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

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What's up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I hope you guys enjoyed part 1 last week of the Atlas Shrugged series with the interview between me and Josh Forti. I wanted to post part 2. A lot of you guys have been messaging, asking us, wanting, waiting for the exciting conclusion, and so, or not conclusion, just part 2. So with that said, I'm gonna jump right into this episode. This is the second hour of my interview with Josh Forti going deep into Atlas Shrugged. If you missed the first episode, make sure you go back 1 or 2 podcast episodes ago, watch episode number 1, or listen to episode number 1, episode number 1, and then come back and listen to episode number 2, and I hope you guys enjoy this episode. In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over $1 billion of my own products and services online. This show's gonna show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast.

'Cause like, what I'm trying to figure out, this is, you know, it's open discussion here, so like, I am a pretty motivated, driven person, right? Like, Like, I would never have described what I was doing as greedy, right?

Would you have thought that when you were an athlete?

Yeah.

No, but what is it?

Well, yeah. And that's why I asked you the question, because I don't know the answer for myself.

Like, I felt the same way because I never liked it.

It was—

I was reading the book and said, it started The Utopia of Greed.

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 of your life. Right.

Yeah. I wonder what the definition, the actual definition of greed is.

Yeah.

I'm going to 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, I think about the lens of wrestling. When I was wrestling, I had selfish desire for— I wanted to be a state champ. I want to be an All-American. I want to be a national champ. Why? Because I wanted my hand raised. That was all I thought about. So, I dreamt about it. 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.

It doesn't matter.

It's gone." Right? And I know that about myself. So, 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. And again, I wouldn't have thought it was as greedy, but by definition, it's like You're gonna focus on these things like about yourself, right? And then now I'm in this phase of my life where I'm coaching wrestling, coaching my kids and stuff like that. And it's like, it's different 'cause now like there's nothing in it for you, right? Except for seeing their hand raised and that light in their eyes go off and it's just like, oh, like that felt way better than my own. But you don't know that till you're in that phase.

Did having kids change that for you at all? Like 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 the business part, right? I mean, a lot of part you think about like our success stories in our business are our children, right? The children of ClickFunnels 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 it now with them and it's been interesting and fun and yeah.

How long did it take you to finish the book?

I think about 2 months.

Oh, wow.

You read it way faster. I was like, dude, that's fine.

Well, okay. So it's one of those things that's funny because my mom was like, have you even read the book? I'm like, what do you mean? You like, you made me read it in high school. Like what? And I went back and I was like, oh, I didn't actually read it. Like I knew the book. And so I assumed I had read it. And then I realized it was 1,200 pages. And I was like, I don't think I've ever, I don't remember reading a 1,200-page book. Like I feel like I would remember that. So I don't know if I—

I'm gonna go read it right now because Russell's gonna be talking about it. Right.

Well, and that's exactly what happened. So it was like, oh, I'm gonna 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, 2:30, I couldn't sleep. I'd get up and like, oh man, it's 3 o'clock in the morning. Close the book, you know, go 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 really, really good. There's something I want to wrap it because it's like an open loop in my head now.

Okay.

You start talking about how you agree on the left side of social, helping people, but not the way that they do it.

Is that right? 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, Donahue, 1980, like 3 months after her husband passed away. And it was fascinating. And if you guys know, she, she is— 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 No, 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, I don't—

super different.

This is not the Bible for me. This is just like a stimulating 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, no, that's not what I said. She's like, I never said that. She said, 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. Like 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 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, people should go and support people on their own. Right? This comes back to, this is the whole thing I talked about before. Like The natural man's an enemy to God and has been, you know, fallen. Lest ye yield to the enticing of the Holy Spirit. So us yielding, 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 to you with a gun saying, pay your taxes or you go to jail, is not you giving a gift. Like, it's them taking it from you and giving it away. So like, you're not a better person because you did it, right? So, and then we get into the whole depth of like, This is the government now who's 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 are 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 cash flow tactics.

Yeah.

Shameless plug. Yeah.

