The Most Dangerous Thing You Can Do Is Play It Safe | #Success - Ep. 23

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This is The Russell Brunson Show. What's up, everybody? This is Russell.
Welcome back to the show. Excited to be hanging out with you guys today, and excited for a lot of reasons.
I'm going to tell you guys some stories about my arm. Why am I wearing a sling? If you're watching the video version, you can see I've only got one arm.
I'm going to talk about some Napoleon Hill stuff I found in an unpublished manuscript slash event, like a course that he taught, and a whole bunch of other things. So I'm excited to hang out with you guys and talk.
I wanted to start addressing the elephant in the room, which is, for those those who can see me, like Russell, why do you have your arm in a sling right now? And if you listened to the last, you know, one of the last podcast episodes, I was actually, I'd just gotten back. I had done a wrestling tournament and you guys knew I'd hurt both my biceps.
I was driving to go get an MRI and that was, I think the last podcast episode I recorded. Since then, my life has been crazy.
So after getting the MRI, we found out that both of my biceps had detached from the bone inside my arms, uh, which is why it was really hard to curl anything or lift anything up. Right.
Um, uh, and I needed to get surgery to get both of them back. And so some people have been asking like, well, what was the process? Like, what, uh, like how did you detach the biceps? So, um, uh, some of you guys know there, there's a, every single year there's a wrestling tournament.
It's called the master's division. So it's for people who are older.
Um, and I remember when I was wrestling in college, I remember going to, to one of the bigger national tournaments. And so they have different levels.
Like there's like the senior level and then, you know, whatever. And then, um, there's a master's and a veterans division division.
I remember going again, while I was, you know, I was in college. I remember seeing these seeing these guys in their 70s and their 80s with gray hair, bald, out there wrestling.
And I was like, oh, it's so cool. And then when I got done with my wrestling career, that was kind of the end of it.
I wasn't planning on wrestling again and kind of forgot about it. And fast forward to a decade and a half later is when I bought my new home.
I built a wrestling room in it. And, and, um, and I started inviting some of my old wrestling buddies over and we started wrestling.
So that was kind of a fun thing. We do it once or twice a month.
So my buddies come over, we'd wrestle again. It was just so much fun to get back to like my favorite thing in the world, which is wrestling.
Right. And then, um, what's interesting is one of my buddies who, who, uh, wrestled with us, his name is Lex.
One day he came back. He's like, Oh, I wrestled a tournament two weeks ago.
I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, there's a tournament that I competed. And I was like, why didn't you tell me? I would have gone.
And so the next year we decided, okay, we're going to go to the tournaments. We put it on the calendar and, uh, you know, life is busy.
I'm running a company and a family and a bunch of other stuff. And so I remember leading up to it.
Um, we blocked out like seven days. We were going to, we were planning on like to working out a whole bunch leading up to it, but then it just didn't happen.
So then the week before the tournament, we blocked out. Okay, every morning we're going to wrestle for an hour, just get prepared for this tournament.
And again, I haven't wrestled competitively in almost 20 years, right? And so we go to the very first practice, the very first day, and within the very first like 10 minutes, I injure my neck so bad that like I can't move. I can't turn my head.
I can't do anything. And it hurt really bad.
And people were like, well, are you still going to wrestle? I'm like, yeah, like I made a commitment to myself. I was going to wrestle.
I'm going to do this thing. And, um, I had chirals coming over and other people and people adjusting me and massage therapists.
And like, I was doing all the crazy things, try to heal this, heal the, heal my neck. And then we're going to the tournament.
My neck hurts so bad. Uh, and I wrestled two days and I did, I did well.
I placed, I can't remember if I placed in freestyle or Greco, but anyway, wrestled two different tournaments, had some success, won a medal. And I remember one of the, it was like one of these like life changing things for me is I was, um, warming up with some of the guys my age, this older guy came up to me.
And again, he's from London. I think his name was Tony and he's wearing a singlet.
He's got knee pads on and stuff. He's just older guy.
He came up, he's like, Hey, do you want to wrestle? And I was like, like, do you want to warm up? I'm like, um, I, I guess we can. And so it was like, cool.
It's like when we're drilling though, he's like, I've, I've, uh, had the hip and knee replacements. So don't shoot on me.
I'm like, what? Like I'm supposed to wrestle. You don't have hips or knees.
And, uh, anyway, so we kind of warmed up a little bit. It was kind of fun.
And then, uh, during the term I saw him, he and won some matches. I was like, if this dude, he's in his 70s, hips and knees replaced, can still be wrestling.
I'm like, I'm going to do this every year until I die. So that became the commitment to myself.
And then every year after that, I'd go back and do this tournament. I did this tournament.
It's just really fun. And so this year is, I don't know, my fifth or sixth year.
And this one's actually, there's three styles of wrestling. There's Freestyle Greco and there's a collegiate style that we only wrestle in America.
And there's a collegiate national tournament I've never been to before. So this was the one I was going to.
I wanted to go to forever. I was finally going to go to it.
And so leading up to it, I'm preparing, I'm getting ready. And then I told the story for it.
So I'll go fast. I injured my forearm and it almost pulled me out of it.
And then the last minute I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to do it anyway. So I taped up my forearm, went to the tournament, had to cut 25 pounds, I was losing weight.

