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

Speaker 1 I found this piece on on eBay. It was Napoleon Hill.
Before he wrote Think and Grow Rich, he wrote a book called Laws, Law of Success. It was like a 16-book set.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 It's kind of like, you know, authors write a book now. They print a galley copy.
They'll send their friends and people.

Speaker 1 So he wrote a galley copy of Law of Success three years before he published it. He sent it to like the President of the United States and the Queen of England and Andrew Carnegie and stuff.

Speaker 1 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...

Speaker 1 Anyway, so 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 it. So eventually I went to buy that.

Speaker 1 And the collector who had it, he'd been collecting Napoleon Hills for 20 years. And so I told him, I'll just buy everything I have.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 the seed of my

Speaker 1 book collecting. And then the last two and a half, half, three years, I bought 18,000 first edition books and manuscripts and

Speaker 1 paintings from authors. Anyway, just it's been the most fun treasure hunting thing in the world.

Speaker 1 All right, guys, Russell Brunson here today getting ready for his last funnel hacking live ever, man. Thanks for coming on.
Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
Yeah, event number 10. Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 1 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, which is really fun. How many were at the first one?

Speaker 1 Very first one had 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.

Speaker 1 All the the big events are gonna be done and TNC got shut down which is a big one in our industry so yeah, it's gonna be next year it'll be interesting to see who tries to step in and take the void.

Speaker 1 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.
We do the same thing.

Speaker 1 It's interesting because we'll make as much or more from a virtual event where I don't have to to leave my house as we do these huge events that take us almost an entire year to plan and put together and hotels and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 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 years.
Yeah, I think there's a time and place for them.

Speaker 1 I think people got a little too gun-friendly with them.

Speaker 1 There was an event every week for like five years straight.

Speaker 1 So people got burnt out, you know, all these masterminds and everything. Yeah, for sure.
It exploded in the last, yeah, five or six years. It's been really crazy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, I think after COVID ended, people wanted to go to events, but then it just got got so i get invited to so many events it's nuts you got to pick and choose your battles yeah and they'll look similar too like when we started ours originally i felt like it was it was different it was unique and now a lot of people modeled how we've done ours now they all look very similar and it's just kind of interesting so i'm like i want to 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 you know right well you've always been good at kind of carving the path right click funnels 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 prior we were all the people who were doing funnels are all hand hand-building them at the time.

Speaker 1 And so, and it wasn't, I don't think there were a lot of people who were talking about trying to build something like that.

Speaker 1 And it was almost like everyone was racing towards building something, and then we were the ones that got it done and executed on it.

Speaker 1 And yeah, for six or seven years, we were just us before people started kind of copying us and stuff. Yeah, and now you're seeing it with the AI industry, right?

Speaker 1 People that were working on it for five years before the boom are just cashing in right now. Yeah, AI is so fast.

Speaker 1 We one of our developers who built, in the last two days, built 18 new apps for our platform just using AI. He's like, you used to have to co-cepts.
Now I just

Speaker 1 tell the prompts and then it pops it out and you can just, like you said, busting out apps so fast. Like apps that were entire brands and businesses,

Speaker 1 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 audiobooks.
I'm like...

Speaker 1 getting these health tests. I'm asking AI to improve my health.
There's so many uses. It tells you everything.
Yeah. Dude, it's insane.
Are you using it pretty frequently?

Speaker 1 We're using it for a lot of things.

Speaker 1 I also, though, like, part of me is like, I'm nervous because i really enjoy reading books and i really enjoy you know what i mean so it's like i there's like the balance between like this is going to ruin a part of my life i really enjoy versus you know even like writing like i i write books and it's a lot of work and now every night i was writing books ai and it's like god you're losing like half of the the art of writing a book is you know bleeding over it for a year.

Speaker 1 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 know for me, I would write my books.

Speaker 1 It's weird because you're so deep in the writing process for so long that like you start seeing these connections start appearing. That when I've started the book, I don't know these things.

Speaker 1 And when you're in the middle of the book, like, these things start showing up. You're like, oh, that makes sense here.

Speaker 1 And I feel like if you're not in it writing it, like, you, you lose out on like half of the half of the creativity that shows. Oh, that's a good point.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I'm a big collector. Are you really? Yeah.
Books or other stuff? Just in general. Okay.
Right now it's Funko Pops. I collect ancient coins.

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Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 That's a unique sort of collection. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Let me tell you? Yeah. So it started.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And I remember she showed me a first edition Book of Mormon, and it was like, I don't know, $80,000 on eBay.

Speaker 1 This is 20 years ago.

Speaker 1 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, and I see one for sale, and I was like, oh man, that would be cool.

Speaker 1 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 got it.

Speaker 1 And that like started it. It started like 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.

Speaker 1 like a museum or 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.

Speaker 1 And so I started looking like, well, in the business space, what are the old books? In the personal development space. And I found this piece on

Speaker 1 eBay. It was Napoleon Hill.
Before he wrote Think and Grow Rich, he wrote a book called Law of Law of Success. It was like a 16-book set.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 It's kind of like, you know, authors write a book now and they print a galley copy. They'll send to their friends and people.

