Family, Faith, and Business: A Deep Dive of “Atlas Shrugged” with Josh Forti (4 of 5)
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What's up, everybody? It's Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today, we're jumping into part four of our Atlas Shrugged series. As you know, over the last couple of weeks, I've been giving you guys access to parts of a five or six hour long interview I did with Josh Forty back in 2020 after I first read the book Atlas Shrugged. So we're jumping right now into part number four. If you missed any of the prior ones, make sure you go back in the podcast to watch the previous one.

and get episode one, two, three. So that way you have some context of what's happening right now. And with that said, I hope you guys enjoy this part of the conversation. As a pride mover, as someone who's trying to change the world, this conversation should resonate with you. Thanks so much. We'll jump right into the episode right now. In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over a billion dollars in my own products and services online. This show is going to show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast.

So how did your parents, what did your parents do right for you? Like, what are the things? Cause like one of the things that I try to say, I try to say it a lot, but I don't even say it enough. Like my parents have played a absolutely tremendous, like I owe so much of who I am today. Like my parents, you know,

indirectly in a lot of ways. Like my parents didn't teach me like about like money or like, like things like that. Like, that's not what, that wasn't their gift, but like, like the presence of hard work and like family values, like, like biting your tongue, even though it doesn't seem like I bite my tongue. Oh my gosh. Every day. Right. Like, like, you know, like it could be a way worse. And like, some people would love that, but like, you know, like deescalating situations and like having those, like,

I owe so much of who I am to those. And like, yeah, they messed up in a lot of ways. And like, like you said, but like, so what were some of the ways, like what were some of the things that your parents did right? Like what are the things that you remember for your parents? Yeah. Oh, my parents. I was very blessed. My parents for sure. Um, you know, my dad, I don't think my dad was super engaged when we were younger. Um, because, and,

Just because he was in the phase where I try to figure things out and make money. And like, it was different back then. Yeah. But he also had a job, but he did side business. So he was always trying to figure things out. And I saw him doing these things. I saw like the job he didn't love. And then I saw like him doing stuff he did love. And I watched him work really hard. And then when I started wrestling, I saw my dad like,

like that became the thing that made him connected with which like meant the world to me and it was so important to him and what's cool is that my dad showed up to every wrestling practice he came to every single match he basically he built up his he worked his day job as a state farm insurance he built up his book of business where by time i was wrestling he was able to take off as much as he wanted and it ran itself he's making money and had a residual income i remember like my dad was the only one like as soon as wrestle pass got done my dad would walk in and we do meet him do a practice afterwards like

Never mismatched. He was always there. I remember just thinking, like, I want to make sure I have a business or something so that I can be there. Like, my dad was for me. That was so important to me. And like I said, he wasn't super around when we were younger. I think he struggled with us as younger kids, which I understand. But that phase of my life, like, he was there, and he was my best friend, and it was just awesome. I love that. And I've been trying to do that with my kids now. And there's a few times where maybe I wasn't as good of a dad. I was too busy. I'm trying to, like –

down other port spots try to connect more um that was them that's my my dad for sure and then my mom um my mom is uh for me she was just like i think i wouldn't say my people pleaser but i'm very much like a cheaper right like like i think when i started wrestling and i saw my dad got closer to me and then like i would win i saw him get excited like like i wanted to win because i wanted to impress man to this day i think i still have that we're like part of the reason i'm in this business i'm doing stuff is i love

When my dad sees it and just like, you know, like there's something I love, like pressing into this day. Like, that's just like, I love that. When my mom, it was like, she loved me.

even when I didn't win like that was something that was so like foreign to me I remember like I'd be cutting weight for us I had eaten three days I'd be so tired so miserable and she's like she'd come down and sneak in my room like like bringing me from my mom I can't eat I'm not gonna make weight she's like why you just quit that like you don't need to do this and she's trying to get like and she's like the opposite of my dad and she loved me no matter what and I didn't care that I was trying to win or succeed or didn't couldn't care less like

She just wanted me to be, you know, she loved me like just cause I was me. And like, that was weird. And, but so cool as well. And saying both those principles, like it's something I've tried to, to, to weave in, you know, I got two different sides. I'm trying to weave that into my kids. And again, so far from perfect, but I think those are two things that meant the world to me that I'm super grateful for them, you know, having like doing those things for me. Cause I still remember those things. So there is, which is by the way, that's awesome. Um,

There's a lot of people in this world that are growing up without dad, without a mom. And like, it's interesting because like, I think a lot of my social media posts, like

I kind of come across sometimes like that heartless a-hole. Like, you know what I mean? Like, Josh, like, you know what I mean? Like, you talk about like, take responsibility for your life. Everybody can do anything. It's like, if you're broke, it's your fault. Like, that's one of my favorite sayings. Like, if you're a broken American, it's your fault, right? Like, it's like, Josh, like, you don't understand. Like, you grew up and your parents are like still married. Like, not only do you have parents, like they're still together and they still like actually love each other. It's not even that they're still together. Like, it's like, you're like a percentage of the percentage of the percentage in a lot of ways. So like, what...