And during warmups, I tore my other forearm.

So both my forearms were hurt, but I was like, anyway.

But it wasn't bad enough, I couldn't wrestle.

So I go out there to wrestle day number one,

wrestle my first two matches.

I can't remember what happened exactly,

but I do know that by the time it was done,

I got off the mat and I could not flex my bicep.

I was like, ooh.

Like maybe I just hit a nerve or something,

but that definitely does not feel good at all.

And then they called my name for one more match. I thought I was done, but there's one more match.
They call me out there. And so I go out there with my left arm.
There's no biceps, right? And so I go wrestle. I shoot with my right hand.
I get a really good sweep single on him. He sprawls, and I hear my right bicep go pop.
And anyway, luckily, I still finish the match. I win.
I get off there. I try to raise my hand.
I can barely lift my hand, and I'm a wreck. So from there, I'm like looking down both my arms.
I'm like, they just didn't look like normal arms. Something looked different.
I was like, ah, this is not good. But anyway, from there we had a spring break.
So I flew from there to meet my family in Hawaii. We enjoyed Hawaii, came back.
And then that was last week where I was driving the MRI to get my thing, my thing x-rayed, right? Um, anyway, so I x-rayed it, find out both my biceps had been torn off of the bone and so um they want to do both of them asap it's like you need to get these done quickly uh the problem is you know if you do both and i have no arms and then you have no arms how are you supposed to do anything you can't feed yourself you can't put on your clothes how do you go to the bathroom like there's so many questions and so the surgeon was like let's do one first and that way you have one hand you can work with and then two weeks later we'll do the other one so last friday i did the first one and so i've been gimpy with one arm for the last uh three or four days and it's interesting because you don't realize how many times you use your hand until you can't use your hand like even though it's my right hand i've got my right hand available like you can't tie a shoe you can't put on a sock you can't there's so many things do. And so luckily my amazing wife, Colette, has been helping me to survive, but it's been weird.
And then in a week from Friday, I have to get the other one and I literally have two arms that are not functioning. And then what's crazy is that Friday, I'll have my second arm.
And then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we have my inner circle meeting. So I'll be on stage with two casts on running my inner circle.

So it's going to be an interesting week, but it'll be amazing.

So the question, sorry, I told you that story, number one, because it's fun to tell the story.

And a lot of you guys have asked about it.

But number two is because the question I keep getting from everybody, including my wife, especially my wife. I love her.

But it's just like, aren't you too old to do this?

Shouldn't you not be doing this?

And like, that's the comment that people keep coming up.

