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

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Atlassian. What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson.
Welcome back to Marketing Secrets Podcast. I hope you guys enjoyed part one last week of the Atlas Shrugged series with the interview between me and Josh Forty.
I wanted to post part two. A lot of you guys have been messaging, asking, waiting for the exciting conclusion.
And so, or not conclusion, just part two. So with that said, I'm gonna jump right into this episode.
This is the second hour of my interview with Josh Forty going deep into Atlas Shrugged. If you missed the first episode, make sure you go back one or two podcast episodes ago, watch episode number one or listen to episode number one, and then come back and listen to episode number two.
And I hope you guys enjoy this episode. In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over a billion dollars in my own products and services online.
This show is going to show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast.
Because like what I'm trying to figure out, this is, you know, it's an open discussion here. So like I am a pretty motivated, driven person, right? Like I would never have described what I was doing as greedy, right? Because you thought that when you were an athlete or that when you're yeah no but but what is it well yeah and that's why i asked you the question because i i don't know the answer for myself like i felt the same way because i i never liked it it was until i was reading the book it said it started the utopia of greed yeah yeah and also i started thinking i'm like all these things we're doing like we call them growth we call them whatever which is awesome but it is it's a greedy time in your life right like yeah um what are the definition the actual definition of greed is yeah i'm gonna look this up let's see definition of greed it has a definite negative connotation in our world today intense and selfish desire for something especially money power or food food well there you go all right money money power or food for me thinking about think about the lens of wrestling when i was wrestling i had a selfish desire for i wanted to be a state champ and i want to be an all-american i want to be a national why because that was i wanted my hand raised like that was all i thought about so i drenched about like i couldn't like i'm a very obsessive person that's why i don't gamble because i was like i put a quarter and i win i'm broke doesn't matter gone right and i know that about myself so like when i started wrestling and i got my hand raised the first time i was like that feels good i want to feel that every day for the rest of my life and i just went blinders on and that's all i did that was my i you know and i was like and again i would have thought it was as greedy but by definitions like similar folks on these things like about yourself right now i'm in the phase of my life where i'm coaching wrestling coaching my kids and stuff like that and it's like it's different because now like there's nothing in it for you right so for seeing their hand raise and that light in their eyes go off and it's just like oh like that felt way better than than my own but you don't know that till you're yeah in that phase did having kids change that for you at all like that did it help solidify or give you a different perspective on that shift from greedy to i think maybe not so much solidify as much like i'm experiencing now in multiple parts of my life not just not just the business part right um a lot of part you think about like our success stories and our business are our children right the children of click funnels or whatever you want to say you know they're the people that have come off it so it's like i think i'm experiencing now uh with them and it's it's been interesting and fun and yeah how long did you finish the book uh i think about two months oh wow you read way faster i was like dude well okay so it's one of those things it's funny because my mom's like have you even read the book i'm like what do you mean you like you made me read it in like in high school like what and i i went back and i was like oh i didn't actually read like i knew the book and so.
And then I realized it was 1200 pages. And I was like, Oh, I don't think I've, I don't remember reading a 1200 page book.
Like I feel like I would remember that. So I don't know if I'm going to go read it right now.
Cause Russell's going to be talking. And that was exactly what happened.
So it was like, Oh, I'm going to like, we want to do this. Cool.
And like, I, like I could have sat down and had the conversation without reading the book. Like, you know what I mean? Like, because I knew the, like I knew the concept of the premise.
And so then I went through it and was like every night, two to a half feet, I couldn't sleep. I'd get up and like, Oh man, it's three o'clock in the morning, close the book, you know, i mean like because i knew the like i knew the concept of the premise and so then i went through it and was like every night two to a half speed i couldn't sleep i'd get up and like oh man it's three o'clock in the morning close the book you know go back back in there so i want to kind of interject because somebody started on that i want to make some real myths because i think it was you started reading really good there's something when i wrap it because it's like it's an open loop in my head now okay okay you start talking about how you agree on the left side of social helping people but not the the way that they do it.
Is that how you say it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so.
I agree with what they want to do. I don't agree with how they want to do it.
Okay, so this is something that was powerful. So after I read the book, I was geeking out.
And I'm like, who is this Ayn Rand? I want to see. So I started searching her.
And I found an interview she did on Donahue in 1980, like three months after her husband passed away. And it was fascinating to interview.
And if you guys know is um she's atheist does not believe in a god all these things like that right so she even like made a statement about how like part of the reason that she wrote the book was to like to prove that religion was fake and like to like destroy all belief in any form so once again this is not the bible for me this is just like a simulating book that just got my mind spinning but one thing she said during the interview that was like so cool because he was like so based on this you believe that we should all be producers and greedy and keeping all our money and we should never we shouldn't help anybody and she's like no no that's not what i said she's like i never said that so what i did say is that it should not be the government coming to you with their guns saying give me your 50 of your taxes your taxes. Like that's the, that's what's messed up.
Right. You think about this, like if you give a gift, like if someone comes to you and gives you a gun, like, Hey, give your, give your, uh, your friend a gift.