Speaker 1 So he wrote a galley copy copy of lost 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 and it was on ebay for 1.5 million i was like oh that would be

Speaker 1 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 i went to buy that and the collector who had it he'd been collecting napoleon hilster 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.

Speaker 1 And that kind of like started my,

Speaker 1 the seed of my, uh, my book collecting. And, and then the last two and a half, three years, I bought about 18,000 first edition books and manuscripts and paintings from authors.

Speaker 1 Anyway, just, it's been the most fun treasure hunting thing in the world. Is it a passion thing or is it an investment or both?

Speaker 1 So it would be an investment because books actually beat the S ⁇ P like 7X or something like that. Wow.

Speaker 1 But I'm also kind of a hoarder. I don't think I like it.
So it's like, it's not actually, it's more just I'm obsessed with them. You're going to pass it down to your kids.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And what's cool is like the personal development books, a lot of them are in the public domain. So now we're republishing a lot of them.
You know, and we have a new brand.

Speaker 1 It's called Secrets of Success. And we're republishing these books.

Speaker 1 And so, I mean, that business is doing two or three million bucks a year right now, just republishing these old books that we're funding the addiction. And so that's how I'm looking at it.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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'd think it'd be like a scam or something.
I know.

Speaker 1 That's why I was like, I reached out to him. I'm like, I have to make sure this is real.
Yeah, because I'm not going to wire him a million and a half.cen. So we flew out there first to see it all.

Speaker 1 And then I was like, oh, dang, that's amazing.

Speaker 1 That must be your most expensive hobby, I'd imagine. Oh, for sure, yeah.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And when I first started collecting, these collectors are like, if you ever see one in your life, you'll count yourself lucky. I want to buy one.
Like, you'll never buy one.

Speaker 1 Anyway, there's nine copies on the planet. Most from like, there's one at Stanford, one at Harvard.
Like, they're all like in

Speaker 1 institutions.

Speaker 1 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 home. Holy crap.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 yeah, so I love it. That is nuts too.
It's really fun. You need good insurance on that.

Speaker 1 What's the most expensive book in the the world, do you know? Oh, there's some that are insane.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like you get like a Gutenberg Bible that, you know, I don't think one's sold since the 80s, but yeah, that'd be 80, 90 million. Holy

Speaker 1 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 one's off the first printing presses, you know.

Speaker 1 And yeah, there's... It's insane.
There's no top. There's old manuscripts and old Bibles and old Torahs and stuff like that.
They're just ridiculous. You could get crazy with it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you can go as deep as you want.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to make more money so I can get more

Speaker 1 books yeah it's interesting because I know you're not really like materialistic right you're not buying like cars and watches and stuff I do have a couple nice watches but yeah not too much yeah um

Speaker 1 uh yeah my wife and I are pretty humble like especially my wife she's she's very much like she's amazing she's not into all the 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 because

Speaker 1 I love I love storytelling so people can come and like I just want to like show people and tell the stories about the books and them and the authors and who they were and why they actually matter and I love that makes it really fun yeah I know you really value family I mean you live in Idaho with all your money you know you could have chosen anywhere

Speaker 1 so that shows to me you really value family yeah I love that man

Speaker 1 five kids yep five kids now and yeah it's crazy has that been the toughest balance for you with business family family yeah for sure i mean it's it's tough because when we started having kids like um consciously i was like i want to make sure that i'm a i'm a present dad like i know a lot of people who are they're dads but they're not present you know i want to figure out how i could be present and so that's been the the the balance like how do i

Speaker 1 do what we're doing in business, but also like make sure I'm there for the practices and the games and the matches and the recitals and that kind of stuff, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 1 So it's been it's been neat though. The kids are kids are awesome and it's fun because now the kids like they come to our events And so we have our big event this weekend.

Speaker 1 So 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 going to learn a lot.

Speaker 1 A lot more than public school hanging around you.

Speaker 1 You send them to public school, actually? Yeah. Oh, you do? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's funny. Yeah.
Because all their friends go there.

Speaker 1 But we've told them since the very beginning, I'm like, I don't really.

Speaker 1 You know, I'm like, school's good socially. You got to learn to read.
You got to learn to

Speaker 1 be with people and be around people. But, you know

Speaker 1 you can only control so much because i know your your sons play sports too right yeah so you kind of need to send them to school for sure yeah are they all still wrestling too uh 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 soccer season of our life right now soccer's a good one yeah 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 uh i was a big runner though though.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 You ever run distance like that before? I'm a wrestler. We just short distances.
Wrestlers.

Speaker 1 You got to run a little bit.

Speaker 1 We ran a lot, but it wasn't ever like 10 mile. Yeah, it wasn't a fast pace, but still, you got to run to stay in shape.
Yeah, running's no joke.

Speaker 1 I think that's one of the hardest sports, personally, like triathlons and stuff, the Iron Mans.

Speaker 1 Such a mental battle, I assume, right? To keep

Speaker 1 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.
He's been on the show. Has he been on your show?

