How AI Is Changing Marketing & Funnels Forever | Russell Brunson DSH #1252

I found this piece on eBay. It was Napoleon Hill.
Before he wrote Think and Grow Rich, he wrote a book called Law of Success. It was like a 16-book set.
And you can buy a first edition for like five grand. But there was a set that was a pre-first edition.
Three years before he wrote the first edition, he wrote it. It's kind of like, you know, authors write a book now.
They print a galley copy to send their friends and people. Yeah.
So he wrote a galley copy of Law of Success three years before he published it. He sent president united states the queen of england and andrew carnegie and stuff anyway there's only one known copy that's complete and he had it signed it was on ebay for 1.5 million i was like oh that would be anyway so i i didn't buy it for a long time i was buying every other rare thing i could find but that one just kept mocking me i was like i have to have so eventually um i went to buy that and the collector who had it he'd been collecting napoleon also for 20 years and so i told him i'll

just buy everything you have and so i flew out there and just bought his entire 20 years of

collecting and brought it home and that kind of like started my the seed of my uh my book collecting

and and then the last two half three years about 18 000 first edition books and manuscripts and

wow paintings from authors.

Anyway, just it's been the most fun treasure hunting thing in the world.

All right, guys, Russell Brunson here today getting ready for his last funnel hacking live ever, man.

Yeah.

Thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having me.

I'm excited.

Yeah.

That number 10.

Yeah, it's crazy.

We started 10 years ago as like a one-time event with our community. And then it's become this huge, crazy, you know, industry-wide event, it's crazy.
We started 10 years ago. It was going to be a one-time event with our community,

and then it's become this huge, crazy, industry-wide event,

which is really fun.

How many were at the first one?

Very first one, it's 600 people.

And this one will have a little over 5,000.

Wow, so 10x.

Yeah.

It's interesting to see, because Grant's calling it quits, too.

I know.

It's crazy.

All the big events are going to be done.

And T&C got shut down, which is a big one in our industry.

So yeah, it's going to be next year. It'll be interesting to see who tries to step in and take the void.
Yeah, I'm wondering what's going on in the event space. A lot of people seem to be going virtual.
Yeah. Tony Robbins, right? Tony Dunn, yeah.
Same thing. It's interesting because we'll make as much or more from a virtual event where I don't have to leave my house.
There's going to be these huge events that take us almost an entire year to plan and put together and hotels and all that kind of stuff. And so, yeah, I'm sure we'll do big events again in the future.
I'm just, I need a break for a couple of years. Yeah.
I think there's a time and place for them. I think people got a little too gun friendly with them.
There was an event every week for like five years straight. So people got burnt out, all these masterminds and everything.
Yeah, for sure. It exploded in the last five or six years.
It's been really crazy. Yeah.
Well, I think after COVID ended, people wanted to go to events. But then it just got so, I get invited to so many events.
It's nuts. You got to pick and choose your battles.
Yeah. And that looks similar too.
When we started ours originally, I felt like it was different. It was unique.
And now a lot of people modeled how we've done ours. And now they all look very similar.
And it's just kind of interesting. So I'm like, I want to reset and figure out a new way

to do it that no one's doing, but I need some space

to figure out what's new.

Right.

Well, you've always been good at kind of carving the path,

right?

ClickFunnels was very innovative when it came out.

Yeah.

I think you were the first to do that sort of structure.

Yeah, for sure.

With funnels.

Yeah.

The people who were doing funnels

were all hand-building them at the time.

And so it wasn't, I don't think there

were a lot of people who were talking about trying

to build something like that.

And it's almost like everyone's racing

towards building something.

And then we were the ones that got it done and executed on it. And yeah, for six, seven years, it were just us before people started kind of copying us and stuff.
Yeah. And now you're seeing it with the AI industry, right? People that were working on it for five years before the boom are just cashing in right now.
Yeah, AI is so fast. We have one of our developers who built, in the last two days, built 18 new apps for our platform just using AI.
He's like, he used to have to co-step. Now I just tell the prompts and then it pops it out and he's like busting out apps so fast.
Apps that were entire brands and businesses, they can rewrite in an hour. It's insane.
Dude, it's nuts. I'm learning the fastest I've ever learned because of AI.
I mean, it's unreal. I'm summarizing audio books.
I'm getting these health tests. I'm asking AI to improve my

health. There's so many uses.
It tells you everything. Dude, it's insane.
Are you using

it pretty frequently? We're using it for a lot of things. I also, part of me is like,

I'm nervous because I really enjoy reading books. There's the balance in like, this is going to

ruin a part of my life I really enjoy versus even like writing. I write books and it's a lot of

Thank you. Yeah.
I don't think it's fully there yet for writing books because that personal touch, that emotional connection with books is special. I don't know for me and I would write my books.
It's weird my books. It's weird because you're so deep in the writing process for so long that you start seeing these connections start appearing.
When I'm starting the book, I don't know these things. And when you're in the middle of the book, these things start showing up.
You're like, oh, that makes sense here. And I feel like if you're not in it writing it, you lose out on half the creativity that shows up.
No, that's a good point. I mean, you've written some books, so you can speak from experience.
Yeah. It's a different perspective.
I know you collect ancient books too, right? Yeah. I wanted to talk about that.
Yeah. I'm a big collector.
Are you really? Yeah. Books or other stuff? Just in general.
Okay. Right now it's Funko Pops.
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career today at srgpros.com. Yeah, all sorts of random stuff throughout the years.
When I was a kid, it was Pokemon cards, sports cards. I love collecting.
That's amazing. Yeah, I want to learn how you got into ancient books.
That's a unique sort of collection. Yeah.
Let me tell you. Yeah.
So it started. So I'm a Mormon and I went on my mission 20 plus years ago to New Jersey.
And I met this lady who made her living. She was buying old books on eBay and flipping them on other auction sites.
And I remember she showed me a first edition Book of Mormon and it was like $80,000 on eBay. This is 20 years ago.
So then fast forward to like, you know, seven or eight years ago, I got some money and I go to eBay, I type in first edition Book of Mormon. I see one for sale.
And I was like, oh man, that would be cool. So I bought my very first one and I got it.
And it was just, it's cool. So they printed 5,000 of them.
There's only about 350 known copies in the world. So it's one of 350 and I I got it.
And that started the itch for me, and I was like, what else is interesting? So I started buying more religious books. And then I had this idea I wanted to build a museum.
I wanted to show people what I was collecting. So I started building this museum, and I'm like, it'd be cool to have different sections for different things that I'm passionate about.
And so I started looking, well, in the business space, what are the old books? In the personal development space. And I found this piece on eBay.
It was Napoleon Hill. Before he wrote Think and Grow Rich, he wrote a book called Law of Success.
It was like a 16-book set. And you can buy a first edition for like $5,000.
But there was a set that was a pre-first edition. Three years before he wrote the first edition, he wrote it.
It's kind of like authors write a book now they they print a galley copy they'll send their friends and people yeah so he wrote a galley copy of law success three years before he published it he sent it to like the president united states and the queen of england and andrew carnegie and stuff anyway there's only one known copy that's complete and he had it signed it was on ebay for 1.5 million i was like oh that would be anyway so i i didn't buy it for a time. I was buying every other rare thing I could find, but that one just kept mocking me.
I was like, I have to have... So eventually, I went to buy that.
And the collector who had it, he'd been collecting Napoleon Hill stuff for 20 years. And so I told him, I'll just buy everything I have.
And so I flew out there and just bought his entire 20 years of collecting and brought it home. And that kind of started the seed of my book collecting.
And then the last two and a half, three years, I bought 18,000 first edition books and manuscripts and paintings from authors. Anyway, it's been the most fun treasure hunting thing in the world.
Is it a passion thing or is it an investment or both? So it would be an investment because books actually beat the S&P 7X or something like that. Wow.
But I'm also kind of a hoarder. I don't think I'll ever have a book.
So it's like it's not actually. It's more just I'm obsessed with them.
They're fun. You're going to pass it down to your kids.
Yeah. And what's cool is the personal development books, a lot of them are in the public domain.
So now we're republishing a lot of them. And we have a new brand.
It's called Secrets of Success. We're republishing these books.
And so, I mean, that business is doing $2 million or $3 million You're right now just republishing these old books that we've made.

