In Your Secret Thoughts, Are You The GOAT?

Welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. My name is Russell Brunson, and I'm what you call a serial entrepreneur, but with a twist. You see, 50% of my time, I'm the CEO of ClickFunnels, helping over 100,000 brands to grow their companies with funnels, and the other 50% of my time, I'm actually in the trenches using ClickFunnels to grow the startups I believe in. During this podcast, I'll take you behind the scenes and show you how we are bootstrapping ClickFunnels and my other businesses from startup to 9 figures and beyond. Welcome to the show. What's up everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. This will probably be the last podcast episode of the year, which is crazy. I know my last podcast episode, I was probably a little more down than most of you guys are used to hearing me, so I apologize about that. But anyway, I do appreciate actually a lot of you guys reaching out to me and sending me messages. And anyway, that felt really good and meant a lot to me. So thank you for that. And I'm actually going into next year really excited and hopeful and yeah, it's interesting. It's just been a weird season with kids turning 18 and business and all this stuff. And the other day I came back to the office and I was like, hanging out with all my old books and then I was like, I spend so much time collecting them, I should spend more time reading them. And so I was looking at some of my favorite authors and one of them, some of you guys, a lot of the marketing people, the hardcore marketers would know who this person is. His name's Robert Collier. He wrote the Robert Collier Letter Book, is one of the best marketing books of all time. But what most people don't know is Robert Collier, he was teaching marketing, or showing what he was doing in marketing, but he was marketing his own business. His own business was this huge personal development business that he created with tons of books and courses and magazines and newsletters and all sorts of stuff. In fact, next month inside of Secrets of Success, we are gonna be giving you guys one of my favorite Robert Collier book sets. It's actually 7 volumes. The first 2 volumes are called Secrets of Gold, and the other 5 volumes are called Life Magnet. And it's Robert Collier taking, you know, some biblical principles and some mindset principles and weaving them together to a really cool book set. So if you're a Secrets to Success member, that'll be coming next month to you. If you're not yet, you should go become a member. It's so much fun over there. As I was collecting all my Robert Collier stuff, all the books and things, I found out that he actually had a magazine for a long time called Mind Inc. And they're like these little mini, like they're small magazines but they're really thick, almost like little mini booklets. And I think I have almost a complete set. Set. I've been trying to collect all of those. I've been working on getting a complete set, which is kind of fun. But then I recently found out that he wrote— he started another magazine right prior to Mind Inc., and that magazine is called How Seven. And he only published, I think, 7 or 8 issues. I think I've got 5 or 6 of them. I'm still trying to find 1 or 2 more that have been eluding me so far. But anyway, so today, the other day when I came into the office, it was sitting on my desk. It was the January 1928 edition of How Seven magazine. I started— I'm like, I'm just going to read this thing. I started reading it. It was interesting because it was kind of the thing that got me out of my funk a little bit. And, and I don't remember specifically what it said, but I was reading all these articles and everything, specifically ones written by Robert Collier. A lot of authors in there, but you know, the ones from Robert. And the big premise I got was the fact that we have to have like self-confidence in ourselves. He talked about how like there are, you know, people out there who are running businesses and organizations and things like that. It's not always like the smartest person or the person who's the most attractive or whatever, right? But the person who's got the most confidence is the one who wins, right? I think I remember hearing Satya Magali say that whoever, in any situation, the person with the most confidence will win, the most certainty will win, right? And I started realizing like, oh my gosh, I've lost my confidence in myself. I think that's really been my struggle. When I got started in this business back in the day, actually, let me step back even further. When I was wrestling growing up, I remember in my head, I thought I had a unique advantage over everyone else. And I don't know if I did or if I didn't, but in my head I had this advantage. And it was the fact that my dad was a college wrestler. I'm like, my dad's a college wrestler. None of the other guys on my team, other teams have that. So like I have this unique advantage that makes me, that makes me so I can be like the best, right? And I always had that like in my back pocket. It's just like a thing. And I remember there was a, a movie, or like a, it was a wrestling movie I used to watch all the time, and it was about Iowa wrestling, who, you know, Hawkeyes, one of the best wrestling teams of all time, and there were two twin brothers, Tom and Terry Brands, and this video was all about them and their training and their lifestyle and everything, and I remember the video started, and it started with Tom Brands, he's like, my name's Tom Brands, my goal is simple, I wanna be the greatest wrestler in the whole world, and the next pop-up, and it was like, my name's Terry Brands, my goal is simple, I wanna be the greatest wrestler in the whole world, and then the rest of the video was these guys just showing their crazy training routine, right, what they were doing to try to become the best in the world, And I remember hearing that and like in my head I was like, when I was competing, and I would never say it out