And I think the most people are so scared of getting hurt, they don't want to do things, right? Like that's just kind of a, this commonality that most people have. Um, like you're too old, you shouldn't be doing it.
You're going to get hurt. Like you shouldn't be doing that because what if, what if something happens? And what if, what if there's always these, what ifs, right? And most people live their life based off, based off what ifs, like what if this happens, what if this happens? And they're thinking about all the things that could possibly happen.
So because of that, they don't pursue and do the thing that they really wanna do. And as you can probably tell, I've never lived my life that way.
I've always lived my life in a way of like, what if I do this thing? What would that be like? What would it feel like? What would, you know? Now, I would step back and say, if I was still competing as an athlete, I'd probably treat this different. If I knew I was hurt, I probably wouldn't have continued to compete.
But for me, it's like I compete one day a year. So it's like, I'm going to do this thing and I got like 365 days to heal.
It's kind of like Happy Gilmore when after he does make hockey tryouts and he's there the next day and he's in the batting cage and they're shooting balls and he's hitting them in the face. He's like, 364 days till next year's hockey season.
And he's just like getting well done by balls. That's what I feel like.
I'm like, I got 365 days to heal. I'll be fine.
You know, after the first year I tore my neck, I had the whole year. By next year, I didn't remember my neck.
It was fine. I was able to go out there and compete and I hurt something different.
And every year I hurt something. But for me, it's more like, there's what if fear and what if faith, right? Some people are like, there's what if, insert the fear.
And so they don't do the thing because what if this happened? What if I get made fun of? What if I get hurt? What if it doesn't work? What if I fail? What if I go bankrupt? What if I, you know, what if people make fun of me? Like there's that what if that keeps most people from doing anything amazing in life. And the other what if is like, well, what if I do do this? Well, man, what if I am a 45 year old guy and I'm competing in a tournament? What if I'm doing this? What if I inspire somebody else? What if I have fun? What if I win? What if I, you know, like the other what ifs is the more important one.
And as I was like writing this, you know, the outline of this episode today, kind of thinking through this, uh, there's this quote that popped in my head. And I, the first time I heard this quote was actually, um, for my friends, he passed away.
Some of you guys know Dave Hollis, he passed away a couple of years ago, but he had this tattooed on his arm. And it was just one of those really, really cool quotes that, um, I'm not a tattoo guy, but if I was, maybe this would be one I would get.
This is what he said. This is what the quote says.
Uh, and the quote is attributed to a guy named John A. Shed.
Um, and it was, oh, apparently it, check this out. Hey, I just told me it came from his book, salt for my addict.
Um, anyway, this is what the quote says. It says a ship in a harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
Ooh, let me say it again. A ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for, right? Yeah, staying home and not competing, I'd be much more safe.
Not going to get injured, not going to tear my neck, not going to tear a bicep or another bicep, not going to have to deal with all these things. But that's not what I was built for, right? I was not built to sit at home behind a desk and just, you know, like I was built for something more.
And I believe all of you guys are as well. And then obviously don't go do something stupid like I did, like be intelligent with your thing, but also don't let the what ifs hold you back.
Let the what ifs be the thing that pushes you forward and gets you to want to go do and explore and create and be the person. So many of you guys, um, you have, um, I guess I shared this, this quote from David Thoreau at, um, at Fun Hacking Live about like most men die with their songs still in them, right? Like most people, they live life, but they never actually live life, right? They have this dream, this thing they want, but what ifs keep them from ever doing it, right? And I don't want to be that person who ever dies with the song still in me.
I want to be the person who's like, man, that guy was a little crazy. Look what he did.
Look what he accomplished. Look what he keeps doing.
Look what he keeps showing up, keeps doing these things. And like, I want that to be my legacy.
Not, oh yeah, he was the guy that, um, you know, he worked the nine to five and that was all he did. You know, like I want to be the guy who was, who was, who was doing stuff with my life.
Um, I don't know about you, but it makes me feel young. Yes.
I feel old right now with my gimped out arms. I can barely even do anything, but the thing that makes me feel alive, just knowing that I'm still out there doing things and trying things that don't always make sense.
So anyway, I want to start there. A ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
And that's not what you're built for. So what is the things you're going to want to do that are a little uncomfortable? They aren't going to kill you.
Don't go too crazy. I'm not going to die from wrestling.
I might tear both my biceps off. But yeah, pick something that's where you're stretching yourself and I promise you'll feel better.
So I'm leading with that. Number two, again, this podcast, there's a couple of different things I'm hitting.
So this is not just like one thing for the entire episode. So I apologize in advance for those who are my people who are like, I want the one big takeaway.
We've got a couple here. What's up, Funnel Hackers? I want to talk to you guys about a challenge that every business faces, including mine, and that is finding good people to hire.
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So don't wait and build a team that'll take your guys saw Jordan Peterson launched the Peterson Academy? It's this new like college curriculum, it's like a college course membership site that's like, I think it's like 500 bucks a year, something like that. Anyway, when it came out, I signed up immediately because I wanted to see it.
And what's crazy is he's so good at free traffic. I think he put like 30 or 50,000, 30 to 50,000 people in without paid ads, which is insane, right? Insane.
Uh, so obviously I signed up, I want to see the models, see what they're doing.

And it got me really inspired and excited. Like he has always these people coming and teaching

courses and lectures and things like that. And it's just like, ah, such a fun way to consume

and to learn. And so for me, I was like, I want to do more stuff like that.
Like, how do I,

like, I want to do more lectures where I'm teaching and I want to bring fascinating people

