Purpose, Charity, and Creation: A Deep Dive of “Atlas Shrugged” with Josh Forti (2 of 5)
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Find the detail that moves you with immersive dining experiences from Sapphire Reserve. Chase, make more of what's yours. Learn more at chase.com slash sapphirereserve. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member of FDIC. Subject to credit approval. What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to Marketing Secrets Podcast. I hope you guys enjoyed part one last week of the Atlas Shrugged series with the interview between me and Josh Forte. I wanted to post part two. A lot of you guys have been messaging, asking us, waiting for the exciting conclusion. And so...

or not conclusion, just part two. So, um, with that said, I'm going to jump right into this episode. This is the second hour of my interview with Josh Forty going deep into Atlas Shrugged. If you missed the first episode, make sure you go back, um, one or two podcast episodes ago, watch episode number one or listen to episode number one, and then come back and listen to episode number two. And I hope you guys enjoy this episode.

In the last decade, I went from being a startup entrepreneur to selling over a billion dollars in my own products and services online. This show is going to show you how to start, grow, and scale a business online. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Because, like, what I'm trying to figure out, this is, you know, it's an open discussion here. So, like, I am a pretty motivated, driven person, right? Like, um...

Like I would never have just have described what I was doing as greedy. Right. Cause you thought that when you're an athlete, you thought when you were, no, but, but what is it? Well, yeah. And that's why I asked you the question. Cause I, I don't know the answer for myself. I felt the same way. Cause I, I never liked it. It wasn't until 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 in your life. Right. Like, um,

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, thinking about the lens of wrestling, when I was wrestling, I had a selfish desire for, I wanted to be a state champ and I want to be an all American. I want to be a national. Why? Because I wanted my hand raised. Like that was all I thought about. So I dreamt about, like, I couldn't,

Like I'm a very obsessive person. That's why I don't gamble. Cause I was like, I put a quarter and I win. I'm broke. Doesn't matter. It's gone. Right. And I know that about myself. So like when I started wrestling and I got my hand raised the first time, I was like, that feels good. I want to feel that every day for the rest of my life. And I just went blinders on. And that's all I did. That was my, I, you know, and I was like, and again, I would have thought it was as greedy, but by definitions, like similar folks on these things, like about yourself.

Right. And 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 because now like there's nothing in it for you. Right. So we're seeing their hand raised and that light in their eyes go off. And it's just like, Oh, like that felt way better than, than my own. But you don't know that till you're 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? In a lot of part, you think about like our success stories and our business are our children, right? The children of ClickFunnels or whatever you want to say, you know, 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 two months. Oh, wow.

You read it way faster. I was like, dude, that's funny. Well, okay, so it's one of those things. It's funny because my mom was like, have you even read the book? I'm like, what do you mean? You made me read it in high school. And I went back and I was like, oh, I didn't actually read it. 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 remember reading a 1,200-page book. I feel like I would remember that. So I don't know if I'm going to read it right now because Russell's going to be talking about it. And that's exactly what happened. So it was like, oh, we want to do this? Cool. And I could have sat down and had the conversation without reading the book.

Like, you know what I mean? Because I knew the concept of the premise. And so then I went through it and was like, every night, two to half a minute, couldn't sleep. I'd get up and like, oh man, it's three o'clock in the morning. Close the book, you know, go back 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 leading 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 how you say it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So. I agree with what they want to do. I don't agree with how they want to do it.

Okay, so this is something that was powerful. So after I read the book, I was geeking out, and I'm like, who is this Ayn Rand? I want to see. So I started searching her, and I found an interview she did on Donahue in 1980, like three months after her husband passed away. And it was fascinating. And if you guys know, she's atheist, does not believe in a god, all these things like that, right? Yeah, she even made a statement about how like,

Part of the reason that she wrote the book was to prove that religion was fake and to destroy all belief in any form. So once again, this is not the Bible for me. This is just like...