Like, are you actually giving them a gift? No, you're not. And that's like, if you don't pay the taxes, they put you in jail.
Like that's the thing. She said, should people should go and support people on their own.
Right. This is, this comes back to, this is the whole thing I talked about thing I talked about before.
Like the natural man's enemy to God has been, you know, less yields than enticing the Holy Spirit. So us yielding and saying, hey, I have all this money.
I should go help other people with this. That's God saying, you should not be greedy.
Use what you've been blessed with and help other people's lives, right? Them coming you with a gun saying, pay your taxes as you go to jail is not you giving a gift. Like it giving a gift like it's them taking it from you giving away so like you're not a better person because you did it right so um and then we can get into the whole depth of like this is the government now who's the the worst run organization in the history of all time which only ran on that but that's like do you want to trust them with the money right and so i just want to share a practical example so because people like well you wouldn't give money if you didn't you know whatever and i'm like right now i'm taxed more than 50 so more than half my income goes to uncle sam right he's doing whatever the crap they do you just need some casual tactics yeah shameless plug yeah anyway i have no tax i don't do my tax but you know that's the tax bracket so um um but then you look at, like when you yield enticing Holy Spirit.
So there was a time when my friend Steve McLaren is like, hey, we're building schools in Kenya and this is a mission and we believe in it. Will you help, right? It wasn't greedy rustling.
I'm going to help and this is going to be awesome. Yeah.
I felt something. I was like, oh my gosh, that is a great cause.
Yeah. Here, let me, how can I support you? Right.
In that process, you can see here's pictures of Stu and Amy in Kenya. We've been to Kenya four times now.
We've donated money. We built schools.
Like that is a gift versus like give us money so we can go do something with it. Right.
And then a couple of years later, I heard about Operation Underground Railroad and I was like, oh my gosh, I felt the spirit saying, this is a good cause. You should serve.
You should do should do this thing right and i put time and energy and money into this thing we raised multiple millions of dollars now to save children from sex slavery right and not everyone is willing to do that right like again there's a second people that will it comes back to your like natural man's enemy god will be fallen out and will be forever forever like a lot of people never get off the green boat but most people as you start making more and more money you money, you look at anybody, look at Bill Gates, look at Elon Musk, anyone's making a bunch of money. What do they do with their money? Eventually they start giving to charities, start helping people like all these things, because there's that transition point where, where you feel that you hear the voice, you hear God, whatever you want to call it.
It's like, like you should be serving more. And I think I know that if my tax went from 50% to 20% to 10% or whatever that thing was, I would and could give so much more and everybody could.
Right now it's half the money goes to organizations that what's happening with the money. Do we know? Do we see any ledger of what's happening? No, it's insane.
Even, uh, Bill Mayer, who do you know, Bill Mayer? I know who he is. Okay.
I mean like stupid, I mean like super left, right? I mean like definitely would not align with our political views or your political views my political views but even him is like i have no idea what my tax dollars are going to i have no idea where my millions of dollars that i pay in every area that's scary that crazy as well like only the government it's crazy okay and then they look like sorry this is a plug for oh you aren't tim ballard like tim ballard i know does not take a salary his payment for being ceo of operation on ground road and risking his life day in day out is zero dollars they pay him he funds it himself like all of the money he makes is from his books his speaking other things he does externally to pay for himself because he doesn't want to take money from the organization saving kids where can you say that about any of the governor like no it's insane it's anyway but yeah so for me it's like somebody's gonna mention that trump takes zero dollar salary in there That's not what we're talking about. But for me, it's like that's my big thing is just like understanding that I think there's this blend of left and right.
There's like if we're not producing, like the fact that I'm going to wake up every morning and kill myself even though I have more money than I'm ever going to need has – now we have 400-plus people who have full-time jobs here at ClickFunnels. There's a hundred and what's the number? 144,000 people have active ClickFunnels accounts.
Each of those people, if they had one employee, it's 144,000 jobs, right? They have two to three. I mean, it's, you're looking at, it's probably half a million to a million jobs have been created because of ClickFunnels because we get up every day and we're, you know, we, we're chasing things.
We're producing, producing, producing, right? And it's like, if you take away the incentives of incentives of that like i'd have to have half my staff and we have which then things and everything starts disappearing really quickly where it's like they took that away it's like now we can go and how much more good can we do and we did the our uh we talked about our show the documentary for knocking live and since then i don't know four or five dozen people who were in our community show though you're documenting at their events and made money it's like this ripple ripple effect keeps growing, growing, growing versus the other side where it's just shrinks. And okay.
So I want to get non-specifically political here though, for a second with, with kind of with this. And I want to say play the devil's advocate.
I just want to understand like your thoughts on this. So the argument on the other side, if you will, right.
The, the people that are more traditionally like higher tax bracket, like, you know, you should be taxed even higher, right? Like we want to take more of your money away because it's this basically the thought process is like, listen, you have donated your money to Kenya and to operation underground railroad and like things like that. But get like, guess what? There's probably like people here in your own community, like in Boise, like for example, right.
Or like, or wherever these entrepreneurs are. You have millions and millions of dollars.
There's people that are homeless. There's people that can't afford medical payments.
So there's people that genuinely need help. And so the argument is, okay, yeah, you've given some, but you have so much of it.
You could do that and be taxed higher. We could take even more of your money and your life wouldn't change it at all.
And we're also like, I'm talking about your business money.

