What Do You Really Want?
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Say again, success without fulfillment is ultimate failure. How many of my achievers in the room just heard that like, oh, that's not, that doesn't feel good at all, right? Like we love achieving, we love chasing the dream. Like we're trying to accomplish this thing and we're chasing it. We're working towards it, thinking that at the end of the rainbow, then we'll get our reward and then we'll feel fulfilled, but they're disconnected. So I'm working on a new definition of this word where success equals achievement plus fulfillment, these two things together.

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.

What's up? This is Russell Brunson and I'm actually coming to you today from inside of my wrestling room here at my house. And you may be wondering why are we talking here inside the wrestling room. I'll explain here in a minute. I got a story I tell to you from inside of here. But before I do, I want to talk about do you know why you do what you do?

Um, why are you driven to do the thing that you're trying to accomplish in life? It could be anything. It could be, uh, it could be sports, athletics, could be business, could be entrepreneurship, could be something. But do you know why you actually, um, why you want to do what you do? That's the question I want to kind of lead out with today. And then we're going to talk about that from a bunch of different angles.

A lot of you guys know I'm obsessed with Napoleon Hill. And if you read Napoleon Hill, basically everything he's ever published from the law of success to thinking to grow rich to how to raise your own salary to like everything he published. Out with the devil, which is the best one he ever wrote. But all of them, one of the things he leads with, the first law of success actually is always having a definite purpose. Like what is the thing you actually want to do? Do you know exactly what it is?

And now when the devil talks about only 2% of society of people know what they want to do. They actually have a direction and a thing that they're moving towards. Everybody else is just drifting and wandering around and hoping that someday something happy bumps into them, right? Whereas only 2% of people have this driven gene where they're like, this is what I'm doing. This is where I'm moving towards. This is what I want. And they know what it is, right?

Earl Nightingale talks about this in The Strangest Secret, talks about how like a boat inside of a, you know, they're leaving shore or whatever, that they don't have a rudder that is kind of like bumping, you know, knocking into different things and, you know, eventually we're just going to crash. But by having that rudder which points you in direction, it can get you anywhere you want to go across the whole world, right? And there's the power of having that purpose, like a definite purpose of what you're doing, what you're trying to achieve, knowing exactly what it is.

And so for a lot of us, I think you may hear me or some, you know, maybe Red Napoleon will talk about like what's your definite purpose and you know what it is. But I want to suggest for you today that maybe you don't know what it is.

And then to take it a little further, I want to talk about you guys as entrepreneurs and working with customers and trying to change people's lives. And this comes back to like selling online. This comes back to persuasion, like all those kind of things, like really understanding this at a deep, deep, deep level. Okay. And so I'll tell you the story here about this wrestling room. So if you know my background, I wrestled in high school growing up. I was a state champion. My junior year in high school, my senior year, I actually lost this day. I lost in the semis of state tournaments. I didn't, I didn't, I took third in state my senior year.

But that loss drove me to have to figure out how am I going to be successful. I didn't want to be someone who like, I don't know, in my mind, I needed to prove to myself that I wasn't just an okay wrestler once, but I was something special. And so for the next three months of my life, I was working out seven hours a day,

trying to get to the next level because the national tournament was a couple months later. Went to the national tournament. To be at that national tournament, you had to be a senior and you had to be a state champion. I think I had 63 guys in my weight class, multiple two and three and four-time state champs. And I got in this thing. I'm the guy who won it my junior year but not my senior year. And everyone else, again, the pedigree of all the people in the bracket were insane.

And I came through, and I ended up taking second place in the nation. I beat all the other state champs, beat a three-timer in the semifinals, a two-timer in the semifinals, and in the finals, lost by two points, but proved myself like that I was something special, right? So that was my wrestling. Then from there, I went and wrestled at BYU for a year. They cut the wrestling program after that. I went on a mission for the Mormon church for two years. I was knocking doors in New Jersey, having the time of my life, talking about Jesus with a whole bunch of amazing people out there. And then I came home. I wrestled at Boise State.

It's my passion, my love. Like, still my favorite thing of all time I've ever done is wrestling, by far. Everything else is, like, a close second. In fact, people have asked me before, like, about business. I was like, I would give up business in a heartbeat if I could go back and start wrestling and competing again. Like, there's no way. Like, you make so much money. I'm like, no, you don't understand. Like, that feeling to get my hand raised, like, that trumps everything. The closest I've gotten to feeling something similar to that is, like, at an event when you get a table rush, you get 100 people ready in the back of the room. Like, that's the closest thing.