loud 'cause there's like, I don't know, we have this thing where it's not socially acceptable to say these things out loud. But in my head I was like, my name is Russell Brunson and my goal is simple. I wanna be the greatest wrestler in the whole world. And then I acted as if I was, like in my head I was like, I have this unique advantage, I am the greatest, you know, and I wasn't, but I was like, but I felt like I had what I needed to do. Like I was confident in myself. And I started pursuing that. And from that, I never became the greatest wrestler in the whole world, but I became a state champ. I took second place in the nation. I got a college scholarship. I was in the top 10 in the NCAA, like all these different things that came on the backside of it, of just believing in my own mind that I was the greatest of all time, right? The GOAT. And I like that. I'm gonna use that as the acronym for this, the GOAT, G-O-A-T, greatest of all time. And there's a quote from Andrew Carnegie. Dan Kennedy's quoted this a lot. I think he always quotes it a little off. I like Dan Kennedy's version of the quote better. I found one that's, I think, what Andrew Carnegie actually said. Carnegie's like, you know, he was one of the richest men. He might have been the richest man in the world back then, but he said, be a man who in his secret thoughts believes himself to be superior to most men, thus deserving of great wealth and power. Okay, so it's in your secret thoughts, believing to be superior to most men. So what that means is like, again, it's not socially acceptable, like, I am the GOAT. I am the greatest. Although we have a lot of people in this industry who do that everywhere, right? But in our secret thoughts, we have to believe that. Like when I was wrestling, I had to believe I was the best. When I stepped on the mat, I had to believe I was the best. In fact, Dan Gable, who was Tom and Terry Brand's coach, used to say like, I won't let a wrestler step on the mat unless in their mind they know they're gonna win before they go out there. And he would pull guys. He was notorious for like, a guy came out there, look in his eyes, he's like, this guy's nervous, his self-confidence, he'd pull him. Like, you know what, you're not gonna wrestle for me. Like you have to know in your secret thoughts that you are superior to most other men, to all other men, to the people you are competing against. And I fast forward out of business, right? Like, I've been in this business now over 20 years, which is crazy. I remember when I first got started, like, I was learning, I was like learning from all these people, and I don't know, like, I became, I feel like I became more of a student than anyone else. Like, there are a lot of people who were talking about it and studying, but like, I became obsessed with it, right? At a level I don't think most people have. I don't think people knew how obsessed I was until I wrote DotCom Secrets and Expert Secrets. People started seeing like, oh, Russell went really deep on this stuff, right? But I was doing it, and at the time there were all these other, you know, if you were around 15, 20 years ago, you know, there was a handful of people who were in business back then who are still around today, and I remember like, I don't know, like all of them were doing bigger than me and more than me, and it was frustrating for me, 'cause like in my mind I was like, again, my secret thoughts, I was like, these guys aren't better than me, but I don't know, for some reason, like I was never the cool guy, I never got into the, I never got into the cool kids club. In fact, a lot of these guys who are my friends and they started this thing, some of you guys have heard it called the Syndicate, and there's like Frank Kern and Ryan Dice and Mike Filsaime and all these people and they're all my friends, but they had this Syndicate and they would all cross-promote. Each month they'd pick someone new to promote and everything. And I was always on the outside of that. I could never get those guys to let me be part of it. In fact, I even tried, like, how do I get in this group? I don't know, for whatever reason they would never let me in. I don't know if they didn't like me or whatever, which is fine. But in my mind I'm just like, it sucks 'cause you guys are doing bigger numbers and more than me, but I couldn't do anything about it because I couldn't get into this good old boys club, right? And this was before we had Facebook and the other ways to buy ads really aggressively and stuff, and so it's just kind of like, but I was studying and learning and trying and testing and doing all these things. And then when ClickFunnels came around, it was the first time I had a vehicle that was different, right? And I was able to kind of carve my segment of the market out. I was gonna be the funnel guy, and we had this funnel software, and we had this stuff, and from that it gave us the ability to build the biggest brand, right? I think the biggest brands at the time, you know, Traffic and Conversion, the big event, we surpassed them. Infusionsoft was the big software, we surpassed them. You know what I mean, like we were able to become the biggest voice, the biggest name, and I was able to like, it's like what came on the backside that matched what my secret thoughts were, like the secret thoughts bigger thoughts of who I believed I actually was and the confidence I had in myself. Like, we had the vehicle, we had the things to be able to do that, right? And we built this business and it's been amazing. And I look back now, the last couple years has been, it's been a, you know, it's been a bumpy ride for me. Um, obviously, you know, the ups and downs of the marketplace, you know, the market, we always had competitors coming in, but it was, it was different. Like, I, you know, I was, I had confidence, we were fighting and competing and it was fun and it was like, it was, it was awesome. But then for a lot of reasons, a couple years ago, you know, between, you know, Dave getting