Over the past 10 years, Russell has built a following of over one million entrepreneurs, sold over 400,000 copies of his books, popularized the concept and use of sales funnels, and co-founded ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels has over 100,000 users worldwide and helps entrepreneurs and business owners quickly get their message, products, and services out to the marketplace.
Mindie Kniss: Today, I’m super excited to introduce you to my dear friend and rockstar, successful person. Russell Brunson is the founder of ClickFunnels and I’m really looking forward to what he has to say about this conversation on wealth and happiness. So, Russell, thank you so much for joining.
Russell Brunson: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. I’m glad we finally get to do this.
Mindie Kniss: I know, I know… We actually had scheduled this for last year, literally the week after Sean passed away. So I was like, look, we need to just reset this and get this on the calendar and get it done. So I totally appreciate you for doing that. One of the first questions that I ask most of my guests is how do you personally define wealth? And I’m specifically interested in your answer because you have said that you don’t need more money. So what is wealth to you?
Russell Brunson: Yeah, it’s a good question. It’s funny because I think most business owners and entrepreneurs, when we get started, we chase… It’s funny because we have things we want, freedom or something, we start chasing money to give us freedom and then we get the money, but then it ties us down because now we’ve got teams and people and customers and it’s this weird thing. And it’s funny, I think wealth for me has shifted multiple times in my career, you know? And so depending on the phase I was at when you asked me it would have been different. I think for right now, I feel like wealth for me is the ability to not have to worry about stuff, right? Like when earlier this year when the Coronavirus stuff happened or, you know, things like that, like everyone was freaking out about different things and we didn’t have to stress about that. I mean, we had stresses, everyone had stresses, but it wasn’t like, it wasn’t a financial thing.
It wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t anything related to money. Like we could solve those problems. I was able to solve those problems for my family. And like I was texting and calling everyone that I love. What can you do? And I’m shipping stuff on Amazon and gift boxes and everything, you know, like having the belief, not have to worry about that. And so, you know, there’s other things to worry about, but, wealth, I feel like when you’re wealthy, you don’t have to worry about any of the things. Somebody told me one time, if your problem can be solved by money then you don’t actually have a problem. So that’s why I feel like it takes away all those problems and gives you the ability to focus on bigger problems for your customers, for people, but then also for the problems for yourself in your own life and things like that.
Mindie Kniss: Yeah. I love that. That quote that I think you’re probably referring to from Dan Sullivan about like, if this problem can be solved by writing a check, you don’t have a problem.
Russell Brunson: You don’t actually have a problem.
Mindie Kniss: Which I totally appreciate. Now I would love to get your perspective on some of those different evolutionary aspects from you. You have, I mean, from potato guns to what you’re doing now, it is hilarious to hear your story. So if you could share with the listener, just a bit of that evolution that you mentioned.
Russell Brunson: Man, if we go all the way back. I was like 12 or 13 years old. The first time I like learned about business and money and it got me excited. Obviously the 12-year-old kid, you can’t do a lot, at least back then we couldn’t. Nowadays there’s 12-year-old kids who are killing it online. But back then, there wasn’t a lot I could do, but I got interested in it. And then fast forward, I got into wrestling, became obsessed with that, and then wrestled in college. That’s where I met my wife. And remember it was my sophomore year in college. I was wrestling, met my wife. I fell in love with her and very quickly asked her to marry me. And she said, yes, we were all excited. And then the question was, well, how are we going to support ourselves? I was like, well, my parents pay for me right now to live. And I was like, I don’t know, I wonder if they still will. I messaged my dad. And he’s like, no, if you get married, you’re a man now. You have to figure this out on your own.
Mindie Kniss: Good for your dad!