Anyway, I have no idea. I don't do my taxes. That's the tax bracket. So But then you look at like when you yield enticing Holy Spirit. So, there was a time when my friend Stu McLaren is like, hey, we're building schools in Kenya and this is mission and we believe in it. Will you help? Right? It wasn't greedy Russ like, I'm going to help and this is going to be awesome. 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 4 times now. Donate 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 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 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's willing to do that, right? Like again, there's a segment of people that will, it comes back to your like natural man's enemy God, we'll be fallen man and we'll be forever, ever. Like a lot of people never get off the greed boat, but most people, as you start making more and more money, you look at anybody, look at Bill Gates, look at Elon Musk, anyone who's making much money, what do they do with their money? Eventually, they start giving to charity, start helping people, like all these things because there's that transition point where you feel that, you hear the voice, you hear God, whatever you want to call it. It's 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? I know it's insane.

Even, uh, Bill Maher, who— do you know Bill Maher?

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 or 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— every—

that's scary.

That crazy as well. Like, Only the government.

It's crazy.

Okay.

And then they look at like— sorry, this is a plug for OUR and Tim Ballard. Tim Ballard, I know, does not take a salary. His payment for being CEO of Operation Underground Railroad and risking his life day in, day out is $0 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. Whereas can you say that about any of the government? Like, no, it's insane. It's— anyway. But yeah. So for me, it's like—

Somebody's gonna mention that Trump takes $0 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 that there's this blend of left and right. Like, 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 gonna need has, now we have 400+ people who have full-time jobs here. Excuse me, full-time jobs here at ClickFunnels. There's 100 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 2 to 3, I mean, 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're chasing this thing, we're producing, producing, producing, right? And it's like, if you take away the incentives of that, like, I'd have to lay off half my staff, which then things shrink and everything starts disappearing really quickly. Where it's like, if they took that away, it's like, now we can go and how much more good can we do?. And we did the OUR, we talked about OUR, showed the documentary at Funnel Hacking Live. And since then, I don't know, 4 or 5 dozen people who were in our community showed the OUR documentary at their events and made money. And it's like this ripple effect keeps growing, growing, growing versus the other side where it just shrinks.

And okay. So I want to get non-specifically political here though for a second with kind of with this. And I don't want to 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 people that are more traditionally like higher tax bracket, like, you know, you should be taxed even higher, right? Like we wanna 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 guess what? There's probably like people here in your own community, like in Boise, like for example, right? Or like wherever these entrepreneurs are that like you have millions and millions of dollars. Like there's people that are homeless or there's people that can't afford medical, medical payments, or there's people that are like genuinely need help. And so like the argument is like, okay, like, yeah, like you've given some, but like you have so much of it. Like you could do that and be taxed higher, right? Like we could take even more of your money and like your life wouldn't change at all. And we're also like not talking about your business money. We're only talking about profit. Like we're only going to take it like that part of the way. 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 tax the top 10 richest people, 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?

This is the fun part of politics, right? It's tough. 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 so, that's the hard thing is you argue both ways. But, you know, it's me as— so, let's say me as an entrepreneur because I only know experiences in my own self, right? I know I'm paying taxes every single year. I know how much goes away. I know how much I make. And it's tough because like the less you make for the more you work, the less incentivized you are to keep working, right? Like my take-home was $100,000 a year. I'd be like, well, why am I killing myself, right? Like I could work 3 hours a day and make that. So why would I keep doing this stuff, right? Like if there's no reward, then 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, employee shrink, like everything shrinks because there's no incentive for us to risk everything, right?, right? I guess 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 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? For me, 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. But there's things like, what are the things I care about? Like, let me focus there because everyone's got different different agendas, right? Like I had Matt Maddox, someone who I, you know, Caleb Maddox's father, he's a super awesome guy, came to me and he's like, hey, my mission is to save these kids off the streets and this stuff, you know, all these kinds of things. I was like, that's amazing, can you help me? I'm like, that's not my calling. My calling are 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. God gave you that, like that was the thing that you were given. That's the mantle you're in charge of. And everyone's got a different mantle. Like your calling is different than mine. Like people come all the time like, "Oh, like that charity is cool, but I support this." Like, good. I don't care who you support. 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, the thing that we're passionate about? And that's where we should focus our time and our energy and our money on. Not, again, don't come with a gun saying, "Give me 50% because I think you should go over here." That's so well.

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, you have so much money, right? Like, we're gonna, 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're going to take $2.5 billion and give it to people that actually need it. Like, do you think that there needs to be some overriding law or powers on this? Like, yo, you can't just hoard. You got to like, you got to, if you have more than enough, like you got to go and give it back. Or do you think that's a personal choice?