I don't even know what question I'm asking, but like, what would you, like, where could somebody find that? And like, how can, what can we do as a society or just as entrepreneurs, as like, as producers to like help those people? Cause I feel like that's a really big need. Sure. And like, it's one of those things where I'm like,

One of my big struggles with this is I always want to point back to the church. I had a really awakening come to Jesus moment back when I posted, this was probably a month ago or so, and I posted on Instagram, actually. And I think you liked it, actually. So I know you saw it. And I said, defund.

Yeah. Defund the media, defund fear, defund career politicians, fund orphanages, churches, and schools. Right. And like I posted on Facebook, I posted on Instagram and I was shocked at how many people were like, dude, fund the churches. They're just as like, they're a bunch of pedophile people there too. They're, you know, like so many people had like such this negative view of the church. And like, I grew up in the church. Like that's, that's what I knew. Like, so,

how I knew how family works is because like I saw that our own family that I saw the church family I saw the community and like how the church was involved in the community and like the church that I went to like after I moved out like Grable Indiana like I I worked three doors down from it and like they were that's where people went to vote was in their gym and the fair like that's where people parked like the church was like such this integral integral part that word uh part of the community right and so like when I saw all these people that

had this negative view of the church like that broke my heart because i'm like that was my solution right like they're like so many things like if you don't have a dad i can go to the church like if you don't have this like you know the church it's like what and if that's your answer like that's cool but like how can we as producers of society and the people that are going out there and like making the money how can we help those that don't have what you and i had it's interesting because um you know what what mormons believe is the family is the central everything that's god's plan is

a husband and wife starts a family. That's like, that's a, that's a, an eternal principle, right? And so you look at like the adversary, Satan, whatever you want to call him, like his job, like if he can destroy the family, like,

everything else falls apart like that's that's the war we're in right now yeah we think we're in a lot of different wars the war we're in is is satan is attacking families that's it okay which i want you to finish this i have to say this though guys and this is not russell saying this is me this is why i hate the black lives matter organization not moving the organization so much because their whole principle is breaking apart the traditional family values anyway i know that's not your i'm not speaking for russell just

But yeah, if you Google family, the proclamation to the world, you'll see my beliefs on family. We have it printed out eight foot on my wall in my house. That's my belief. Family is essential to everything. And so Satan, the way he destroys societies and nations and this world is to destroy the family. And so when you see families are broken, there's single mothers and single fathers. It's heartbreaking. It's the saddest thing in the world. And I don't know the right way to solve it. I do know that it's vitally important. I

I remember first time I met Tony Robbins and started learning from him, like one of the principles he talked about in relationships is masculine and feminine energy. Like the masculine and feminine is key to like a relationship. Like I could go off like four hours just on masculine and feminine. Like it's like the most fascinating topic in the world. But you look at like, if you ever see how Tony fixes relationships, like you look at,

traditionally if you go to traditional counseling, they're like, there's a problem, right? Like what's the symptom of the problem? They try to solve the symptom of the problem. And they, they counsel takes years because it's a symptom of the problem. It's like all the issues are all, they're all symptoms of problems. The real problem is like when,

When there's a masculine and a feminine, and it doesn't matter, again, this is true with gay, straight, it doesn't matter, but feminine, masculine energy, right? You take a masculine and feminine, and that polar opposite, that's magnets that magnetize together, right? That's what creates attraction, passion, and everything. What happens if a masculine and feminine, they're attracted together, right? That's how you start. That's how...

how any relationship starts, right? And then you look at people get married and it was interesting because what Tony talked about, so you look at typically in a relationship, there's like what they call a seven year age. And why is that? And he talks about is the feminine, the way the feminine causes change is, um,

I wish I could. Somebody would write a book on this. I just don't know. I don't know perfectly enough to explain. We're also just going to become a writer. Yeah. My word. I got a lot of books to write. So this is how it works in traditional marriage, right? It's masculine and feminine. What happens is one of the ways that feminine causes change is they criticize, right? Like if I see this with my wife, with friends, with girls, like if they want their friend to change their hair, they don't say, hey, you should get a haircut. They'll criticize something.

to try to cause change, right? So what happens is that a family... Yo, I'm... Wow, that's so true. So... This is interesting stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. That's just one example of feminine energy. There's a million. Right. Right. Right. But like, so feminine masculine come together. So like, this is an example. It's like, those are criticizing the man, but a masculine man doesn't care. Like it bounces off. I'm like, okay. Okay. Right. What happens after seven years of, of that happening? Eventually, um, instead of, instead of a balancing off, which is a masculine response, you start taking it personally. Oh, as soon as you take it personal, guess what happens?