Speaker 1 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 to do.
It's only downhill from there.

Speaker 1 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.
I appreciate you coming on. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What's going to be your main focus this year now that you're parting ways from events? Yeah, so we

Speaker 1 started a new virtual event this like five or six months ago. It's called Selling Online, sellingonline.com, which is a great domain.

Speaker 1 But it's teaching people how to do, because obviously in my world, I teach people how to build funnels and how to all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 1 But the piece that most people are really bad at, because the funnel stuff's easy for them to learn, like, oh, I need these different pages. But the thing they're really bad at is actually selling.

Speaker 1 And so we started teaching the Selling Online event, and we do it once a month right now. And we bring people in, and I teach them,

Speaker 1 we call it one-to-many selling.

Speaker 1 How do you sell from a platform or from your funnel or from whatever that is? And so that's really our big focus

Speaker 1 we had 3700 people a month through the event last month and we're just trying to get the spot where I want five or six thousand people every month going through that event nice because that's like the missing piece they can figure that piece out then funnels become easy traffic becomes 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 I mean she's selling from her bedroom making a million dollars like that's incredible she's gonna say 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 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 how do you speak to sell.

Speaker 1 And as soon as she figured that out, then it was just off to the races. It was fascinating to watch how fast she grew her business when she knew the structure of how to do it right.

Speaker 1 I always wonder what separates those top students from the rest. Have you figured that out yet? Because it can't just be work ethic.
Yeah, I think

Speaker 1 I thought a lot about that because

Speaker 1 with some people coming through our door every day, it's It's like, how do you like, how do, these guys are killing, these guys aren't. And

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And for some, like, those ones always struggle.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 When they're like, whoa, this is cool, like, this is how it works. And they start geeking out about that.

Speaker 1 Because there's the nuances of the thing, right? And you have to take something, but adapt it for you and for your personality and your audience and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 And the ones who love it and become obsessed with those are the ones that have the most success. And the ones that struggle are ones who are like, I'm trying to make money.
It's not working.

Speaker 1 Why is it not working? It's just like, you got to fall in love with the process. And then when you do that,

Speaker 1 for me,

Speaker 1 when I started falling in love with the marketing and with learning these things,

Speaker 1 then everything changed for me. I love that.

Speaker 1 Plus, what works in the past doesn't work in the future. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You get a pattern for what worked in the past, but then you have to figure out what are, like, I was thinking about this with the house, right?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 You understand, okay, this is awesome. This is why it works.
Here's how it works. How I can make it work for me.
Like, that's the, that's the big change. Agreed.

Speaker 1 There's also a lot of just bad coaching, I think. Yeah.
Because you go on Facebook, people are saying webinars are dead, right? I got buddies making millions a week off webinars. I know.
You know?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So there's just bad advice everywhere.
So I think filtering is important. Yeah.
Well, I think it's funny too, because I see it all the time. Like, funnels are dead.

Speaker 1 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 funny, bro. Apparently, it's dead.
Yeah, but it's still working. Or webinars.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Like, I remember 20 years ago when I first got in this game, I remember seeing people talking about email.
Like, there's a guy who had a book called The Death of Email. Email is dead.

Speaker 1 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. Yeah, okay.
Cold emails crush in for me.

Speaker 1 Oh, cold emails?

Speaker 1 cold really yeah that's interesting i get a lot of guests a lot of sponsors um 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 audience yeah well warm's even better but um yeah all of our email comes off we drive traffic get them to opt into something and then all email comes from from that okay yeah'cause you're running a ton of ads right yeah so you're just collecting emails non-stop.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I remember when SMS was going to be the next thing.
Is that still hot? Yeah, but it's different, I think. I think everyone thought it was going to be email times 100, you know?

Speaker 1 Yeah, with the open rates. But like, I noticed now with myself, like, I can get 50 emails in a day and doesn't bother me.
If I get five texts in a day, I'm like annoyed. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 And so it's weird. So I think that...

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I can be like, hey, here's a new offer, go buy the thing and people will go buy and off text, like,

Speaker 1 just the, I don't know, something different about it where at least for me, I have not noticed sales increase that much, the barriers just weak. I agree.
I don't think I've ever bought off a text.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But off of it.

Speaker 1 Even social is similar. Like

Speaker 1 if I just on a reel or something, I'm promoting something, it hardly does anything. So if I push there or I'm getting them to email somewhere else, then email, you know, goes to see.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I wonder if it's because on email, a lot of people open it on desktop. 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That's why you make ClickFunnels, so much friction everywhere.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I used to use ClickFunnels every day, man. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. So with my networking event, we started on ClickFunnels.
It was so easy compared to Eventbrite. Yeah.
Eventbrite's like kind of old school.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you used to use it, but I think we did. We connected to ClickFunnels to be able to do the event management back end, but yeah, the front end was a nightmare to make it work.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Now there's a new event app. I think, have you seen it? Luma or something? Uh-oh.
It's really good, man. Luma.
Yeah. L-U-M-A.
Phenomenal. I had never heard of it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I mean, with your events, you probably want to own all the data, so you wouldn't use something like that.