I think it's a personal choice. Um, just 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 $3 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 in the next thing. He's going to create more jobs, do more things. So they stimulate the economy in different ways, right? Like he's going to go and start PayPal and he's going to start Tesla and then start sending rocket ships to 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 because the byproduct of art is jobs. It is stimulation of the economy, make 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 use art, to pay Zuckerberg, to show my ads on the thing. You know, like all these things are part of it. And so, I think, yes, he's sitting on $3 billion just sitting there but producers don't typically do that. They're reinvesting. They're doing stuff with it.

It creates more. [Speaker:JEFF_LERNER] So, I want you to come up with a story on the spot. Go. Which 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, like, I feel like that is one of the most misunderstood things about the ultra-wealthy, the people that are like actually not like, okay, I inherited $200 million because I'm a trust fund baby, right? Like, but like the actual Elon Musks of the world, the Jeff Bezos of the world, the Russell Brunsons of the world, like what ultimately drives you to go keep doing more? Like, you have all of the money and I know, like I know we talked about like the, like you want to contribute back for it, but like, there's a million different ways you can contribute. Like, why do you do the things that you do? Because 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 my fiancée, 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 you're gonna 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 wanna go build this thing over here, I need $100 million or I need $10 million. Come on, I'm just gonna go make that money. I'm gonna go do it here. And like, you're basically just like organizing things, right? You're either creating or you'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, 'cause 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. I get 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, it's, I think, sorry, sorry. Alex Charfen. 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's creation. Like why was man put on this earth? Like were we put on earth to like wake up, watch TV, go back to bed? Like, No, like we have creative powers in our body. That's how husband and wife get together. We have children. Like we create. Like that's the mission on Earth. Like we're always creating, right? And it's like, you know, like any of us, like you get married and it's like we need to go 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 now we can move into. And it's just like that's the thing. I think that so many people though, they become— I think the word that Garrett White uses, he uses the best, sedated, where like there's pain. And so, because of the pain, they're sedated. So, they just sit in 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 I talk about like over the last 6 years, like I got destroyed and increased capacity and destroyed. 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. They're trying to hide from pain. I get that. Like, there's been seasons of 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— and I wish everybody could experience it because the opposite, you're in the creation zone, you're creating, you're doing. And 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 just trying to get out of the pain. And the other one is just like, you create to create, right? Like you could ask my team, like we build a funnel. And for me, it's just like, oh, look at this thing we created. We 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, I didn't want to do anything besides wrestling. Like 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 like my entire life because that was the art at the while. And just you want to keep performing what you're doing, right? And I think that 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. But like I don't think that's how most of the world operates.

They do initially. Right? They're born. They have that seed, that seed of whatever you call it, growth, greed, whatever, right? But something happens in life where they 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 like, man, what a tragedy. Like, you could be producing and changing some people's lives. 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 entrepreneur events. People come together and they literally— there's sessions they talk about what mushrooms they use to like hallucinate and all. It just drives me nuts. Like, you guys are sedating to get out of this pain as opposed to stepping in the pain and creating and changing people's lives. And so, I'm very vocal anti all that kind of stuff because I think so many people like that's what they slip back into. 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. 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 got to be what? What is it like production? Let's create something amazing. And I think that too many people let themselves off the hook and just like, "Oh, I could go create or I'm going to watch TV or I'm going to go eat or I'm going to go—" Like, if your outlet is something that 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. 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 in people I love that I care about. It's just like you're sedate. If we could break you out of that, you could get back to 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 he is an intense man. Oh my word. Garrett, if you're listening, I would love to talk to you. Come on the show. But yeah, I'm always plugging. Hey, if I can ever get a guest, Elon Musk, if you're listening. 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 3 people that changed my life. Katie Richardson and Russell Brunson are 2 of those people. 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, like, 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 like lived in this like universe, or that like these black and white, like, is it right or is it wrong, right? Like, well, 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 not so much as like, is it the right thing or the wrong thing? It's 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 know who you are, like you know what you're put on this earth to do. And that's why it's funny. I think you may know this story. So my brother dies, helicopter crash, beginning of 2019. Kind of wrecks my whole life. End up selling the company, sold the business to an investor. The business partner took over and like Leah and I like went off to go off around the world and it's supposed to be this like 4-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 6 hours away, like absolute middle of nowhere. And Leah gets an intestinal eating parasite. Like she gets super, super sick, like can't sit up, can't keep food down. I'm like, Oh my gosh, we're in the Philippines, the middle of nowhere. And so like we go to the emergency room and we get there and it's like a car— like, I mean, it's like a piece of plywood with 2-inch foam and there's no, there's no doors on the bathroom, no toilet seat. There's ants crawling up. It's like terrible, right? And so long story short, we end up having to cut our trip like 2 months early. We lose like tens of thousands of dollars in deposits, like getting her home and whatever. And like, I have no business at this point, right? We were supposed to be going for 2 months longer. I was supposed to fly home. Like I was supposed to come to Funnel Hacking Live. That was going to be like are 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, like, okay, I need a coach. And I, you know, go through it, I interview a bunch of different coaches, I end up like choosing Katie. And I'm like, all right, Katie, like, you're gonna solve all my business problems for me. You're gonna make— you're gonna help me make all this money, you're gonna 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 I know you need to." I'm like, "Thank God." Right? Like just brain dump. Like vent for like 20, 30 minutes straight. I'm like, "What's the answer?" She goes, "Josh, who are you?" I was like, "Really? Like that's where you were gonna start this whole conversation?" Right?