And so it's funding the addiction.

So that's how I'm looking at it.

It's like, okay, this helps kind of pay for me to buy more books and keeps them going.

You can monetize it so you're not taking a full L on it.

Wow.

I can't believe stuff is listed on eBay for a million dollars.

Oh, yeah.

And people buy it.

Yeah.

Crazy people do.

That is crazy.

Yeah.

You think it'd be like a scam or something.

I know.

That's why I was like, I reached out to him. I'm like, I have to make sure this is real is real yeah because i'm not going to wire him a million half that scene so we flew out there first to see it all and then i was like oh dang that's amazing that must be your most expensive hobby i'd imagine oh for sure yeah and then it's funny because like there's that one and then in the in the mormon books there's there's one book that's like the most rare it's called the book of commandments and when i first started collecting these collectors were, these collectors were like, if you ever see one in your life, you'll count yourself lucky.
I was like, I want to buy one. Like, you'll never buy one.
Anyway, there's nine copies on the planet. Most of them, like, there's one at Stanford, one at Harvard.
Like, they're all like in institutions. And anyway, one of the institutions came up for sale and I bought it.
So it's like, that was another one. That one's a $1.5 million one.
Holy crap. And I have the only one that's in private hands right now.

It's like the coolest.

So it becomes like fun because there's a story

and you can show people and yeah, so I love it.

That is nuts, dude.

You need good insurance on that.

What's the most expensive book in the world?

Do you know?

Oh, there's some that are insane.

Yeah, like you get like a Gutenberg Bible that,

I don't think one's sold since the 80s, but yeah, that'd be 80, 90 million. Holy crap.
If it was to come to market, which no one will get rid of. Is that because there's only like three of them or something? Yeah.
Wow. First ones off the first printing presses, you know, and yeah, there's, there's, it's insane.
There's no top. There's, there's old manuscripts and old Bibles and old Torahs and stuff like that.
They're just ridiculous. You could get crazy with it.
Yeah. You can go as deep as you want.
That's nuts. I just got to make more money so I can get more old books.
Yeah. It's interesting because I know you're not really materialistic.
You're not buying cars and watches and stuff. I do have a couple of nice watches, but yeah, not too much.
Yeah. Yeah.
My wife and I are pretty humble, especially my wife. She's very much like, she's amazing.
She's not into all the crazy stuff, you know? And so, uh, yes, we had extra money and like, I don't know what to do with it. And we invest some, we, you know, we do some charity stuff, but it was just like, when these books started coming around, I was like, I think there's, I don't know, they're really fun for me.
And it's just a cool place to put your money that, and for me, it's like we're building a museum cause, love storytelling. So people can come and I just want to show people and tell the stories of the books and the authors and who they were and why they actually matter.
I love that, man. Yeah, I know you really value family.
I mean, you live in Idaho with all your money. You could have chosen anywhere.
So that shows to me you really value family. Yeah.
I love that, man. My family's awesome.
Five kids. Yep, five kids now.
Yeah, it's crazy. Has that been the toughest balance for you with business, family? With family, yeah, for sure.
I mean, it's tough because when we started having kids, consciously I was like, I want to make sure that I'm a present dad. I know a lot of people who are dads, but they're not present.
I was wondering if I could be present. so that's been the the balance like how do i do what we're doing in business but also like make sure i'm there for the practices and the the games and the matches and the recitals and that kind of stuff you know yeah um so it's been it's been neat though the kids are the kids are awesome and it's fun because now the kids like they come to our events and so we have a big event this week and so uh the kids will be there and they just love being part of it and being behind the scenes and backstage and meeting all the speakers and stuff it's really fun yeah they're gonna learn a lot a lot more than public school yeah hanging around you you send them to public school actually yeah oh you do yeah wow yeah it's funny yeah because all their friends go there and but we told them since the very beginning i'm like i don't really you know make schools good socially you gotta learn to read I learned yeah be with people be around people but you know can only control so much because I know your your sons play sports too right yeah you kind of need to send them to school for sure yeah are they all still wrestling to so my my twin boys just graduated so they're done competing now.
And then my daughter is a soccer player.

My next son's a soccer player.

So we're in the soccer season of our life right now.

Soccer's a good one.

I attribute a lot of my success to sports, the mental side of things.

What sports did you play?

What were your favorite?

I played soccer.

That was a good one.

I was a big runner, though.

And that's a sport I really attribute my mental fortitude.

Because distance running is hard, man.

You doing cross country? Yeah. You had to run 10 miles a day.
Dang. Yeah.
You ever run distance like that before? I'm a wrestler. We just short distances.
Well, wrestlers got to run a little bit, right? Yeah, we ran a lot, but it was never like 10 miles. Yeah, it wasn't a fast pace, but still you got to run to stay in shape.
Yeah, running's no joke. I think that's one of the hardest sports personally, like triathlons and stuff, the Ironmans.
Such a mental battle, I assume, right?

To go over that long.

Yeah, that's why I respect Goggins.

I mean, that dude is different.

Has he ever spoken at one of your events?

He hasn't yet.

Oh, no?

Is he better at your show?

No, he's super picky.

Is he?

Very picky.

I mean, once you get on Rogan, you know.

Yeah, you can choose what you want.

It's only downhill from there.

I'm sure he gets asked every day to go on a podcast.

Oh, yeah.