You are shifting physically from your masculine to a feminine. You start shifting. What happens? You shift from masculine to feminine and boom, the attraction breaks and it starts falling apart. And then all the other problems start happening. So the problem isn't solving the fact that you leave the toilet seat up, but that you don't communicate well. But the problem is the masculine feminine attraction is broken. If you fix masculine feminine, you can make men become men and women become women. Attraction comes back and all the other symptoms disappear. It's fascinating. And so that's from a marriage family, like relationship standpoint.

Okay. Can I, I want to protect, I'm telling this because I want to talk about it from the family with kids in a minute, but yes. Okay. But I want you to now give me another example of that Tony Robbins has said, because I

What you made it sound like there is that the way the woman does something is the thing that's causing the bond. I know that's not what you meant. I just want to make – I wanted to do that clarification. It's the same thing with the men, where the men are responding over and over, where women now become defensive and they become more masculine and it's the other way. Sorry, that's not the only example. I was just – I just want to make sure we clarify that because I know things have been taken out of context. Someone's going to be angry. I apologize. I'm stupid. I get it.

But conceptually, does that make sense? Like it's the break of the masculine and feminine that causes the split, which causes the disarmament. If you bring the masculine and feminine together, that's what causes attraction and causes passion and causes all these things. I look at my life. Like when we were struggling in our marriage, like it's because I'm showing up feminine. When I show up masculine, everything's great. Or my wife comes in masculine and I'm masculine and we butt heads. Like it's fascinating. And so –

Anyway, I don't want to get deep in this because there's so much stuff. But the reason I'm going to share this is because you look at this thing. You've got a family, right? And the mother and the father split, right? And then there's kids who go through the mother and the father. And now what they have is they've got either a very masculine person they're learning from or feminine, but they don't see both. And so it shifts them, and then it shifts their relationship. So many problems. And so I think the way we help the most or can help the most is like Hermosi does this. Alex Hermosi does this. He donates his money to –

Do you remember the charity? You got our, you got our first two heart award.

um it's after school kids so like like these kids where they go to the like men who there's these kids trying to play basketball or lift weights or whatever who don't have masculine energy in their life they come and they donate their time and they help the kids that's awesome masculinity so they have they admit all of us we need male and female perspectives like we have like it's designed to have those things together when you lose one of them it's a tragedy it's like i think the way we can start helping is like how do we bring programs where where they can see masculine energy and see the way to like

to be a positive, not a negative thing. And like, cause a lot of times all they know is, you know, masculine energy left. And oftentimes there's a lot of anger between, between the people when they hear talking trash about the spouse and talking trash about these, these traits, which are like traits that are essential for them to develop. And I don't know, I don't know if that's the right answer or not, but I feel like that's how we can help those things. It's just like helping understand like, like the kids who don't have,

a father or a mother, like they need that energy in their life to understand it, to be able to, I don't know. So what's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson. I've got something really cool for you today from my friend Taylor Wells. And Taylor spoke at our last funnel hacking live. Cause I wanted him to share a really cool concept about what he calls the revolving pricing method. And today he decided to sponsor the podcast to give you guys more access to this super cool strategy that you are going to love. It's something we've been implementing into our high end coaching program as well. And it is amazing, but to kind of give you some context, um,

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Okay, so this is seemingly unrelated to this, but I think that I can tie it back in because it's a question that I think fits in here. So do you – I'm going to start with a super basic question, which I think the answer is obvious, but we'll go down this road. Do you feel misunderstood as an entrepreneur? I did early on. I did less so now. Why is that? When I got started –

entrepreneurship has become more of a cool thing that's true in the last decade since shark tank on stuff back when i first started it wasn't everyone was confused like why would you do that uh it is cooler um also it's like i think the more you talk the more you either alienate people or you attract people and i think a lot of people who i have alienated have been alienated and i think i've attracted people i've attracted so like my bubble of people around me are people who understand this lingo who relate to it so it's less hard now than it was initially

Do you ever feel, so like, I believe that one of my super, like your superpower, like your art, your format is like marketing and funnels, funnels specifically. Like that's like what you do. And like, I feel like you could just sit there for hours and hours and days and forever for the rest of all the time. Right. Like my superpower, the thing that I like to do is this like communication. I love constructing words in a way that people can understand. Right. Um,