Feeling to get my hand raised in a match, but it's not it's not better. So I love wrestling. It's my favorite thing so anyway

my senior year in college, I'm at the wrestling tournament. I lose my match. Sorry, it was a Pac-10 tournament. And I was planning, in my mind, I was going to go to nationals. I thought I had a chance of placing nationals. I'd beaten the guy that was ranked ninth in the country. Like the guy, Johnny Hendricks, who became a UFC fighter. He was like going to be a three-time NCAA champ. I lost him by two points earlier in the season. I thought, anyway, I'm

I thought I had a shot at being an All-American, which was my goal. Because in high school, I was an All-American. I took second place in the country. So top eight places in the country to get an All-American. So high school, I was an All-American. Senior year in college, I was like, that was the goal. That was the mission. That was like my definite purpose. And it was the Pac-10 tournament. And my first match, I beat the returning Pac-10 champs. I'm just like, everything's going well. And then something happened. I don't know. And I ended up losing. In fact, oh, I'm going to show you something cool. If you look right behind me.

this picture, that painting, this is actually a painting on the wall. It's kind of hard to see exactly. That's my face right there. That's my very last match I ever wrestled in college. Um, and actually losing that match. And that was the end of my career. And we're sitting there on the side of that, like now what? Like that's, huh? And it was over and I didn't go to the national tournament. I didn't do anything. It was just, it was one of those things was really hard for me. And so, um,

Some of you guys are probably looking behind me. Yes, this is wrestler.com. If you go there, there's nothing there yet. Someday I'm going to build a wrestling brand called wrestler.com. So I thought I should put that in my – and yes, that is a cauliflower ear. And that is actually my cauliflower ear. I made the logo my ear. So if you're ever wondering, the wrestler.com logo, yes, it is my ear. So anyway –

uh back to the story so i get in wrestling um and i don't know you guys but you know you spent your entire life chasing a dream and then it's gone like that's where a lot of people go into depression or um yeah a lot of different things right because the because they missed the shot in fact i had somebody eileen wilder messaged me today i'm gonna pull my phone interesting she asked about she said i'll tell you exactly what she said so i have to quote it um it was interesting she said um

He said, Russell, your ability to not dwell on the past is one of the things I admire most about you. And I was like, no. And then I sent her this screenshot from The Lion King where Rafiki hits Simba on the head and then Simba's like, ah, what was that for? And he says, it doesn't matter. It was in the past. Yeah, but it still hurts. He said, oh, yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it or you can learn from it, right? So for me, like, I'm pretty good at like –

They always say like depression comes from thinking about the past. Anxiety comes about thinking about the future. So for me, it's like I don't dwell on the past. And so I got done wrestling. And I think if I would have dwelt in the past, like I would have gone into depression or something. Because it was hard like to spend a decade or more of your life on a goal and then not hit it. And there's nothing else you can do. It's like it's over. The tournament's done. Like that's it. It was really scary, like hard.

Anyway, so that happened. And luckily, I had been starting my online business at the time. And I was like, okay, I had some success. I had made a little bit of money. You'd have to know this was actually a real thing. And so I transitioned my focus to business. I started running. I started sprinting. And I've been doing this now 20 something, 22 years, something like that. So a lot of you guys come to my world and you're like, oh, I see Russell. He's sprinting really fast. He's doing these things. He's building ClickFunnels. He's launching this book. He's doing stuff. And people are always like, how do you have so much energy? How do you do these things? People don't understand. It's like, I've been doing this for a long time.

In the 20 plus years I've been doing this, I've seen so many gurus come and go and come and go. There's a new wave every couple of years. So all the people we see nowadays that are the big ones, most of them don't have staying power. They'll be gone eventually, hopefully not. But I've been seeing these cycles. I've lasted 20 some odd years. How do you stay this long, right? In the beginning, it was like...

I was really sprinting. I was trying to figure this out. I needed to figure it out. And so I was going hard. I was launching new products every day. I was doing all sorts of stuff. I started having some success. I started making some more money. Then I launched the next thing. And the next thing, I started building a company. I started hiring employees. I started building and growing and growing. And four or five years into this, after college, I built a company of almost 100 employees. We had people on the phones doing sales. We were driving traffic online. All the things. And then overnight, the whole thing collapsed. I had to let go, I don't know, 90 some odd people in a day. It was just like, hey, everybody.