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 keep all our money and we should never, we shouldn't help anybody. And she's like, no, no, no, no. That's not what I said. She's like, I never said that. So what I did say is that it should not be the government coming to you with their guns saying, give me your 50% of your taxes. Like that's the, that's what's messed up. Right. You think about this, like if you give a gift, like,

if someone comes to you and gives you a gun like hey give your give your uh your friend a gift like are you actually giving them a gift no you're not and that's like if you don't pay the taxes they put you in jail like that's the thing she said should people should go and support people on their own right this is this comes back to this is the whole thing talking about before like the natural natural man's enemy to uh an enemy to god has been you know less yields enticing holy spirit so us yielding saying hey i have all this money i should go help other people with

this that's the 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 you go to jail is not you giving a gift like it's them taking it from you giving away so like you're not a better person because you did it right so um and then we can get into the whole depth of like this is the government now who's the the worst run organization in the history of all time which i 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 – 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. Well, you just need some cash flow tactics. Shameless plug. Yeah. Anyway, I have no tax. I don't do my tax. But you know what I mean. That's the tax bracket. So –

um but then you look at like like when you yield enticing holy spirit so there was a time when my friends through mclaren is like hey um we're building schools in kenya and this is mission and we believe in it will you help right it wasn't greedy rustling i'm gonna help and this is gonna be awesome yeah i felt something i was like oh my gosh that is a great cause yeah here let me how can i support you right in that process you see here's pictures of

Stu and Amy in Kenya, we've been to Kenya four times now. We've built schools. Like that is a gift versus like, give us money so we can go do something with it. Right. And then a couple of years later I heard about Operation Underground Railroad. And I was like, oh my gosh, I felt the spirit saying, this is a good cause you should serve. You should do this thing. Right. And I put time and energy and money into the 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 second people that will,

It comes back to your like natural man's enemy. God will be fall down and it will be forever. Like a lot of people never get off the green boat, but most people, as you start making more and more money, you look at anybody, look at,

Bill Gates, Elon Musk, anyone who's making a bunch of money, what do they do with their money? Eventually, they start giving it to charities, start helping people, 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, half the money goes to organizations that – what's happening with the money? Do we know? Do we see any ledger of what's happening? No, it's insane. Even –

uh bill mayer who do you know bill mayer i know who he is okay i mean like

super stupid, I mean like super left, right? I mean like definitely would not align with our political views or your political views 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 – That's scary. Isn't that crazy? Like only the government. It's crazy. Okay. And then they go 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 Ground Road and risking his life day in and 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. Or 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 is going to 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 there's this blend of left and right. There's like if we're not producing –

The fact that I'm going to wake up every morning and kill myself, even though I have more money than I'm ever going to need.

has now we have 400 plus people who have full-time jobs here excuse me full-time jobs here click funnels there's a hundred and what's the number 144 000 people have active click phones accounts each of those people they have they have one employee it's 144 000 jobs right they have two to three i mean you're looking it's probably half a million to a million jobs have been created because of click funnels because we get up every day and we're you know we we're chasing we're producing producing producing right and it's like if you take away the incentives of that like

I'd have to let half my staff. And everything starts disappearing really quickly. Where it's like they took that away. It's like now we can go and how much more could we do? And we did the OUR. We talked about OUR and showed the documentary at Funaki Live. And since then, I don't know, four or five 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. 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 say play the devil's advocate. I just want to understand like your thoughts on this. So the argument on the other side, if you will, right. The, the people that are more traditionally like higher tax bracket, like, you know, you should be taxed even higher, right? Like we want to take more of your money away because it's this basically the thought process is like,

Listen, you have donated your money to Kenya and to Operation Underground Railroad and things like that. But guess what? There's probably people here in your own community, like in Boise, for example, or wherever these entrepreneurs are. You have millions and millions of dollars. There's people that are homeless. There's people that can't afford medical payments. So there's people that genuinely need help. And so the argument is, yeah, you've given some, but you have so much of it. 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 it at all. And we're also like, I'm talking about your business money. We're only talking about profit. Like we're only going to take like that part of it away. And so like the argument on the other side is, is if collectively, and I'm just going to make up a number here, let's just say there's like 10,000 entrepreneurs like you in America that have millions of dollars or billions of dollars. I know you don't have billions, but like billions of dollars, we can like take all that money. And hypothetically we could solve a lot of these issues, right? We could talk, tax the top 10 richest people or like whatever, but