Speaker 1 Dude,

Speaker 1 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, 5 a.m. No, not normally.
Okay. Yeah, my normal, I'm usually there from like 9 to 5.

Speaker 1 Try to do that. Okay, because I saw you talking on some interview.
You were working till four to five a.m.

Speaker 1 If we're leading up to like an event like this or something crazy, there'll be some of that kind of stuff. But

Speaker 1 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, I can do business time, but I try not to bleed over that.

Speaker 1 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...

Speaker 1 Leading up to it, killing myself to get all this stuff done, you know, but after post-event, then it goes back to normal. You're doing 11 yourself? Yeah.
Holy crap.

Speaker 1 I did because I used used to go 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.

Speaker 1 And then as they got bigger, they brought in more speakers, more speakers. And eventually it was just like they each did one speech and they had all these other speakers.
And I quit going.

Speaker 1 So I launched mine. I was like, the reason why I went is I wanted to hear Ryan and Perry talk.
And I was like, if I

Speaker 1 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 do six or seven each event, but this is our last one.

Speaker 1 And so I had like, I I had more stuff I wanted to say so I just I kept putting them like oh I don't talk about this oh and this oh I gotta make sure they know this and so I was kind of like putting all the last pieces in you're doing four days that's insane it'll be a little crazy but that'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 click funnels yeah most of our other speakers are people who came into our world and so like when I create the event I try to choreograph 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.

Speaker 1 And she's got this really cool thing, I don't know if she talked about it, called Bits, where it's like how she tells her story based on like on the church she used to go to and how they do stuff.

Speaker 1 And so like, so she'll speak about like storytelling and things like that inside of it.

Speaker 1 And so it's, it's kind of fun because it's like I can introduce the concept and here's our students who are doing it in different ways and showing different insights.

Speaker 1 So people can like, they don't just see like, here's how Russell does it, but here's how other people from different angles. It's really cool.
And then it's like, wow,

Speaker 1 what's your version of that? How can you do your own thing?

Speaker 1 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 try to be like tony robbins or like me or like someone else it's like no like like figure out your version of this like here's 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 gonna make it big right you can only get to a certain level just copying what's been your biggest takeaways from tony i know you and him are very close yeah um man i've had so many cool experiences with Tony over the years.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I went to, that year went to every Tony event, you know, and he had me speak at one of them.

Speaker 1 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. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And becoming super aware of stuff, right? Like Tony's really good at helping you become very aware of the patterns that you have in your life.

Speaker 1 And most of us get in these patterns and we don't have no idea what's happening.

Speaker 1 And so for my wife and I, we go to this event and all of a sudden we start seeing the patterns that were 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 we 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 to do together and more partnerships and it's just fun to see the way his brain works because he's not like the

Speaker 1 the architect that's in there trying to do all the details. He's very much like,

Speaker 1 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 you and you and you and like 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.

Speaker 1 And then he's like, hey, I'll attach my brand to this and you guys go do the whole thing.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 and then just like he, he's putting his blessing on it. And then it, it, you know, adding the tony effect just makes things convert higher.
I love that.

Speaker 1 You know, it's really fascinating watching him move. I love that.
He went from when I first met him, he had like, I don't know, 30 companies.

Speaker 1 Now he's got like, I don't don't know, three or four hundred companies. Dude, that's insane.
All about that.

Speaker 1 Like, just really, he's so good at like finding the right people, plugging them all together.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And Tony's more like, it feels like he's just like, nope, put all the people in, get someone's really good strategy, and then you guys go figure it out. Right.

Speaker 1 And then these things blow up by the way he structures himself. I mean, people don't realize how hard that is.
Oh, yeah. There's already a 90% failure rate on one company.
He's doing 300.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's crazy. Like, when you think about that, it's almost insane.
Yeah. And you think about it, I think, again, for me, the ones that I've tried that I fail because I want to weave my own ego into.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 In fact, I remember twice my uh maybe three times wow um so i had a mentor one time uh my i i had a business that had grown it had crashed and then it grew it again that crashed and about the time i met i went to this like this mastermind thing in mexico and i was sitting next to the guy and the guy was brilliant he's he'd like done all these huge m a deals and sold business you know crazy rich kind of guy and he starts asking me my story and 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 this and he's like he's like so have you ever struggled like have you ever and so finally i was like yeah so i told him like the first time my business crashed and how it's 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 uh and first off he called it cycling instead of failing and I was like oh that feels way better

Speaker 1 but then he said he said that he's like because he's like if you haven't cycled then you still like you still

Speaker 1 believe your own bio you still drink your own kool-aid right so after you cycle once you realize it's not about you and there's all these external forces and i remember him saying i I was like oh, that's such a cool a cool reframe for me, you know?

Speaker 1 And so for me, it was like I didn't feel I cycled and I learned a bunch of stuff and I'm coming back.

Speaker 1 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. But

Speaker 1 and usually it feels like all of them are tied to like my ego eventually though where it's like I get blindsided by something. So I'm like, oh, like I figured this stuff out.
And then

Speaker 1 you get humbled. Same with me, man.
I've had two cycles. I'm only 27.