This has been fun, but it's over. And had sent everybody home, which was so hard. Like I had friends, I had family members, people who I thought were part of this mission that I was trying to create. They just walked out on me. I had people. Anyway, it was, it was a brutal time. And I remember that whole thing ending. And then we shrink down to this little tiny building with a few of us left over. And I was like, I'll never hire employee again. I swear I never would. We start figuring things out, try to start building, try to figure things out. Right.

And over time, we get out of debt. We get back to stable ground. And then I meet Todd Dickerson. We worked together a couple of years launching different funnels and webinars and some things online. Eventually, we had the idea for ClickFunnels. Boom, we built ClickFunnels. And it takes off. And it takes off in about two years. And it taking off like – I mean I've had a lot of successes. This is the first one where I was just like, this is crazy. We're making money like we've never dreamt of before, right? We're helping people like crazy. It was just like – it was such a cool thing.

Man, it was a cool thing. So about two years into the business, we decided, my wife and I, we live in a nice house, but let's get the dream house, the house we're going to live in forever, the one I want to die in. And so we started the journey trying to find the house.

And after a little while, we found this house. This is an external garage. But when we found this house, a couple of things we know. Number one, it's on five acres. There's a whole bunch of mature trees that wrap the whole yard. So it would take 20 years to get trees like this, right? Anyway, if you see my house, it's pretty cool. The yard's insane. And then there was this room right here, which was this external garage. And I saw this. I was like, this is my restroom. This is...

this is my wrestling. This is where I'm going to like, this is it. And so before we bought the house, I literally snuck in one night. Uh, I probably shouldn't say that I snuck in to measure out the room. So I could figure out how, how big I needed to get wrestling mats. You look on the other side over here, I've got full weight room, a whole bunch of other cool stuff. And so, um, anyway, so I,

I, uh, get the whole thing lined up. And then Rob cicadas, who's my favorite designers of all time. Uh, I was like, Hey, do you want to come paint the walls? And so like, if you see all this murals and stuff on the walls, this is all that Rob, Rob design. And initially Rob is going to do just this wall right here. And then when he got here, we started having fun and he ended up doing the entire thing. It's amazing. Um,

Sorry. But I want to tell you, I was planning everything. And then the second we closed on the house, the next day Rob showed up to start painting. And then the mat showed up a week later. And then the weightlifting. Everything was coordinated to the T. And my wife's like, where are these people coming from? You didn't help me move in the house. You didn't plan anything in the house. I was like, well, this is my man cave. This is my dream. This is what I want. It was this wrestling room. So I remember we get it. We start putting it all together.

getting things set up, getting the painting down, getting the mats down, getting the weight equipment in, everything was happening. And then, you know, as things were showing up, we were working out, doing little workouts and stuff. And then we finally get it all done. And,

I'm like, I have my own wrestling room. Like, this is insane. I can wrestle whenever I want, right? So like, but I don't have anyone to wrestle with. Like, who am I going to wrestle with? Like, I can't. So I meshed out with my kids, of course, and stuff like that, and friends. And then one day I called my friend BJ Wright, who he wrestled in Nebraska, a really good wrestler. And I was like, dude, the wrestling room's done. Come on over. So we came over. We laced up our shoes and we came in here and we wrestled. And

we were, I mean, take for granted, like I have not worked out like wrestling shape for a decade and a half, right? Like I'm out of shape. We come here and we just beat on each other. We're wrestling and having so much fun for about an hour, just going as hard as we can. And then finally lay there and we're just dead on the mat, just like no breath, no energy, nothing. We're just laying here on the mats. And I had the weirdest feeling. It was a feeling of just like,

Like the first time I've been chasing something for like, I don't know over a decade after my wrestling career I was chasing something I know what it was And that moment I sat there with BJ I said dude, this is what I was like. This is what I was chasing I didn't know it but this feeling people come and be able to wrestle again like that's all I actually wanted and

I was trying to get this feeling through business, through making money, through all sorts of stuff where I just wanted to wrestle again. I could have gone to a high school wrestling room and just wrestled. I could have gone to college and just wrestled. I found out years later I could compete, which I do compete now. I missed that. Everything I was doing was trying to get back to that feeling, get my hand raised, getting back to the total exertion of your body and being tired and worn out. That was the thing I was chasing this whole time.

