yeah

but like i don't think that's how most of the world operates yeah they do they do initially right they're born they have that seed that seed of whatever we call it, growth, greed, whatever, right? But something happens in life where they get the pain and then they sedate because it's easier. I think it's one of the biggest problems and I'm anti-drug, anti-everything that causes sedation, right? Because most of the world I see, especially like in entrepreneurial community where people could be doing so much more, but instead they're sedating with drugs or alcohol or weed or whatever it is because it's like, let me take the pressure off myself. And I, man, what a tragedy.

Like you could be producing and changing some people's lives, but it's like, I need an outlet. And the outlet causes sedation. It takes you out of your ability to produce. And I think the majority of people, like that's what they do. Like it drives me crazy. I see all the conversations on Facebook of like, you know, there's, there's entrepreneur events.

People come together and they literally there's, there's sessions. They talk about what mushrooms they use to like hallucinate. And I just drives me nuts. I'm like, you guys are sedating to get out of this pain, as opposed to stepping into the pain and creating and changing people's lives. And so I'm very vocal anti all that kind of stuff. I think so many people like that, that's what they slip back into. Um, one of the greatest blessings of my religion that I believe is like, I don't have these tools to sedate that most people use um and so it's like my outlet is creation right if my outlet was drinking if my outlet was drugs my outlet was these other things like i wouldn't have been able

to produce but i don't so my outlet's got to be what what is it like production let's create something amazing and i think that uh too many people let themselves off the hook and just like oh i could create or i'm gonna watch tv or i'm gonna go eat or i'm gonna go like if your outlet is something that sedates you that's taking you out of your creative zone i think most people slip that because it's easier it's cheaper it doesn't cause the pain um you know garrett white's whole mission wake up warriors waking men up from that sedated state that most of our society is stuck into which is why i relate to him so well because i like i see it i see it people i love that care about just like you're sedate if we could break you out of production you can change the world yeah i think it's interesting so i have a coach who i think did

that for me i mean i don't use garrett you know garrett wyatt which uh he has an intense man oh my word garrett if you're listening i would love to talk to you. Come on the show. But, you know, I'm always plugging. Hey, if I ever get a guest, Elon Musk, if you're listening. Anyway, but like I have a coach, Katie Richardson. You know Katie. Katie is outside of like my immediate family and like Leah, obviously, like top three people that changed my life. Katie Richardson and Russell Brunson are two of those people that are in that top thing, right?

And so Katie is someone that I work with like one-on-one. And we don't, I mean, I don't think I was ever sedated in the sense of like what you're talking about, but like the opposite of sedation is like being alive. Right. And like, like really truly like coming alive and like understanding like who you are and like what you are put on this earth here to do. And so like the thing that I struggled with for the man for the longest time, even like from the beginning of days of this entrepreneur is like right and wrong. Right. I was like, I didn't want to do the wrong thing. Right. I didn't want to take anybody off because that would be bad. Right. Like, oh man,

like you don't want to get into a fight because that's bad. Right. Uh, I don't want to make too much money because that might be bad. Right. I don't want to say the wrong thing because it might be bad. Right. And so I, I like lived in this like universe or like black and white, like, is it right? Or is it wrong? Right. Like what Katie came along and she's like, in this like universe or like black and white, like, is it right? Or is it wrong? Right. Like what Katie came along and she's like, Josh, like there is no right and wrong. Now there is in the sense of like, there's moral right and wrong. And so, but like, I'm not going to go into the concept of like, you know, universal truth, but like, I do believe there's absolute truth, but like in the sense of like our everyday life, it's, it's not so much as like, is it the right

thing? Is it the wrong thing? It's like, is like, what are you going to choose to do? But like, you can only know like what you're going to choose if like you're alive if you're if you know who you are like you know what you're put on this earth to do and that's why it's funny um you i think you may know this story so my brother dies helicopter crash beginning of 2019 i wrecked my whole life i ended up selling the company sold the business to an investor the business partner took over and like leah and I like went off, took our offer off. And it's supposed to be this like four month long trip where I was going to like disconnect and just like figure out life and everything like that.