Speaker 1 And I could have listened to my fiancé on both of them because she she was right you're like no it's crazy how intuitive women are yeah you know I'm sure your wife for sure has told you not to work with certain people and that doesn't feel right like what are you talking about yeah yeah the numbers look good this stuff what are you talking about and uh no sure good woman by your side is game changer oh yeah I see my uh 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've been dating 20 years nowadays it's way different when I was dating when I was dating back in the day it was way different nowadays there's so many yeah all the apps and the things and I can't imagine oh yeah yeah, it's a lot easier now, but that also makes it harder in a way.

Speaker 1 For sure. You know? Because it's too easy.
These girls have so much access. It's like tough being a guy right now.

Speaker 1 You know? Did you meet her in Idaho? Yeah. Wife? Yeah, I met her in college.
I met her at church when I was going to college.

Speaker 1 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 awesome.
She believed in me. She also was like,

Speaker 1 Because, you know, starting a business, there's so much risk involved. Yeah.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And people get mad at me sometimes for saying that, because like, what do you mean? Like, they're not in charge of you.

Speaker 1 Like, I know, but there's, there's, like, there were, there were risks that I had to take. And I was like, hey, Colette,

Speaker 1 I think we need to take this risk. And she could have easily been scared.
Or like, no, and my wife's, my wife's very fear-prone too. Like, she gets very scared.

Speaker 1 But she would just be like, do you, like, do you feel good? Like, is it 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.

Speaker 1 And if it failed, it was never like, you know, like,

Speaker 1 you know, with your intimate partner like that that person can build you up they can destroy you like they know your insecurities more than anyone you know

Speaker 1 and she was just so great at never doing that and just being like okay well what's the next thing what are you gonna try next like like you can figure this out i'm like okay like giving me that that stuff you know um

Speaker 1 and so yeah it's important to pick the right person who's gonna be around because you know especially building a business there's so much risk and so much ups and downs emotionally mentally physically that to create something new yeah um in the face of like all the opposition that comes like you have the the right person next to you can make it so much easier game changer i love that though because 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 you know like this is gonna be a good story yeah now it's like okay what can i learn from this like this is gonna make me even better yeah but when i was younger man i was scared of it yeah so you're so spot on with that yeah 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,

Speaker 1 I've seen this a lot with my students too, is like

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But then a lot of them, their biggest fear is like,

Speaker 1 and because that 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?

Speaker 1 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, the most fascinating thing.

Speaker 1 So with my students, I've worked a 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

Speaker 1 uh in fact i the story i always tell my um

Speaker 1 that i always talk about during our events like my junior year in 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 whatever i knew i was gonna be a state champ you know and then my very first match of the season I go out there to wrestle and I'm wrestling with a guy who had taken second state second place to 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 apparently not you know and then all my teammates are just like I thought you were going to be a state champ.

Speaker 1 I'm like, I know. And then everyone I knew at school was like, you know, just like, it was so much pain and embarrassing.
And then I learned like the greatest lesson from my dad.

Speaker 1 My dad, he had filmed the match. I remember that night we went home and he didn't sleep the whole night.

Speaker 1 He watched that six-minute match probably a hundred times that night and like looking at a diagram and figuring things out.

Speaker 1 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 is what the kid did.

Speaker 1 And he started breaking down like how I lost. And we started looking at it.
And we drilled. And like, I remember that day before school.

Speaker 1 school I was kind of annoyed but we drilled you know all the things to get in the right positions and the next day I went to wrestling practice and then as soon as practice got done my dad like 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 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 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 me 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 the state champion wow and it was the coolest thing because I learned that like 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 you just keep tweaking and changing tweaking and changing and so for me when I got into business it was the same thing we launch a funnel or launch a product or launch something and if it failed

Speaker 1 Again, that's most like oh, I'm a failure or too scared to launch because of failure.

Speaker 1 For me, it's like when we create something out, we create it and we launch as fast as we can because I'm just just trying to get the data, okay, launch it real quick.

Speaker 1 And so like anytime 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.

Speaker 1 I'm like, okay, cool. That looks great.
The conversion is too low here, too high. We look at the things, they're like, rewrite this, tweak this, change, drive some more ads.

Speaker 1 We keep doing that three or four times, and 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.

Speaker 1 I'm like, no, it's because we've... we fail 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

Speaker 1 your dad was like your first mentor that's cool man it was cool to watch that because again my default is I wanted to be bummed out and sad and miserable which is most of us do if we fail you know right I just learned from him it was just like no it's just now we know where you're at 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

Speaker 1 that would have happened to you right and they would have folded yeah right they would have shut down the rest of the season and they would have lost who knows how many matches but you you took the opposite route and you ended up wrestling at a higher level after that right yeah it was in high school and then wrestling college.

Speaker 1 Did you want to go pro or did you want to stop in college?