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? Cause it's tough. And I, and I'll preface this before we dive into the actual question, but like, it's tough because there's good on both sides and there's bad on both sides. Like that's the hardest thing. Right. And, and so that's, that's the hard thing is, is you argue both ways, but you know, it's, it's me as, so let's say me as an entrepreneur, cause I only know experience in my own self. Right. Right. I don't have paying taxes every single year. I know how much goes away. I know how much I make. And it's tough because like,

Um, the more, like the, the less you make for the more you work, the less incentivized you are to keep working. Right. Like my take home was a hundred grand a year. I'd be like, well, why am I killing myself? Right. Like I could, I could work three hours a day and make that. So why would I keep doing this stuff? Right. Like if there's no, if there's no reward, then that's, it's hard. Right. It's like, what's the purpose of doing any of this stuff? Right. Um,

And it'd be really easy to then shrink back and company shrinks, employees shrink, everything shrinks because there's no incentive for us to risk everything. Right. I guess it's a, it's a risk reward thing. So that's a big part of it. Like, how do you solve it? I don't know. I don't think the solution is the government coming with a gun and saying, give us half your money so we can go solve this problem.

I think it's like, man, what 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? Let me focus there. Because everyone's got different agendas, right? Like I had...

uh matt maddox someone who i you know caleb maddox's father he's super awesome guy came to me and he's like hey my mission is to uh save these kids off the streets and this stuff you know all these kind of things i think that's amazing like can you help me i'm like like that's not my calling my calling of these things here that's your calling dude i respect it i support it like i'll help you with money or whatever i can do to help but that's your calling like god gave you that like that was the thing that you were given yeah that's the mantle you're in charge of and everyone's got a different mantle so

like your calling to be different than mine like like people come all the time like oh like that charity's cool but i would support this like good i don't care who you support right everyone's got different callings and they're all good like so i think we should be able to say like what's the thing that speaks to our heart thing that we're we're passionate about and that's where we should focus our time and our energy and our money on um not again don't come with the gun saying give me a 50 because i think you should go over here like

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Like, let's pretend, and I have, guys, I love Elon Musk. I'm going to use him purely as an example. Clearly, I have no idea what he does with his money, but let's pretend, right? So Elon Musk makes all his money. Like, what if he wasn't charitable? Like, should the government or anybody be able to come in and be like, yo, you have so much money, right? Or Zuckerberg, right? You have so much money, right? Like, we're going to, you got...

I don't know. He's worth $90 billion. Let's say he has $3 billion in liquid cash. I'm just hypotheticals here, right? Like you got $3 billion, like slowly 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. I can give it to people. I actually need it. Like, do you think that there needs to be some, um, overriding law or powers on this? Like, yo, you can't just hoard. You 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. Because think about 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 to stimulate the economy in different ways, right? Like, he's going to go and start PayPal. He's going to start Tesla. He's going to start sending rocket ships to space. Right?

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 and economy, all those things happening. And so it's like for me, like building funnels is my art. I couldn't care less about the revenue that comes from it. Like I need the revenue to be able to hire the teams and the people and the things we need to be able to continue the art to pay Zuckerberg.

To show my ads on the thing. All these things are part of it. So I think, yes, he's sitting on $3 billion. He's just sitting there. But producers don't typically do that. They're reinvesting. They're doing stuff with it. So I want you to come up with a story on the spot. Go. Which you're pretty good at. But 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 thing about the ultra wealthy the people that are like actually not like okay i inherited 200 million dollars because i'm a trust fund baby right like

But like the actual Elon Musk of the world, the Jeff Bezos of the world, the Russell Brunson's of the world, like what ultimately drives you to go keep doing more? Like you have all of the money. And I, and like, and I know, like, I know we talked about like the, 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? And because I, like, I feel like one of the misunderstood things is,

And this is something that I don't know how to explain it to people that don't know. I told, I told my fiance, I was like, you gotta, you should like, listen to Russell because I'm like, I, he thinks like, I think like that. I'm 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. I'm like, no, 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 whoever, Russell Brunson, like you're going to do what you do because that's who you are. Like you build things and the result of, or like, because you need to build things, like you need resources. And so you're like, man, if I want to go build this thing over here, I need a hundred million dollars. I need $10 million. I'm just going to go make that money. I'm going to go do it here. And like, you're basically just like organizing things, right? You're either creating or you're organizing. How

how does that mentality work? Like, I don't think the average person understands that. And 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. The connotation is super negative, but it's like, you don't exclusively do it. Cause 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'm sorry. Sorry. Alex Sharfman.