Like, I just paid you $60 grand.

And then, and like looking back now, like that, and I do have a full circle with this. 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 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 gonna go out and use that. And I believe that you should use that to serve him.

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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 a— I mean, you've seen my growth, right? Like, you've watched me transition from this crazy, you know, little kid to like this. It's like that came by learning who I was and like how I was contributing, like what I was doing, what I was called, what I was put here for. So when you talk about like sedation, I feel like 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 don't 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 see that so many times entrepreneurs where it's that like that mentality of like there's not enough money or not enough opportunities or resources, whatever. And you know this, I know this. Like, man, the bigger problem I have is there are so many opportunities every single day that's drowning. It's not there's not enough opportunities. There's so many. It's like how do you make up? And I think when people start understanding that, like look around, like learn some basic skills, right? Like The original DotCom 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. I think DotCom Secrets principles blow that company up overnight. Right? And so like if you have these tools, like you could do anything. You could sell like sell phones, you can sell watches, you can sell books, 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. I'm just like, what? Like, there are so many opportunities, but you have to have the skill set that actually, that it can produce it, right? I think so. You know, a big frustration obviously I have, I think you have as well, is, and we talked about school tonight with my kids, you know, it's just like a lot of things that you were equipped with are like school, like the school system doesn't equip you to be able to 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 traditional path is to be able to like walk in and like make it rain somewhere. Like those skill sets aren't taught in school, right? And you think about in any business, there's a couple 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 skill set, 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 different things. Some people like Kaylin Polen, 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 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 so much because like, and 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. 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. It's like, and then what happens? It's the date. They hide or they search. And if you search, you find the answer. And then it's like, oh my gosh, like now I can take this thing and change the world.

But like, do you think everybody has that talent though? Like do you— obviously, there's only one Russell Brunson. But like 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 the confidence like you. Not everybody has the— I'm like, you don't have to. Like you can do the same things just like in your own way, right?

But like— And everyone's got a different like 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. I was like, what do you mean? He's like, he's like, it's funny because he was in the room. He's like, I can't say names because 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? He's like, 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 do it. That guy there, he's here because he wants to hang out with the group and network with people. And he's like, you, you're here because you want to steal everybody's ideas, right? He's like, so if you try to launch a mastermind, like your goal is to build a $100 million company, you try to put that, your values on the people, you're going to make them all fail. And that was like this 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 you or 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 kid's 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 fits 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'll just kind of do those in and out and in and out. And like, yeah, that— like, what? 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, right? Like an over massive amount of like overwhelming majority are not.

I don't think I am. Right. You know what I mean? Like, I don't think so. Yes.

But yeah, you're living far more, more potential like the average person is. Right. And how I look at it is I go like, hey, listen, like not everybody can do what you do or what I do or like whatever, but like, okay, how do I bring this around? Makes it more clear. I'm gonna 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 of 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, Shouldn't we help them see that like they can go and achieve more? Or like should they— like is their version of success— what am I trying to ask?