And it's crazy because I thought, what was my definite purpose? I thought my definite purpose was to build a company, to make money, to hit, you know, in two common couple, make a million a year, then 10 million a year, then $100 million a year. And I hit those things, but that was not actually the real reason. When I look down and all of a sudden, if I unwind and unravel the whole thing, the only thing I really wanted was to wrestle again.

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I remember going to a Tony Robbins event, UPW actually, and we had this really interesting conversation where he was talking about the thing that we desire most, right? And so for me, it was like this relationship with my wife I wanted. And he's like,

I've done videos on this channel and the podcast before about the six human needs, right? But he's like, the need that I was chasing is love and connection. But instead of just going directly to my wife and getting love and connection, I was trying to get significance and trying to get certainty and trying to get all these other needs met, which I thought in my brain would cause more love and connection. If I'm more successful, if I have more certainty, if I have more like all these different things, then my wife will be more connected to me. Right?

And the opposite actually happened, actually split us up more and more. It made it harder. And then Tony's whole realization was like, if you just want love and connection, just go get that. Just go directly. Quit trying to get these other things to somehow make this need happen. Just go directly to the need. Go directly to love and connection. I felt the same thing here. I was like, man, I had killed myself not knowing exactly what I really wanted until I got it. I was like, oh, this is all I really wanted. There were easier ways just to get that thing. So I'm telling you this for a couple reasons. Number one,

Well, if I'm completely honest, I'm publishing a lot more of my podcast and YouTube and I wanted to make a cool video. Testing out some new equipment here. I got my Osmo DJI camera, got some new microphone. I just grabbed a light to be here and I was like, I want to film my restroom. It's a Sunday. I got some ribeyes cooking for my wife and I and our kids here in a minute. I was like, I'm just going to go film something out here. So I wanted to do that, but I wanted to tell the story in the restroom because the thought I kept having was like for you, like when you hear me or Napoleon Hill or someone talk about definite purpose, right? Like what is your definite purpose?

So often the first thing we do is like here's the thing the financial goal or the one I want to say title or we pick a we pick a Goal of achievement, right? Like what's the thing I want to achieve which is good I think I still believe and I still think that it's like it gives us it gives us It gives life like color and excitement and like a journey. We're going like I love achievement but what's interesting is like like rarely is the achievement the thing that makes you happy and

Like the thing that makes you happy is different. And if you read Expert Secrets, I talk about this, like when we tell a story to our audience, try to get our audience to move, right?

is typically what happens is we'll tell the audience, like, here's what I wanted to do. I wanted to lose weight, to make money. We picked this journey of achievement we wanted, right? And that's where most people stop, by the way. If you look at the great persuaders and great people who are good at building connection and rapport with an audience, they don't just talk about the achievement that they wanted. They do talk about that because they have to set that goal because it's also the thing consciously that the client or the person is thinking about as well. Like, oh, I also want to make a million dollars. I also want to, whatever, right? So they have the same

the same journey of achievement that they want. But the best persuaders, the best storytellers, they don't just talk about what they want. They start figuring out the why. They figure out what is the inner journey that someone's actually going on, right? The journey of transformation. What do they actually want? And so in the Expert Seekers book, I talk about this. I have you go through this question, like, what do you want? Like, I want to make a million dollars. Why?

Well, because I want to make a million dollars because I feel like then I'll feel like I succeeded. Cool. Why do you want that? We start going levels of deep why. Why do you want that? Well, I want to feel like I succeed because right now I don't feel like I'm succeeding. I'm struggling in life. Everything I've tried has been a failure. And I feel like if I had that, then I'd be successful. Oh, cool. Why do you think that would change anything? Well,

you know, the reality is last week I came home and my wife was upset about blah, blah, blah. Right. And I feel like if I had this, then she'd be proud of me. Well, why does that matter? Why does that matter? Even why, why you dig deep seven, eight, nine, 10 levels deep. And eventually is when the real, the real reason why it comes out, the real reason, which is, you know, whatever it might be, it could be like, I just want to impress my dad. I want my wife to love me more. I want my kids to respect me. Like that's the real reason. Right.