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 where we put on earth to like wake up, watch TV, go back to bed. Like, no, like we have creative powers and our bias, how husband and wife get together. You have children. Like we create like,

Like that's the, that's the mission on earth. Like we're always creating. Right. And it's like, 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 that we can move into. And, 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 what I talked about like over

over the last six years, like I got destroyed and then increased capacity and destroy it. And like, and so there's two sets of people. There's the people that aren't producing, they're sedating because they're afraid of the pain. They're nervous to pay. They're trying to hide from pain. I get that. Like I, 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 more. And I wish everybody could experience it because I,

the the opposite we are in the creation zone we're creating you're doing and it's it's it's hard it's a different it's both of them are hard they're different hearts right one is there's so much fear there's so much like um just trying to get out of the pain and the other one is just like you create to create right like um you could ask my team like we build a funnel and for me it's just like look at this thing we created or create a product or an event or whatever and it's like the creation of the thing and then sharing with with people like that's yeah like

I don't know. And I think it was the same way. Like when I was wrestling, that was my art at the time. And it was just like, like, I didn't want to do anything besides wrestling. Like we went to terms in terms of like, what's next term? What's the next thing? We're just like, we kept doing that and doing that like my entire life. Cause that was the art at the wild 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 we call it, growth, greed, whatever, right? 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-fungal.

everything that causes sedation, right? Because most of the world I see, especially like an entrepreneurial community where people could be doing so much more, but instead they're sedating with drugs or alcohol or weed or whatever it is, because it's like, let me take the pressure off myself.

And I, man, what a tragedy. Like you could be producing and changing some people's lives, but it's like, I need an outlet. And the outlet causes sedation. It takes you out of your ability to produce. And I think the majority of people, like that's what they do. Like it drives me crazy. I see all the conversations on Facebook of like, you know, there's, there's entrepreneur events. People come together and they literally there's, there's sessions. They talk about what mushrooms they use to like hallucinate. And I just drives me nuts. I'm like, you guys are sedating to get out of this pain as opposed to stepping into the pain and creating and changing people's lives.

And so I'm very vocal anti all that kind of stuff. I think so many people like that, that's what they slip back into. Um, one of the greatest blessings of my religion that I believe is like, I don't have these tools to sedate that most people use. Um,

And so 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 gonna 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. Um, you

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. Cause I like, I see it. I see it in people I love that care about just like you're sedate. If we could break you out of that, you can get back to production and 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 White, which he has an intense man. Oh my word, Garrett, if you're listening, I would love to talk to you. Come on the show. Um, but,

But, you know, I'm always plugging. Hey, if I 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 three people that changed my life. Katie Richardson and Russell Brunson are two of those people that are in that top thing, right? And so Katie is someone that I work with like one-on-one. And

We don't, I mean, I don't think I was ever sedated in the sense of like what you're talking about, but like the opposite of sedation is like being alive, right? And like, like really truly like coming alive and like understanding like who you are and like what you are put on this earth here to do. And so like the thing that I struggled with for the,

man, for the longest time, even like from the beginning of days of this entrepreneur is like right and wrong. Right. I was like, I didn't want to do the wrong thing. Right. I didn't want to take anybody off because that would be bad. Right. Like, oh man, like you don't want to get into a fight because that's bad. Right. I don't want to make too much money because that might be bad. Right. I don't want to say the wrong thing because it might be bad. Right. And so I, I like lived in this like universe or like black and white, like, is it right? Or is it wrong? Right. Like what Katie came along and she's like, Josh, like,

There is no right and wrong. Now there is in the sense of like, there's moral right and wrong. And so, but like, I'm not going to go into that concept of like, you know, universal truth, but like, I do believe there's absolute truth, but like in the sense of like our everyday life, it's, it's not so much as like, is it the right thing? Is it the wrong thing? It's like, is like, what are you going to choose to do? But like, you can only know like what you're going to choose if like you're alive. If you're, if you know who you are, like, you know what you're put on this earth to do. And that's why it's funny. Um, you, I think you may know this story.