sick and other things, and, you know, people who I had helped grow in this business who, you know, started becoming competitors, and just, I don't know, a lot of things, like it just, if I'm honest, it shot my confidence. And it was this weird thing where I was just like, I don't know, my confidence was down. And like, when you, when you start making decisions and planning and going through things, it was just like Dan Gable, right? Like he wouldn't let an athlete step on the mat unless he could tell that in his mind he thought he was going to win. And I feel like somewhere in that transition over the last 2 years or so, my confidence got down where like I was stepping in situations I wasn't sure if I was gonna win. We're launching a funnel, we're launching a project, launching this or that. And I was like, I hope this works, I hope this works. And it was like, It was entering in with like the wrong confidence versus like me coming in, you know, Russell, the first 10 years of ClickFunnels, like being very confident, knowing exactly what I was doing and how I was gonna execute and what we're gonna do and like, and you know, having that absolute certainty. And I feel like I got away from that. And so as I was reading this magazine, "The House 7" from Robert Collier, and just 3 or 4 times that magazine kept talking about confidence and how we have to have this confidence ourselves, like how it was like one of the keys to being successful. And I realized that like, that I think that's where I've been struggling at. And I started thinking back and I'm like, why am I struggling? Like, why don't I have confidence? Like, look at what we've done over the last few years. Look at like what I've accomplished. And like I started looking back on that and I spent some time just really thinking about it and like trying to regrow my own confidence. And then I started thinking about, if you've listened to "The Strangest Seeker" by Earl Nightingale, he talks about our subconscious mind and how it's like a garden. He's like, whatever you plant in this garden will grow. He's like, if you plant nightshade, which is a poisonous plant, it'll grow and it'll strangle its ground right? We plant something good, it'll grow as well. I started realizing like the seeds I've been planting is the seeds of doubt or seeds of, you know, of just not that confidence and certainty and things like that. I started realizing like I had to come back and like in my secret thoughts, I have to start believing again that I am the greatest, right? I'm superior to all other men, right? I'm the GOAT, whatever you wanna call it. I gotta start planting those seeds and planting those seeds. 'Cause if I keep planting those seeds in my subconscious mind, subconscious mind will believe it, it'll grow and that'll be what happens. And it was just fascinating. And I started thinking about that a lot more. And so the last week or so, That's my thoughts, it's just kind of remembering back, remembering back like who I was and why and like what I've done and those kind of things, like bringing that back out and planting those seeds and re-establishing and regaining my confidence in myself. And so anyway, that's just kind of, anyway, that's been the last few days for me and it's been fun and exciting again and entering into the new year with a plan and I've got a plan that is no longer like, I hope this is gonna work. It's like, I know the plan, absolute certainty, and it's exciting. And it's not just like, oh, this is gonna increase our sales by 10%. It's like, this will destroy the market. This will, anyway, you guys will see. Watch over the next 12 months. You will see what happens when Russell's back with absolute certainty and confidence in himself. And we have a direction and a plan and we're executing on it. So I'm fired up, I'm excited. A lot of really good things happening. So for those who were concerned about me from last podcast episode, thank you for concern, I appreciate it. And those who are wondering how I'm digging out of it, 'cause a lot of you guys probably are in that state or been in that state or gonna be in that state, this is where I'm starting at. And it's re, it's re, it's coming back to the secret thoughts. Like Andrew Carnegie said, right? Be a man who in his secret thoughts believes himself to be superior to most men, thus deserving of great wealth and power. Okay, understand that you're— you, you are superior to most men. You are deserving of wealth and power and success. But it comes down to you believing that in your secret thoughts, reestablishing your confidence. If you're not confident yet, it's like going back and remembering, like replanting those seeds. Think about things that you've done that's successful in the past, replanting it, replanting it, you know, recultivating inside your subconscious mind. So that's what will grow, that's what will become. And that way, when you're entering certain situations, like entering, you know, stepping on the wrestling mat, stepping on that knowing I'm gonna win, stepping on that knowing that I'm gonna be the person that's gonna succeed, not stepping in confidently, you know what I mean? And that's in wrestling, but same thing in business, like stepping into it, like this new offer, this new campaign, this new thing we're rolling out, this new whatever it is, like coming through with the absolute certainty. So anyway, that's how I'm feeling today. I'm feeling a lot better. Obviously I'm still under the weather. You can probably hear it in my voice. That's kind of how we're entering the new year. And we have some really fun things planned for next year. I'm excited to show you guys and hopefully you'll enjoy the party and the ride. Thank you guys all for listening and supporting us. I hope you guys have a great holiday and great New Year and cannot wait to see you all next year. We're going to take over the world and hope you guys come on the ride with us. It's going to be a lot of fun. Appreciate you all. Thanks for listening and we'll talk soon.