Did you, I'm sure not, but like the Kanye West interview that Joe Rogan just did like three days ago. I've heard about it. Okay. So like, this has been a long awaited episode for like, no one thought it was ever going to happen. Right. Because it was the tease and it wasn't, didn't happen. Finally happens. And so like, I see this, I had no idea it was coming at like drops and I'm a huge fan of Joe Rogan. Right. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's amazing. Right. And I sit down and I look online and all these people are like terrible interview, not worth your time. Couldn't get past the first 20 minutes, like anything like that. I'm like,

What? So I go and the first 20 minutes were kind of like, I get done with this three hour interviews, like top three interviews of all time. Right. And what's interesting is like,

do you know kanye about like how kanye communicates like at all like do you know okay so like kanye there's so many references i want to use like so like like kanye like sees the world like fundamentally differently and like how joe describes in there and the way that i described it is like you wouldn't know this like i said because psychedelic it's like a drug or whatever but like imagine being on like a psychedelic drug like in a small format like at all times like that's how his mind works like he's like sees everything it's like expanded and so even kanye said he's like

The reason I have such a hard time communicating sometimes is because I have to, like, I see things in three dimensional and then I have to put them in, in a two dimensional conversation. Right. Now I'm not trying to compare myself the way I think the way that way Kanye thinks, but like that, this concept of like him, people think he's beating around the bush. Right. When really he's just trying to explain something like,

One of the things I love doing is taking a concept like that and figuring out how to describe it in a way the average person can understand. Because I live in a different world. Just like you live in a different world than the average person does, I live in a different world. And that is by choice. I do not see the world the way that most people do. I intentionally do not want to see the world the way that other people do. Everything that I do, I will intentionally engineer where my life is different than the average person because I want to see the world differently. But I want to be able to communicate that in a way that they can understand. And so my question is like,

Do you think that there's a lot of great ideas stuck inside of producers' heads that if more people understood them and thought like that, we could change the world for the better? But because they're stuck in their head and that person doesn't know how to communicate it well or is not focused on that, that effect never happens. Gotcha. Yes. Yeah. So I would say – and that's why I think for me this study, this art of funnels and copywriting and storytelling is so fascinating because that's what it is, right? I always pitch like when we have an idea, in my head it's like this big granite block, right? It's like this is the idea. Yeah.

and to give it to somebody like this is the idea you're like i don't get it right right and then you start thinking about uh who is it start chiseling away at the stone right you start chiseling chiseling which eventually you have this like amazing statue right of like this thing that they people can see and they can understand they can they gravitate towards i feel like it's the same thing with communication right or with any kind of idea you're trying to sell like the funnel is one thing like right now like hey you should buy my coaching programs like

Why? Like, oh, it's too big. Like I need to take them to a path to simplify that. So it was like a step-by-step process, which is like chiseling away. But then inside each step of the process, there's like the words and the stories and things you communicate to simplify it, to get more and more fine tuned. Like that's why for me, like when we create a funnel, we launch it. It's like,

They've taken this big granite block and chiseling it down to like now something that somebody can come in on this side of it. They go through a process. By the time they're at the end, they're going to get this money. They're going to get a product and they're going to change. Like something's going to change for them. I think that that's what marketing is, right? It's that process of like trying to simplify the message. And I think a hundred percent, that's why most ideas don't get out. Right. How many times have you had, I don't know how many times have you had, and this kind of comes back to talk about who knows an hour or two ago too, but like,

four or five people get the same idea but then one person executes on it's like the person who understands the communication the best is the one typically who gets it out right like um how much of your life of my life has been focused on the communication and i don't necessarily like that much that part as much like it's not my favorite part but it's such an essential tool i remember when i was learning uh when i got in this game and i was trying to sell my very first product zip brander and i was like i put it up at a picture of it buy now button and like tried to send traffic nobody bought and someone's like we need a headline something okay so put a headline like we need

like tell us what this does and so i like found some sites that kind of model what they did and the people started buying and it was just like it was like learning that process of how do you communicate i remember thinking like i never want to learn how to write community like for me it was copy like that's what we all call back then like i don't want to write copy like i don't want to do that that sounds horrible um and i want to hire something but like the people i tried to hire was expensive it was like 10 to 20 000 for a sales letter i couldn't afford it so i'm like i have to learn this art of how to communicate and like so grateful because like that's how

Everything we've built has been is off the communication of an idea and doing it in a way that gets people to move. How do you decide what you're going to communicate? You have a lot of ideas in your head, and you have a lot of different thoughts on everything. And you choose to share funnels and marketing primarily. And then you have some religion in there, which I would say probably is number two maybe-ish of what you communicate. That's it. How do you decide? The battles I want to choose? Yeah. That's a good question. I think...