I'm sure you do, too. Yeah.
You know? You're probably picky. Your time's very valuable.
Yeah. I appreciate you coming on.
Yeah. What's going to be your main focus this year now that you're parting ways from events? Yeah.
So we started a new virtual event just like five or six months ago. It's called Selling Online by sellingonline.com, which is a great domain.
But it's teaching people how to do... Because obviously obviously in my world, I teach people how to build funnels and all sorts of stuff.
But the piece that most people are really bad at, because the funnel stuff is easy for them to learn, like, oh, I need these different pages. But the thing they're really bad at is actually selling.
And so we started teaching the selling online event. And we do it once a month right now.
And we bring people in. I teach them.
We call it one-to-many selling. How do you sell from a platform or from your funnel or from whatever that is? And so that's really our big focus.
We had 3,700 people went through the event last month and we're just trying to get the spot where I want five or 6,000 people every month going through that event. Because that's like the missing piece.
They can figure that piece out, then funnels become easy, traffic becomes easy, all the other things become easy when you learn like how to actually sell. Absolutely.
Well, I met one of your students today who came on the show, Eileen, and she is crushing it. She's amazing, huh? I mean, she's selling from her bedroom, making a million dollars.
Like that's incredible. She's insane.
It's crazy because like she came into our world like three or four years ago. Her and her husband were driving Uber and they came to one of our events.
Yeah. And just for her, it just clicked.
And then she came back and she's a great speaker anyway, but she didn't have the structure of like, how do you speak to sell? And as soon as she figured that out, then it was just like off to the races. Like it was fascinating to watch how fast she grew her business when she knew the structure of how to do it right.
I always wonder what separates those top students from the rest. Have you figured that out yet? Yeah.
Because it can't just be work ethic. Yeah.
I think I felt a lot about that because some people coming through our door every day is like, how do these guys are killing? These guys aren't. And the one common thread I've seen between people who are successful is like, and the ones that aren't, the ones that aren't are the ones who come in because they're trying to figure out how to make money.
And those ones always struggle. The ones who come in and then, and they usually come in initially because i want to make money but the ones who fall in love with like understanding the art of it those ones have success when they're like oh this is cool like this is how it works and they start geeking out about that um because there's there's the nuances of the thing right and you have to like you have to take something but adapt it for you and for your personality and your audience and stuff like that and the ones who love it and become obsessed with those ones have the most success.
And the ones that struggle are ones who are like, I'm trying to make money. It's not working.
Why is it not working? It's just like, you got to fall in love with the process. And then when you do that, for me, when I, when I started falling in love with the marketing and with learning these things, then it, then everything changed for me, you know? I love that.
Plus what works in the past doesn't work in the future. Yeah.
Like you get, you had a pattern for what worked in the past, but then you have to figure out like what are, like I was thinking about this with the house, right? You have a framework of a house and it's like the structure, but like what you have to bring is the art. Like you have to design and the decor and the painting.
Like, you know, it's like I can give you the structure, but you got to bring your own personality. And if you don't understand it, if you're just trying to like make money, it doesn't work, right? You understand, okay, this is awesome.
This is how it works. This is how it works.
How I can make it work for me. Like that's the, that's the big change.
Agreed. There's also a lot of just bad coaching, I think.
Yeah. Cause you go on Facebook, people are saying webinars are dead.
I got buddies making millions a week off webinars. I know.
You know? Yeah. So there's just bad advice everywhere.
So I think filtering is important. Yeah.
Well, I think it's funny too. Cause I see it all the time.
Like funnels are dead. And then you click on the link in the ad and it takes you through like one of our ClickFunnels funnels.
Well, yeah, it's apparently it's dead. Yeah.
But it's still working or webinars. Yeah.
Like I remember 20 years ago when I first got in this game, um, I remember seeing people talking about email. Like there's a guy had a book called the death of email emails dead.
And I was like, Oh no, like it's too, that was 20 years ago. I'm like email still today is still our most profitable revenue source by far.
Same with me. Cold emails have been crushing for me.
Oh, cold emails? Cold. Really? Yeah.
That's interesting. I get a lot of guests, a lot of sponsors, a lot of people at my events.
I do in-person events and it's all cold email. Interesting.
Yeah. We've been dominating.
Huh. Yeah.
That's interesting. Shout out to instantly.ai.
They don't sponsor, but yeah, I used to. They should though.
Yeah, they should. I'm giving them a lot of promo right now.
You don't do cold email that much though? No, we do all the warm bodies. Yeah.
Well, warm's even better, but, um, all of our email comes off. We drive traffic, get them to opt into something and then all the email comes from, from that.
Okay. Yeah.
Cause you're running a ton of ads, right? Yeah. So you're just collecting emails nonstop.
Yeah. I remember when SMS was going to be the next thing.
Is that still hot? Yeah, but it's different. I think everyone thought it was going to be email times 100, you know? Yeah, with the open rates.
But like I noticed now with myself, like I can get 50 emails in a day and it doesn't bother me. If I get five texts in a day, I'm like annoyed.
You know what I mean? Facts. And so it's weird.
So I think there's a window where you can do it, but I don't think the number of people having success with it as an actual – I mean, I think you can use, like for me, like I use right now when I'm doing something like, oh, I'm going live, I come over here and then I push them somewhere where it's like I'm pushing something entertaining or exciting that works, but I can't just sell off it. Or email, I can be like, hey, here's a new offer, go buy the thing and people will go buy and off text, like just the, I don't know, something's different about it where at least for me, I have not noticed sales increase that much.
The barrier is just weird. I agree.
I don't think I've ever bought off a text. Yeah.
But off emails. Even social is similar.
Like, if I just on a reel or something, and I'm promoting something, it hardly does anything. Same.
If I push there or I'm getting them to email somewhere else, then email, you know, so it's just interesting. Yeah.
I wonder if it's because on email, a lot of people open it on desktop. Yeah.