If I went back to myself after I got done wrestling, I lose the Pac-10 tournament, I don't get to fulfill my dreams, and I'm running from that. I'm running from this pain, right? Trying to get away from this pain. I don't want this pain. I want it gone. I start running towards something, right? As I'm running down this journey,

That's the questions I would ask myself. Why are you trying to start a business? Why are you trying to do these things? There's a lot of reasons. I wanted to support my wife. I wanted to make money. All those kind of things. But why? What was the reason? I think if I'm honest with myself, it's because I missed this and I missed the pain knowing I'm not going to be able to do this again. That's causing me so much pain. It's forcing me

to run forward. It's forcing me to run away. I'm running away from something. And that's like where it starts, at least for me, when it's like, wow, that's the thing. Like how, how, like what if I just wouldn't directly say like, I just miss wrestling. Okay, cool. Let's figure out a time where once a week you're going to go into a high school room wrestler. You're going to go wrestle in college with college kids. You're going to try to figure out something like that. I probably could take so much pressure off my back. Right. Cause I'm trying to, I'm trying to get to this, this need of like, I just wanted to like

Like all the emotions that come with wrestling for me, I wanted to get back to that as quick as I could, right? As opposed to just going directly and doing that. I'm like, I'm going to build this whole thing which will give me free time and then I can build a wrestling room and then I can, you know, all this stuff versus like, I could have just went directly to the source. So think about that because wrestling

Not that I don't think pursuing goals is great, but I think sometimes it drives us crazy. I know for me, I've burned myself out sometimes trying to achieve this goal. I know a big goal I'm achieving right now. I'm running off this goal right now. And I realize as I'm recording this, I'm buying a movie theater. I'm building these whole events. I'm doing these kind of things. I'm buying a library. Why? It's because I want to read more and write more. That's what I'm trying to do.

But for some reason I'm going around about it and it's huge. You know, Russell Brunson style. Like I got to go over the top thing and maybe it's, maybe it's still the right thing. And I'm not saying to persuade you about not doing it, but being honest with yourself. Like, why are you doing it? Like, I know I'm doing right. I'm doing mine. My goal that I'm pursuing right now is for multiple reasons. Number one is like, again, I want to read more and I want to write more.

The problem is sometimes I'm making, you know, focusing on building the business to make the money to build the thing. Like, I don't have time to read or write, which is fascinating. I probably figured out a way to secure my legacy. I want to have something built so that when I die on this land, there's something there beyond me, but not just for myself, but for other people I love and respect and care for and their intellectual property and their ideas and their writings and their words. It's like, that's like the why.

Um, and sometimes you go about it backwards. Like maybe if I just spent more time, you say reading and writing, I'd be happier. I'd be so stressed. I'd be running as fast as I am. I could spend more time enjoying everything along the journey. Right. So yeah. And just having this conversation myself and with you at the same time. So that's my first question for you. It's like figuring out like your definite purpose. Like what is the thing you actually want? But I want to go, I want to go deeper. I want to figure out why you actually want that and see if we can just achieve, like get you fulfilled, get that goal met right now.

Um, there's probably an easy way we can fulfill that need. You can still chase the dream. Don't, don't think that I'm, I'm advocating not doing that. I'm obsessed with chasing dreams and having big goals and visions. So I'm not against that. Do that. But what if we got your needs met at the beginning and not the end? What if you were already happy and fulfilled? What if you didn't have to stress about that kind of stuff? How would that change the journey for you? Would you have more fun? Would you enjoy the journey longer? So what is that? What is that?

I want you to ask why multiple times, not just once. Like, why do you want to build a movie theater, right? Or why are you buying a movie theater? Why are you buying old books, Russell? For you, why are you trying to win a two comic book award? Why are you trying to start a business? Why are you publishing? Why are you doing YouTube videos? Why are you, like, why, why, why? And get down to the purpose, the real reason why. And for some of you guys, it's going to be painful. You get deep, you're like, man,

Because when I was a kid, my so-and-so was like, didn't believe in me. Or this didn't happen. I was listening to Marie Folio yesterday on a podcast episode. It was fascinating. She talked about, she was at this business event and she was in an elevator and someone asked her what she's doing. And she's like, oh, this is what I'm going to do. And why? And the guy was like, that's a dumb idea. That's never going to work. And that was the thing. That pain is what pushed her into like, I'm going to go and destroy this thing. And she built B-School and blew it up. But it was all on the backside of like,

of that pain right and uh and the why you do it i want to prove that guy wrong and get nothing wrong but like saying like who cares about that guy you know like we get down to like the actual why i think a lot of times um subconsciously it's the thing that's driving us but it's like let's come down like figure out that is just just so we're aware of it i was not aware that i missed wrestling until i wrestled in this room if i built you know i made the force and did all the stuff build the like the crazy dream room and

I finally invited my friend over to wrestle and I was like, oh my gosh, this whole time, that's all I wanted. What if I just would have, I could have had that every day, you know? The whole time, all I want is more love and connection with my wife. I'm trying to build a business to prove to her how significant I am. So hopefully someday she'll love me more. Like, what if I just went and spent more time with her? And I can still build a business, but man, it changes the pressure of it, right? It changes the stress of it.