I mean, part of it was interesting. Like, why did I want to do this interview? Like, I read the book. It was fascinating. And I don't know the answers, and I thought this would be a fun way to talk it out loud. Like, it was fascinating. Funnels are fascinating to me because I can apply it to so many things. You know, when I talk about wrestling, but not the community you bump into. Oh, yeah, that's true. When I talk about wrestling, I talk about that. So I think it's just the ideas that fascinate me that I feel like have the most validity and can –

can do the most, you know, again, as an introverted person, I don't typically go out and have conversations with people. Cause I'm like, uh, you know, as much as I can find something like that does cause an effect. Right. That's why I like, I practice telling my story so many times and I'll do a podcast. And it's like, I know like now when I'm on stage in front of 9,000 people, the stories and get people to move because she's my practices. So I think it's,

I'm putting a lot of things out in the water and then seeing what things people relate to. And then I go deeper on the ones that are like, okay, this one had an impact. There's a lot of stuff. I remember writing first version.com secrets. There were seven or eight chapters more that never got published. I was going to publish them all. Do you have copies of those? Yeah. All my best stuff at the time that I knew and I wasn't going to publish it. And it was all in the book. And I remember I heard an interview with Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday. It was Ryan Holiday at the time. And they were both talking –

Anyway, talking about their books, both of them said that when they write a typical book – Tim Ferriss' books are like this fat. My first draft was like twice as big. It's like to make a book go from good to great, it's not like adding more. It's cutting. It's like I cut two-thirds of my book to give you this one.

And then I think it was Ryan said the same thing. He's like, it's not like they seem to my book start at the final of the first draft is twice as big as the final one. Then next section is cut, cut, cut, cut. I remember going back to dot com secrets at night and I was like, OK, based on that, if I like, what would I cut? How would that do? And I cut seven chapters out. And after I was like, so scared to make this is like I love these things. But I was like, those things aren't that important to get people what they need to actually be successful.

Some of those things end up being in dot-com secrets and expert secrets in different places. I wonder if that first person – I was going to say, I wonder if she just published the first thing or if she had a 2,700-page book and cut something out of it. That's crazy. Okay, back to the question in the car, and I want to tie this back to the book. How has growing –

multi-hundred million dollars, making hundreds of millions of dollars, having a roughly billion dollar company, being the CEO of 400 employees. How has that changed your perspective of the world? I think, so many things I could respond. I think there was a season in my life where I thought that if I was going to create something, if I was going to do something, the way I was going to do it was by me. Does that make sense? Yeah. And

um in fact if you look at my history the first decade of business businesses were about me they were me they were i was the sole owner the sole purpose you know person and on this journey when we started it was it was so different it was like how do we like what's the team look like how do we like who you know todd was my first time i had a partner it was like that was so scary for me and then the greatest thing i possibly could have done right and then run other partners and then employees and man and like stuff and like

I don't know. It's just, it's been fascinating just realizing that like to build this, it wasn't about me. It was about, I don't know, just, just that, that whole thing. And I think anything great, a lot of times there's a person that gets credit for like Elon Musk gets credit because whatever Bill Gates or whoever the people have to get the credit for it. But it's like you start really seeing how many people are involved to make something amazing. You know what I mean? I think that's the biggest thing for me was I started growing it and it's, it's frustrating, not frustrating for me.

I enjoy it. I like, I like, you know, people always say Russell invented click funnels. I was like, I literally don't know how to code anything. There's not one dot of code in that word that I like, maybe once I leaned over Todd's shoulder, put a button in, then he had deleted. Like, you know, I think it's cool to, we see that like the, like how many, and I, before fun hacking live, every time we start, we bring our whole team together. And I see, you know, I'm the one who's on stage, but I am fully aware that like,

that it is not me. Like, this is us. Like, it wasn't for this team and these people. Like, for all of you guys, for all your contribution, this wasn't possible. I want to always ground that because I think so many times that the leader or whoever gets a big head where they think it's them and I...

I don't know. And I see that with a lot of people who are on big stages where they still drink their own Kool-Aid. I still think it's them. I think that's my shift in the world. Just understand like the great things, like the things that we remember, the things that are legacies that go on and on and on. There may be a, there may be a head or a person that like that the branding tied to, but it's like, there's this group of people that created something amazing. That's. But how did you, like, how do you stay grounded? Like one of the things that I, like, I am a huge fan of Russell Brunson, right? Like I, like, because I,

Like for me, like you're the person I look up to as like,

not just hey you taught me how to make a lot of money but like hey i like i want to i want to be like i want to have a character that you have i don't want to have like i look at grant cardone and i i don't you don't have to talk smack about grant cardone but i can right and like grant cardone is really really full of himself right and like don't get me wrong like i've learned a lot from grant cardone especially about money like he's changed my perspective about a lot of things i'm like eternally grateful for that but if like if i grew up to be grant cardone like where that was the focus i mean like i watched him

I was there when, you know, it was the stadium down in Miami or whatever, right? When it was, you know, it was all about him. And it was, I think he even got up on stage and was like, oh yeah, Russell, everybody says Russell's the greatest salesman, but I'm the one that packed the house, right? And I'm like, dude, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, why? Why is that necessary? And so like, how do you...