in to have these conversations with me. And so for the secrets of success business, we're creating an app right now and I'm trying to create these courses that will go inside the app.
And so we did last week, it was actually the day before I got my arm chopped open. So I was in there, if you ever watch the video, you'll see I'm all gimped out, like my arms don't really work.
But before I got the surgery, I had Napoleon Hill's grandson. And then again, I'm Jason Youngblood who wrote a book about, it's called the gospel of Napoleon Hill.
And it's a huge timeline. These guys know Napoleon Hill's life better than anyone.
So I flew them in and we did this whole, like, I can't think probably four or five hour long, um, like train, of course, talking about Napoleon Hill's life going from like the beginning. And then each of the, the successes and the wins, the failures, the ups, the downs, the negatives, the positives, we like weaved in like what the anti-Napoleon Hill people say and like refuted them and proved the things right and like it was really fun.
It was one of my favorite things. It was such a good time.
And this Friday I'm doing something similar. We have another book.
It's called Truthful Advertising. So Napoleon Hill, it's kind of the dates right here.
Napoleon Hill in 1917, he started a college called the George Washington sorry I'm flipping pages with one hand so if I feel like a gimp it's because I am the George Washington Institute and he was teaching this advertising course called Truthful Advertising and he had a reference book it's called Productive Advertising by George Hess and I found a bunch of first editions of that as well but anyway so basically what i'm doing is we're taking this this book and so we have the manuscripts from this book uh that napole hill taught and again it's never been published before it was not a it was a college like year-long course he taught right so it's the it's all of the material from that course that he taught along with this book that he uses the workbook and so we put it together and we're going to be um in secrets of success launching a new level a new level. It's all about advertising and marketing and stuff like that.
So we're going to be opening up this new, this, this second tier. And in there, we're going to do a whole course on this book, truthful advertising.
And so what's been fun is I've had a chance to go through and read this. And I've been reading this whole book the last two or three days and getting inside Napoleon Hill's head.
It's so fun. Cause Napoleon Hill, as you guys know, he's obviously like a personal development guy.
He loves personal development, stuff like that. But he's teaching advertising.
And what's cool about Napoleon, and most of actually, honestly, most of the best personal development guys, like Robert Collier is another great example. Robert Collier had some of the best personal development courses and books ever of all time.
But he was an advertiser. So he wrote the Robert Collier letter book, which is his marketing book.
But he wrote sales letters to sell his personal development courses. And he ended up selling, I believe it was between a hundred and $200 million worth of courses through direct mail in the early 1920s, right? Which is crazy.
And so, um, but he was an advertiser first. So he uses advertising to, to proliferate and get his message out to the world, right? Which is a hint for you guys.
And you guys who have a message, you had to become a great advertiser first, then you can get your message out. But Napoleon Hill is the same way, right? When he was 40-ish, he wrote Think and Grow Rich, but when he was in his 20s, he was teaching an advertising course, right? So he understood advertising first and then used that and leveraged that.
So there's a hint for all of you guys. For any of you guys who have a message you wanna learn, it's like you need to become great advertisers if you're gonna be successful.
So there's the one little caveat,

or one little thing to share.

So anyway, as I'm going through this book,

it's really fascinating

because he uses the productive advertising book

as like the actual training,

teaching like the specifics about advertising.

But then in his book,

there's a lesson ahead of time

where he's teaching stuff related to the book chapters.

And then in the back of each lesson,

it's one of the coolest things. If I can find it real quick again i'm flipping with one with one hand so like chapter three how to think book was that chapter is insane um but basically after he goes through the after he goes through the chapter sorry because i'm finding here he has these um, it's like a little section at the end of each

chapter. And of course I can't find one now that I'm looking for, but basically it's like, it's like, um, ideas and thoughts with Napoleon Hill.
And then he kind of goes through like what he learned and then giving you just ideas and thoughts to help, help go with the curriculum he just had, which is kind of cool. I would find the exact word, but with one head, it's so hard to flip pages.
So, um, you get the gist. You guys should be good from there.
But anyway, I wanted to,

in this lesson number two of truthful advertising,

he's talking about,

and again, what's interesting is Napoleon Hill's,

again, he's an advertiser,

but he loves the personal development.

So most of the stuff he's writing about is personal development.

And his premise is that you as the advertiser

has to become a better person.

Like you have to become,

you have to develop yourself as an advertiser

and then that's how you become a great advertiser, right?

So he's spending less time on like,

here's the structure of the ads and things like that,

which the other book does.

But in his, all his writings is very much like,

here's how you become a better person.

Like how do you pick a definite purpose?

How do you focus?

How do you learn?

Like how do you learn how to think?

How do you learn?

Like, it's just so fascinating.