Maybe that's why. And on your phone, you're not, I don't know.
It's harder to buy or yeah. Maybe there's more friction.
Yeah. That's why you make ClickFunnels.
So much friction everywhere. Yeah.
I used to use ClickFunnels every day, man. Oh yeah? Yeah.
So with my networking events, we started on ClickFunnels. It was so easy compared to Eventbrite.
Yeah. Eventbrite's like kind of old school.
I don't know if you used to use it, but. I think we did way, we connected to ClickFunnels to be able to do the event management back in, but yeah, the front end was a nightmare to make it work.
Yeah. Now there's a new event app.
I think, have you seen it? Luma or something? Uh-uh. It's really good, man.
Luma. Yeah.
L-U.M-A. Phenomenal.
Yeah, never heard of it. Yeah.
But I mean, with your events, you probably want to own all the data, so you wouldn't use something like that. Interesting.
Dude, are you still at the office? I saw you on an interview. Are you still at the office till 5 a.m.
every day? No, not normally. Okay.
Yeah, my normal, I'm usually there from like 9 to 5. Okay, because I saw you talking on some interview.
You were working till 4 to 5 a.m. If we're leading up to like an event like this or something crazy there'll be some of that kind of stuff but um yeah I've tried I've tried to break my life up where I've got family time in the morning and the nights and then when I'm in business like new business time but I try not to to bleed over that unless again unless an event like this is coming up where you know I have 11 presentations over the next five days so I was like leading up to it killing myself to get all this stuff done you know after post event, then it goes back to normal.
You're doing 11 yourself. Yeah.
Holy crap. I did because I used to go to, um, to TNC and I loved, I don't know if you know Ryan and Perry, but they're my favorite.
And the event used to be just those two speaking. And then as it got bigger, they brought in more speakers, more speakers.
And eventually it was like, they each did one speech and they had all these other speakers and I quit going. So I launched mine.
I was like, I went because I wanted to hear Ryan and Perry talk and I was like if I if I pull myself out like they did then my people will stop showing up and so back then I committed to do that but usually I usually I do six six or seven each event but this is our last one and so I had like I had more stuff I wanted to say so I kept putting my like oh I don't talk about this oh and this oh my god I can sure they know this. And so I was kind of like putting all the last pieces in.
So you're doing four a day. That's insane.
It'll be a little crazy, but it'll be awesome. I love it, man.
Yeah, it's a balance. You can't have too many speakers.
Yeah. A lot of people are there for you, right? Yeah.
And for ClickFunnels. Yeah.
And most of our other speakers are people who came into our world. And so when I create the event, I try choreographic where it's like I'm teaching a principal.
And it's like, now here's three different people who like eileen for example like she one of the best speakers ever so i'm teaching i'm talking about creating your one-to-many presentation then she's got this really cool thing i don't know if she talked about called bits where it's like how she tells her story based on like uh on the the church she used to go to and how they do stuff it's like so she'll speak about like storytelling and things like that inside of it and so it's it's kind of fun because it's like i can introduce a concept then here's our students who are doing it in different ways and showing different insights so people can like they don't just see like here's how russell does it but here's how other people yeah different angles it's really cool and then it's like wow what's your what's your version how can you do you know your own thing yeah that's brilliant because people like seeing different ways on how people got there right yeah because you got your own way but maybe people can't relate to that yeah some people try to be me and i'm like i'm weird like you know what i mean like people like they're Try to be people got there, right? Yeah. Because you got your own way, but maybe people can't relate to that.
Yeah, some people try to be me, and I'm like, I'm weird. You know what I mean? People are like, they try to be like Tony Robbins or like me or like someone else.
It's like, no, like figure out your version of this. Again, here's the structure, the framework, but you got to put your own art and your own twist into it to make it you.
100%, because if you're just copying people, you're never going to make it big, right? You can only get to a certain level of just copying. What's been your biggest takeaways from Tony? I know you and him are very close.
Yeah, man, I've had so many cool experiences with Tony over the years. Like when I first met him, my wife and I had been married seven years and we were struggling.
And like, that was my big first breakthrough with him. I went to, that year we went to every Tony event, you know, and he had me speak at one of them.
But that was like, I started learning just about like human psychology and about relationships and about all these, like just stuff I'd never learned about. Um, and becoming super aware of stuff, right? Like Tony's really good.
Like helping you become very aware of the patterns that you have in your life. And most of us get in these patterns.
We don't have no idea what's happening. And so for my wife and I, we go to this event and all of a sudden we start seeing the patterns that were like destroying our marriage.
And it's like, Oh, and we became aware of them. Like, well, now that we know what they are can change them, we can fix it, right? And it like changed everything in our relationship.
And so that was the first time was just those kind of things that he helped me with. And then fast forward a decade later, we started doing more business stuff together and more partnerships.
And it's just fun to see the way his brain works. Because he's not like the architect that's in there trying to do all the details.
He's very much like, he builds it. Like he finds the best people in each space.
And he's like, I'm going to take you and you and you and you. And then put them together.
And like, even to the spot where he finds the best strategy person in that thing and then plugs them all in. And then he's like, Hey, I'll attach my brand to this.
So you guys go do the whole thing. And it's so cool to see how fast he's able to leverage things and create opportunities because he, like the way he connects people.
And then just like he's putting his blessing on it. And then it, you know, adding the Tony effect just makes things convert higher.
I love that. You know, it's really fascinating watching him move.
I love that. He went from my first met him.
He had like, I don't know, 30 companies. Now he's got like, I don't know, 300 or 400 companies.
Two, that's insane. It's all about that.
Like just really, he's so good at like finding the right people, plugging them all together. And then, and like whenever I've tried to do that in the past, my problem is like, I want to be the strategy guy.
I don't know, three or 400 companies. Dude, that's insane.
It's all about that. Like, just really, he's so good at, like, finding the right people,