So my brother dies, helicopter crash, beginning of 2019. I wrecked my whole life. Ended up selling the company, sold the business to an investor, the business partner took over. And like Leah and I like went off, took our offer off.

And it's supposed to be this like four month long trip where I was going to like disconnect and just like figure out life and everything like that. And like Christmas time, it's about a week before Christmas. And we're in the Philippines in the middle of absolutely freaking nowhere. Like the nearest airport hospital, anything is like six hours away, like absolute middle of nowhere. And Leah gets a intestinal eating parasite. Like she gets super, super sick. Like can't sit up, can't keep food down. I'm like,

Oh my gosh, we're in the Philippines. No, 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 two 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 ended up having to cut our trip like two months early. We lived 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 two months longer. I was supposed to fly home. Like I was supposed to come to funnel hacking live. That was going to be like our coming home. Right. And, and,

I find myself in like the basement of my girlfriend's mom's house the night before Christmas going like, what am I doing with my life? Right. Like, you know, like how did I end up here? Right. And so I go through the process. I'm like, okay, I need a coach. And I, you know, go through and I interview a bunch of different coaches. I end up like choosing Katie and I'm like, all right, Katie, like you're going to solve all my business problems for me. You're going to make, you're going to help me all this money. You're going to help me build this million dollar business and everything like that. Right.

And so the very, very first call, I'll never forget the very first question. And she's like, all right, vent. Like, I know you need to. I'm like, right. Like just brain dump, like vent for like 20, 30 minutes straight. Like, what's the answer? She goes, Josh, who are you? I was like, really? Like, that's where we were going to start this whole conversation. Right. I just made you 60 grand. And then, and like looking back now, like that, and I do have a full circle with this, uh, looking back now, uh,

figuring out who I was gave me my permission to go do what I was called to do, right? Without the fear of what anybody else thought.

And like, I'm not trying to intentionally piss anybody off. I don't want people to actually hate me. Right. But I like, I'm so certain in what I'm doing and like knowing who I am that I know that I'm like, I know I'm a contributor to society. Like I know that I'm making the world better what I do because I believe that everybody like deep down inside it, like God has given them talents. Right. And I believe that the thing that whatever it is that you're good at or that you like to do or whatever, like that's the talent that God gave you and you have a choice on how you're going to go out and use that. And I believe that you

that you should use that to serve him.

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I think like an overwhelming majority of the world has no idea who they are or what they're called to be. And because of that, the people like you or Elon or whoever, the producers of society that like know who they are, like what their talents are, like what they're called to do and like things like that. Like it's such, it's like, I mean, you've seen my growth, right? Like you've watched me transition from this,

crazy, you know, little kid like this. And it's like, that came by learning who I was and like how I was contributing and what I was doing, what I was calling him, what I was putting here for. And so when you talk about like sedation, I feel like, like that's, that's the issue of they're sedated. And so they don't even know who they are. Like, they don't even know how to tap into it. They know how to understand it. And because of that, they look at someone like you, they look at someone like me and they go,

Well, you're preventing me. Like you're taking away my ability to go do something because like you're taking all the money, right? Like you're taking all the opportunity or like you have a category king on the market. So like I can't go and do it then. So like to those people or this concept of because you're successful, I can't be successful. Like what is your response to that? Like how do you interpret that? Yeah. Like how do you make, help someone like shift to be like,

Just because I did it doesn't mean you can't. Yeah. It's interesting because it's funny because for me it's such a foreign thing to understand that. I see that so many times as entrepreneurs where it's that like –

that mentality of like, there's, there's not a money or not have opportunities or resources, whatever. And you know, this, I know this, like, man, there, the bigger problem I have is there are so many opportunities every single day. There's drowning. It's not, there's not enough opportunities. There's so many. It's like, how do you,