Russell Brunson: Oh, I hadn’t realized that was how it was going to work. And so I was talking to my wife and she, at the time, Collette was making like $9.50 an hour as a secretary. And I was like, huh, how much do apartments actually cost? I had no idea. I’ve never… It’s a whole new world for me. I’m looking it up. I’m like, man, there’s no place we can live that her salary will cover just the rent payment, let alone food for us to eat and all these things. And so it was like, Oh no. Okay, I have to figure out a way so we can start this family, be together. Like all the things, you know. So for me, that was the first phase of, it was like, I’ve got to, I’ve got to figure out how to get my stability so I can support this woman who I love and all those kinds of things. And so that was kind of interesting for me. It was like, I gotta race to figure this out. And at the time I was wrestling, I didn’t want to quit wrestling. So I was like, I can’t get a job or I’d have to quit wrestling so I have to do this like in the in-between times. And that was my initial motivation was that, you know, she was working two jobs when we first got married to kind of support us while I was trying to figure this stuff out. So to me, that was the first phase. And after I figured it out and started to make some money and was like, Oh, okay. This is really, really cool. Like now what? Like now I want to make some more money. That’s the next phase, like that excitement of, okay, I figured out the techniques or the tactics to do it. And so then I started doing more of that. So I start creating more products and ideas and things and selling them. And I got in that phase for a while, which was really fun. But then I start getting into the overwhelm. So then I start hiring employees and then start getting people to help. And then it was weird because I started like loving that part, hiring team and having them part of this vision and seeing them grow and seeing them succeed. It was like, that became more fun for me was like, it was less like about me making money, but about me training this team, getting them excited and seeing the light in their eyes light up. And that was the next phase for me.
And then I think the next phase after that was when… And it took me a while to get here, unfortunately. But like when I started seeing our customers have success, with what we’re teaching, what we’re selling. Like that’s the thing that, for me personally, lit me on fire more than anything else. In fact, that’s the reason… People always ask me, Russell, why haven’t you sold ClickFunnels? Why are you still doing this? Why are you… This is ridiculous. You should just take a nap. Like you look so tired and I’m like, but it’s so fulfilling. It’s so exciting. Like I see people who have come through and either they read a book or they use the software or something. And then you see like the ripple effect of what they can do. It’s funny. My wife just signed up for Kaelin Poulin’s Lady Boss Weight Loss challenge today.
Kaelin and Brandon were a newlywed couple, came into our world, and kind of started learning this stuff. And I’ve watched now that in the last three years, they’ve helped like 1.3 million women now to lose weight and to change their life and their transformation. And today my wife downloaded their program to start going through it. I was walking in the door, kind of laughing, like this is so full circle, but I’m looking at Kaelin was one entrepreneur who we were able to help. And obviously they’re amazing people. We were just a little… We had the opportunity to help them a little bit on their journey. But now I see like that one person, we were able to touch them, and they help now 1.3 million women, you know? And then there’s another entrepreneur you help in that you watch, and you start watching all these people’s lives change. And I don’t know… That feeling that like, whatever that is like that, that’s the thing that keeps me going, lights me up. And so that’s really where, you know, so much for me and for our team, it’s just like, man, if we can get our message out to more people, like what else can happen? Like how many more people’s lives can change if we can just push a little harder and dig a little bit deeper? So that’s where a lot of it comes from now.
Mindie Kniss: That’s awesome. And Russell, you’re a pretty enthusiastic guy so I’m curious about your answer to this next question. When are you most happy?
Russell Brunson: Oh, interesting. For me… I think it’s probably true for all people. I was reading about Olympic athletes recently where like they win the gold medal and then they go into depression right afterwards. But the process leading up to it. I don’t know, like for me, it’s crazy. Cause in the middle of it, it’s always stressful and you’re tired and you’re like, ah, this is horrible. And there’s so many things happening and it’s like all that lead-up time to the thing that, like we’re publishing the book, we’re doing the event or whatever the thing is, you know? And then you do it and in the end, you’re like, Oh, it’s over. That was interesting. It’s looking back on. In fact, I don’t even know who said this. I heard somebody say one time that like happiness doesn’t come in doing the thing. It comes in the memory of the thing. A good example… I became obsessed with Google photos like six months ago and every picture that I can find I’ve scanned. I put in Google photos, I categorize. It’s really fun. And the other day I was looking with my wife, we were trying to find funny pictures just to cheer us up. We found this picture of Nora. She’s my little girl. She’s five years old now, but she was like two at the time. And she’s laying, we on a cruise ship and she’s wrapped in the towel. Her hair is all wet, she had little pigtails, a big old smile on her face. And we’re looking at his picture and we start laughing like, Oh, that was like the best. Like that was the best memory ever.