We're only talking about profit.

Like we're only going to take like that part of it away.

And so like the argument on the other side is, is if collectively, and I'm just going

to make up a number here, let's just say there's like 10,000 entrepreneurs like you in America

that have millions of dollars or billions of dollars.

I know you don't have billions, but like billions of dollars, we could like take all

that money and hypothetically we could solve a lot of these issues, right? We could talk tax the top 10 richest people are like, whatever. Why doesn't that work? Like, or, or a, I guess it's a two part question.
A, are you, are you a, a, why doesn't that work? And B, what is your solution for that? If any, like, what's your perspective? Like your view, like how that would help. Yeah.
Well, I think, or can you not help everybody? Oh, this is the fun part of politics, right? Cause it's tough. And I, and I'll preface this before we dive into the actual question, but like it's tough because there's good on both sides and there's bad on both sides.
Like that's the hardest thing. Right.
And, and so that's, that's the hard thing is, is you argue both ways, but, um, you know, it's, it's me as supposed to say me as entrepreneurs, I only know experiences in my own self. Right.
Right. I don't have to pay taxes every single year.
I know how much goes away. I know how much I make.
And it's tough because like, um, the more, like the, the less you make for the more you work, the less incentivize you are to keep working. Right.
Like my take home was a hundred grand a year. I'd be like, well, why am I killing myself? Right.
Like I could, I could work three hours a day and make that. So why would I keep doing this stuff? Right.
Like if there's no, if there's no reward, then that's, it's hard, right. It's like, what's the purpose of doing any of this stuff? Right.
And it'd be really easy to then shrink back and company shrinks, employees shrink, everything shrinks because there's no incentive for us to risk everything. Right.
I guess it's a, it's a risk reward thing. So that's a big part of it.
Like, how do you solve it? I don't know. I don't think the solution is the government coming with a gun and saying, give us half your money so we can go solve this problem.
I think it's like, man, what, what are the things that you're interested in saving? What are the things that touches your heart? What are the things that you're inspired to actually help? I mean, it's Kenya for me. It's this for me.
It's there's other things that we give money to that I don't talk about publicly. Um, but there's things that like, like, what are the things I care about? Like, let me focus there because everyone's got different, different agendas, right? Like I had, um, uh, Matt Maddox, someone who I, you know, Caleb Maddox, his father, he's super awesome guy.
He came to me and he's like, Hey, my mission is to, uh, save these kids off the streets and this stuff, you know, all these kinds of things. I think that's amazing.
Like, can you help me? not my calling my calling of these things here that's your calling dude i respect it i support it like i'll help you with money or whatever i can do to help but that's your calling like god gave you that like that was the thing that you were given yeah that's the mantle you're in charge of and everyone's got a different mantle so like your calling is to be different than mine like like people come all the time like oh like that charity's cool but i would support this like good i don't care who you support right Everyone's got different callings and they're all good. So I think we should be able to say like what's the thing that speaks to our heart and thing that we're passionate about.
And that's what we should focus our time and our energy and our money on. Not, again, don't come with a gun saying give me a 50% because I think it should go over here.
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LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. That's so, but what about the people though that like, let's pretend.
And I have guys, I love Elon Musk. I'm going to use him purely as an example.
Clearly I have no idea what he does with his money, but let's pretend, right? So Elon Musk makes all his money. Like what if he wasn't charitable? Like should the government or anybody be able to come in and be like, yo, you have so much money, right? Or Zuckerberg, right? You have so much money, right? Like we're going to, you got, I don't know, he's worth $90 billion.
Let's say he has $3 billion in liquid cash. I'm just hypotheticals here, right? Like you got $3 billion, like literally sitting here.
We're going to take that away. And we're going to give you, like you can have 500 million of it, but we but we're gonna take 2.5 billion i can give it to people that actually need it like do you think that there needs to be some um overriding law or powers on this like yo you can't just hoard you gotta like you gotta if you have more than enough like you gotta go and give it back or do you think that's a personal choice i think it's a personal choice um because think about how many how many jobs has he created like he's giving that stuff and this is the reward for the that's the risk and reward side of things right and like his three billion let's say like what's his next thing like he's not just going to sit on it like that's stupid for him for anybody right it's like he's going to go invest the next thing he's going to create more jobs to do more things so they stimulate the economy in different Right? Like he's going to go and start PayPal and they just start Tesla.
They start sending rocket ships to the space. Like, you know, like a producer is going to produce because they want to produce like it's the art for them.
Right. It's like, let them create art.
Cause the byproduct of art is jobs. It is simulation economy, all those things happening.
And so it's like, for me, like building funnels is my art. I couldn't care less about the revenue that comes from it.
Like, but I need the revenue to be able to hire the teams and the people and the things we need to be able to continue to art, to pay Zuckerberg, to show my ads on the thing. You're like, all these things are part of it.
And so I think, yeah, he's sitting on three billion inches sitting there. But producers don't typically do that.
They're reinvesting. They're doing stuff with it.
So it's more. I want you to come up with a story on the spot.