plugging them all together.

And then, and, like, whenever I've tried to do that in the past,

my problem is, like, I want to be the strategy guy,

and I want to do the funnel.

Like, there's pieces I want to keep.

And Tony's more, like, it feels like he's just like,

nope, put all the people in, get someone who's really good strategy,

and then you guys go figure it out.

Right.

And then these things blow up by the way he structures them.

I mean, people don't realize how hard that is.

Oh, yeah.

There's already a 90% failure rate on one company.

Yeah.

He's doing 300. Oh, it's crazy.
Like, when you think about that, it's almost insane. Yeah.
And you think about, I think, again, for me, the ones that I've tried that I failed is because I want to weave my own ego into it. And, like, Tony could because Tony knows how to do everything.
You know, he's, like, he's brilliant. Right.
But he doesn't put his ego into it. He's just like, all right, let's find the best team.
And then I trust your guys' opinion. Just, you know, it's really cool.
Yeah, ego is a dangerous one, right? Yeah. I always have my battles with it too.
I think it's natural when you just have success. It kind of creeps in a little bit.
And then you got to put it in check. Oh, yeah, for sure.
Have you had trouble with that in the past? For sure. In fact, I remember twice my, maybe three times, wow.
So I had a mentor one time. I had a business business that had grown it had crashed and it grew it again that crashed and about time i met i went to this like this mastermind thing in mexico and i sit next to the guy and the guy was brilliant he'd like done all these huge m a deals and sold busy you know crazy rich kind of guy and he starts asking me my story i'm like oh so i'm kind of telling the highlights because that's what we do you know like oh i did this, I did this, this.
And he's like, so have you ever struggled? And so finally I was like, yeah. So I told him the first time my business crashed and how I was kind of in the middle of one right now.
And I remember he looked at me, he's like, oh, cool. He's like, I'll work with you then.
I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, I will never work with an entrepreneur who hasn't cycled at least once. Wow.
And first off, he called it cycling instead of failing. And I was like, oh, that feels way better.
But then he said that he's like, because he's like, if you haven't cycled, then you still believe your own bio. You still drink your own Kool-Aid, right? He's like, after you cycle once, you realize it's not about you.
And there's all these external forces. And I remember him saying, I was like, oh, that's such a cool reframe for me, you know.
And so for me, it was like, I didn't fail, I cycled and I learned a bunch of stuff and I'm coming back. And so I've had probably three big cycles like that in my business where I've gone up and then down and up and down.
And usually it feels like all of them are tied to like my ego eventually though, where it's like I get blind sided by something. So I'm like, oh, like I figured this stuff out.
And then you get humbled. Same with me, man.
I've had two cycles. I'm only 27.
And I could have listened to my fiance on both of them. Because she was right.
You're like, no. It's crazy how intuitive women are.
I'm sure your wife has told you not to work with certain people. That doesn't feel right.
Like, what are you talking about? Yeah, yeah. The numbers look good.
What are you talking about? And no. Sure.
Good woman by your side is a game changer. Oh, yeah.
I see my single friend struggling in that part of their lives. And, you know, dating is like a full-time job, too.
Oh, I can imagine. Yeah.
I haven't dated 20 years. Nowadays, it's way different.
When I was dating back in the day, it was way different. Nowadays, there's so many, yeah, all the apps and the things.
Oh, yeah, it's a lot easier now. But that also makes it harder in a way.
For sure. You know? Because it's too easy.
These girls have so much access. It's like tough being a guy right now.
Huh. You know, did you meet her in Idaho? Yeah.
Wife. Yeah.
I met her in college and I met her at church when I was going to college. Beautiful.
She stuck with you, man. Yeah.
You said the first eight years you guys were broke. Yeah.
That's awesome. So she believed in you.
Yeah. She's, she's awesome.
She believed me. She also was like, um, cause you know, starting a business, there's so much risk involved.
Yeah. And there's so many times when, I've said this before, I'm like, you can only be as successful as your significant other will allow you to be.
And people get mad at me sometimes for saying that. It's like, what do you mean? They're not in charge of you.
I'm like, I know, but there were risks that I had to take. And I was like, hey, Colette, I think we need to take this risk.
And she could have easily been like scared or like,

no.

And my wife's always very fear prone to like,

she gets very scared,

but she would just be like,

do you like,

do you feel good?

Like,

it's going to work.

I'm like,

I think so.

She's like,

okay.

Then she,

she would like give me the blessing to do it.

And if it failed,

it was never like,

you know,

like,

you know,

with your intimate partner,

like that,

that person can build you up and they can destroy you.

Like they know your insecurities more than anyone.

Right.