How do you stay grounded? Right. Because like, I think there's, it's so fascinating to like watch different type of people. And I know like Tai Lopez, for example, like for a while there, it was like all about time. Like now he's kind of like gone more behind the scenes, but I'm like each person I watch where there's Tai or Gary or Grant, like they all have a different way about them. And like, you have your way about them. Like the one that I see is like the most grounded, humble, like is like, there's nobody that's looking at you. You get up on stage and you're like,

You know what I mean? Like, you know, right. And then you walk up and Grant's like, but like you, it's like, yeah, it's that awkward of like, Hey, I'm just over here. Like, how are you grounded in that? Like, how do you, how do you not let it get to your head? Because it would be so easy for you to get wrapped up in your own head.

someone told me it's because my wife, they said, if you'd married anybody else, you had to be so big. I think, um, well, so I like met your wife for the first time today. I mean, like we had crossed paths, but, um, I said, when you were getting your haircut, um, I was like, so what's it like being married to Russell? She goes, he's just the sixth child of mine. Um,

I'm like, oh boy, the big kid. That's awesome.

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I think, um, I say it's two things and we kind of talked about this earlier, but I'll tie back to like, the first one is that I am fully aware that these, these ideas are not mine. Right. Like I didn't invent the funnel. I didn't invent any of this stuff. All I know is that I was on a path in a journey. I was given the thing and the next thing, and I was like freaking out and I was putting them together. And like, that's part of it's like, I think this stuff's not mine. It's, it's,

it's stuff that was given to me and tested and so like i'm so grateful for that like i'm it's never me like oh this look what i look what i invented like that's so annoying because it's not right like um these are again come back to these ideas these thoughts these desires things that were given to us and so i think that's the first part the second part of it is and i see this a lot in people my in my world who who um they have some success and then they're like this is my person i made them a bajillion you know and like i hate that too because it's just like

Like you helped them in a piece, but like, but they did the work. I'm very careful, like to always,

like when I'm talking about any of our success stories, like I didn't make that person. Like we had this super cool opportunity to be piece of their journey. Right. We helped them give them some ideas and a tool, but they're the ones that kill. Like I don't know what it takes to build what they're building. Like I didn't do that. They did that. And like, I'm grateful that they did. And, and I'm even more grateful that I got to be a little piece of that. Like I got to be part of that journey. I get to see that and just like have the impact of like, Oh my gosh, because I killed myself, wrote those books. And because Todd killed himself, wrote software and I was able to communicate it. Like,

Like they're able to do this thing. And it's not all me. I fully watch. Not on me. Like I know what every entrepreneur has to go through to be successful. And it's not a mentor who gives you everything. It's just like a lot of people who are peace. And I've had mentors who, who gave me a piece that I'm so grateful for, but then they try to take all the credit. Like, Oh, this is when, and I hate that too. And so I think,

I think those two sides, number one is like, again, I don't think these ideas are something I came up with. They were given to me, and I was going to steward them because I was able to aggregate them, and there's the thing. And then number two is just my belief that I didn't help anyone. Even when you said you and Katie, I felt awkward. I was like, oh, no.

I didn't do anything. I luckily some of the stuff that you resonate with you and it's like a little piece of your journey. I'm so grateful for that. Like the fact to see you do stuff now is like so much fun for me to watch you. And like, just knowing like, man, because he bumped into me, like maybe something happened and now he's doing this stuff and this work. It's so cool seeing how you're impacting people. And I think those are the reasons why my head gets big. Cause I don't think it's me. I'm grateful that I get to be a piece of it, of the journey. But I'm not the creator of it. Hmm.

All right. I want to look back to the book. Can we talk? Can we just read it? You guys want us to read it to you? What was your, like, what was the thing that fascinated you about it? Like when you boxed me, dude, you were like, dude, I read it and I'm geeking out about it. I just want to geek out about it. Like what, like what about it had you so fascinated? Like what did you want to geek out about it? Because I have a question that I want to ask like later on about it. But like what was the thing that like just made you geek?