And like Christmas time, it's about a week before Christmas. And we're in the Philippines in the middle of absolutely freaking nowhere. Like the nearest airport, hospital, anything is like six hours away, like absolute middle of nowhere. And Leah gets a um intestinal eating parasite like she gets super super sick like can't sit up can't keep food down i'm like oh my gosh we're in the philippines the middle of nowhere and so like we go to the emergency room and we get there and it's like a car like i mean it's like a piece of plywood with

two inch foam and there's no there's no doors on the bathroom no toilet seat there's ants crawling it's like terrible right and so long story short we end up having to cut our trip like two months early we live like tens of thousands of dollars in deposits like getting her home and whatever and like i have no business at this point right we were supposed to be going for two months longer i was supposed to fly home like i was supposed to come to funnel hacking live that was going to be like our coming home right and i find myself in like the basement of my girlfriend's mom's house the night before Christmas going like, what am I doing with my life? Right. Like, you know, like how did I end up here? Right. And so I go through the process. I'm like, okay, I need a coach. And I, you know,

go through and I interview a bunch of different coaches. I ended up like choosing Katie and I'm like, all right, Katie, like you're going to solve all my business problems for me. You're going to make, you're going to help me get all this money. You're going to help me build this million dollar business and everything like that. Right. And so the very, very first call, I'll never forget the very first question. And she's like, all right, vent. Like, I know you need to. I'm like, right?

Like, just brain dump. Like, vent for like 20, 30 minutes straight. Like, what's the answer? She goes, Josh, who are you? I was like, really? Like, that's where we were going to start this whole conversation, right? I just made you 60 grand, right?

Is that how? This is where. And then, and like looking back now, like that, and I do have a full circle with this, uh, looking back now, figuring out who I was, gave me my permission to go do what I was called to do. Right. Without the fear of what anybody else thought. And like, I'm not trying to intentionally piss anybody off. I don't want people to actually hate me. Right. But I like, I'm so certain in what I'm doing and like knowing who I am that I know that I'm like, I know I'm a contributor to society. Like I know that I'm making the world better what I do, because I believe that everybody like deep down inside it, like God has given them talents. Right. And I believe that the thing that whatever it is that

you're good at or that you like to do or whatever, like that's the talent that God gave you. And you have a choice on how you're going to go out and use that. And I believe that you it is that you're good at or that you like to do or whatever, like that's the talent that God gave you. And you have a choice on how you're going to go out and use that. And I believe that you should use that to serve him. All right, funnel hackers, listen up. It's 2025. And let me ask you, are your B2B ads actually driving results? Or are they getting lost in the noise? You and I both know the pain of running campaigns that fall flat

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LinkedIn is the place to be, to be. Hey, funnel hackers, let's be real. How many of you have forgotten about subscriptions and you keep paying for these things month after month after month? That was my wife and I before Rocket Money came along. Literally a couple months ago, we downloaded this app and within minutes we found out a whole bunch of subscriptions. In fact, we had multiple Hulu payments, multiple Disney payments from accounts that my wife had set up and I had set up and we weren't even using one of them. It was crazy. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you to find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending and helps lower your bills. You can grow your savings.

Rocket money showed us where all of our subscriptions were in one place. In fact, it was crazy how many recurring payments we had that we had completely forgotten about with just a couple of clicks. Rocket money canceled the ones we didn't need. And the best part is they even monitor unusual spending activity and they alert us if our bills increase. So I'm always in the loop. Rocket money has over 5 million users, including my wife and I, and has saved a total of over $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 per year when using all of the app's premium features. In fact, my wife and I, we literally saved over $1,000 a month when we started using Rocket App. Now, their dashboard is amazing, and you get a clear view of all your

expenses across every account you have. You can even create a personalized budget with custom categories and track your monthly spending trends to stay on top of your goals. You want to save for that dream vacation or pay off some debt? Their new goals feature automatically saves money for you, so you don't even have to think about it. So cancel all your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to rocketmoney.com slash russell today. That's rocketmoney.com slash r-u-s-s-e-l-l. That's rocketmoney.com slash Russell today. That's rocketmoney.com slash R-U-S-S-E-L-L. That's rocketmoney.com slash Russell. The problem is that I don't think, I think an overwhelming majority of the world has no idea who they are or what they're called to be.

And because of that, the people like you or Elon or whoever, the producers of society that know who they are, what their talents are, what they're called to do and like things like that. Like it's such, it's like, I mean, you've seen my, my growth, right? Like you've watched me transition from this crazy, you know, little kid to like this. And it's like, that came by learning who I was and like how I was contributing and what I was doing, what I was calling him, what I was putting here for. And so when you talk about like sedation, I feel like, like that's, that's the issue of they're sedated. And so they don't even know who they are. Like they don't even know how to tap into it. They don't know how to understand it. And because of that,