And then we’re like, wait a minute. And I was like, do you actually remember like that experience and what happened? It was four o’clock in the morning. It was the third time she puked on us in bed that night. We had to call Disney staff to come to our cruise room, clean up the sheets, clean up everything, put her in the bathtub, like our clothes were covered in puke, our things. We change, get back in bed. She’s sick. So she pukes again. It was after the third time of her puking, we got her out of the bathtub and we’re just like wanting to die. And we look at her and she’s got the biggest smile on her face. And that’s where I caught the picture. I was like, that moment was miserable. Like it was the worst ever. But like the memory of that thing brought us so much happiness. And I think it’s so true in so many parts of our life where we’re doing the thing it’s so hard, and it’s like, when it’s over, it’s like looking back and being like, the memory of it’s the best part. And so I’ve been trying to be more conscious now as we’re going through the horrible parts of things to take pictures of everything. It drives my kids crazy, drives half my team crazy. But we’re trying to document it all because looking back is so much fun.
Looking back at the pictures when we were launching ClickFunnels and we were, we literally, like my company had gone almost through bankruptcy. We’re in this little tiny office. We’re trying to figure out how to eat, how to stay alive. And in the ashes is where ClickFunnels was born. And I remember being so stressed and so miserable. And so like all the things then looking back, it’s like, that was the coolest experience I could ever dream of. It was so great. And so I don’t know. For me, it’s that part of it, is looking back. In fact, this last week with my kids, I go grab one of them at a time and we’ll sit down and in Google photos, you can type in someone’s name and it finds every picture in Photos of that person and every video. We’ll sit down for hours with each kid and just look at pictures and videos and laugh about when they were little kids. That’s the best part. So yeah.
Mindie Kniss: That’s awesome. Sean used to have a mentor that said, “Choose the option that will create the better memory.” And I like that.
Russell Brunson: Oh, that’s good.
Mindie Kniss: It’s almost like pre-framing that to create the better memory so that you have that joy looking back. So that’s awesome. You and I have both spent time in East Africa and I wanted to ask you about that. Just your experiences over there, the impact that you’re able to have and how that contributes to, or doesn’t, your happiness and just how you think about money. Because Kenya is a place where oftentimes, places you and I have been, they don’t have a lot of money. But there’s often a ton of joy. So tell me a little bit about your experience there.
Russell Brunson: Yeah. We’ve been now three or four times. We were supposed to take our kids back this year for the first time, which didn’t end up happening. It got canceled. But yeah, it was interesting. I remember the very first trip going out there. I remember we first landed there and you go out there and you get in these little cars, and you drive out to the IDP camps and the villages. You see this poverty and you see stuff that like, I remember the first time we walked out of the van and walked towards these kids and they are running toward us and hugging. And I remember this car drove up in front of us and it had a whole bunch of corn in the back of his truck. And the guy just like dumped it off. We saw these kids that were fighting and like trying to get this corn they could run home to eat.
And I’m just like, wow, this is amazing. I looked back at my wife, Collette, and she is just bawling her face off and I was like, Oh my gosh. I remember that night. The impression I got at first was just like, how in the world are we so lucky? What did we do to deserve this thing and money? And all these opportunities and all this stuff, you know, I remember that was kind of a feeling for the first couple of days. And then we went to this one camp and we set up camp there and we’re helping build schools. And I played with the kids and it just, it was so great. And I remember watching this group of like, I don’t know, 50 little kids out there and they had a stick and they had this bent tire and these kids are running around hitting the tire, trying to knock it over or trying to keep it up and like knocking it, running around and we’re out there. I was playing with them for hours. Like to the point that I wanted to pass out. I was so tired, but I was having so much fun playing these kids and stuff. And we’re going to bed that night. And I was like, those kids, a group of like, I don’t know, a hundred kids were entertained for like eight hours with a stick and a thing. And they were so happy and so grateful for that thing. And I started thinking, I was like, man, what did they do to be so blessed to be in a spot like this where they’re not surrounded by the commotions of the world and the problems and depression? And all the stuff that my kids are struggling with now, you know? And I was like, man, maybe they’re the ones that are lucky that, you know what I mean?
To be able to come and see a little glimpse of that was such a huge thing. And so I don’t know. It definitely made a huge perspective change on me. One day we had a chance to go to this little, it was Mama tunes orphanage and mama tunes is someone who, someone dropped a baby off on her doorstep and she took it in and the rumor got out, like mama tune’s is taking babies. And within six months, she had a hundred kids at her house that she’s now taking care of and helping. And it was just, it was crazy. And so we show up there and this amazing lady was just serving the best she can, but she has no money, no resources. So we came in and we were paying, I can’t remember.