Right? That whole building a business. I could have built the whole business knowing that I just wanted to wrestle. Like, well, I'm just going to go wrestle then. You look at my journey. Like, even I was five or six years in the business. And then because I missed this thing so much, I decided I was going to go compete for the Olympics. And I hired an Olympic Greco coach. I hired and gave jobs to a whole bunch of the Olympic wrestling team. We flew him out here to Boyz II Men. I built up wrestling. Like, all these crazy things I was doing. I just wanted to wrestle. I could have just gone and wrestled somewhere. Like, how much stress and anxiety and pain would I have avoided if I just would have gotten the thing I wanted up front?

And then still pursue the thing I want without the stress and the pressure of it. So there's the journey and the story for you personally. But I want to take it a little more level, a little deeper. If you're okay with that. You guys cool if we go a little deeper? You cool if I over-deliver? Okay, so the last level I want to take this is your audience. Okay?

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Um, when you get to storytelling, this is one of the pieces that so many people miss. I talk about some expert secrets book, but it's like, you have to understand this for your audience. Like you have to understand the achievement they want, but you also need to understand like, what is the thing that they are secretly desiring? I say secretly because they don't even know subconsciously desiring the thing that they're, they're chasing. Right. Um, again, I talked about expert secrets and you tell a story. I can tell my story of achievement.

But if I really want to connect with somebody, build empathy and rapport with someone really quickly, I tell the achiever, like, hey, I just wanted...

I wanted, and this is, I've told this story before. Like when I got started in this business, I just married my wife, fell in love with her. We got married. She was supporting me. I was wrestling and she wanted to start a family. She's, my wife's five and a half years older than me. So she wanted to start a family quickly and I couldn't, and it was like, oh, so I want to start a business, right? So I used to tell people like, I want to start a business online. So I want to be an internet guy. I don't want to make a bunch of money. It's like, that was the journey of achievement that I would tell people, right? If I tell them that, and most people are like, oh yeah, me too. Like, and like you get some people, but if you want to get some people who follow you for life, it's coming back down and saying, but like, if I

if I'm honest with myself, the real reason why I wanted to start a business and make money, um, cause my wife, like,

She's the coolest. She's five years older than me. She's been supporting me. She's been working. She just wants a family. That's what she really wants. I want to figure out a way I can support her so she can be a mom. That would be the coolest thing. She could be a mom and then she wouldn't have to work. She could stay home, be a mom, raise the kids, do her dream. Her whole dream is her whole life she's wanted to be a mom. That's all she ever wanted. She's been working. At this time, she was 27 years old. All she wanted to be was a mom. I was like, I want to give her that gift.

I don't care about making money or business, but if I can like retire her so she can do that, we start our family, we can have kids and then she can be the mom she wants to be. Like, that's like, ah, that was the thing that fired me up. Right. That's the reason I wanted to do it. So I tell someone that story, that's me going five levels deep on why, right? Why don't start a business, make money? Why? So I can be, make my wife proud. Why? So I can do it like, no, it's like, because, um, in our, in our private conversations, that's what she wanted. And that's what she was, she was

like hoping for and dreaming for and praying for. And I was like, man, I'm in a spot where I can make that happen for. And like, how great would that be if I can do that for my wife? Right. So I share that story and what happens? Like, yeah, I bet me just telling a story now, a lot of you guys are probably like, wow, I thought Russell was just this direct response marketer guy. It's like, no, he, he started this because he wanted to give his wife that. Right. And then he built this because he wanted to get back to wrestling. And like, like I've had a chance the last seven years to wrestle with my kids. Like I haven't missed,

you know, until the very end of my son's senior year, which is the whole video from that day, though I didn't miss a single practice. I was every single practice in there with them, like spending time with them. It was, it was magical, right? It was the thing that I wanted. And so, yeah. So what do you actually want? What do you actually want? What do your customers actually want?

If you can figure out the answer to that, I believe it's to shortcut success, to true success. Because success is not achievement. That's where I kept making the mistake. I kept thinking like achievement equals success.