they look at someone like you, they look at someone like me and they go, well, you're preventing me. Like you're taking away my ability to go do something because like you're taking all the money, right? Like you're taking all the opportunity or like you have a category king on the market. So like, I can't go and and do it then so like to those people or this concept of because you're successful i can't be successful like what is your response to that like how do you interpret that yeah like how do you make help someone like shift to be like just because i did it doesn't mean you can't yeah um it's interesting because like that's it's it's funny because for me it's such a foreign thing to understand that like i see that so many times entrepreneurs where um it's that that like that that mentality of like there's there's not a money or not of opportunities or resources whatever and you know this i know this like man they're the bigger

problem i have is there are so many opportunities every single day that's drowned like it's not there's not of opportunities there's so many it's like how do you make up that i think when people start understanding that like look look around like learn learn some basic skills right like the original dot-com secrets book i wrote because i'm like if anyone took these principles and looked at any business you could apply it and like boom like it just works like it's magic like there's not a business on this like adam's eye care i can see right out the window right i think dot-com secret principles blow that company up overnight right and so like if you have these these tools like you could do anything you could sell like sell phones you can

sell watches you can sell books you can sell like you can sell podcasts like so it's just like i think when people start understanding that like it's just education they don't understand it i've had friends before like oh like life's tougher now there's no opportunities and just like what like there are so many opportunities but you have to have the skill set that actually that it can produce it right i think so you know a big frustration obviously i have i think you have as well as and we talked about a little tonight with my kids you know it's just like a lot of things that we're equipped with are like school like the school system doesn't equip you to be able to to capitalize on opportunities right it doesn't unless you're like i want to be a doctor

cool this is the process that now you can capitalize on being a doctor or being a dentist or whatever that traditional path is to be able to like walk in and like make it rain somewhere. Like those skillsets aren't taught in school, right? And you think about in any business, there's a couple of personalities, right? There's like the entrepreneur who starts it, right?

Then there's the managers who are managing the people. There's the technicians who are doing the thing. And there's the rainmakers who come in and make money. And it's like, if you learn that skillset set like how do you become a rainmaker how do you go in and you can plug in any business or any opportunity and you can turn it into money like then every every door you walk past there's opportunity there's infinite every human you see there's opportunity right you just people have to learn how to like take the the talent and learn how to market the talent right because god gives God gives us all different things. Some people, like Caitlin Pullen,

God gave her a gift to be able to help women lose weight, right? But it wasn't until she learned how to market that that it was actually now, now the opportunity is huge. They've got, I don't know, 100 employees in their company, millions of women they've served across the world. It was like taking your God-given talent, learning how to make it rain, plugging those two things together,

now unlimited opportunities. And so I think a lot of times it's like, we're given, and that's why I think, like why I'm so loud about my mission, why I try to share it so much. Cause like, and I believe that God's given everybody a calling, right? It says in scriptures, many are called,

but few are chosen. Like everybody's called. Everybody gets a calling. Everybody gets that tap on the shoulder. Everyone gets the opportunity. It doesn't matter where you're born, where everyone gets the opportunity, you're called.

Most people don't do it or they don't know how to do it because they have this talent, this hobby, this thing. It's like, and then what happens? It's the date. They hide or they search. If you search, you find the answer. And then it's like, oh, my gosh, like now I can take this thing and change the world. But, like, do you think everybody has that talent though. Like, do you, I, I, obviously there's only one Russell Brown, but like, I have, I have discussions with my mom a lot, right?

Like I have a great relationship with my mom and my mom always tells me, she's like, Josh, not everybody's you. And like, not everybody thinks like you, not everybody has the drive like you, not everybody has the confidence like you, not everybody has it. And I'm like, you don't have to, like, like you could, like you can do the same things just like in your own way. Right. But like, and everyone's got a different, like, um, uh, view of success too. Right. Like when my first mentors taught me that, like when I relaunched my first mastermind group,

he pulled me aside. He's like, your mastermind group is going to fail. If you try to put your version of success on all those people. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, he's like, it was funny. Cause he was in the room. He's like, I can't say names. Cause he doesn't know something. He's like, he's like, you see that guy right here. Do you know why he's in the room?

I'm like, why is it? He wants to hear himself talk. That's why he's here. And if I try to like force him to do something, he's not going to that guy there. He's here because he wants to hang out with the group and get networked with people.

And he's like, you, you're here. Cause you want to celebrate his ideas. Right? So if you try to launch a mastermind, like your goal is to build a hundred million dollar company. You try to put that, your values on the people, you're going to make them all fail.

And, and, and that was like this big aha for me. It's like, everyone's got a different vision of success. So maybe your brother or someone or sister or like a family member may not think like, think like you or be like you, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that to change a million people's lives to change the world. Like it could be their mom and they could be the best mom in the world and they change their kid's life. Like that's a calling.