I love his, the rabbit holes he goes down on that side of things, right. And anyway, in here, as he's talking about being an advertiser, he starts going through like his dream client.
Like if you can become this person, he's like, you can get hired by any firm anywhere in the world because everybody would want to hire you if these were your qualities and your characteristics. And so I read those last night.
I highlighted the whole thing in my book. Again, I have, I have a little, uh, red highlighter in one hand.
So my, I'm trying to like do these straight lines. It's, it's chaos, but, um, regardless, it's really good.
So I'm going to read you this stuff. Cause this might help you to figure out if you're struggling life, like getting hired, getting people to give you money as a coach or consultant, like, like these qualities he talks about here.
And again, he's using this, like these are qualities that he wants in an advertiser, someone who's gonna become an advertiser and work for him or for one of these firms. But the way he explained it, I was like, man, if I could step into these qualities, all of them, like how much better a person I'd be? How much more likely would people wanna hire me as their coach or hire me as their trainer or whatever those things might be, right? So I'm gonna read these for you.
There's, I think there's like 15 of them. Yeah, it's 15 of them.
Okay. All right.
So here's the specifications. He says, he says, as a right, there's an opening in my organization that'll pay the person qualified to fill it all the way from 5,000 to $10,000 a year.
So that's the equivalent of like half a million dollars a year salary, right? So he's saying like, if you have these qualifications, we can pay you half a million dollars a year in salary, right? So here's the specifications. Number one, I want a man or woman who will finish everything he or she starts, whether sharpening a pencil, writing a letter, or something of greater importance, okay? So number one is like somebody who can be a finisher, not just a starter.
A lot of people get starters, okay? And I'm a good starter. I'm not as good of a finisher.
But other parts in the book he talked about, he's like, uh, he quoted somebody who said that every time they picked up a paper on their desk, they always, they always solved it before they put it down. Right.
They weren't just like, Oh, I'll look at this later, later, later. It's like focusing on people who actually get things done and finishing.
Now, if you struggle at finishing number one, that's something you can focus on. Like how do you get things to the finish line? Right.
No one gets paid till the thing gets to the finish line. Right.
And so you have to be good at that. But the other thing, and this is kind of just a tweak on this.
I learned this from Alex Mandojan, one of my first mentors in this game. I remember he told me one time, he said, Russell, there's two types of people in this world.
There's people who are starters and there's people who are finishers. He's like, you got to figure out who you are and then surround yourself with the other type of person.
And for me, I realized like I'm a really good starter. But I struggled at finishing.
And so for me, I started surrounding myself with finishers. And so you look at ClickFunnels as a company, right? It's like, there's three or four starters.
There's me, there's Todd, there's a couple of guys like the starters on team and everybody else are our finishers help us finish the things. Um, so that's number one.
So again, I want a man or woman who will finish everything he or she starts, whether it's sharpening a pencil, writing a letter or something of greater importance. Okay.
Cause the way we do some things is the way we do all things. Uh, number two, I want someone who will do at least everything he is told to do and will not offer excuses or take the place, uh, or not offer excuses to take the place of results.
Okay. So somebody who's like, when you give them a task, they're like, yes, sir, I will go do it.
I'll do the thing versus like, ah, I don't really want to, you know, it's like, someone's like, yes, you gave me a task. I'm going to go do it.
And number two, part of this is they will not offer excuses. Um, only results.
This comes back to like one of our core values in our company, which is extreme ownership, right? Like, yes, you gave me a task. I'm going to go do it.
And number two part of this is they will not offer excuses, only results.

This comes back to like one of our core values in our company, which is extreme ownership, right?

Like if it doesn't work, there's no excuses.

It's just like I give you results or I don't.

If I don't give you results, it's my fault.

I'm going to go figure out how to do it and keep doing it until I get the result, right?

And so I love that.

Someone's going to do at least everything he's told to do.

I love that it's not like he's going to do everything he's told to do.

At least.

So the minimum is what he's told to do, right? And then not offering like he's going to do everything he's told to do at least. So the minimum is what he's told to do.
Right. Um, and then not offering excuses, take the place of results, just results.
Okay. So I love that.
That's number two. All right.
Third, third thing here. I want someone who will reach out and demand greater responsibilities, taking care of all the while to keep growing and getting ready to assume additional duties.
Okay. So we want somebody who's not going to sit there.
Cause I have team members who are great at what they do, but, um, they'll do the things that you get to do. And then they'll just kind of wait till you get more stuff and they'll kind of hang out.
And it's like, I hate that versus I want someone who will reach out and demand greater responsibilities. Okay.
I want more. Give me more.
What else can I do? What else can I do? I remember Dave Woodward. Um, man, I love Dave.
One of my favorite qualities of him is he was at the peak. He was the CEO of ClickFunnels running it and he get done the day and meet him and be last year in the office almost every single time.
And he'd come in afterwards like, hey, what can I take off your plate? What can I take off your plate? He was always trying to figure out how to lighten my load, how to take things off my plate. And that's what it is, right? Someone who will reach out and demand greater responsibility, right? And then getting ready to assume additional duties.
Or they want to keep growing and getting ready to assume additional duties, right? So going out there and demanding greater, demanding greater responsibilities. Okay.
Another great quality. All right.
Three. And these are good, right? I was reading this like, this is good stuff.
This could be just like my own review of myself. Like Russell, get better at these things and you'll become a better person.
So, all right. Number four, I want someone who will love the job so well, they will forget hours, forget pay, forget Saturday nights, forget all his own selfish interests and devote his entire time and thought to the task of carving out a future and the opportunity at hand.
Ooh, someone's gonna love the job so well, they forget everything. Okay.
I don't know about you guys, but that's my world. Like I love what I do so much that like, if it wasn't for the fact that I had a wife and kids at home, I would never leave this place.
In fact, when they go on vacation, sometimes I've literally set up a cotton here and slept in here. Cause I'm like, I don't have to go home at night.
This is amazing. Right.
Cause I love what I do so much.

And so you want to find people and you want to be the person.

And when you are, um, doing this thing that you become so obsessed that you'd like are

all consumed and it becomes your thing.