Go. you're pretty good at but like i want you to talk about that producers produce like i think that might be one of the actually i'm curious to know like i feel like that is one of the most misunderstood thing about the ultra wealthy the people that are like actually not like okay i inherited 200 million dollars because i'm a trustman baby right like but like the actual the elon musk of the world the jeff bezos of the world the russell brunson's of the world like what ultimately drives you to go keep doing more like you have all of the money and i and like and i know like i know we talked about like the the like you want to contribute back for but like there's a million different ways you different ways you can contribute.
Like, why do you do the things that you do? And because I like, I feel like one of the misunderstood things is, and this is something that I don't know how to explain it to people that don't know. I told, I told my fiance, I was like, you gotta, you should like listen to Russell because I'm like, I, he thinks like, I think like that, right? Like, you know what I mean? I'm like, you can't, if you don't understand me, like maybe you could like see it from somebody else and like, know that I'm like, I'm not, I'm not weird.
I mean, I am, but like, there's other people like me, you know what I mean? Like they think like this, but it's like, how would you explain to somebody that like, like Elon Musk is going to do what Elon Musk does, right? He's Elon Musk, right? Like Zuckerberg, like, like these guys, right? Like whoever, Russell Brunson, like, you're going to do what you do because that's who you are. Like you build things and the result of, or like, because you need to build things, like you need resources.
And so you're like, man, if I want to go build this thing over here, I need a hundred million dollars. I need $10 million.
I'm just going to go make that money. I'm going to go do it here.
And like, you're basically just like organizing things, right? You're either creating or you're organizing. Like,'re organizing like how does that mentality work like i don't think the average person understands that i think that's one of the big misconceptions of because this goes back to the greed thing and the reason i really don't like the word greed is because like there is so much misconception about it although i will say the definition says that it's probably that but it's like it is a negative word the connotation is super negative but it's like you don't exclusively do it because you're greedy.
It's like you do it because you don't know how to do anything else. Like you know what I mean? Yeah.
It's creation. I'm sorry.
Sorry. Alex Jarvan.
We can't turn it off and we don't understand why anybody would watch it. Like that.
Like that. That's the thing.
We think about it. It's creation.
Like why was man put on his earth? Like were we put on earth to like wake up, watch go back to bed like no like we have creative powers in our bias how husband and wife get together we have children like we create like like that's the that's the mission on earth like we're always creating right and it's like um you know like any of us like when you get married it's like we need to create something we need a house where we're going to live at you need to create things to be able to get a job to be able to organize matter to be able to make oh we have a house that we can move into and and it's just like that's the thing i think that so many people though um i think they become um i think the word that garrett white uses he uses the best um sedated where like there's pain and so because the pain they're sedated so they just sit in this this moment of they don't want the pain, right? It's because the pressure was too heavy for them at one point. It hurts so bad that they say, I have to stop, right? Versus what I talked about, like, over the last six years, like, I got destroyed, then increased capacity and destroyed.
And, like, and so there's two sets of people. There's the people that aren't producing.
They're sedating because they're afraid of the pain. They're nervous of the pain.
They're trying to hide from pain. I get that.
Like, there's been seasons in my life where I have felt pain and i just want to hide and i have right but then there's seasons of your life at least hopefully for most and i wish everybody could experience because the the opposite we're in the creation zone we're creating and you're doing and it's it's it's hard it's a different it's both of them are hard they're different hearts right one is there's so much fear there's so much like um just trying to get out of pain and the other one is just like just like you create to create, right? Like you could ask my team, you're like, we build a funnel. And for me, it's just like, oh, look at this thing we created.
We'll create a product or an event or whatever. And it's like the creation of the thing and then sharing it with people.
Like that's, yeah, like, I don't know. And I think it was the same way, like when I was wrestling, that was my art at the time.
And it was just like, like, I didn't want to do anything besides wrestling. Like we went to terms in terms of like, what's the next term? What's the next thing? We're just like, we kept doing that and doing that.
It's like my entire life was wrestling that was my art at the time and it was just like like i didn't want to do anything besides wrestling like we went to terms in terms on like what's next term what's next thing we're just like we kept doing that and doing that like my entire life because that was the art at the wall and just you want to keep performing what you're doing right and i think that um if you can get out of that sedation that most people live in which i say the majority of humans do and i think that's the issue is that like for you and i we create like entrepreneurs funnel hackers the free thinkers of the world like they go out there and they create because it's like that's what we do yeah but like i don't think that's how most of the world operates yeah they do they do initially right they're born they have that seed that seed of whatever we call it growth greed whatever right but something happens in life where they get they get get the pain and then they sedate because it's easier. I think it's one of the biggest problems and I'm anti-drug, anti-everything that causes sedation, right? Because most of the world I see, especially like in entrepreneurial community where people could be doing so much more, but instead they're sedating with drugs or alcohol or weed or whatever it is because it's like, let me take the pressure off myself.