And that's what I want. And that's what I want you to touch on. Like, I want you to expand upon that because I feel like, man, I hear so many arguments. I'm trying to figure out like which one fits best here. It's like,

but like Josh, we need the plumbers of the world. Yeah. Right. Like we need the people that'll come in and vacuum the carpet. Like we need the people that will just do the mediocre tasks and that, that are like, are not important.

And that'll just kind of do those in and out and in and out and like yeah that like what like because like i feel like how do i say this i believe that a majority of the people in this world are not living up to their true potential right like an over massive amount of like overwhelming majority aren't anyone is to be honest i don't think i am right you know i mean like i don't think so yes but yeah but you're living far more more potential like the average person is right and how i look at it as i go like hey listen like not everybody can do what you do or what i do or like whatever, but like, okay, how do I bring this around? Makes it more clear. I'm going to use it from

political aspect of things, because I think that's something that we can all understand. Hey, poor people, victim mentality, people. Ooh, that's a, that's a controversial thing, but like, you know what I'm saying? But like victim mentality people, or like poor people, like things that like, they don't think like that. Or maybe they didn't have as good a schooling or like, maybe they didn't have as good of like education, like whatever. Like they don't have the same understanding that like you do.

Right. So like, shouldn't we, should we help them see that like they can go and achieve more or like, should they like they like is their version of success what am i trying to ask the answer is yes we should and that's what we're doing right i heard some of the before that like well russell you have a 50 000 or 100 000 our mastermind group like i can't afford that it's not fair i'm like yeah but like i also do a podcast two to three times a week every single time every single week for like six years i've written three books you can get for 10 bucks or you can get them for free or you know like there's levels of it right and it's like the thing is like there's

there's value everywhere and if you pick it up it increases you know like you can you actually apply it like i'm a big believer that god gives all of us um stewardship over things right like he'll give you an idea give me an idea give anybody an idea or or um desire like here's some desire for you you look at these kids who are struggling but they get desire to play basketball and then they become the Michael George or whoever, like the people, right? Because God gives them desire or they give them ideas or talents. Like I'm a big believer, like in, in my business life, as I've been doing this journey now for 18 plus years is that I got ideas

and a lot of ideas I didn't do anything with, right. But some of them I took, I got the idea and like, and I'm'm not I'm not naive enough to think like oh I came up with this great idea like these are blessings from God right like he's like here's an idea let's see if you're gonna be a good steward with it I get the idea and if I do something with these like oh my gosh Russell's a good steward of ideas let me give you another idea and if I don't do something with these like all right let me give somebody else right like they all this is happening they would have happened whether I was somebody would have taken it but I was a good steward of the thing. And so I got blessed with another one and another one,

another one. And I think that's a big part of it. I think if people like, I don't think that God, I mean, I do think that he puts us all on different spots to start with. Okay. That's a fascinating concept.

Giving us ideas or, or desire things like that. And he's watching, you're gonna be a steward with it. If you are, I'll give you more. And if you are, I'm going to be more so that people can go from the worst of the worst and become the best in the world

people can start the best world be horrible because what do you do with the things you're getting stewardship over so so what you're saying here which is actually a fascinating concept is that like i'm gonna use the idea for click funnels for example like the idea for click funnels is wasn't yours per se right young people are trying to build a funnel software when we built click funnels i'm sure a lot all my friends were everybody was so you have this idea that is essentially open for anybody like anybody could go and take advantage of this idea you just god you're saying like god put this idea in your head and you probably put this idea in 100 people's heads or 500 10 000 people says whatever but you're like but i was the one that answered the calling to be like, okay, I'm actually going to take this idea and do something with it.

And so because of that, it's not that you took it away from anybody else. Like anybody could have done it. You're the one that actually went out and just chose to go out and do it and bring it to reality. Yep. A hundred percent. Okay. There was a, I wish somebody shares me and I haven't read the book.

There's a book that tells the story of that. It was an author who had an idea for books, sat down, started writing it. And someone's going to know it. It's a famous book. book people would know this i guarantee someone on the chat knows this somebody comment below when you hear it what it is author like write the book and then stops like runs out of time forgets about it and then like six years later this new book comes out it comes to your time best selling book buys the book starts reading it's like this is the book that i was supposed to write it was like oh my gosh i didn't i didn't take stewardship of the idea. I stopped and so God gave somebody else. It's like, it's the same book, right?