Uh, number five, I want someone who will be frank and sincere with himself and, uh, and

all with whom he comes in contact with and who will be a living example of our slogan,

which is truthful advertising.

So we want people to be frank and sincere. Um, so there you go, frank and sincere and living example of truthful advertising.
Truthful advertising is the name of the course and the concept here is like, you wanna give advertising that's truthful. Like there's a lot of ways you can write ads that trick people to buy, but he's like, how do you do that in a way where you're always giving 100% of the truth? So that was good.
Number six, I want to be a person who will not wait for me or some of the other officials to tell me what to do, but who will learn to see what ought to be done and do it. Ooh, this is like the self-starter, right? They see problems, they go and take care of them.
They're not waiting for someone to tell them what to do. They're like, okay, this is a problem, this is a problem, let's fix this, let's change and just get this stuff done.
Number seven, I want a person who's big enough to overlook the little insults which thought thoughtless people can throw out often unintentionally a person who can see something good in every human being on earth, a person who will honestly strive to develop the good there is in every person with whom he comes in contact. Okay.
I think this was almost a two fold, right? Number one or number two was like, uh, seeing the good in other people, but number one was, uh, being big enough to over, uh, to overlook little insults. Uh, there's a quote from Brigham Young that I thought was really cool.
He says, how does the quote go? It's like, only a fool gets insulted when somebody intends to insult you and only a greater fool takes offense when they didn't intend to, which I thought was really cool. So something like that, I'm sure I messed up the quote, but basically, yeah, if someone's trying to offend you and you take offense and you're a fool, but if someone offends you and they weren't trying to offend you.
You're even a bigger fool. That's basically the gist of the quote.
And so I thought it was kind of cool. It was like being big enough to overlook little insults, like just wash them off your back, like a duck out of water, keep moving forward and try to see the good in every single person.
Uh, one of the lessons I learned from Tony Robbins back in the day that I think was one of the most powerful, I learned so many things from Tony that were like life changed, but one of them was just, um, um, his belief that, uh, everybody does things out of what they believe are like good, good intents, right? Even if they're evil, bad things, like most people, I think Tony even said all people do things, um, out of good intentions, even if that thing is wrong. And like he gave an example at UPW where, um, if you've been to UPW, Tony does interventions with people and there's workbooks.
And anyway, someone saw their partner's workbook and in the workbook they're talking about killing their wife and their kids, which is a horrible thing, purely evil, obviously. And so the person saw that, told one of Tony's runners, hey, my guy I'm working with, he's talking about killing his wife and kids.
So they went and told Tony and Tony does this intervention with the person, brings him up on stage and trying to figure out why are you doing this? And what's crazy is like, again, you, you see that, that lens from the outside. It's like that person's got bad intentions.
They're trying to kill their wife and the kids, right? Bad intentions. But then when Tony did the intervention of the person, he talked about when he was a kid that his dad had left them as a family.
And because the dad left him, they lost their house, they lost their home. They moved from different school, lost everything.
They were, um, like their whole life had been shattered. And in their mind, they believe that because their dad left, their life was destroyed.
Right. And so this person now was in a spot where he did not feel happy.
He wanted to leave. He wanted to, to exit this life, but he knew that he exited this life.
It would destroy his wife and his kids. And so out of mercy, he wanted to also end their lives.
So they wouldn't go through the pain that he went through. You look at that, it's like, whoa, like little paradigm shift, right? Good intentions, evil outcome.
Yes. But, but, but people in most cases have good intention.
And so I think I try, I'm not perfect at this by any stretch, but I try more and more in my life when people offend me or upset me to think about like, like, what are their actual intentions? What are they trying to do? And usually it's, I believe it's usually a positive

intentions just directed incorrectly. So I'm gonna put that out there.
Cause that was kind of cool.

What number did I leave off on? If I had two hands, I would have, I had one hand on the notes,

but I got one gimpy hand and one real hand. So I'm not sure exactly.
Let me see where I, um,

let's see. Okay.
Yeah. That was number seven.
Okay. Number eight, I want, uh, I want a person

who will believe heart and soul in everything he does in connection with his position. A