I think it was like $12. It was like a couple bucks a month fed a kid for the entire year. It was crazy. And so we donated like 30 bucks maybe, and it would feed the kid for the year. And we’re just like, Oh my gosh, like here’s as much money as we could. And you see these kids who were eating and then like, they’re trying to share the food with you. And you’re just like, no, please don’t. I don’t know. It just, it changes you at a different level where when you leave that you can’t, you can’t be the same, you know what I mean? And you know, you’ve experienced all that and you come back and it’s just like, man, I realize now what money can do and how it can help people at such a huge scale.
It’s funny. Cause you know how social media is, people are just no matter what’s happening, they want to find a way to be negative. And I remember when I got back from Kenya, the first time people were like, why would you put your money over there? There’s people here in your own country that are struggling. I’m like, yeah, we do stuff for them too. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be helping these people too. And our ability to help them goes so much further, like a thousand bucks in Kenya will feed a village. You know what I mean? Whereas here in America, like it buys, you know…
Mindie Kniss: Not much.
Russell Brunson: Yeah. It runs out really, really quickly. And so we see how far your dollars can go in Africa, it can really change you. It makes it a big, big force in what you do. So like when we started ClickFunnels, Stu McLaren and his wife, Amy, are the ones who own the charity that we go through, Village Impact. And we set up a thing where every time somebody created a funnel inside of ClickFunnels that went live, we were going to donate a dollar to Village Impact.
Mindie Kniss: Oh, nice!
Russell Brunson: At first we’re like, Oh, maybe that’s like 10 grand a year. I don’t know. And now it’s like, the checks are like $350,000 a year. We’re like, Oh man. But we set that up initially inside of the DNA of ClickFunnels, like this is something we’re going to do and we’re going to keep doing it. And it’s just been such a huge blessing and you know, going back and seeing the kids. Now that we’ve had a chance to go back multiple times, you go back to the same villages you’re in earlier and you see the development and like how people change over the years. In fact, the very first trip we went on, we met this little girl named Jane who was probably 14, 15 years old at the time. And Collette and her just really connected. And anyway, we ended up helping her to get to high school and to college and she just had her first baby. And she named the baby after Collette, the baby’s middle name is Collette, which is like the cutest thing ever.
Mindie Kniss: That is adorable!
Russell Brunson: This morning, Collette was showing me pictures of the baby. And anyway, it’s so cool to see the impact and the change you can have on these little communities by doing almost nothing. It’s really crazy.
Mindie Kniss: Yeah. I totally agree. I’ve recently in the last year or so had two of the kids that I sponsored years and years and years ago, reach out to me through Facebook and they’re like adults now and have kids and they’re showing me photos. I’m like, this is amazing.
Russell Brunson: So cool…
Mindie Kniss: So I love that. And you know, to that point about why aren’t you helping people in your own backyard? I think you got to go where your heart calls you, you can’t help every single person on the planet. So like go with your heart. And there are plenty of people that have the heart for their own backyard here in the US and you know, as you said, you’re also doing stuff to help them so all good on that. So I have this framework question that I ask every guest. It’s called HERB. H stands for habits. So I’d love to hear what are some of your habits that just allow you to get all the stuff done that you do in a day? You know, you’ve got a lot of kids and a lot of work. So like, what are your habits that keep that running?
Russell Brunson: Yeah. It’s funny because I’m in a time of redefinition of my habits. It’s just kind of an interesting time. So I’m like, how do I shift things now, now that my outcomes at the end have changed, you know, throughout my life and I’m in a spot now where I have new outcomes, like I’m trying to shift the habits to match those. But for me, a lot of it’s just like, what do I want to feel? And so I know that when I’m eating what I want to eat, like ice cream and donuts and sushi every night, I don’t feel good. I feel good the moment and I then I just feel miserable afterwards. And so I know that. I know myself. If I’m not careful, I have weight problems really fast.