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 in college, I never placed the NCAs. I was ranked in top 10 and then I got done with that and I took a couple years off and then I actually

Speaker 1 I wanted to wrestle in 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 Olympics and moved them all to Boise.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So I had a desire to go, but I never got to that level where I could have actually,

Speaker 1 I think if I could have kept training for a couple years, we would have, for the next Olympic cycle, maybe had a chance, but it fell apart before I was able to go that way.

Speaker 1 Who do you think the greatest wrestler of all time is? Jordan Burroughs. Oh, that was a fast answer.
He spoke at our last Funnel Hacking Live. It was the coolest thing in the world.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 He was the most decorated American wrestler of all time. And Jordan had six.
And the two weeks before our event, he won it and won the seventh.

Speaker 1 And he came to our event with the medal and showed everyone. And it was pretty cool.
Wow. I've seen his videos, actually.
Is he still the champ?

Speaker 1 He didn't qualify for Olympics this last round.

Speaker 1 Oh, I saw that. He barely lost to someone, right? Yeah.
So we're not sure if he's going to try to go one more cycle or if he's done. I don't think he's announced it yet.
I love the Olympics.

Speaker 1 I can't wait till they're in L.A., man.

Speaker 1 Is that the next next cycle, right? Yeah, 28. Yeah.
U.S. wins every time, baby.

Speaker 1 It's funny. We got like the best athletes, the best minds.
We also got the worst. Yeah.
You know? We also got a lot of unhealthy people. Yeah.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Oh, sure. You mentioned fear earlier, a fear filler.
Do you have any fears right now? Anything you're fearful of?

Speaker 1 My biggest fears now are just my kids, like making, like helping them make good decisions.

Speaker 1 My twins are 19 and one, you know, they're both moved out. They're kind of doing their own thing.

Speaker 1 And like, it's, that's been the biggest fears because when they're your kids in your house, like, not that you have control, but at least you have more influence and when they're out.

Speaker 1 And so you're able to see stuff. And you still have a 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...

Speaker 1 I'm kind of, you know, whatever happens or doesn't happen, I'm fine with it. But like, now it's just with my kids, that's my biggest fear.

Speaker 1 Just like, man, I want them to make good decisions and have a good life and not not

Speaker 1 make decisions that are

Speaker 1 that are hard to turn back. You know what I mean? Right.
I think we'd all just make failures and screw up, but there's some, you know, there's decisions you can make that

Speaker 1 are hard to come back from. And it's like, how do you guide them and protect them and all those kind of things when they're not in your house?

Speaker 1 Yeah. You sent them off to college?

Speaker 1 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 and but they're two different directions.

Speaker 1 like both of them have chosen way different paths in life and so it's just also interesting to watch that and

Speaker 1 and to be their biggest fan and to cheer them on but also like their parent who you're scared to death for them you know it's it's it's been weird mentally for my wife and i just kind of learned how to deal with that over the last year it's been different i mean that's why uh there's a term called helicopter parent have you heard of it

Speaker 1 sounds like you're borderline we want

Speaker 1 to come on like come back it's a good thing i think i think uh 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 see that with sports with their kids.

Speaker 1 They live through their kids in sports, and then they lose them.

Speaker 1 I had some really good friends that way who were great athletes,

Speaker 1 but their parents were so on top of them that when they went away, they rebelled and disappeared. Right.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Damn.

Speaker 1 His parents had pushed him, and he was amazing. But just when he finally was out under the finger of his parents, he just couldn't handle it.

Speaker 1 And it's like, yeah, they're wrestling 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I think it's also 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.

Speaker 1 Versus if it's like, I want to do this, then it's the, then I love the pressure. This event's crazy.
Like, we have 5,000 people. We got all this stuff happening.

Speaker 1 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 I love that kind of pressure.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Have you always had high pressure on yourself? Yeah. Ever since you were a kid?

Speaker 1 Ever since I started competing as an athlete. Yeah.
I just function a lot better under that. Like I struggle as a student where someone would give you a homework assignment.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So 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.

Speaker 1 And I think it's like, I had a kind of ADHD brain. so I think

Speaker 1 what I've discovered with that is like the more inputs that are happening 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 yeah I had this really weird I was at some event I sat next to this guy who was like he was the number one ADH doctor in the world oh is that Daniel Amon it wasn't Eamon it was I can't remember the guy's name ADHD anyway but we're talking and he and

Speaker 1 we were talking about stuff and he told me he's like with someone who's ADHD he's like he's like the more inputs the better and it was fascinating because like when I read my books if I sit to the computer, try to write, it's a nightmare.

Speaker 1 It's like my brain's just like, whoa. So right now when I write, I have a treadmill desk.
So I get a treadmill.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I'm actually the same way now that you said it like that. Isn't it interesting? When I'm watching a podcast, it has to be on 2x speed.
I got to be like working while I'm doing it or driving.

Speaker 1 That's why, I don't know if you were the same way as a student. They said if you're a student and like you fidget a lot, that's why.

Speaker 1 Because you're like, my hand's got to be do something if I'm going to pay attention to the teacher because it's like, I can't. Non-stop.
My leg would twitch. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I actually just got a scan at Amon Clinics. Oh, is that cool? I wanted that so bad.
You've got to do it.