Right? And I remember Tony Robbins talking about, he said that there's a science of achievement, right? Because it's like there's science, scientific steps. Step one, two, three, four. He said, but there's an art of fulfillment. Art's harder because it's not like a step-by-step number, right? Art is like what Rob Cicadas did in this thing. Like he's doing his art on all the walls. Like that's art. There's no science to that, right? The art is like you splash stuff on the wall and it's beautiful, right? And so for achievers, a lot of times it's hard. Like how do we get fulfilled?

Like the science of achievement, art of fulfillment. Like I achieve like crazy. I'm like, why am I not fulfilled? And it's like, cause we don't understand like our brains. Like what are the steps of fulfillment? It's like, there's not steps you have to go and create and do and experience. Right. But I achieved at this high level. It's like, yeah, exactly. You're missing the point. All of us achievers struggle with this.

It's so frustrating for me. I'm the worst of us all, right? And I see this all the time. There's a guy here in Boise, Idaho, he became an Olympic champ. In my mind, you know, if you're not an athlete, you probably don't care about the Olympics, but especially as a wrestler, like in my mind, there's nothing better you can achieve on this planet than an Olympic gold medal. Like it's, you know, it's the biggest thing in the world. And we have an athlete here in Boise, Idaho who won an Olympic medal at the Winter Olympics and then within a year committed suicide. It was just like, oh.

And I remember Tony saying something that as an achiever is really hard for me to hear. He said, success without fulfillment is ultimate failure. Oh, that one hurt me. I'll say it again. Success without fulfillment is ultimate failure. How many of my achievers in the room just heard that? I'm like, oh.

That doesn't feel good at all, right? We love achieving. We love chasing the dream. We're trying to accomplish this thing and we're chasing it. We're working towards it, thinking that at the end of the rainbow, then we'll get our reward and then we'll feel fulfilled. But they're disconnected. So I'm working on a new definition of this word where success equals achievement plus fulfillment. These two things together.

Achievement does not create fulfillment. Those are separate. That's what we have to understand. So the question is like, okay, as I'm trying to achieve this thing, where's fulfillment? Because it's probably there. When I can get deep to my why, like this is the thing you're actually looking for. I get that. I get the fulfillment. That's the paint on the walls as you're achieving the thing. You don't have to wait for both. You can literally get in both at the same time. I could have experienced for a decade, decade and a half almost, I could have experienced what I was trying to get in this room right here anytime I wanted just by literally going to the high school and wrestling with some kids. That was it.

but instead I was chasing it through this achievement so I could afford this thing so someday I could build this amazing thing. Then I could feel fulfilled, feel the happiness I wanted versus just going straight line there. So I'm going to challenge you guys to think about that. Go deep on your own why to figure out where could you just get your fulfillment and happiness direct? It's there somewhere.

Like when you think about what you're trying to achieve, why, why, why? At least seven times, why, why, why? Until you get down to the root of it. Is there a way I can get that right now? Instead of me trying to get significance by doing these things, is there a way I can go directly to my wife and just spend more time with her and get the fulfillment and the love and connection I'm searching for so hard? I don't know. It's a good question, Her. And then for your audience too, as you're taking them on a journey, like,

You know, any product we're trying to create is trying to get someone a result, which is achievement. We're trying to get them to achieve something. But what if through that achievement you could give them fulfillment and happiness earlier? You could break down and figure out their why. You could speak to them directly and figure that out. Man, these people are just looking for connection. What if we do these events to bring people more connection, more happiness, like more, like what is the thing we can create that gives them their why?

And again, as you start sharing those things more with your audience, the more likely they are to connect with you and be closer to you. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I just wanted to kind of share these things with you today. As I was cleaning the restroom this weekend, I was just remembering that experience and how interesting it was to me. And I wish that I wouldn't have waited for 15 years to experience this. And now it's crazy because now my kids are wrestled. They graduate. They're done. It's like, oh, this...

It's not over, but it's not the same. I'm not going to have a kid that I'm competing with. My younger son doesn't love wrestling, so I don't have a kid I'm going to be competing in here with me. I'll still have myself, my friends, my buddies will come over. I'm hoping that I'll continue to bring kids here that I want to train and learn and stuff like that. But it's different already, right? And if I would have waited even longer, it would have been even longer out there, right? You got to go and do the things now. Carpe Diem, Seize the Day. Yeah, one of my favorite movies.