And she was just so great at never doing that and just being like, okay, well, what's the next thing? What are you going to try next? Like, like you can figure this out. I'm like, okay.
Like giving me that, that stuff, you know? Um, and so, yeah, it's, it's important to pick the right person who's going to be around. Cause you know, especially building a business, there's so much risk and so much ups and downs emotionally, mentally, physically to, to create something new.
Um. In the face of like all the opposition that comes, like you have the right person next to you can make it so much easier.
Game changer. I love that though.
Cause I was so scared of failure when I was younger. Yeah.
So scared of how people would perceive it. Now I love it.
It's like the opposite. Like this would be a good story.
Yeah. Now it's like, okay, what can I learn from this? Like this is going to make me even better.
Yeah. But when I younger, man, I was scared of it.
So you're so spot on with that. I don't know what it is, just like the fear of being judged.
Was that a big thing for you too, when you were younger? Yeah. Fear of being judged, fear of being like, I've seen this a lot with my students too, is like, they have a dream, right? This is my dream.
I want to accomplish this thing. And so they'll think about it, They'll read about it.
They'll listen to podcasts and they get so excited. But then a lot of them, their biggest fear is like, and because it keeps them in this loop for like years, this learning loop, the fear is not that they're going to fail.
The fear is like, what if I try and I fail and then the dream dies? Like I'd rather just stay on the sidelines and think about it because now the dream's still alive, right? Wow. And that was the biggest, most fascinating thing.
So with my students, I've worked a lot with lot with them it's just helping them understand like if you fail you're not a failure like the dream's not dead if you fail and um uh in fact the story i always tell my um that i always talk about during our events like my junior high school um i had a goal to be a state champ in wrestling and uh all summer long i worked i was like killing myself working towards whoever i knew i was gonna be a state champ you know and then my very first match um of the season I go out there to wrestle and I'm wrestling with a guy who taking second state second place in state the year before and he beats me first match first year and I was just like crushed I was like I suck I thought I was awesome I'm barely not you know then all my teammates are just like I thought you were gonna be a state champ I'm like I know and then everyone I knew at school was it was just like it was so much pain and embarrassing. And then I learned like the greatest lesson from my dad.
My dad, he had filmed the match. I remember that night we went home and he didn't sleep the whole night.
He watched that, you know, six-minute match probably 100 times that night and like looking at a diagram and figuring things out. And next morning I woke up to go to school and I'm all, I'm sad and bummed out.
And he's like, come over here, Russell. And we go on the carpet and he's like, okay, this this is what the kid did.
And he started breaking down how I lost. And we started looking at it.
And we drilled. And I remember that day before school.
I was kind of annoyed. But we drilled all the things to get in the right positions.
And the next day, I went to wrestling practice. And then as soon as we practiced, I got done.
My dad walked in the room. After he got off work, he walked in the room.
I'm like, oh, man, he came in. And we drilled it again.
And we drilled it. And every single day of that entire season, we drilled it.
We drilled it, we drilled it. And then at the end of the year, four months later at the state tournament, me and that kid were on the opposite sides of the bracket.
And sure enough, we get together in the finals. And right before the finals match, my dad pulls him aside.
We go on the mats over to warm it up. We drilled it again.
I went out there and then I wrestled and I beat him and became a state champ. Wow.
And it was the coolest thing because I learned this lesson that most people don't learn. It's just like failure.
If you fail, you're not a failure, right? If you fail, it's like learning. It's like the best source of information you could possibly get.
And then it comes back to like from there, it's like you just keep tweaking and changing and tweaking and changing. And so for me, when I got into business, it was the same thing.
We launched a funnel, launched a product, launched something. And if it failed, again, that's mostly like, oh, I'm a failure or too scared to launch launch because of failure.
For me, it's like, when we create something now, we create it, we launch as fast as we can, because I'm just trying to get the data, okay? Launch it real quick. And so, like, any time we, like, a book funnel or something, we put it out there, and we just go spend a thousand bucks, we spend some money to get some ads, and we start looking at the numbers, we're like, okay, cool, that looks great, the conversion's too low here, too high, you know, we look at the things, then we're like, rewrite this, tweak this, change, try some more ads.
You know, we keep doing that three or four times. So eventually all the numbers are good.
And like, okay, now we launch it. And then boom, it explodes.
I love that. You're like, man, you're always successful.
I'm like, no, it was because we've, we fell really fast. And then we just like iterate and tweak, iterate and tweak.
And as soon as it works, then we can, then we can scale. Wow.
Your dad was like your first mentor. That's cool, man.
It was cool to watch that. Cause again, my default is I wanted to be bummed out and sad and miserable, which most of us do if we fail, you know? Right.
I just learned from him. It was just like, no, now we know where you're out of position.
Let's just fix that. That was like – You can beat him.
Yeah, it sounds like a make-or-break moment in your life because a lot of people that would have happened to you, right, and they would have folded, right? They would have shut down the rest of the season, and they would have lost who knows how many matches. But you took the opposite route.
And you ended up wrestling at a higher level after that, right? Yeah. There was some in high school and then wrestling college.
And yeah. Did you want to go pro, or did you want to stop in college? So in college, I never placed the NCAAs.
I was ranked in the top 10, and then I got done with that. And I took a couple years off.
And then I actually wanted to wrestle in the Olympics. And so it's a little crazy story.
But I actually hired the Olympic Greco coach, moved him to Boise. And I hired like eight guys who were competing for the Olympics, moved them all to Boise.
We had a training center. Oh, that's cool.
I was like, I'm going to bring all these people here. And we did that for eight or nine months.
And then anyway, the business I was building on the side to fund the whole thing kind of fell apart. And then I had to let all those guys go, and it kind of fell apart.
So I had a desire to go, but I never got to that level where I could have actually, I think if I could have kept training for a couple years for the next Olympic cycle, maybe had a chance, but it fell apart before I was able to go that far. That's cool, man.
Who do you think the greatest wrestler of all time is? Jordan Burroughs. Ooh, that was a fast answer.
He spoke at our last Funnel Hacking Live. It was the coolest thing in the world.
Okay. He just, last year, it was crazy.
It was the weekend before our event was a world tournament. And prior to that, John Smith had won six world titles.
He was the most decorated American wrestler of all time. And Jordan had six.
And then two weeks before our event, he won it and won the seventh. And he came to our event with the medal and showed everyone.
And it it was pretty cool wow i've seen his his videos actually yeah is he still the champ uh he he didn't uh qualify for olympics this last round and oh i saw that he barely lost to someone right yeah so we're not sure if he's gonna try to go one more cycle or if he's done i don't think he's announced yet so i love the olympics i can't wait till they're in la man is that the next next cycle right yeah 28 yeah Yeah, 28. US wins every time, baby.
It's funny, we got the best athletes, the best minds. We also got the worst.
We also got a lot of unhealthy people. So it's an interesting country, but you can really make it on your own here.
You're proof of that. Yeah, country is really interesting right now.
Very interesting. Crazy times.
For sure. You mentioned fear earlier, fear of failure.
Do you have any fears right now? Anything you're fearful of? My biggest fears now are just my kids, like helping them make good decisions. My twins are 19, and they're both moved out.
They're kind of doing their own thing. And that's been the biggest fears.
When they're your kids in your house, not that you have control, but at least you have more influence when they're're out and so you're able to see stuff and you still have little influence but it's different and it's like I don't know for me that's my biggest fear business side like I I'm kind of you know whatever happens doesn't happen I'm fine with but like now it's just about with my kids that's my biggest fear just like man I want them to make good decisions have a good life and not not not make uh decisions that are that are um hard to turn back. You know what I mean? Right.
I think we'd all have to make failures and screw up. But there's decisions you can make that are hard to come back from.
It's like, how do you guide them and protect them and all those kind of things when they're not in your house? Yeah. You sent them off to college? One just moved out and he's working right now.
And then one went on a mission for our church. Oh, nice.
And they're twins, but they're two different directions. Like both of them have chosen a way different path in life.
And so it's just also interesting to watch that and to be their biggest fan and to cheer them all, but also like their parent who you're scared to death for them. It's been weird mentally for my wife and I just kind of how to deal with that over the last year.
It's been different. I mean, that's why there's a term called helicopter parent.
Have you heard of it? Sounds like your borderline. Which is a good thing.
Like, come back. It's a good thing, I think.
I think parents love their kids so much, but sometimes they're too hands-on. For sure.
So you don't want to be that. And you see that with sports, with their kids.
They live through their kids in sports, and then they force them. I've seen a a lot i had some really good friends that way who were great athletes um but their parents were so on top of them that when they when they went away they like rebelled and disappeared right you know we had the number one recruit in the country when i was at boise state who came and within two weeks of getting there he disappeared like damn his parents had pushed him and he was it was amazing but just when he finally was out from the under the finger of his parents he just couldn't handle it and just like yeah they end up hating the sport because there's so much pressure right yeah but at the same time you do need some pressure i think for sure i think pressure is important that's when i perform my best when my back's against the wall yeah i'm sure you're the same i think it's also it's like it's self-imposed pressure like the pressure you decide that you choose like if someone else is choosing the pressure for you that's when I think you rebel versus like if it's like I want to do this then it's that I love the pressure like this event's crazy like we have you know 5,000 people we got all this stuff happening like the pressure this event's fun but we chose it we decided to do it and we have a goal and an outcome and things we're trying to do with it and so yeah I love that kind of pressure yeah have you always had high pressure on yourself yeah ever since Ever since you were a kid? Ever since I started competing as an athlete.
Yeah. I just, I function a lot better under that.
Like I struggle as a student where someone would give you a homework assignment. You got two weeks to do it.
I'm like, what? It's like I would start the night before, like three hours before it starts. Like I like that better.
It's like I function way better under pressure and chaos, which is tough for my team. Because I think sometimes they're like, Russell's just a ball of chaos.

But it's like, I function better.

And I think it's like,

I had kind of ADHD brain.

So I think what I've discovered with that is like the more inputs that are happening,

the less stressful you are.

Like if there's one focus,

it's really hard

because it's just like,

you want to bounce all over.

I had this really weird,

I was at some event.

