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Welcome to the second part of a special three episode series! On this episode, Russell and Josh talk about their biggest “take-aways” from the book. Russell talks about a difficult time when Clickfunnels was down and instead of choosing fear and running from the problem, he chose to have faith in his business and fight to make it better. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up, everybody. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you enjoyed the first part of my interview with Josh Forti, on Outwitting the Devil. This episode, I'm excited, because we're going to go a little bit deeper. We're going to start talking about some of my stories, and practical applications of how I was able to use this in my past. This story I tell, I wasn't expecting to tell this. I didn't know where he was going to go with the interview questions. We got a little emotional, but I think it was good. So I'm excited to share it with you. I'm a little nervous, but a little excited at the same time. So with that said, we're going to cue up the theme song. When we come back you can listen to episode number two, from the Josh Forti interview, about Outwitting the Devil. Josh Forti: I had a very definitive takeaway from the book. You could read a million times, and keep getting gold nuggets, but what was the thing that stuck out to you, that was the most powerful of it? That caused you to literally go on Instagram, be like, "Yo, everybody read this book right now." Russell: Everyone's in different spots, so I think it's good to read this book for everyone to kind of see where you fit. Anyway, maybe I have a distorted view of myself, but I feel like I'm somebody who acts in definitive purpose. I feel like I act in faith, most of the times. So, I feel like I'm on the side. So the thing that was so powerful for me, if you look in the middle of my thing, there's two columns here, was he started saying, he asked, he's like, "When someone uses definitive purpose, does that mean they're free from you?" He's like, "No." He's like, "As soon as they're using definitive purpose." And he's like, "These are the tools I use to try to get them to become drifters." And I started looking at the list of things he uses to get them to become drifters. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, I see those patterns in my life. I see the things that are pulling me to that side as well." And it became this warning for me of like, "Okay, these are the things to protect yourself from." Because, we're not free, it's not like, I do good things therefore I'm to be good forever. It's like, no, the entire time he's trying to get you to the other side. And so for me, it was interesting. You can see some of these ones I list up here, like the temptations he uses to get someone who is free, to become a drifter. So number one, was flattery. And it was interesting, he said that the way he uses flattery, is in women, he uses vanity, and in men, he uses egotism. And I've seen that so many times in my own personal life, where with your ego and you start reading your own bio, you drink your own Kool-Aid, and you're like, "I'm amazing." And as soon as you do that, it starts shifting you from this state of freedom, to drifters. And I've seen... I've got personal friends who have let ego destroy their families, destroy their businesses, destroy their lives. And I always have fear of that, and I see myself slipping into that often. It's definitely a temptation, it's one of the things for me, that pulls me in, I'm trying to be careful of. It's funny, people always tell me, like, "I feel like you're one of the few guys in the industry that doesn't have a big ego." I'm like, "I have a huge ego." I try to be aware of it. I'm grateful for my wife. One of my buddies told me, he's like, "It wasn't for Colette." He's like, "You'd have the biggest head in the world." She's the one that keeps me focused. Josh: I feel like that's Leo with me too, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Russell: But I think it was interesting for man, for egotism, and women, he said vanity, which is interesting too. So those are two things there. Next was failure, and he talked about failure from both sides. He said that failure can be something that actually serves you, because you fail, you see what's wrong and you read adjust, but some people go through failure, and then they slip to like, "Okay, this didn't work," and they're out. And you see that a lot. Josh: Well, and that's even here, it's learning from adversity. That's one of the key things, how do you use failure? If you're going to be a drifter, you're going to be like, "Failure. Ew yuck. I'm never going to do it again." versus a successful person. Russell: You see people all the time that fail, are like, "Oh, I tried the thing, and it didn't actually work." It's like, "Okay. It worked for 800 other people, but it didn't work for you. Maybe it was you, maybe the approach was..." It's so interesting where it's like, if... It comes back to, if you've read Jocko's book. Josh: What's Jocko's book? Extreme Ownership. Yeah. Russell: That's the thing, the failure happens, and it's like, "Oh, I going to blame it on them." Boom. Instantly you're a drifter. But if you're like, "It was me, I did it wrong. What am I going to change?" The extreme ownership, that's the shift from failure. Whereas you take extreme ownership, boom, you're staying over here, but, if you don't... And I have a problem all the time. I think something that's happened to my team, or whatever, and I want to point the finger, and it's like, "But I'm the leader of the team." But it's so much easier to point out, than point back in. And so for me, that was the one. Again, another one I noticed, when I had my failures, did I point out or in? Because if I point out, I'm slipping into drifting. Propaganda, bribes, food, sex, all these different things he was using. The food one was interesting, he was talking about, he's like, "When men and women become rich, and they have all these things, I get them through food, when they start eating and get gluttonous. And all of sudden their body gets not healthy, and then it's harder to move." And I'm sure you felt that, when you're not eating healthy, your mind gets cloudy, and all these things, it's very easy to become a drifter. And so, it's just all these tools he's using to try to get you to shift from one another. Those things were... In my time in my life right now, where I was just like, "Okay, cool. I've got walls, I can start protecting myself up. I can become more aware of it." When you're aware of something, it's so much easier to fight it, as opposed to when… Josh: Yeah. And when you're successful too, everything's convenient. And that's one of the things that he brought up in the book too. I noticed in my life, I was thinking back to when I first started, I was like, "Man, I was sleeping on my buddy's couch." For three months, and I worked my butt off, and everything like that. I'm like, "Why do I lack that drive sometimes?" Like, "Why don't I have that anymore?" It's like, "Because life is convenient." Because if I sleep until eight o'clock, or if I don't perform today, my life doesn't change at