Thank you. Let me see where I, let's see.
Okay, yeah, that was number seven. Okay, number eight.
I want a person who will believe heart and soul in everything he does in connection with his position. A person who will not represent the institute either by direct statements or by innuendo.
Okay, so someone who's true and faithful in all things. Very cool.
Number nine, I want a person who will meet the public with a smile on his face, a smile that comes from the heart. I want him to shake hands with people as though he enjoyed it, okay? Positive face, positive attitude, big smile, shaking hands, always having that positivity.
Number 10, I want a person who will not be jealous of fellow employees or afraid that one of them will get his job. A person who will help those around him to be more efficient, a person who will be happy and enthusiastic.
This one's cool because I see this a lot of times where internal office dynamics, I'll see where somebody doesn't want to help someone else because it might make them look bad. It might make them like, well, if they're doing that, then do you even need me anymore? Versus like everyone working towards the same goal? Like, you know, and like, anyway, so I thought that was a really good one as well.
Number 11, I want a person who truly loves to serve his fellow man and who will look upon this, his opportunity to do so as a welcome privilege. Okay.
Somebody wants to over deliver at all times. Number 12, I want a person who is observant, who sees all that goes on around him, who can distinguish between the important and the unimportant experiences of his daily routines, retainers, and classifying the former and brushing aside the later.
Okay, so this is somebody who can notice all things, but then has the discernment to be like, this is the most important, so I need the first and the second. These things aren't important, like having the ability to discern those things.
This is one that takes a lot of time to train people. A lot of people see all tasks as level A1, most important thing versus like, hey, here's a lot of stuff we gotta do.
What are the things that we have to get done? Let's put those in first. And one of the things that would be nice to get done and one of the things like, that'd be cool, but not that important, right? And being able to like differentiate between those things so you make sure you're getting the things done that are the most vital, most important.
Number 13, I want a person who knows or will take the time to learn how to eat properly. A person who will not encap...
I'm going to say the word wrong. Yeah, you know the word.
Who's not going to encapitate themselves. That's not the right word, but here we go.
And become a grouch by overeating as 75% of the people of today are doing. So we want someone who's going to be healthy.
Okay, I agree with this because I see, I'm a big believer in energy and like tracking energy. And like what you eat throughout the day depends your energy levels.
I used to have a big breakfast in the morning. I would crash and have no energy for us today.
Then I shifted where I would skip breakfast and I'd eat lunch and I had great energy. And after lunch, I would crash and the rest of the day.
And I started shifting where nothing but fats and proteins for breakfast and for lunch and no carbs till dinner. And my energy extended throughout the entire day.
And so, um, the people I see all the time who like, I see my staff who order the most crazy foods that are eating at like noon. I'm like, you're shot for the rest of your mind literally is going to get dim and hard to focus and hard to think through because of that.
Like, and so I love this one of just like, take care of yourself because it'll increase your energy, your mental abilities, all those kinds of things when you're sharp. Number 14, I want to be a person who refused to allow himself to be aroused by anger by some ill-bred person who hasn't learned the art of self-control.
Ooh, don't get angry around people who are morons because there's a lot of them in this world and they're going to be everywhere, especially when you're online, especially when you're posting social media. All right.
And the last one here, number 15, I want to, I want a person who believes that he ought to be paid in exact ratio to what he produces for the business, whether it is a thousand dollars or a hundred thousand dollars a year, and he'll be satisfied with that. This is a big one.
One of my pet peeves on this planet is when people come and they ask for a raise because they've been working at your company for a certain period of time.

Drives me crazy.

I would never in infinity years ask for a raise when I'm doing the exact same thing that I had agreed to get paid for originally.

For me, I would come in and say, okay, this will be great to you. I'm going to work really hard.

I'm going to get this thing.

And then it's like, okay, I figured out a way I can add an extra million dollars a year to the company.