And I, man like you could be producing and changing some people's lives but it's like i need an outlet and the outlet causes sedation it takes you out of your ability to produce i think the majority of people like that's what they do like it drives me crazy i see all the conversations on facebook of like you know there's there's entrepreneur events people come together and they literally there's there's sessions they talk about what mushrooms they use to like hallucinate and all i just drives me nuts i'm like you guys are sedating to get out of this pain as opposed to stepping into the pain and creating and changing people's lives and so i'm very vocal anti all that kind of stuff i think so many people like that that's what they slip back into um one of the greatest blessings of my religion that i believe is like i don't have these tools to sedate that most people use um and so and so it's like my outlet is creation, right? If my outlet was drinking, if my outlet was drugs, my outlet was these other things, like I wouldn't have been able to produce, but I don't. So my outlet's gotta be what, what is it like production? Let's create something amazing.
And I think that, uh, too many people get themselves off the hook and just like, oh, I could go create or I'm gonna watch TV or I'm gonna go eat or I'm gonna go. Like if your outlet is something sedates you that's taking you out of your creative zone i think most people slip that because it's easier it's cheaper it doesn't cause the pain um you know garrett white's whole mission wake up warriors waking men up from that sedated state that most of our society is stuck into which is why i relate to him so well because i like i see it i see it and people i love that care about she's like you're sedated if could break you out of production you can change the world yeah i think it's interesting so i have a coach who i think did that for me i mean i don't use garrett you know garrett wyatt which uh he has an intense man oh my word garrett if you're listening i would love to talk to you come on the show um but uh yeah i'm always plugging hey if i ever get a guest el Elon Musk, if you're listening, um, anyway, but like I have a coach, Katie Richardson, you know, Katie, Katie is outside of like my immediate family and like Leah, obviously like top, top three people that changed my life.
Katie Richardson, Russell Brunson are two of those people that are in that top thing. Right.
And so Katie is someone that I work with like one-on-one and we don't, I mean, I don't think I was ever sedated in the sense of like what you're talking about, but like the opposite of sedation is like being alive, right? And like, like really truly like coming alive and like understanding like who you are and like what you are put on this earth here to do. And so like the thing that I struggled with for the, man, for the longest time, even like from the beginning of days of this entrepreneur is like right and wrong, right? I was like, I didn't want to do the wrong thing.
Right. I didn't want to take anybody off because that would be bad.
Right. Like, oh man, like you don't want to get into a fight because that's bad.
Right. I don't want to make too much money because that might be bad.
Right. I don't want to say the wrong thing because it might be bad.
Right. And so I, I like lived in this like universe or that like black and white, like, is it right or is it wrong? Right.
Like what Katie came along and she's like, Josh, like there is no right and wrong now there is in the sense of like there's moral right and wrong and so but like i'm not going to go into that concept of like you know universal truth but like i do believe there's absolute truth but like in the sense of like our everyday life it's it's not so much as like is it the right thing is the wrong thing it's like is like what are you going to choose to do but like you can only know like what you're going to choose if like you're alive if you if you're, if you know who you are, like, you know what you're put on this earth to do. And that's why it's funny.
Um, you may, I think you may know this story. So my brother dies, helicopter crash, beginning of 2019.
I wrecked my whole life. I ended up selling the company, sold the business to an investor, the business partner took over.
And like Leah and I like went off, took her off. And it's supposed to be this like four month long trip where I was going to like disconnect and just like figure out life and everything like that.
And like Christmas time, it's about a week before Christmas and we're in the Philippines in the middle of absolutely freaking nowhere. Like the nearest airport hospital, anything is like six hours away, like absolute middle of nowhere.
And Leah gets a intestinal eating parasite. Like she gets super, super sick.
Like can't sit't keep food down i'm like oh my gosh we're in the philippines in the middle of nowhere and so like we go to the emergency room and we get there and it's like a card like i mean it's like a piece of plywood with two inch foam and there's no there's no doors on the bathroom no toilet seat there's ants crump it's like terrible right and so long story short we end up having to cut our trip like two months early we lived like tens of thousands of dollars in deposits deposits, like getting her home and whatever. And like, I have no business at this point.
Right. We were supposed to be going for two months longer.
I was supposed to fly home. Like I was supposed to come to funnel hacking live.
That was going to be like our coming home. Right.
And I find myself in like the basement of my girlfriend's mom's house the night before Christmas going like, what am I doing with my life? Right. Like, you know, like, how did I end up here? Right.
And so I go through the process. I'm like, okay, I need a coach.
And I, you know, go through and I interview a bunch of different coaches. I end up like choosing Katie and I'm like, all right, Katie, like, you're going to solve all my business problems for me.
You're going to make, you're going to help me get all this money. You're going to help me build this million dollar business and everything like that.
Right. And so the very, very first call, I'll never forget the very first question.