And part of it’s because I spent 15 years of my life as a wrestler where I would lose 30 pounds every single week for weigh-ins and start back over and it’s like this vicious cycle. If I’m not careful, I gain weight really quickly. For one habit, for example, all my meals are made for me. And so I have a lady who, and this is my meal for those watching the video. This is my meal, this is what I get to eat today. I send her my macros and she knows exactly what they are. And if my diet shifts, she knows what they are. And then my food’s brought every week. And then I only eat that. If it’s in the thing. I eat it. If it’s not, I don’t eat it because I’ll balloon up overnight. It’s ridiculous. That’s a big habit that I have.
I have trainers that come to my house 3 days a week that we know it’s going to be there. I know I can’t sleep in cause he’s going to be there and it’s going to be awkward in the morning. So I just… I know that there’s somebody that’s going to be there. Right? It’s finding those things and then blocking it off so they have to happen. It’s too easy for me… I’m sure for most people it’s so easy to not do the thing. And the next big part has been really helpful is I surround myself with insanely talented people in all the different areas of my life. My wife runs our home. I’ve got an assistant, Melanie, who runs my life. I’ve got people that run different parts of the company. And I think, you know, a lot times people are like, man, Russell, how do you get all this stuff done? And I do work hard, but it’s like, I also have amazing people. So it’s like, if we want to run a live event, I open up Voxer. There’s three or four people that do our live events. I put them in a group, I brain dump my vision to them and then they can go run and they can do it. And if you look at leadership or just how you work with people, in my mind, there’s 3 levels. There’s strategic thinkers, there’s managers and there’s doers. I’m very much a strategic thinker. So I try to play at that level. And then I bring my managers together. I explain to them what they need to do and they take it and they go to all the workers and get the thing done. And so I can move really, really quickly because of that. I have habits with these people, I know like, okay, I’m meeting with you here. I’m meeting with you here. This is when you’re going to get the download from me, and then you gotta run with it as fast as you can. I’m just setting up my life and my calendar that way so that when I’m spending an hour here, 30 minutes here, it’s not just 30 minutes of my time. It gets amplified to 500 hours of actual output on the backside of it.
Mindie Kniss: That’s awesome. So moving to E stands for environment. What do you allow into your environment or not allow into your environment that just allows you to function at such a high level?
Russell Brunson: That’s interesting. So I have basically two primary environments that I live in, which is my home and then my office, which are both very, very close to each other. I thrive off of energy and people-energy, and there have been so many times where there have been people in the office, and we have a couple of other offices, but when I come to the office, if I feel awkward, I feel because of that person. They do great work, but I cannot have them in this office here. And we’ll literally make them go home or remove them or whatever. Cause it’s like, there’s so many things that… And I feel horrible about that, but like, if I can’t come in and just be myself, then it puts constraints on, then everything just suffers and all those kinds of things, you know? It’s the same thing in our home. It’s like when we structure the environment in certain ways, like we know with our kids. Left to their own devices, they’re going to eat ice cream and donuts all day. That’s the thing. Right?
Mindie Kniss: [Laughing] Like their father.
Russell Brunson: Yeah, just like their dad. So my wife has a house manager. So every day she chops up healthy food and lays it out everywhere. There’s stuff everywhere so then the kids just grab that as opposed to searching for something else. There’s always a veggie tray and a fruit tray, things like that that are around us because you’re going to default to whatever is the simplest. And so it’s trying to get the people around us to create those things as much as possible. It comes down to the food, right? Like I’m going to go to whatever’s the simplest. It’s like, Oh, that’s simplest, I’m going to go right directly to that cause it’s the most simple. And just trying to organize everything around me to make it simple. Like this office, for example, this is my office but also behind me there’s a TV with a thing and there’s cameras now on the wall, cause if I want to film something, I click a button and I’m filming because it’s easy. I don’t have to like stress out about all the steps, like the things are in place to make it simple to just do the work I need to do. Like a good example is when I launched my podcast back in the day, I was like, I knew that if I was gonna do a podcast, that if I had to do an interview show and had microphones, all these things, I knew the stress of it would make it so that I never actually did it.
And my podcast, I’ve been doing it now for like seven or eight years now. I literally just, I do it when I’m driving. I have a phone in my hand, I click record my phone. I just drive like this because I knew that that would be a spot that I’m in every single day, it’s consistent. It’s easy. It’s going to actually happen. There’s nothing to keep me from doing. I just have to, every time I drive, I click record and just drive while I talk. And so that’s how I launched my podcast, which I’ve been doing now, like I said, for a long time. And so it’s just figuring out ways to make the thing simple to do, and then hide the things that, you know, there’s not candy close to me because I would just default to like, it’s all environmentally hidden so I can’t get to it.