Let me do that and then come back and say, hey, I added a million dollars a year to the company external from what we already agreed upon. And then I want to raise here or I want a royalty or something.
It's tough. One of the hardest things internally is we always want to share wins and things that happen inside the company.
But you share a win and all of a sudden, literally next week is when people start asking for raises. It's like, it doesn't work that way.
Anyway, it comes back to what you said here. I want a person who believes that he ought to be paid in the exact ratio for what he produces for the business, whether it's $1,000 or $100,000 a year, and he'll be satisfied with that.
So what are you actually producing for the business and money? And a business owner, if you're an employee in a business, should be making, if you're getting paid $100,000 a year, they should be making $3 or $4 million off of your efforts. If they're not – and again, there's some number that – I can't remember that some of the business people will throw out as like this is the number of the ratio.
But that's the reality because you think about that. I think about my company.
Let's say if we make $10 million a year, half of that goes to government. Half of that goes to the employees.
Half of that goes to, you know, like, on a $10 million thing, like, I might take home $500,000. So it's like when someone's like, we made an extra $10 million for the company.
It's like, cool. $500, that's actually generous when you have a big company.
Yeah, because $10 million, if you're at 20% profit margin, you're at $2 million, and then you got partners. Anyway, so when all of a sudden, I don't know, there's a rabbit hole that's going down, I'm not sure exactly why, other than just understanding that if you're an employee in a company, again, you're getting paid 100 grand a year, you should be producing three and a half million dollars a year to sell in value, in money for the company.
And if you want to raise, it's increasing that. So how do I go from three million to five million a year? If I can figure out how to fix that, that's how I can make more.
That's why traditionally someone who's working gets capped at a certain point because it's hard to go from, if you're making the company $3 million a year to go to $6 million, it's hard, right? To double is really hard but if you're a manager and now you're managing three people who are just like you and now you're making, you know, 3X as much, now you're more valuable because you were able to leverage and get and make more money, right? So now it's like, does that make sense? That's typically the levels of value, how you go up in things, right? Myron Golden's got his four levels of value, which I'm not going to go deep on that, but as you move from working with your hands, this is the lowest level of value because again, you're capped by hours. Then you go manager, which is the next level of value because again, you have leverage now where you're managing multiple people to get more production so they work more the third level of value then is um is communication where you can communicate ideas you can sell things you can sell one to many right without others there's you can produce more money in less period of time and number four level is imagination where you're inventing businesses and ideas right and so like you make more money not by not by getting better necessarily at any of the levels of value.
It's by moving up a level of values where you start making more, more money because there's more leverage and there's more, um, you're making more money for the, for the company or the business. Right.
So anyway, I'm sharing those for you guys. Cause I thought those 15 were really cool.
And again, I'm looking through this lens of like, if I was an employee, this is like, this should be my Bible for myself, like what I'm going to do and accomplish to be worth what I want to be worth. Right.
If I'm an entrepreneur, I'd look at this for like my team, but also for myself. Like these are the elements that I want in myself to be the right person.
Um, and, uh, yeah, I thought it was really good. So at the very end of that, the section, Napoleon Hill says, those are the specifications.
If you can fill them, you can have that position or if you should be filled or that position should be filled when you apply, don't worry because I have a dozen or more friends among the Chicago businessmen who would consider that I have done them an everlasting favor by sending you to them. So that's the key is like, if you, if you are that person, any company would hire you, right? If you are that person, your company will grow because you had the values and things you have, um, are insane.
So anyway, one of the fun things I read as I was preparing for our truthful advertising course

that we were filming this week

that'll eventually be inside of Seekers of Success,

the advertising level.

So I thought it'd be fun to share with you guys

and I hope you enjoyed that.

And I hope you enjoyed this podcast.

I wanna end where I started, okay?

Talking about you again.

This is development of you as a person,

as an advertiser, as a marketer,

as an entrepreneur, whatever you wanna call it. Remember this, a ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
Quit trying to be safe. Life's not about being safe.
You're not going to die and get to heaven and be like, oh, congratulations. You didn't get hurt.
You didn't make any mistakes. You were safe the entire time.
It's going to come back and be like, what did you do? I gave you a talent. Did you turn it into two? Did you not? Are you buried the talent? Oh, so you're a ship that's safe in the harbor, right? No, no, no.
Like take that talent and multiply it, right? That's what you were built for. You were not built to sit in the harbor just waiting.
You were built to go out there and do something amazing, okay? And it's going to be a stretch. It's going to be hard.
Along the way, you're going to rip your biceps off of your bones and you're gonna keep on going because it doesn't matter right me having her biceps has nothing to do with me serving my audience has nothing to do with me in a week and a half now standing on stage in inner circle and teaching this group of entrepreneurs who've flown in like i can do that with no arms right as long as i didn't break my brain i'm still good to go and serve these people uh you know and so it's just thinking thinking, okay? Ship and harbor are safe, but it's not what ships are built for. You being safe is what a lot of you guys are doing, but it's not what you're built for.
You were built for more. I know that your eternal destiny is huge.
What you are capable of, the people's lives you can change if you will just step up to the plate and play will be something that doesn't even make sense to you right now. I promise you, if you were told 22-year-old Russell when I first started this game, like, hey, in the future, you're going to have an audience with a whole bunch of people, and they're going to read your books, and they're going to listen to your podcast, and they're going to launch businesses.
You're going to have 3,000 people who have made over a million dollars because of your software and your training. You're going to have, you know, like, I wouldn't have believed any of that, right? But what did I do? I didn't sit in the harbor.
I was called. I went out there and I started just smashing things and just trying to do whatever I could, making tons of mistakes along the way.
I have failed at more businesses than most of you will ever attempt. And that is the truth.
That is the reality. I've launched more funnels than, yeah.
I've lost really tens of millions of dollars on stupid ideas. I'm still here swinging because I'm not sitting in the harbor being safe.
I'm out there. And so I want to give you guys some encouragement.
Like go out there, do the thing, be the person, write the book, launch the course, do the Facebook Live, do the podcast, do all the stuff, even if it's not working, just do it because that's how you learn. Get out there and start playing the game.
I appreciate you guys. Hope you enjoyed this episode.
If you did, please let people know about it. It's the only way we market the podcast on YouTube is just by people sharing with other people.
So let people know. And by hopefully in the near future, you'll see another episode where I've got both my arms all jacked up.
But as of right now, I still got one good arm, but that's going to end soon, I'm sure. So thanks, you guys.
Appreciate you all. And we'll see you on the next episode.
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