And she's like, all right, vent. Like to i'm like right like just brain dumb like vent like 20 30 minutes straight like what's the answer she goes josh who are you i was like really like that's where we're gonna start this whole conversation right like i just made you 60 grand right here is that how this is where and then and like looking back now like that and i do have a full circle with this uh looking back now figuring out who i was gave me my permission to go do what i was called to do right without the fear of what anybody else thought and like i'm not trying to intentionally piss anybody off i don't want people to actually hate me right but i like i'm so certain in what i'm doing and like knowing who I am that I know that I'm like, I know I'm a contributor to society.
Like I know that I'm making the world better what I do because I believe that everybody like deep down inside it, like God has given them talents. Right.
And I believe that the thing that whatever it is that you're good at or that you like to do or whatever, like that's the talent that God gave you. And you have a choice on how you're going to go out and use that.
And I believe that you should use that to serve him. What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson.
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Like the problem is, is that I don't think, I think like an overwhelming majority of the world has no idea who they are or what they're called to be. And because of that, the people like you or Elon or whoever the producers of society that like know who they are, like what their talents are, like what they're called to do and like things like that.
Like it's such, it's like, I mean, you've seen my, my growth, right? Like you've watched me transition from this crazy, you know, located like this. And it's like, that came by learning who I was and like, how I was contributing to what I was doing, what I was calling him, what I was put here for.
And so when you talk about like sedation, I feel like like that's, that's the issue of they're sedated. And so they don't even know who they are.
Like they don't even know how to tap into it. They know how to understand it.
And because of that, they look at someone like you, they look at someone like me and they go, well, you're preventing me. Like you're taking away my ability to go do something because like you're taking all the money, right? Like you're taking all the opportunity or like you have a category king on the market.
So like, I can't go and do it then. So like to those people or this concept of, because you're successful, I can't be successful.
Like, what is your response to that? Like, how do you interpret that? Yeah. Like, how do you make, help someone like shift to be like, just because I did, it doesn't mean you can't.
Yeah. Um, it's interesting.
Cause like, that's, it's, it's funny. Cause for me, it's such a foreign thing to understand that.
Like, and I many times as entrepreneurs where it's that mentality of there's not enough money or not enough opportunities or resources or whatever. And you know this.
I know this. Man, the bigger problem that I have is there are so many opportunities every single day that just drown.
There's not enough opportunities. There's so many.
It's like how do you make up that? And I think when people start understanding that, like, look around, like learn some basic skills, right? Like the original.com Secrets book I wrote because I'm like, if anyone took these principles and looked at any business, you could apply it and like, boom, like it just works. Like it's magic.
Like there's not a business on this, like Adam's eye care. I can see right out the window, right? I think.com Secrets principles, blow that company up overnight.
And so like, if you have these, these tools, like you could do anything. You could sell, like sell phones, you can sell watches, you can sell books.
You can sell like, you can sell podcasts. Like, so it's just like, I think when people start understanding that, like it's just education, they don't understand it.
I've had friends before like, Oh, like life's tougher. Now there's no opportunities.
And just like, what? Like there's so many opportunities, but you have to have the skill set that actually can produce it, right? I think a big frustration, obviously, I have. I think you have as well.
And we talked about this a little tonight with my kids. It's just like a lot of things that we're equipped with are like school.
The school system doesn't equip you to be able to capitalize on opportunities, right? It doesn't, unless you're like, I want to be a doctor, cool. This is the process.
Now you can capitalize on being a doctor or being a dentist or whatever that traditional path is to be able to capitalize on opportunities, right? It doesn't, unless you're like, I want to be a doctor. Cool.
This is the process that now you can capitalize being a doctor or being a dentist or whatever that, that traditional path is to be able to like walk in and like make it rain somewhere. Like those skillsets aren't taught in school.
Right. And, um, you think about in any business, there's a couple, there's a couple of personalities, right? There's like the entrepreneur who starts it, right.
Then there's the managers who are managing the people. There's the technicians who are doing the thing.
And there's the rainmakers who come in and make money. And it's like, if you learn that skills, like how do you become a rainmaker? How do you go in and you can plug in any business or any opportunity and you can turn it into money? Like then every door you walk past, there's opportunity.
There's infinite. Every human you see, there's opportunity, right? But you just, people have to learn how to like take the talent and learn how to market the talent, right? Because God gives us all the things.
Some people, like Caitlin Pullen, God gave her a gift to be able to help women lose weight, right? But it wasn't until she learned how to market that that it was actually now the opportunity is huge. They've got, I don't know, 100 employees in their company, millions of women they've served across the world.
It was like taking your God-given talent, learning how to make it rain, plugging those two things together. Now, unlimited opportunities.
And so I think a lot of times it's like we're given, and that's why I think, like why I'm so loud about my mission, why I try to share it so much. Because like, I believe that God's given everybody a calling, right? It says in scriptures, many are called, but few are chosen.
Like everybody's called. Everybody gets a calling.
Everybody gets that tap on the shoulder. Everyone gets the opportunity.
It doesn't matter where you're born, where you're at. Everyone gets the opportunity.
You're called. Most people don't do it or they don't know how to do it because they have this talent,