Speaker 1 I'll connect you. Yeah.
They'll hook you up. And I found out I have ADHD.
Very cool. So that's very cool.
Well, that's like entrepreneurial. That's amazing.
You have a superpower. It is a skill.

Speaker 1 We think about like, it's like, I don't know if you watch the X-Men, but the X-Men is like these people have these insane powers.

Speaker 1 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, it's like, it's the superpower.

Speaker 1 Yes, it can go, it can do really bad things, but like society, like kids are in school of ADHD and the parents are in teachers, like give them drugs so they'll calm.

Speaker 1 And it's like, you're like burying their superpower. These guys are super, like, they're superheroes, and you're taking that away, right? Yep.
They tried putting me on drugs in elementary school.

Speaker 1 Isn't that terrible? Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, that is awful.
I think almost, almost, not all, but most of the hyper-successful people I know. right now have ADHD.

Speaker 1 Like it's just, it's like a common thread amongst hyper-successful people.

Speaker 1 And the normal people want to like suppress that, right and it's like interesting 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

Speaker 1 that's interesting because you just like 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.

Speaker 1 No, it is interesting, man. But now you can sort of channel it, I feel like, autism and ADHD.

Speaker 1 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, yeah, for me, it's like, I struggled in school.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 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...

Speaker 1 Everything I'm used to doing, this is the opposite.

Speaker 1 My brain can't function this way.

Speaker 1 It was too slow for me.

Speaker 1 It just felt so like I would go crazy in class yeah 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 gay for bored

Speaker 1 yeah but like yeah i got terrible grades too yeah and i felt i tied my identity to that when i was younger i was i always thought i was dumb yeah same way same i thought i was so stupid i even got voted like most likely to fail

Speaker 1 yeah that was one of the things people

Speaker 1 yeah like thanks teachers that's the worst yeah i got life of the party most likely to fail you know 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 was saying 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 rough I saw your thing that's so brilliant and it was the first time anyone had ever not told me I was dumb and I was like whoa I'm am I smart and then I kept doing some stuff and then and then yeah people were like that was really cool the way you the way you said that and again I started getting this input I'm like I'm not dumb yeah this is great news like I'm just different Okay, I'm not dumb.

Speaker 1 So my identity, I was able to break it from being a dumb kid to this. And like, yeah, it's weird.

Speaker 1 You said that you attached your identity to. 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.

Speaker 1 So like 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.

Speaker 1 So that sucked. And then Asians like to compare.
So like my Asian parents would compare with other Asian parents. So I just felt dumb because of grades.

Speaker 1 But then getting into business, making some money, that can kind of change your mindset a little bit, I feel like. If you give you that confidence that I didn't have.

Speaker 1 And then, yeah, 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.

Speaker 1 That's crazy. Yeah, I blended more in with the athletes.

Speaker 1 So it was interesting, man. I remember the first time

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And then I remember fast forward, like three or four years later, he came and applied for a job for me. And I was like, hire him.
Like, for what? I'm like, I don't care.

Speaker 1 I just want to be able to tell everybody that that guy now works for me.

Speaker 1 And so he worked for me for like three or four months and it didn't work out. But I was just like, specifically, I just wanted to be able to

Speaker 1 tell my mom, like, hey, this kid was like the honor or the valedictorian, and he works for me now.

Speaker 1 Did you get bullied a lot?

Speaker 1 Not, 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 like, I wasn't socially, I was not the life of the party.

Speaker 1 I was the awkward kid who was wrestling or even wrestling trips. I go on these, like, when I was was at Boise State, we go on these like 18 hour bus rides to Portland to go wrestle or whatever.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And I remember I would go and, this is before, anyway, before podcasts and stuff, but I would go and there was a couple guys like Armin Morn and a couple guys who were out teaching marketing stuff.

Speaker 1 So I would, they'd do tele seminars. So I'd download a teleseminar, burn them on CDs.
And so I'd take this big old stack of CDs on these long road trips. I just listen to these CDs of these guys

Speaker 1 talking. So I remember one of my teammates later came up to me.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 He was like, it was so weird. So that was kind of mine.

Speaker 1 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 that people are like, all right, whatever. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And now those kids are like running the country. Like all the people I used to get made fun of or thought you were different.
Yeah. You know, because we're breaking the mold.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's funny, though, man I'd love to see that I'd love to see your brain scan too

Speaker 1 I want to see like I heard about aiming a while ago and I always wanted to go and just haven't had a chance to to do it I wouldn't be surprised if you had ADHD yeah I think one recognizes one yeah

Speaker 1 we feel the same yeah that's so cool

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 And you said, you wish you would have built a team earlier.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 I had this weird epiphany that 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?

Speaker 1 Like I think about like, I'm Michael Jordan in my sport, right? Like I'm the best. I can do everything.
And you have to learn how to do all this stuff, right?

Speaker 1 Like I had to learn how to write copy and drive traffic and build pages.