Mindie Kniss: I like that. There’s a lot of planned inevitability in this for you to like be healthy, have things simple. So that’s really good. So moving on to the R. The R stands for resources and resources can be books, programs, courses, software for you… What resources have impacted you in your own evolution of wealth, of happiness, of life, and which ones specifically would you recommend to others? I know there’s probably a million, but if you could list like two or three, that’d be awesome.
Russell Brunson: Oh, there’s so many good things…
Mindie Kniss: I know!
Russell Brunson: This could be a whole… yeah. So some of the things that I… Again, I try to simplify my whole life and put it on my phone. And so I buy a lot of books. I buy a lot of courses. Like when I buy a course that has like 25 CDs or DVDs, I ship it directly to my brother who then rips it all, puts an audio book and it’s on my phone. If I have probably, I would say conservatively, 800 or more courses for everything I want like personal development, relationships, health, fitness, everything I want. The most expensive course, the smallest, whatever course, I buy it and put it on there. I have Audible, I have my books, like everything’s on here. And I do because, remember I’m a feeling guy, it’s like, I don’t know what I want to listen to today, what I want to study.
But in the moment I want to make sure it’s not like, Oh, there’s only one book you can read because that’s the book you downloaded. I want to know, like in the moment, like I’m really excited about biohacking this moment. Or I want to learn about eating healthy fats. Like, okay, well I’ve got three courses on that. Which one should I dive into? I want to have it there at my fingertips. So when I feel like that’s what I want, the better. I used to drive my wife crazy. We’d go on an airplane flight and I was like, I don’t know… She’s like, just grab a book. I’m like, well, I don’t know what book I’m going to be in the mood for, so I would bring a separate backpack. I’d bring conservatively like 15+ books in my backpack, just cause I want to have the right one when I’m in the mood and it drives her nuts.
Mindie Kniss: I’m the same way.
Russell Brunson: You do the same thing? Yes! So I’m not weird.
Mindie Kniss: Or we’re both weird.
Russell Brunson: [Laughing] So now I have it all in here. So it’s just like, they’re there. I have access to them really quick. The next thing. This is an app that I just learned about in the last week that I’m obsessed with. It’s called WorkFlowy. Have you ever heard of it?
Mindie Kniss: I haven’t.
Russell Brunson: It’s like an endless document. So it’s like bullet points and then bullet points and you make bullet points, then each bullet point, you click on it. It can become its own page, with its own bullets. And then it goes deeper, and deeper, and deeper. And then what’s cool is you can share a bullet point, which is a page with somebody else. And so right now, like I literally have like in WorkFlowy, I have a bullet that’s my courses or content development. I have courses, YouTube videos, podcasts. I have like all those, and then inside podcasts, here’s the next five episodes. And then what’s cool is you go deeper, and deeper, and deeper. But then if there’s like, I need like say YouTube video, like I don’t know what to make a YouTube video on. So I can share that bullet with the guy that does YouTube on my side, then he can log in. He only sees the YouTube bullet and he can add in: video number one, here’s the headline, here’s the keyword. And he can brain dump and he can flush it out. And then I have it right there for me to do. And I’m like my next book, I started writing my next book and I’ve outlined the entire thing inside of WorkFlowy. And then there’s an app on your phone, or computers, anywhere I go, I can like be brainstorming and going deeper and deeper and deeper.
And like, what’s cool about this new book. There’s a whole bunch of interviews I’m doing with people for the book. So I can give somebody their chapter, like here’s the bullet point of your chapter, go fill in the blanks and they can dive in and like fill out the WorkFlowy. Anyway, it’s like the most simple, dumb app in the world that you can ask anyone on my team here, I made everyone on my team start using it and I’m obsessed with it. Cause it like makes the organization of my brain and life so much simpler than anything I’ve ever used in the past.
Mindie Kniss: I am going to go look it up after this interview. So that moves us over to the B. The B stands for beliefs. And I have shared this with you before. I am always super impressed and really proud of you as a friend for being so solid in your beliefs. What are some of those beliefs that just create your worldview and have also helped to create the man that you are?