I don't know if I love the whole movie, in fact I don't remember the whole movie, but I do remember that one scene which was so powerful with Robin Williams. And he's got his class there and he's showing them the student body class of years in the past, right? And there are these pictures in black and white. He has everyone look at them, look at the picture, look close in there. You see everybody's eyes, look at those people. He's like, look at their eyes, full of ambition, excitement, like what they want to do and create and how they want to change the world. And he's like, they're all, we call it, they're worm food. They're dead, they're gone.

right? He said that their voices are calling from the dust. Lean in. You can hear him lean in. He goes, Carpe diem. Carpe diem. Seize the day. That's what they're crying from the dust for you is to seize the day. Same thing for you. Quit putting off the thing you want the most. Quit putting that off. Just go directly to it. Again, this is a message for me more so than you, I'm sure. Um, just makes me think about like, what is the things I want the most? Like, I just go for it right now because life is short. Um,

I don't know. I always thought I was immortal until one of my closest friends ever passed away. And now it's like, wow, there's this ticking clock and we have no idea when it's going to be done. And what a tragedy if we're chasing stuff our whole life and we never reach it before the end. Like, what if there was a way we could just, like...

have our cake and eat it too. Get what we want while achieving the things we desire. Anyway, so this video is open for discussion. I don't know the answers to all these questions yet. In fact, that's why I'm writing this next book because I'm going deep trying to figure these things out for myself. And I figure if I can solve these questions myself, hopefully I can solve them for other people as well.

So if you have ideas, please, in the comments down below, let me know. Drop them down. I read the comments on YouTube all the time. They're really fun. If you listen to the podcast, jump over to YouTube, find this video, and comment down below as well so I can hear it. I would appreciate that a ton. And I guess the biggest question I'm going to leave you guys with today in this video is what do you really want?

You can really answer that. That's going to change everything for you. Figure that out for yourself. And then secondarily, for the people you've been called to serve. This could be your family. A lot of you guys have been called to serve your families. What do they actually want? You've been called to serve an audience, a group. What do they want? I tell people all the time that my role in this whole thing, I always tell people my number one role is being the head cheerleader at ClickFunnels, the belief cheerleader. If I get you to believe this will work, it'll work for you, which I do. I still believe. But I think my other thing is my job is to gather gatherers.

Like I'm gathering people to serve them. The people I gather are gatherers. And you guys are gathering your people and your tribes and your audience and stuff like that. And so as you were gathering your tribes and gathering audiences, think about this through that lens because

If you can help them to achieve the real reason why, not the big why that they are willing to admit, not the journey of achievement, but the journey of transformation that they have deep in their heart, they may not even consciously know of. If you can help them achieve that along the way, that'll change everything. So I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you guys...

got something good from this. If you did, let me know in the comments down below what it is. And hopefully I'll see you guys. I don't know. Let me know. Do you want me to film some more stuff in the wrestling room? If so, this is where the magic happens. This is my happy place. This is my man cave. Some dudes got man caves, a whole bunch of stuff. I've got a wrestling room with some weights, some treadmills, some bags, some mats, some pads. I love combat sports, love wrestling, love everything to do with that. In fact, my biggest regret in life is I have not done any kind of mixed martial arts training

style fight. So I'm thinking about it. Do you think I should do it? Yeah, I'm thinking about it. I told Todd Brown chance that two things, the two biggest things I want to do before I die that I haven't done yet. Number one is like an MMA fight and number two is a bodybuilding competition. So anyway, maybe we'll, maybe we'll, we'll queue those up here in the near future. I don't know. I haven't decided yet. I'm not committed yet. It sounds like a lot of fun though, just to know that I did it once. I just know though, like

I still compete at wrestling and it's really fun to compete at wrestling. But the thing is, like, I didn't realize when they filmed all those, you can find them online. A bunch of guys found them online and started posting. I was like, wow, I am out of shape wrestling with love handles and pasty white skin. Like, I got to get in shape before I go next time because people find it. I just don't know if I lose the MMA fight, you guys are going to blow it up all over the internet. Like, look, we're also getting beat up, which I guess is kind of funny.

So anyway, I'm not against it. I just, you know, the anxiousness, the nerves. But let me know what you guys want to do. Go and do it. Go accomplish it. Go directly to the source of your happiness as you are achieving things. Don't wait for the achievement to happen to get the thing you think you want. Go and get it right now as you are working towards your achievement. If you do that, then you can have it all. You can have true success, which again, my definition of success is achievement plus fulfillment equals success. If you get both those things together, that's where true happiness comes from. So thanks so much. Appreciate you all. And see you guys on the next video.