Speaker 1 So you become an all-star, you can do everything.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And then for me, it was like, I'd like to steal the ball from and dunk on it, you know, dunk anyway. Cause like, it's like, well, they're doing it, but I can do it better, right?

Speaker 1 You know, and I like, I would build a team, but I wasn't like empowering them, but 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.

Speaker 1 And if I become a coach and I can like build an all-star team, that's the transition point. And as we started doing that, it was crazy.

Speaker 1 In fact, my business partner now, Todd Dickerson, he's the one who built ClickFunnels, the first version by himself. And I remember we had this conversation.
He read an article or something.

Speaker 1 It said that the difference between an A player and a B player, like an A player can get like 3,200 times more done than a B player, something crazy like that.

Speaker 1 And he's just 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?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And when I was able to put my ego again, here comes the ego, put the ego down to like, okay, my job is not so much just to steal the ball from and try dunk.

Speaker 1 It's like, okay, how do I try to, 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 eight players in each of their individual divisions and like we started doing more of that um that's when yeah things started blossoming growing at a rate 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 costs yeah it's backward yeah it's it's weird because yeah you always try to get like well who's the cheapest person it's like well who's the most expensive you can do the work of 10 people right like you know and i see all the time with like developers where it's just like it's funny you get like like the college graduated developers who, you know, have all the degrees and stuff,

Speaker 1 but they're very structured in their thinking because they went through school.

Speaker 1 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, he just laps these guys.

Speaker 1 That one dude, because he's so passionate, his whole life's been geeky out on coding and stuff.

Speaker 1 Like, he can beat all these MBAs or not IBA, whatever the equivalent of, you know, developers, but it's just, it's just fascinating like that.

Speaker 1 So it's like, man, how do you find the person who's like the most obsessed with the thing and like 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 um people ask me like 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 um i think about this a lot because i don't think

Speaker 1 i don't think you can teach desire i i think I think desire comes from God. Like we get planted, like we have desires for things.

Speaker 1 So I think if someone does not have the desire to do something, it's almost impossible impossible to get them to have desire.

Speaker 1 I don't know how to do that. I've tried with my kids.
If there's something they don't want, I cannot get them to desire. But if someone's got a little bit of desire, I think

Speaker 1 you can fan that flame and you can help grow it. And so

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Initially, mine came from like getting bullied, I think, proving people wrong. But then when that happened, I had to find a new desire.

Speaker 1 Has that happened to you where you've had to shift kind of like your fuel? 100%. Yeah.
First for me, it was the same thing that I want to figure out make money and show everyone that I figured it out.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And you get this like emptiness and like, huh. And then for me, it was interesting because like the next phase was I started seeing the people we were helping and seeing them have success.

Speaker 1 And then I was like, oh, that feels better. In fact, I remember this because for me, my favorite feeling of all time is like, I went to a wrestling match, I got my hand raised.

Speaker 1 Like that was the greatest feeling of all time. And I never thought it would get better than that.
And then my son started wrestling, my sons, and one of them, one of my sons, he was really bad.

Speaker 1 This first season, he didn't win a single match the entire season. And every time he got the mat, just crying, it was so hard.
And we worked, like, me and him worked so hard.

Speaker 1 And anyway, the very last match of his season,

Speaker 1 he beat the kid. He won his first match, and he gets off the thing and he's jumping around.
He comes over, and the ref raises his hand. He had the biggest smile on his face.

Speaker 1 And I was like, that feels better than when I won. Wow.
And I feel like the same thing with my students. Like, first, like, I was having success make, I'm like, this is amazing.
This feels so good.

Speaker 1 But the first time someone else did and they had success, I was like, whoa, that feels way better. Like, helping them actually feels better.
And then that became the next obsession for me.

Speaker 1 And then that's, that's when I think it changes. I love that.
I don't know. No, I could see that too.
Like, even just like when I give homeless people food, it feels like amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, better than anything I do for myself. Yeah.
It's such a indescribable feeling, right? Like, the value that you get out of that is insane. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 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. Yeah.
And I wish more people thought like that.

Speaker 1 A lot of people are innately selfish. I think in order to survive, it's like a prehistoric mindset.

Speaker 1 So I could see why.

Speaker 1 I mean, I was pretty selfie growing up. Yeah.
What was the shift for you?

Speaker 1 I think having resources helped.

Speaker 1 But even if you don't have resources, I think you could still be pretty giving with time and other things. Yeah.
But I think death, honestly, had some close ones pass away and realize

Speaker 1 you never know when it's going to be over. Yeah.
Let me start doing some positive stuff. Yeah.
You know, with the time you got, yeah. It's interesting.
Yeah. Well, Russell, it's been awesome.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 Man, I think if

Speaker 1 basically I 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.

Speaker 1 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 that, glad to grateful for you allowed me to be here.

Speaker 1 And finally, we've been talking to this for a couple years, I feel like. Yeah, we finally had a chance to make it all work.
You were on my Dream 100 list, man. Oh, yeah,

Speaker 1 let's go! That's amazing! Yeah, I'll link your stuff below. Thanks for watching, guys.
I'll see you next time.