all. But back then, it did. And so when things become convenient, it's super easy to come back into that drifter mode. Russell: Yeah. A hundred percent. And that's one of the hardest thing. I think, at least for me, when I was growing up, I always thought there's a point where you made it. In fact, I remember this one time, my business was doing well at the time, we had a bunch of employees. I remember hiring this guy to come consult me on something, and he came out, and he's looking at all this stuff. And he's like, "So tell me, when was he felt like... When did you know you made it?" And I was like, "Oh, I..." I'm still freaking out. I don't feel like I made it. And I think, in my life, I always thought there's going to be a point where I'm like, "I made it, or figured the thing out." Or whatever, but I never got there. I feel like the second I do, that's when it's going to start... That's the thing. And so, I think being more aware of that, just like, this is a constant thing and that's okay, but, it's a constant between God and Satan, there's this constant... Every moment is like, each of them are fighting for. It's like, if you give up here, then you slip back over to there. You can't just... There's no neutral ground. Josh: So, I just want to talk about that, because I think one of the biggest... Well, the number one thing, like you said, of a non drifter, is the definitive purpose. And I have noticed that in my life, even recently... Over the past year, year and a half, I've been working with Katie Richardson, you know that, just really getting clear on what the next steps of things are. And my definitive purpose, if you will, when I first started my entrepreneurship journey, was this, "I just don't want to be poor anymore." I go like, "My definitive purpose is to not worry about money, and to get out of debt, and just be free. Then be able to make decisions or whatever." And then I got there, and then there was this next definitive purpose. And they were incremental, almost goals, but not like this overwhelming definitive purpose. And so, going through the process of that, of course, with my brother dying, and that whole shattering of everything. Like for you, you've built ClickFunnels, you have a wildly successful company and people look up to you, and are like, "Oh my gosh, Russell, you're on top of the world. You're amazing. You've made it." At now, you've just said, "Hey, I don't feel like I've made it yet. I still feel like I have a long way to go." How do you... A, has your purpose changed since you started, compared to where you're at now? And B, how do you continue to remind yourself of that purpose? Or how do you find that purpose? When you could do nothing for the rest of your life, and be totally fine. How do you find purpose in that? Russell: I'd be a drifter at that point. Josh: Right, you wouldn't be a drifter. I can just see Russell sitting on the beach. No, actually, I can't even imagine what that would look like, for Russell on the beach for long periods of time. But, what would that look like for you? Or, how do you find that purpose? Russell: So, you asked about if my purpose has changed. So I would say, in my mind, it's two things. There's the people that I've been called to serve has not changed, I feel like I've been called to serve entrepreneurs. Those are my people, those are the people that I'm here... And so for me, it's like, what are all the ways I can help them? So, initially it was like, "Do seminars, write books." That was the first thing, and then it's like, "Oh, we're going to build software." And then it's like, "Oh, we're doing events." And, we kept adding these things on. And so, that was the thing. And so my purpose was like, what are all the things I can do to help an entrepreneur to be more successful? That's my vision. That's my mission. That's my thing. And I feel like now that, again, after I finished the three books, I was like, I feel like that, again, that the trilogy, that's what people need. And then we have Funnel Hacking Live, that's amazing. We have these things in place, all the things there are... they're there. And I think there's things, where there's big updates, we have to company click funnels. There're other things we do to make things better, but for me, it's like, there's not a lot more, again, it's not like I'm going to come out with some magic funnel, I'm like, "God, it changes everything again." Like, it's there. Right? So for me, it's like, "Okay, I'm still called to serve these people. What's the next level of success? What's the next thing I need to do?" And for me, I started looking, like what were the things that I struggled with? And so much of it was not... It was like, I didn't have the tools, I didn't have the information, which is why the last two decades has been focused on that. But, the next thing was like, I had to become someone different, who did I have to become to be successful? I look at so many entrepreneurs who are coming into my world, these people that I'm called to serve, and giving them funnels. Man, they don't believe in themselves, they have horrible identities. They're choosing fear over faith, every single time, and they're not having success. And so, for me, it's like, "Hey, I still have the same people." So-called same.. served the same people. But, what am I... What's the next thing I need to help them with? And if you just look at my book trilogy, the first one was dotcom secrets. It's like, "They need to understand funnels." That was the book. And it was like, "Hey, now I understand funnels." And now everyone's like, "I'm building funnels." But then their funnels weren't working, they weren't converting. And I'm like, "Oh, they don't know how to tell stories, right copy, or..." So, Expert Secrets, I'm like, "Expert Secrets." It's like, "Okay, now they understand that." And I thought I was done. And then I'm like, "Okay. Some people have these funnels that have really good copy, but Facebook shut down their account and they're screwed, or they have no traffic, or whatever." And I'm like, "Oh, my people in the traffic." So, I'm getting traffic, and that was Traffic Secrets book. And so for me, the last year, year and a half, especially, as you know, we've been in this insane environment of insanity… Josh: How do you even describe it? Russell: And I'm watching these people I've been called to serve, melting down, choosing fear in every single direction, over, and over, and over, and over again. I'm seen people who don't have an identity, they don't have beliefs, they don't have rules, they don't have values. And I have all these things they need to actually have the structure, to implement. It is what we talked about. And that's why I started geeking back to this personal moments, and partially because it's for myself, because I'm trying to protect myself and strengthen myself. But for me, Hill doesn't really go deep on anything. If you look at my disc profile, one of my things is I have very, very high... my highest value is ROI. If I don't see return on investment on something, I can't do. That's why I struggled in school, that's why I struggled with so many things. That's why when I started trying to read scriptur…
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