But he kept it. 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 of the window. Right. I think.com six principles blow that company up overnight. Right. And so like, if you have these, these tools, like you could do anything, you could sell, like sell phones, you can sell watches, you can sell books. You can sell like, you can sell podcasts. Like, so it's just like, I think when people start understanding that, like it's just education, they don't understand it. I've had friends before, like, Oh, like life's tougher now. There's no opportunities. And just like,

What? Like there are so many opportunities, but you have to have the skill set that actually – that it can produce it, right? I think so – a big frustration obviously I have, I think you have as well is – and we talked about this a little tonight with my kids. 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 me and doctor or being a dentist or whatever that, that traditional path is to be able to like walk in and like make it rain somewhere. Like those skillsets aren't taught in school. Right.

Right. And you think about in any business, there's a couple, there's a couple of personalities, right? There's like the entrepreneur who starts it, right? Then there's the managers who are managing the people. There's the technicians who are doing the thing. And there's the rainmakers who come in and make money. And it's like, if you learn that skillset, 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, 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 Caitlin Poland, 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, a hundred employees in their company, millions of women they've served across the world. It was like taking your God gift and God,

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 try to share so much. Cause like, and I believe that God's given everybody calling, right? It says in scriptures, many are called, but fewer chosen. Like everybody's called. Everybody gets a calling. Everybody gets that tap on the shoulder. Everyone gets the opportunity. It doesn't matter where you're born, where 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. If you search, you find the answer. And then it's like, oh my gosh, like now I can, I can take this thing and change the world. Do you, but like, do you think, I think everybody has that talent though. Like, do you, I, I, obviously there's only one Russell, but like I have, I have discussions with my mom a lot, right? Like I have a great relationship with my mom and my mom always tells me, she's like, Josh, not everybody's you. And like, not everybody thinks like you, not everybody has to drive like you, not everybody has the confidence like you, not everybody has it. And I'm like,

You don't have to like, like you could, like you can do the same things just like in your own way. Right. But like, and everyone's got a different, like, um, uh, view of success too. Right. Like when my first mentors taught me that, like when I relaunched 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 was funny. Cause he was in the room. He's like, I can't say names. Cause he has to know something. He's like, he's like, you see that guy right here. Do 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 that guy there. He's here because he wants to hang out with the group and get network people. And he's like, you, you're here. Cause you want to celebrate his ideas. Right. So if you can, you try to launch a mastermind, like your goal is to build a hundred million dollar company. You try to put that, your values on the people. You're gonna 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 your sister or like a family member may not think like you or be like you, but it doesn't matter. 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, 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. Anyone is to be honest. I don't think I am right. You know what I mean? Like, I don't think so. Yes, but yeah, but you're living far more, more potential, like the average person is right. And how I look at it as I go like, Hey, listen, like not everybody can do it. You do or what I do or like whatever, but like, okay, how do I bring this around? Make it more clear.

I'm going to use it from a 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 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 a schooling or like maybe they didn't have as good of like education, like whatever. Like they don't have the same understanding that like you do, right? So like shouldn't we –

should we help them see that like they can go and achieve more or like, should they like, is there a version of success? What am I trying to ask? The answer is yes, we should be. And that's what we're doing. Right. Like I heard some of the before that, like, well, Russell, you have a 50,000 or a hundred thousand dollar mastermind group. Like I can't afford that. It's not fair. I'm like, yeah, but like, I also do a podcast two to three times a week, every single time, every single week for six years, I've written three books. You can get for 10 bucks or you can get them for free or you're like, there's, there's levels of it. Right. And it's like, the thing is like, there's,

there's value everywhere. And if you pick it up, it increases, you know, like you 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, or, 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 Jones 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, in my business life, um,

Um, as I've been doing this journey now for 18 plus years is that, um, 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 like, and I'm not, 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 these, like, oh my gosh, Russell's a good steward of ideas. Let me give you another idea. And if I don't do something with these, like, all right, let me give somebody else.