Russell Brunson: Oh man.
Mindie Kniss: Oh man. I know…
Russell Brunson: That’s such a good question. It’s funny. Beliefs are such an interesting thing. You know what I mean? Like I think a lot of people have strong beliefs and things. A lot of times they’re scared to share them. Or if people have opposite beliefs than them, then they feel like they have to attack them. That’s why social media is so nuts right now. And it’s going to keep getting worse and worse because of that. Right? And it’s like, I definitely have strong beliefs and what I believe. And I don’t waiver in those things. I’m very big on if I have questions about something, I will pray until I get an answer. When I get that answer, that is the answer. And that belief won’t shift. It’s now I’ve gotten the answer from someone higher than me, I believe it. And it’s now it’s like an absolute truth for me, so it doesn’t shift. But just because I believe this, doesn’t mean I can’t be friends with you and you believe something completely different. I can completely respect you. It doesn’t matter to me. I think that’s what people struggle with so much. It’s like, no, this is what I believe, therefore you… And it causes chaos. I think it’s so much better when you’re just like, this is what I believe and why I believe it. And like putting it out there. Not being afraid to put it out there either. I think a lot of people are just so scared where I’m pretty blunt. Like I talk about, you know, on my Instagram profile, I talk about Christ. I talk about The Book of Mormon.
I talk about things I believe in. I don’t hide those things, but I also don’t do in a way where it’s like divisive. I had somebody message me the other day, like how in the world are you able to post on your social media about these things and it doesn’t turn into a bloodbath or brawls or anything? And it’s because I don’t post it in the way of like, if you don’t believe this you’re going to hell. I just say, this is what I believe and why I believe it. And it’s something that I’m passionate about. I don’t put those things on other people. I respect other people’s beliefs so much so I don’t want to… I would hate if someone tried to take away my beliefs. In fact, there’s an, we call it an article of faith, in my faith. And one of the articles of faith is we claim the privilege worshiping almighty God and allow, according to the dictates of our own conscious, and we allow all men the same privilege. Let them worship how, where, or what they may. And I’m such a big believer in that. I’m going to be me and you can be you and maybe there’s some values of mine that you like or vice versa. And we can all help each other. And so, I don’t know. I just wish more people would be willing to share their beliefs. A lot of times we hide, we’re scared and we’ll attack, but we’re not willing to just to share what we believe and why, and to be okay with the fact that people we love may not believe what we believe and it’s completely okay. It doesn’t matter.
Mindie Kniss: You know what? I can vouch for that with you because you and I have had multiple conversations about conversion, but it’s never been about religion. It’s only been about software. [Laughing] You are always trying to convert me in terms of software, but it’s okay.
Russell Brunson: We’ll get you some day. We’ll get ya.
Mindie Kniss: But you’re still willing to let me believe what I believe, even about software. So I appreciate that.
Russell Brunson: You know what’s crazy? This is a good example because you use Ontraport, I obviously use ClickFunnels.
Mindie Kniss: Obviously.
Russell Brunson: When all is said and done, inside of our community or inside of our company is the hardest… I’ll get employees who are like, Oh, so and so is using whatever. And they get angry that someone in our space is using something besides ClickFunnels or they’re using a tool that they could use in ClickFunnels, whatever. And I was like, look, our mission is not to try to get everybody in the world to use ClickFunnels. That has never been the mission of ClickFunnels. Our mission is to help change the lives of the people we’ve been called to serve, and giving entrepreneurs tools and things to make that job more simple. That’s our mission. And so if they find it more simple to use Ontraport for this function, versus this, I don’t really care. All that I really care about, when all said and done, is that the people you’ve been called to serve, you have a chance to serve them and change their lives. And hopefully, the tools and the resources we create will make that easier. But if you don’t use mine, I’m the least offended of anybody on my team. I promise you, there are people on my team who will be offended, but I could not care less. As long as you’re getting your message out and you’re doing what you’re called to do. That’s the biggest thing for me.
Mindie Kniss: And to that point, you know, I’ve shared with you that I’ve used your books as basically textbooks for my team. You know, helping them learn how to do this better, even if it’s a different software. So speaking of books, I want you to talk a little bit about your newest book, Traffic Secrets. I have read all the books that you’ve put out. I’m always a big fan. So talk a little bit about this new one.