The answer is yes, we should. And that's what we're doing, right? I heard someone before, they're 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 2 to 3 times a week every single time, every single week for like 6 years. I've written 3 books you can get for $10 or you can get them for free or you You know, like there's levels of it, right? And so like the thing is like there's value everywhere. And if you pick it up, it increases, you know, like you can, and you actually apply it. Like I'm a big believer that God gives all of us stewardship over things, right? Like he'll give you an idea, give me an idea, give anybody an idea or desire. Like here's some desire for you. You look at these kids who are struggling, but they get desire to play basketball and then they become the Michael Jordans or whoever, like the people, right? Because God gives them desire or they give them ideas or talents. Like I'm a big believer like in my business life as I've been doing this journey now for 18+ years is that I got ideas and a lot of ideas I didn't do anything with, right? But some of them I took. I got the idea and I'm not naive enough to think like, oh, I came up 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 going to be a good steward with it. I get the idea. And if I do something with it, 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 it, he's like, all right, let me give somebody else. Right. Like, like all this is happening. They would have happened whether I was here, 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 and 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, giving us ideas or desire, things like that. And he's watching you be a steward with it. If you are, I'll give you more. And if you 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 going to 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 ClickFunnels, for example, like the idea for ClickFunnels wasn't yours per se, right?

You know, people are trying to build a funnel software when we built ClickFunnels. 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 got— you're saying like God put this idea in your head and he probably put this idea in 100 people's heads or 500, 10,000 people's heads or whatever. But you're like, 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 was a— I wish Somebody shared with me, and I haven't read the book, there's a book that tells the story of an author who had an idea for a book, sat down, started writing it, and someone's gonna know it. It's a famous book, people would know this. I guarantee someone on the chat knows this.

Somebody comment below when you hear it, what it is.

The author's like writing the book and then stops, like, oh, I ran out of time, forgets about it. And then like 6 years later, this new book comes out, it becomes a New York Times bestselling book, buys the book, starts reading, it's like, this is the book that I was supposed to write. And it was like, oh my gosh, I didn't take stewardship of that idea. I stopped, and so God gave it to somebody else. It's like it's the same book, right? It's just 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 things. We all have these different gifts of the spirit, right, that are given to us and they sit back and watch to see what you're going to do with it.

[Speaker:ROBERT_LEONARD] I feel like that could give a lot of people permission to go out and do stuff too right there, like that viewpoint. Because 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, why, why do I get to have this conversation, not somebody else? Like, why am I the first person to sit down with Russell Brunson and 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 ClickFunnels. Shockingly 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 think I actually told you this the first time I met you. Remind me. Okay. The first time I met you was at Grant Cardone's 10X Growth on the very first one. All right. So this is at the time Grant hired our team to do like Instagram stuff. And this was like super early on. I was like dead broke. I couldn't afford to go to that conference. Like if I wanted to, but because we were doing 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 can like meet Russell. And so like we run downstairs and sure enough, there you are, like coming down. And I go, 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 pictures, like you put your arm around them and things like that. Like, you just literally just stood there, right? And like, just like that. I like, like, I'm like, oh, okay, I guess we're not doing that. And so there's like this picture of me in like, I'll find it, I'll box it to you. But it's like, we're sitting there, I'm like, I mean, this is, this So guys, Russell is shockingly average, shockingly average, apparently. But 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.

Because the one thing before, before I started, like, yeah, when I got started this whole business, it was me. And then I hired two of my buddies to come work for me because like they were the only people that cared what I was talking about. Yeah. And we were 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, between us two and you? I said, no, I said the only difference is you're in momentum, you're moving forward. So these opportunities keep coming to you because you're moving, moving, moving, moving. He's like, we're sitting back here doing the thing, but there's no opportunities coming to us because we're not moving. I think we need to understand when you're moving in forward, like people are like, oh, you're lucky you came with ClickFunnels. I'm like, do you know how many funnels I launched before ClickFunnels? Over 150, it's not 150 like add, 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 FrontPage, uploading through FTP, getting a shopping cart, connecting them 150 times. Took us 3 months on average to each one. Okay? 150 times before we came up with ClickFunnels. Like, I was just moving forward over and over and over and over and over and over again while everyone else is sitting around 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 ZipRender. Do you remember ZipRender? No one does. That was the first idea. And I was like, oh my gosh, ZipRender. And I went, I found a guy in Romania, paid him $20 to build the software. I created, I got a thing, a header design and a headline and a thing. Launched it and made like $400. 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, that did that. I launched, I made $1,700. I was like, oh my gosh, Foreign Fortunes number 3. 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 execute them, try and try it, 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. But if you were to give me that initially, I don't know what to do. The momentum is the motion that makes you worthy of the calling. And if you're not in momentum, if you're not moving forward, you never get the call. Many are called, but few are chosen.