this hobby, this thing.

And then what happens? It's the date. They hide

or they search. If you search,

you find the answer and then it's like, oh my gosh,

now I can take this thing and change the world.

Do you think

everybody has

that talent though?

Obviously, there's only one Russell Brown. But like, do you think, I think everybody has that talent though.
Like, do you, I, I, obviously there's only one Russell Brown, but like, I have, I have discussions with my mom a lot, right? Like I have a great relationship with my mom and my mom always tells me, she's like, Josh, not everybody's you. And like, not everybody thinks like you, not everybody has to drive like you, not everybody has confidence like you, not everybody has a, I'm like, you don't have to like, like you could, like you can do the same things just like in your own way.

Right.

But like, and everyone's got a different, like, um, uh, view of success too.

Right.

Like when my first mentors taught me that, like when I launched my first mastermind group,

he pulled me aside.

He's like, your mastermind group is going to fail.

If you try to put your version of success on all those people.

And I was like, what do you mean?

He's like, he's like, it was funny.

Cause he was in the room. He's like, I can't say names.
Cause he has to know something. He's like, he's like, you see that guy right here? You know why he's in the room? I'm like, why is it? He wants to hear himself talk.
That's why he's here. And if I try to like force him to do something, he's not going to that guy right there.
He's here because he wants to hang out with a group and get networked people. And he's like, you, you're here because you want to celebrate his ideas.
Right. So if you try to launch a mastermind, like your goal is to build a hundred million dollar company.
try to put that your values on the people you're gonna make them all fail and and and that was like the big aha for me it's like everyone's got a different vision of success so maybe your brother or someone or sister or like a family member may not think like think like you would be like you but it doesn't matter like it doesn't mean they have to change a million people's lives to change the world like it could be their mom and they could be the best mom in the world and they change their kids life like that's a calling and that's what i want and that's what i want you to touch on like i want you to expand upon that because i feel like man i hear so many arguments i'm trying to figure out like which one is best here it's like but like josh we need the plumbers of the world yeah right like we need the people that'll come in and vacuum the carpet like we need the people that'll just do the mediocre tasks and that that are like are not important and that I'll just kind of do those in and out and in and out. And like, yeah, that like, like, because like, I feel like, how do I say this? I believe that a majority of the people in this world are not living up to their true potential.
An overmassive amount of overwhelming majority are not. I don't think anyone is, to be honest.
I don't think I am. You know what I mean? So yes, 100%.
But you're living far more potential like the adverse person is, right? And how I look at it is I go, hey, listen, not everybody can do what you do or what I do like whatever, but like, okay, how do I bring this around? Make it more clear. I'm going to use it from political aspect of things, because I think that's something that we can all understand.
Hey, poor people, victim mentality, people, Ooh, that's a, that's a controversial thing. But like, you know what I'm saying? But like victim mentality, people, or like poor people, like things that like, they don't think like that.
Or maybe they didn't have as good as schooling, or like, maybe they didn't have as good of like education, like whatever, like, they don't have the same understanding that like, you do, right? So like, shouldn't we? Should we help them see that like, they can go and achieve more? Or like, should they? Like, is their version of success? What am what am I trying to ask the answer is yes we should be and that's what we're doing right I heard someone before that like well Russell you have a 50,000 or 100,000 mastermind group like I can't afford that it's not fair I'm like yeah but like I also do a podcast two to three times a week every single time every single week for six years I've written three books you can get for 10 bucks or you can get them for free or you know like there's levels of it right and it's like the thing is like there's there's value everywhere and if you pick it up it increases you know like you and you actually apply it like i'm a big believer that god gives all of us um stewardship over things right like he'll give you an idea give me an idea give anybody an idea or or um desire like here's some desire for you you look at these kids who are struggling but they get get desire to play basketball, and then they become Michael Jordan or whoever, the people, right? Because God gives them desire. Or they give them ideas or talents.
I'm a big believer in my business life as I've been doing this journey now for 18 plus years is that I got ideas, and a lot of ideas I didn't do anything with, right? But some of them I took the idea and like and i'm not i'm not naive enough to think like oh i came with this great idea like these are blessings from god right like he's like here's an idea let's see if you're gonna be a good steward with it i get the idea and if i do something with he's like oh my gosh russell's a good steward of ideas let me give you another idea and if i don't do something with these like all right let me give somebody else right like like all this is happening they would have happened whether i was somebody would have taken it but i was a good steward of the thing and so i got blessed with another one and another one another one and i think that's a big part of it i think if people like i don't think that god i mean i do think that he puts us all in different spots to start with okay that's a fascinating concept he's giving us ideas or i or desire things like that and he's watching you're gonna be a steward with it if you are i'll give you more are, I'm going to be more. So people can go from the worst of the worst and become the best in the world.
People can start the best world and be horrible because what do you do with the things you're getting stewardship over? So, so what you're saying here, which is actually a fascinating concept is that like, I'm going to use the idea for click funnels, for example, like the idea for click funnels is, wasn't yours per se, right? Young people are trying to build a funnel software when we built click funnels. I'm sure a lot.
All my friends were, everybody was. So you have this idea that is essentially open for anybody.
Like anybody could go and take advantage of this idea. You just, God, you're saying like, God put this idea in your head and he probably put this idea in a hundred people's heads or 500, you know, 10,000 people's heads or whatever.