Russell Brunson: Yes. Well, first off, thank you for mentioning it. Yeah. It’s funny because I, even to this day, I don’t consider myself an author. This never was the thing I was going to do. It was like a tool I needed to make this process more simple for people. When we first launched ClickFunnels, it was like, here’s my gift to the world and nobody got it. And I was like, you guys, you don’t understand what I just gave you! This is amazing. And people are like, I don’t get it. So I’m like, okay. So I wrote the DotCom Secrets book to help people understand sales funnels. And as soon as people got the book, they’re like, Oh cool. And then they started using the software. And then it was funny because I was watching. It was like, okay, people are using software, but like a lot of people making these funnels, but they’re not making money. What are they not understanding?
It’s like, Oh, they don’t understand the art of funnels. Like how do you tell your story? How do you move someone from page one to page two? And how do you get someone to want to give you money? And so that’s when the second book came. I needed to help everybody understand this part of the process. That’s when Expert Secrets came out. Then over the last, man, two years or so, the next thing was the only reason why people are struggling with funnels right now is they can’t get traffic, they can’t get people. Or maybe they were for awhile using Facebook ads and they got shut down or whatever. That kind of started the third book, which is Traffic Secrets. But it’s written in a way it’s different than most traffic books. Most traffic books are like, let me show you how to run Facebook ads.
Let me show you how to use Google ads or whatever. I was like, I don’t feel like that’s the best way to serve our people. Like, you know, entrepreneurs and business owners and people that are trying to get their message out. Like it’s helping them understand the core strategies because like, I don’t know. I’m assuming… Do you run your own Facebook ads? I don’t run mine. I don’t even know how to do it. Right? But I wrote a book on traffic because I do understand the core principles. Before we had Facebook, before there was Google… I got started now, I think I’m on my 17th or 18th year in this business now. And back then we had to get traffic differently. So how do we do and how do we think about things differently? And I wanted to bring those concepts in people’s minds because if your business is relying on Facebook ads or Instagram or YouTube, that may be working for a while, but it’s building your foundation on a really sandy foundation. I’ve been through cycles so many times where like, you know, you’re successful with the thing, but then Google slaps you and the whole business collapses. I’ve seen so many people that that happened to. Right now, I’ve seen so many people’s Facebook ads are getting shut down. And so this book is to teach people strategically how to build traffic in a way that even if Mark Zuckerberg shuts you down, even if you can’t get an ad approved, you can still get tons of traffic by just understanding how traffic works a little bit differently. So that’s what the book’s about, and it’s been fun. It’s been out there now. Anyway, I’m proud of it. It turned out really good, I think.
Mindie Kniss: To your point, I was really impressed with that is that you do talk about evergreen aspects of this, not just what’s working right this second with this specific software. It’s like, these are the overarching principles, which I find really, really helpful. So if people are interested in getting that book or just learning more about you in general, where would you like to send them to?
Russell Brunson: Yeah. If you guys want to get a copy of the book, if you go to TrafficSecrets.com, there is where we’ve got the book. And if you want to tap into what I do, ClickFunnels.com obviously is our software company, and then MarketingSecrets.com is kind of my podcast and blog and everything like that if you want to plug into all the other things that I’m talking about and teaching about all the time as well.
Mindie Kniss: Awesome. Russell is also going to be a part of the Lucrative Speaker Summit coming up this summer in August. So you can check that out and learn more from him specifically on his speaking aspect of what he has been putting together. That is at LucrativeSpeaker.com. Russell, I just want to thank you so much, not only for your time and your wisdom today, but also for your friendship. You have been just super helpful and super real since Sean passed away. And I always appreciate your generosity. With Sean, with me, just in life. Thanks so much for this time.
Russell Brunson: Thanks for having me. It’s so much fun to actually hang out with you. We haven’t talked forever so I appreciate this and thanks for setting it up and letting me be here with you.
OUTTAKE…
Russell Brunson: Yeah, that was really fun.
Mindie Kniss: Yeah.
Russell Brunson: See, we’re not as introverted as people think we are. We’re good at talking as long as there’s a screen between us all.
Mindie Kniss: I’m in my house by myself!
Both: [Laughing]
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