I sat next to this guy who was like,

he was the number one ADHD doctor in the world. Oh, was that Daniel Amen? It wasn't Amen.
It was, I can't remember the guy's name. ADHD.
Anyway, but we're talking and we're talking about stuff. And he told me, he's like, with someone who's ADHD, he's like, the more inputs, the better.
And it was fascinating. It's like, when I write my books, if I sit to the computer, try to write, it's like my brain's just like, whoa.
So right now when I write, I have i have a treadmill desk so i get a treadmill i have these binaural beats on my head and i'm walking and i'm typing and then i can function i can focus so good wow if i'm sitting there by myself it's just like i can't even do anything i'm actually the same way now that you said it like that isn't interesting when i'm watching a podcast it has to be on 2x speed i gotta be like working while i'm doing it yeah we're driving it's just why i don't know if you were same way as a student they said if you're a student and like you fidget a lot that's why because you're like, my hand's going to be on 2x speed. I got to be like working while I'm doing it or driving.
It's just why we, I don't know if you were saying with a student, they said if you're a student and like you fidget a lot, that's why. Cause you're like, I have my hands.
I'm going to be doing something if I'm going to pay attention to the teacher. Cause it's like, I can't nonstop my leg would twitch.
Yeah. I actually just got a scan at Amen clinics.
Oh, is that cool? I wanted that so bad. You got to do it.
I'll connect you. Yeah.
They'll hook you up. And I found out I have ADHD.
Very cool. So that's well, that's like entrepreneurial.
That's amazing. you have a superpower.
It is a skill. We think about, I don't know if you watch the X-Men, but the X-Men is like these people have these insane powers and then the regular humans always want to stifle their power so they can be like everybody else.
That's why I feel like ADHD is like, it's a superpower. Yes, it can do really bad things, but society, kids are in school of ADHD and parents are teaching, give them drugs so they'll sit there calm.
And it's like, you're burying their superpower. These guys are superheroes, and you're taking that away, right? Yep.
They tried putting me on drugs in elementary school. Isn't that terrible? Yeah, it's crazy.
I mean, that is awful. I think almost, not all, but most of the hyper-successful people I know right now have ADHD.
It's like a common thread amongst hyper-successful people. And the normal people want to suppress that, right? And it's a superpower if you understand it and you know how to harness it.
Makes you wonder if they know that too and they're intentionally doing it, right? Could get a little nefarious. Same with autism, though.
A lot of my successful friends have autism. Have you seen that too? Yeah.
Yeah. They have a super, like, that's interesting because they struggle here, but it's like overinflated successfully here.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Like people like have like, are missing a leg where they get stronger over here, like to compensate.
It's like, anyway, yeah, it's really fascinating. No, it is interesting, man.
But now you can sort of channel it, I feel like, autism and ADHD. For sure.
If you understand, again, if you understand it and you're not under drugs to block it, then it's like now, how do you, for me, it's like I struggled in school. When I got in business, I learned how to channel it because it's like, okay, if I take all this and I'm focusing on a thing, then it's, yeah, it becomes a superpower.
But in school, we have to sit there and listen to teacher regurgitate back and forth. It's like, this is good.
This is like everything I'm used to doing. This is the opposite.
Yeah. I can't, my brain can't function this way.
you know? It was too slow for me, you know? It just felt so like I would go crazy in class. I was bouncing off the walls.
I would ask to go to the bathroom every single class. I was so bored.
Like, weren't you super bored? Yeah, but like, yeah, I got terrible grades too. Yeah.
And I felt, I tied my identity to that when I was younger. I always thought I was dumb.
Yeah. Same.
Same. Same.
I thought I was so stupid. I even got voted like most likely to fail.
Really? Yeah. That was one of the things people thought about.
Yeah. Like, thanks, teachers.
That's the worst. Yeah.
I got life of the party, most likely to fail. You know? That's crazy.
Because I wrapped my identity in poor grades, so let me rebel and drink and party. Yeah.
You know, that was my high school mentality. Interesting.
Yeah, I always thought I was dumb.

And then when I started my business, I was doing a couple things and trying some stuff.

And I remember going to an event and someone had seen my stuff and like, oh, you're Russell.

I saw your thing.

That's so brilliant.

And it was the first time anyone ever not told me I was dumb.

And I was like, well, am I smart?

And then I kept doing some stuff.

And then people were like, that was really cool.

The way you said that.

And again, I started getting this input. I'm like, I'm not dumb.
This is great news. I'm just different.
OK, I'm not dumb. So my identity, I was able to break it from being a dumb kid to this.
And yeah, it's weird. You said that you attached your identity to it.
What was it for you that you broke the identity to shift? I think getting into entrepreneurship, similar to you. So I'm half Asian.
So I always thought I was dumb because Asians stereotypically get the best grades, right? So all my Asian friends were getting like 4.0, like perfect SAT scores. I'm getting like a 2.7.
So that sucked. And then Asians like to compare.
So my Asian parents would compare with other Asian parents. So I just felt dumb because of grades.
But then getting into business, making some money, that can kind of change your mindset a little bit, I feel like. Give you that confidence that I didn't have.
And then, yeah, I started networking, talking to people, and they were talking to me like I was normal. Asians wouldn't even hang out with me in school.
Really? Because I didn't get good enough grades. That's crazy.
Yeah. I blended more in with the athletes.
So it was interesting, man. I remember the first time when I was in college, there was this kid that was like the smartest kid in my class.
I hated him because he was so smart. And then I remember, uh, fast forward three or four years later, he came and applied for a job for me.
And I was like, hire him. Like for what am I? I don't care.
I just want to be able to tell everybody that that guy now works for me. Cause I was like for me.
And so you've worked for me for like three or four months and didn't work out, but I was just like specifically, I just wanted to be able to like tell my mom, like, Hey, this kid was like the honor or the valedictorian. And he works for me now.
Did you get bullied a lot? I was a wrestler, so I didn't get bullied because of that. But I didn't have a lot of friends.
I wasn't socially. I was not the life of the party.
I was the awkward kid who was wrestling or even wrestling trips. I'd go on these like, when I was at Boise State, we'd go on these 18-hour bus rides to Portland to go wrestle or whatever.
Damn, you didn't fly? Yeah, Boise State was really poor. Yeah, it was before our football team got good.
We had no money as a school. And so all the guys would just sleep the whole ride there.
And I remember I would go, and this is before podcasts and stuff, but I would go, and there's a couple guys like Armand Moore and a couple guys who were out teaching marketing stuff. So they'd do they do teleseminars.
So I download the teleseminar, burn them on CDs. And so I take this big old stack of CDs on these long road trips.
I just listen to these CDs of these guys, you know, talking. So I remember one of my teammates later, he came up to me.
He's like, man, when we used to go on those long trips and you'd be sitting back there listening to your thing while we're all sleeping. He's like, we all thought you were going to kill us or something.
He was like, it was so weird. So that was kind of mine.
I was never bullied, but I was just kind of, I'm sure I was just kind of the weird kid that's kind of off. If you're like, all right, whatever.
Yeah. And now those kids are like running the country.
Like all the people that used to get made fun of or thought you were different. Yeah.
You know, cause we're breaking the mold. Yeah.
That's funny though, man. I'd love to see that.
I'd love to see your brain scan too. I want to see it too.
I heard about AIME a while ago and I always wanted to go

and just haven't had a chance to do it.

I wouldn't be surprised if you had ADHD.

I think one recognizes one.