But i was the one that answered the calling to be like okay i'm actually gonna take this idea and do something with it and so because of that it's not that you took it away from anybody else like anybody could have done it you're the one that actually went out and just chose to go out and do it and bring it to reality yep 100 okay there's a i wish somebody shares me and i haven't read the book there's a book that tells the story of that it was an author who like had an idea for books, sat down, started writing it. And someone's going to know it.
I, it's a famous book. People would know this.
I guess someone on the chat knows this. Somebody comment below when you hear it, what is this author? Like write the book and then stops like, I'll run out of time, forgets about it.
And then like six years later, this new book comes out. It comes to my best selling book, buys the book, starts reading.
It's like, this is the book that I was supposed to write. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I didn't, I didn't take stewardship of the idea.
I stopped. And so God gave somebody else.
It's like, it's the same book, right? It's just, it's just, I didn't, I didn't finish it. And so I 100% believe that.
And I think it could be an idea. It could be desire.
It could be a million, a million things. We all have these different gifts of the spirit, right? That are given to us.
And they sit back and watch this. You're gonna do with it.
I feel like that, I feel like that could give a lot of people permission to go out and do stuff too, right there. Like that, that viewpoint.
Cause like one of the things that I struggled with early on, which to a certain extent, I think I still struggle with a little bit, not nearly what I used to is like, like why, like why me? Like not, not in a bad way of like, oh man, why did I like, but why do I get these cool opportunities? Like, you know what I mean? Like I live a pretty great life. Like, you know what I'm saying? And I'm like, what, why do I get do i get to have this conversation not somebody else like why am i the first person i should sit down with russell brunson talk anything related to politics ever right like but it's like that concept of simply because i chose to go do it like i chose to be the person that was capable of like having this conversation right like it became that person i think that because of that like what you just said right there is like gives to give people permission.
Like you're not taking away from anybody else. And like, you're not inherent, like you're not inherently special.
I mean, you are in your own way, but like, you're not, it wasn't, you're not the only person that could have built click on shocking the average. Yes.
My wife asked my parents, like Russell is shockingly average. And you're actually super awkward to meet for the first time.
You know, the first time I met, do you remember the first time I actually told you this the first time i met you remind me okay the first time i met you was at um grant cardone's uh 10x work on the very first one all right so this is that at the time um grant hired our team to do like instagram stuff and this was like super sort of around i was like dead broke i couldn't afford to go to that conference like if i wanted to but because we were doing his instagram stuff like he gave us like tickets and we saw you like get off stage and we're like dude i bet you like run right now we could like meet russell and so like we run down the stairs and sure up there you are like coming down and like i walk up to him like russell oh my gosh like huge fan and you're like hey thanks and we're like oh okay we're like can we get a picture you're like um yeah i guess and so like i go and like normally like when you go and like take a picture like you put your arm around and things like that like you just literally stood there right and i just like that i like okay i guess we're not doing that and so there's like this picture of me in like i'll get this picture i'll find it i'll box it to you but it's like we're sitting there i'm like I'm like, I mean, this is, so guys, Russell is shockingly average. Shockingly average, apparently.
Like back to the conversation. I remember like what I was trying to ask.
So like, that was the very first time I met you. I was like, oh man, I can be a millionaire too.
I guess I want to think before, before I just want to like, when I got started, this whole business, it was me. And then I hired two of my buddies to come work for me.
Cause like, they were the only people that cared what I was talking about. And we're all working on this business.
And I remember one of my buddies pulled me aside one day and said, you know, the difference between me, uh, between us two and you, I said, no, he said, the only difference is you're in momentum. You're moving forward.
So these opportunities keep coming to you. Cause you're moving, moving, moving, moving.
He's like, we're sitting back here doing the thing, but there's no opportunities to come just because we're not moving. I think we just understand when you're moving in forward, like, like people like, oh, you're lucky you came up with ClickFunnels.
I'm like, do you know how many funnels I launched before ClickFunnels? Over 150. This is not 150, like, create funnel in ClickFunnels.
Like, oh, that's a funnel. It was me coming with an idea, hiring a designer, writing a sales letter, putting the product together, putting the pages in front page, uploading them to FTP, getting a shopping cart, connecting them 150 times.
It took us three months on average to each one. Okay.
150 times before we came up with ClickFunnels. Like, like I was just moving forward over and over and over and over and over and over again while everyone else is sitting there waiting.
Like motion is the key. The opportunities come.
This is what I'm talking about being a good steward. Like God gave me an idea for ZipRander.
Do you remember ZipRander? No one does, but that was the first idea. And I was like, oh my gosh, ZipRander.
And when I found a guy in Romania, I paid him 20 bucks to build the software. I created, I got a thing, a header design and a headline and a thing.
And I launched it and it made like 400 bucks. And then next idea was like this thing called Article Spider.
You remember the Article Spider? No one does. I paid someone that a couple of bucks.
I did that. I launched, I made 17001,700.
I was like, oh, my gosh. Four and four since number three.

And then the next and the next.

And I can show you guys.

I did this.

I wrote them all that.

I went back to the Wayback Machine.

I found all of them.

Thing after thing after thing after thing.

Idea after idea.

Took, like, the ideas pop in there.

I executed them.

Tried.

Tried.

And each one got better and better and better and better.

And eventually, God's like, all right, you're capable.

Like, you're a good steward.

Here's ClickFunnels.

Go with it.

And if you were to give me that initially, I don't know what to do.

It's the momentum.

It's the motion that makes you worthy of the calling.

And if you're not in momentum, if you're not moving forward, you're never going to get the call.

Then you're called, but few are chosen.