All this stuff's happening. It would have happened. 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 –

I don't think that God – I mean I do think that he puts us all in different spots to start with. Okay, that's a fascinating concept. He's giving us ideas or desire, things like that, and he's watching. You're going to be a steward with it. If you are, I'll give you more. If you are, I'm going to give you more. So people can go from the worst to the worst and become the best in the world. People can start at the best in the world and be horrible because what do you do with the things you're getting stewardship over? 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? Do you know how many people were 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, God, you're saying like, God put this idea in your head and he probably put this idea in a hundred people's heads or 500, 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. A hundred percent. Okay. There, there was a, I wish somebody shares me. I haven't read the book. There's a book that tells the story of that. It was an author who like had an idea for books, sat down, started writing it. And someone's going to know it. I, it's a famous book. People would know this. I guess someone on the chat knows this. Somebody comment below when you hear it, what it is. Author's like write the book and then stops like, oh, runs out of time, forgets about it. And then like,

Six years later, this new book comes out. It's my best selling book. Buys the book, starts reading. It's like, this is the book that I was supposed to write. And it's like, oh my gosh, I didn't take stewardship of that idea. I stopped until God gave 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. This is what you're going to do with it.

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, why me? Like not in a bad way of like, oh man, why do I do it? 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 and not somebody else? Like, why am I the first person that gets 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. I chose to be the person that was capable of having this conversation. I became that person. I think that because of that, what you just said right there is to give people permission. You're not taking away from anybody else. You're not inherently special. You are in your own way, but you're not the only person that could have built ClickFunnels. I'm shocking the average. You asked my wife, I 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. Okay. The first time I met you was at, um, Grant Cardone's, uh, 10 X rock on the very first one. All right. So this is at the

at the time grant had hired our team to do like instagram stuff and this was like super sort of around i was like dead broke i couldn't afford to go to that conference like if i wanted to but because we were doing instagram stuff like he gave us like tickets and we saw you like get off stage and we're like dude i bet you like run right now we could like meet russell and so like we've run downstairs and sure up there you are like coming down and like i walk up to him like russell oh my gosh like huge fan and you're like

Hey, thanks. And we're like, oh, okay. We're like, can we get a picture? You're like, yeah, I guess. And so like I go and like normally when you go and like take a picture, like you put your arm around him and things like that. Like you just literally stood there, right? And I'm like, just like that. I'm like, 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, so guys, Russell is shockingly average. Shockingly average, apparently.

Like back to the conversation. I remember like what I was trying to ask. So like, that was the very first time I met you. I was like, oh man, I can be a millionaire too. You guys have 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 they were the only people that cared what I was talking about. 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. He 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 opportunity to come to us because we're not moving. I think we just understand when you're moving and forward, like,

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 products together, putting the pages in front page, uploading them through FTP, getting a shopping cart, connecting them 150 times. So it was three months on average to each one. Okay. 150 times before we came up with ClickFunnels. Like,

Like, like I was just moving forward over and over and over and over and over and over, you know, everyone else is sitting there waiting. Like motion is the key. The opportunities come. This is what I'm talking about being a good steward. Like God gave me an idea for ZipRander. Do you remember ZipRander? No one does. That was the first idea. And I was like, oh my gosh, ZipRander. And when I found a guy in Romania, I paid him 20 bucks to build the software. I created, I got a thing, a header design and a headline and a thing. And I launched it and I made like 400 bucks.

And then next idea was like this thing called article spider. Remember the article spider? No one does. I paid someone that a couple of bucks. I did that. I launched, I made 1700 bucks. I was like, Oh my gosh, foreign fortunes, number three. And then the next and the next. And I can show you guys, I did this. I wrote them all that. I went back to the way back 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 it, try it. And each one got better and better and better and better. And eventually God's like, all right, you're, you're capable. Like you're a good steward. Here's click funnels. Go with it.

But if you were to give me that initially, I don't know what to do. It's the momentum. It's the motion that makes you worthy of the call. And if you're not in momentum, if you're not moving forward, you're never going to get the call. Many are called, but few are chosen.