There are a lot of things. I think the biggest thing that I was really excited – we talked about earlier was just – I'm sorry. No, that's good. The biggest thing earlier – Yeah, the biggest thing earlier was just this – again, for those who are tuning in late, in here there's a whole –

it talks about greed right and that concept of greed versus charity like um again the book very much is like greed is good as the thing that causes production and you should care about yourself and then good things will happen like you'll create jobs and everything everything else take care of so as long as you're you're you're caring most about yourself which i thought was kind of cool but then also i had the other side of uh with like my beliefs in christ and christianity and all these things like that where it's just like oh like how does that reconcile with faith hope charity and love and like you know serving everybody else and like and

And so that was – like that's probably the thing that got me the most. I think about that a lot, especially in politics because, again, I'm not deep into politics. I'm not going to talk about who I'm voting for or not voting for. It doesn't matter. But I see that on both sides because I feel like on the Republican side, you see a lot of this stuff like this. And then on the Democrat side, you see a lot of like the charity stuff. And, again, in my notes, I wrote this actually initially because –

I want to talk about this. Like, I'm a big believer that like, there's not like a right and wrong. There's, there's good in both sides. Right. There's not a right and a wrong, like right or wrong side. Yeah. Like there's, there's like, things are messed up on both sides. Like, like I think that there's,

it's just how it's how the world works like satan and like there's eternal struggle between god and you know satan and and and christ like this is always happening so there's two sides and there's like there's there's god-like principles and things on the right that are amazing and then there's satan that's twisting things and jacking up same thing on both sides like i see everyone fighting like tooth and nail i'm like i bet you if we all sat down

the majority of all issues we'd all agree on. But then it's like these fringe things that cause like so much hatred and fighting and just drives me crazy. And I think that this book's a perfect example. Like I believe so much in some of these principles, but there's also like the opposite principles. I also believe it and they're both right. And it's like, and that's what,

I mean, if you missed the beginning part of the interview, we talked more about that. But it's like the greed and the growth and contribution, that transition is like the key that just fascinates me. Yeah. So like what part of the – well, like what parts of the book contradicted the most with your faith? Like what part of the books did you have like the most – the hardest time with because of your faith? Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, the producers in the book, the, the minds, the people that I connect with. Cause like, that's who I, I, I self identify as a producer, someone who's obsessed with like production and creating and like, right. Like I, I really, so Hank Reardon, he's a Dagny, like all these people, like I really like, like they're cut from my same, from my same cloth. And it's, it's as they're growing this stuff, it's,

That they didn't give back that they didn't like, that's the best thing. Like, I felt like they, they weren't rounded out characters. And like, that's the biggest thing for me. It's just like, I don't want to be like, I like first half of the book. I want to be Hank Reardon. Like he's freaking the man. He's right. Like, like, yes, that's all I want to be. I wanted to see him.

have like that change of heart where he's christ-like yeah of his own free will not because the government came with the gun and told me i pay taxes i wanted to see his character develop and realize that oh my gosh like i should be serving people because i love them not because the government's forcing like like that's that's the piece i wish because that's that's like never i mean it like never took that turn like the book it was like you you almost like expected it

And then it didn't happen. It got worse and worse and worse. And then they wait till everything's like people are dying. Everything collapses. And then like the lights in New York go out and they're like, okay, now we can come back and build. Now we can come back and build. But like it, even when they come back and build, it was built like by our new law of right. Of like basically. So actually one of the things that's fascinating about that was, um, was it in cash? It was towards the end when, um,

Was it Galt? I think it was Galt. Who was like basically... Yeah, I think it was during his speech when he was like...

all we all we wanted was like we we gave the minds inside like we gave all this stuff to you guys basically and like kind of being like god there but like we get like here we did we we created all this stuff we created these jobs we created these resources like we gave it to you and all we wanted from you guys was for you to let us be in our own head like let us our minds be free and not be controlled by anything else and you took all that and not only did you take it all then you said no you're bad and we're gonna take that away too and so we're all going on strike because of that and like

You relate to that so much? And then it's like, yes. But then they explain how they live, and it's like you expect them to have that change of heart, but it's rather but no. It's because we are amazing and because we are the great minds and we must live by this code. It has nothing to do with, like, actually giving back or actually contributing to society. It's like they didn't care about contributing to society. It just happened to happen. Yeah, which is cool, which is why –

again, government should let producers produce because the byproduct is really good. Right. Right. For everybody. It's like that part is so much I relate to, but then, and part is probably because Ayn Rand didn't believe in God. Like, so that wasn't,

you know i mean it's like that wasn't part of her values and so yeah it's tough because she she weaved that i mean i just wish at the end the book would have been like and then hank reardon realized that he could help all these people himself and so he built orphanages and right and changed all these kids lives you're like yes he's like ah like that would have been amazing you know he found out oh you are and he went and donated money to save all his children right but he did his own free will because he he had that change of heart um because that's like

I don't want to die at the end of my days. I produced and created jobs, but I didn't care about people. I feel like that missed the mark. Hank Gruden, you say, is the person you related to most in the book? Yeah, I think so. I wanted to be Francisco, though. He's pretty sweet. Who do you think I related to most in the book? Who is it? It's a relatively main one.