We feel the same.

That's so cool.

So one of the things I heard you say on a show

was if you could go and ask yourself at 25

or go tell yourself something at age 25,

what would you say?

And you said you wish you would have built a team earlier. that really resonated with me because i've been solo for a while yeah so you said that was one of your biggest regrets yeah it's um i had this weird epiphany that um i can't remember when it was but you think about like when we become entrepreneurs like we're almost like we become the all-star right like i think about like i'm michael george in my sport right i'm the best i I can do everything.
And you have to learn how to do all this stuff. I have to learn how to write copy and drive traffic and build pages.
So you become an all-star. You can do everything.
And then even for me, when I first started building a team, it was hard for me because I'd build a team. But then they'd be doing something.
And then for me, it was like, I'd steal the ball from them and dunk on it. You don't dunk anyway.
It's like,'s like well they're doing it but i can do better right you know and i like i would build a team i wasn't like empowering them and i had this realization i'm like for me to get the next level i can't be the all-star i have to become a coach and if i'm a coach and i can like build an all-star team like that's the transition point and as we started doing that it was crazy in fact my business partner now todd dickerson uh he's one who built click fun first version by himself. And I remember we had this conversation.
He read an article or something that said that the difference between an A player and a B player, an A player can get 3,200 times more done than a B player, something crazy like that. And he's like, we just got to find a whole bunch of A players to surround ourselves with, and we'll be able to do what most teams take thousands of people to do, right? And sure enough, we started bringing in the right team.
That's when everything just blew up for us. And it was just like, this is crazy.
And when I was able to put my ego again, here comes the ego, put the ego down and like, okay, my job is not so much just to steal the ball from and try to dunk. It's like, how do I try to coach them and guide them based on my experience, but let them do their thing, let them figure it out and let them become the A players in in each of their individual divisions.
And we started doing more of that. That's when things started blossoming and growing at a rate that's just ridiculous.
It's an interesting dynamic, because as a business owner, you want to save on cost, right? So typically hiring, you want to save. But at the same time, you don't want to cheap out on talent.
It's backward. Yeah, it's weird, because I always try to get, well, who's the cheapest person? It's like, well, who's the most expensive who can do the work of 10 people? Right.
Like, you know, and I see it all the time with, like, developers where it's just, like, it's funny. You get, like, the college-graduated developers who, you know, have all the degrees and stuff and, but they're very structured in their thinking because they went through school and then you find this, like, hacker who just graduated from high school who, like, you know, is living in a basement with his mom and he comes in and he just, like, laps these guys.
That one dude, because he's so passionate, his whole life has been geeking out on coding and stuff. Like he can be all these like MBAs or whatever the equivalent of, you know, uh, developers, but it's just, it's just fascinating like that.
So it's like, man, how do you find the person who's like the most obsessed with the thing and like bring those people into your world? That's how you, that's how you see the inexpensive, expensive growth. Yeah.
Do you think that obsession is teachable? I always think about this because people ask me why I work so much. I'm like, is that even teachable? Yeah.
You know? I don't know. Because it comes back to desire, right? I think about this a lot because I don't think you can teach desire.
I think desire comes from God comes from God. Like we get planted, like we have desires for things.

Um,

so I think if someone does not have the desire to do something,

it's almost impossible to get them to have desire.

Like I,

I don't know how to do that.

I've tried my kids.

If there's something they don't want,

I cannot get them desire.

But if someone's got a little bit of desire,

I think you can flam that.

You can,

you can,

uh,

you can fan that flame and you can help grow it.

And so,

so I think obsession,

if they have a desire already, I think you can turn it into an obsession, but if they don't have that, it's almost impossible. Agreed.
Yeah. Initially mine came from like getting bullied, I think proving people wrong.
But then when that happened, I had to find a new desire. Has that happened to you where you've had to shift kind of like your fuel? A hundred percent.
Yeah. First of me, it's the same thing.
I want to figure out how to make money and show everyone that I figured it out. And then I don't know if it's the same for you after that started happening.
I was like, it doesn't actually feel like what I thought it was going to feel like. Right, they don't really care.
And you get this emptiness and like, huh. And then for me, it was interesting because the next phase was I started seeing people we were helping and seeing them have success.
And then I was like, oh, that feels better. In fact, I remember this because for me, my favorite feeling of all time was like, I went to a wrestling match, I got my hand raised.
That was the greatest feeling of all time. and I never thought it would get better.
In fact, I remember this, because for me, my favorite feeling of all time was like, I went to a wrestling match, I got my hand raised, like that was the greatest feeling of all time. And I never thought I'd get better than that.
And then my son started wrestling, my sons, and one of them, one of my sons, he was really bad. This first season, he didn't win a single match.
Damn. The entire season.
And every time he got the match, just crying, it was so hard. And we worked, like, me and him worked so hard, just, and anyway, the very last match of the season, he beat the kid.
He won his first match. And he gets off the thing.
He's jumping around. He comes over.
And the ref raises his hand. He had the biggest smile on his face.
And I was like, that feels better than when I won. Wow.
And I feel like the same thing with my students. First, I was having success.
I'm like, this is amazing. This feels so good.
But the first time someone else did and they had success, I was like, whoa, that feels way better. Helping them actually feels better.
And then that became the next obsession for me. And then that's when I think it changes.
I love that. No, I could see that too.
Even just when I give homeless people food, it feels amazing. Better than anything I do for myself.
It's such an indescribable feeling, right? The value you get out of that is insane, yeah. Yeah.
Someone needs to figure out what's going on there in the body. It feels amazing.
It's like addicting when you help other people with nothing in return. And I wish more people thought like that.
A lot of people are innately selfish. I think in order to survive, it's like a prehistoric mindset.
So I could see why. I mean, I was pretty selfish growing up.
What was the shift for you? I think having resources helped. But even if you don't have resources, I think you could still be pretty giving with time and other things.
But I think death, honestly. Had some close ones pass away and realized you never know when it's going to be over when you start doing some positive stuff.
With the time you got, yeah. It's interesting.
Yeah. Well, Russell, it's been awesome.
I can't wait to go to your event. It'll be my first one.
Yeah. So I can't wait to come.
Anything else you want to close off with here, man? Man, I think if, at least I would say, if anyone wants to learn how to sell online, that's what we do. We help people do that.
We have a big event we do once a month, teaching people how to sell online. If you guys want to come and hang out to that event,

it's a virtual event, but that's kind of the coolest big thing

we do all the time.

And other than that, I'm grateful for you

allowing me to be here.

And finally, we've been talking to this for a couple of years,

I feel like.

We finally had a chance to make it all work.

You were on my dream 100 list, man.

Oh, yeah.

Let's go.

That's amazing.

Yeah, I'll link your stuff below.

Thanks for watching, guys.

I'll see you next time.