It's just, I didn't finish it. And so I 100% believe that. And I think it could be an idea, it could be desire, it could be a million things. We all have these different gifts of the spirit, right? That are given to us and they sit back and watch this,

see what you're gonna do with it. I feel like that could give a lot of people permission to go out and do stuff too right there. Like that viewpoint, because like one of the things that I struggled with early on, which to a certain extent, I think I still struggle with a little bit, not nearly what I used to is like,

like why, like why me? Like not, not in a bad way of like, Oh man, why not? Like, but why do I get these cool opportunities?

Like, you know what I mean? Like I live a pretty great life. Like, you know what I'm saying? And I'm like, why, why do I get to have this conversation

and not somebody else? Like, why am I the first person that gets to sit down with Russell Breslin and talk anything related to politics ever, right? But it's like that concept of simply because I chose to go do it. Like I chose to be the person that was capable of like having this conversation, right?

Like it became that person. And I think that because of that, like what you just said right there is like gives, to give people permission, like you're not taking away from anybody else and like you're not inherent like you're not inherently special i mean you are in your own way but like you're not it wasn't you're not the only person that could have built click funnel shocking the average yes my wife asked my parents like russell is shockingly average and you're actually super awkward to meet for the first time you know the first time i made you remember the first time i think i actually told you this the first time i met you okay the first time i made do you remember the first time i think i actually told you this the first time i met you remind me what's okay the first time i

met you was at um grant cardone's uh 10x work on the very first one all right so this is at the at the time um grant had hired our team to do like instagram stuff and this was like super early on i was like dead broke i couldn't afford to go to that conference like if i wanted to but because we were doing instagram stuff like he gave us like tickets and we saw you like get off stage. And we're like, dude, I bet you like run right now. We can go like meet Russell.

And so like, we've run out of there and sure. Up there. You are like coming down. I like, I walk up to him like Russell. Oh my gosh. Like huge fan.

And you're like, Hey, thanks. And we're like, Oh, okay. We're like, can we get a picture?

You're like, um, yeah, I guess. And so like I go and like, normally like when you go and like take a picture like you put your arm around him and things like that like you just literally stood there right and i just like i like like okay i guess we're not doing that and so there's like this picture of me in like i'll find it i'll box it to you but it's like we're sitting there i there. I'm like, I mean, this is, so guys, Russell is shockingly average. Shockingly average, apparently. Like back to the conversation.

I remember like what I was trying to ask. So like, that was the very first time I met you. I was like, oh man, I can be a millionaire too. You guys know what I think before, before I started, like when I started this whole business, it was me. And then I hired two of my buddies to come work for me. Cause like, they were the only people that cared what I was talking about. Yeah.

And we were all working on this business. And I remember one of my buddies to come work for me because they were the only people that cared what I was talking about. Yeah. And we were all working on this business. And I remember one of my buddies pulled me aside one day and said, you know the difference between me, between us two and you? I said, no. He said, the only difference is you're in momentum. You're moving forward. So these opportunities keep coming to you because you're moving, moving, moving, moving. He's like, we're sitting back here doing the thing, but there's no opportunity to come to us because we're not moving. I think we need to understand when you're moving and forward, like people are like, oh, you're lucky you came with ClickFunnels.

I'm like, do you know how many funnels I launched before ClickFunnels? Over 150, it's not 150, like add, create funnel in ClickFunnels. Like, Oh, that's a funnel. It was me coming with an idea, hiring a designer, writing a sales letter, putting the products together, putting the pages in front page, uploading them through FTP, getting a shopping cart connecting them 150 times took us three months on average to each one okay 150 times before we came up with click funnels like like i was just moving forward over and over and over and over and over and over you know everyone else is sitting there waiting like motion is the key yeah the opportunities come this is what i'm talking about being a good steward like god gave me an idea for zip brander do you remember zip brander no one does that was the first idea and i was like oh my gosh zip brand. And when I found a guy in Romania, I paid him 20 bucks to build the software. I created, I got a thing, a header design and a headline and a thing. And I launched it and I made like 400 bucks.

And then next idea was like this thing called Article Spider. You remember the Article Spider? No one does. I paid someone that a couple of bucks. I did that. I launched, I made 1700 bucks. And I was like, oh my gosh, foreign fortunes number three. And then the next and the next. And I can show you show you guys i did this i wrote them all that i went back

the way back machine i found all of them thing after thing after thing after thing i did after i did took like the ideas pop in there i executed them tried tried and each one got better and better and better and better and eventually god's like all right you're you're capable like you're a good steward here's the click funnel let's go with it but if you were to give me that initially i don't know what to do. It's the momentum. It's the motion that makes you worthy of the call. And if you're not in momentum,

if you're not moving forward, you're never going to get the call. Then you're called, but fewer chosen.