Was it? You were close. Oh, was it Francisco? Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah, he was cool. Right from the beginning, he, like, fascinated me. And, like, I knew, like, right when, like, that she introduced the plot or the plot twist of where, like, he, like, ran off and became the playboy or, like, picture himself as a playboy or, like, whatever. Like, I knew right then and there. Like, I was like,

I don't know what the plot, like, I don't know what the connection is, but I like, no, this is going to come back around. It's like, not going to be how it seems. Right. Like, because like someone like the mind doesn't shift and like, then he stays in the scene or whatever. But like, he fascinated me because he,

I, like he strikes me as someone, Hank Grady didn't care about the crowds. He did not at all. Right. Like he hated going to the wedding. He hated going, like it was by force that his wife would like drug him out of there. That one time it was always like, I just want to work in my office. Like I'm actually not like that. Right. I am actually much more the, like, I do like the crowds, but I don't like the crowds because like, I need praise it. Like, don't get me wrong. Like I like being on stage and you know, like doing this type of stuff. But like for me, like I like the crowds because I've,

I love people. And I don't, it's funny because I like, I actually don't get along with a lot of people. Like, like, like whenever I go to the airport, I'm like, I will pay whatever it takes, like put me on a plane first, the least amount of people I have to deal with, whatever. Cause like, I don't want to have to interact with people that I want to interact with. But like, I love like studying and understanding people's minds. Right. And for me, one of the reasons I am so fascinated by Donald Trump is because of how he can control the crowds. Like you look at his rallies and

Dude, like you can't ignore them. Like they're just huge. My fiance's parents, like they went, or her mom and her mom and Courtney went,

I think it was last night to Omaha, like 29,000 people showed up in the bitter cold Omaha, like a last minute notice to, you know, and I'm like that type of control or not even control, but like that type of influence to be able to go through, like, what is it that makes people go and do that? Like, and so like Francisco in the book, like he, like he was the partier guy and like he went and he was with the crowds and he was very good with words and articulated and then he, but he sold me like at that wedding. And I'm telling you, but like, because to me there,

there's, there's more than two ways, but like super simplified down, there's like two ways to, to affect, like influence people. There's one, which is the indirect, which is like build a software company. It's build a product. It's build an iPhone, right? It's like, you're not directly influencing them with like your words or like whatever, like, but it's like influencing their behavior by creating a product, by creating a service is going to go out and change the world. And then the other way is to actually go out there and change them with your words. Right. And so that's why like Jesus, for example, Jesus didn't build a product, right? He did it through his words kind of sort of, but like,

To me, that's so fascinating. And I'm like, if I can figure out how to do that, like that's how I can affect real change in the world. And it's funny because like,

you've you have had such a massive influence on my life but probably like a year and a half maybe ish into like me knowing like click funnels i was like man russell's doing it all wrong and because and i had this this um thing like if russell would communicate more about stuff besides funnels like he would have a bigger impact right and like i had this like limited belief of like this is the only way you can influence impact people is by like going out there and actually like speaking to them right but like that's my superpower my gift so like

In the book, Francisco was the one I think that best represents my style of trying to go out and do things. I find it interesting about Hank Grader and with you. Because I'm similar. I've been here building funnels, doing some stuff. There's scenes of Hank in the book where he's sitting there looking out over the factories at night and he watches the steel being poured. It's glowing. He's enjoying that. For me, it's similar where I do the stage thing and things like that.

I get less value out of like even interactions are, but like, I love, I spent a lot of time on social media and I just looking at the people that I know are in our world and watching what they're doing. Cause that's like me watching the steel. Like, I'm not like my, my mission is not to go teach people how to do what you do. Right. I'm giving you like a blow horn so you can go do it. Yeah. It's like, that's more fast for me to sit back and, and,

it's funny for my wife, I, and events that drives her crazy because the event will happen and it'll get done. And then I, I screwy off. I don't want to like talk to anybody. I sit in the room and I just like watch like what people would take away and then who they're talking to. Like, I spent a lot of time just like watching. That's for me, like looking over the steel and be like, I gave them a trumpet or I gave them a blow horn and now their message is going out there. I can just kind of watch it. And so for me, it's like, I don't want to teach personal development and this and that, that, but I want to like empower or give these tools or whatever tools are so that, so that you can and, and you know, whoever all the other influencers are to be able to do

Do those things. That makes sense. Like I've got an amplifier. I'm an amplifier of other people's messages. And my message just happens. Like, here's the amplification that you need to amplify your message. Yeah. Letting everybody else go and do it.