Afleveringen
-
A year and a half ago, I walked off the Funnel Hacking Live stage, took my shoes off, and left them there — the wrestler’s way of saying a career is over. FHL 10 was “The Last Dance,” and I meant it. We shut it down, and I honestly didn’t know if it’d be a year, five years, or forever before we ever did anything like it again. Well, I’ve got news: it’s coming back — once. This September we’re doing a one-time-only encore called Funnel Hacking Live AI!
In this episode I take you all the way down memory lane — every FHL from that terrifying first room in Vegas back in 2015 to the last dance — tell you the real reasons we ended it, and explain why AI is the one thing that pulled me back to do this one final time.
Key Highlights:
◼️Why I ended Funnel Hacking Live — not because it failed, but because it succeeded… plus the parts nobody talks about (an eleven-presentation marathon, a budget that ballooned past $6 million, and needing space to build what’s next)
◼️The full ten-year timeline — from 600 people and a Ferrari giveaway in Vegas (2015) to the first Two Comma Club award in Dallas, the week-before-Covid Orlando event, and Tony Robbins going seven hours straight
◼️Why AI changed the math — when one person can do the work of ten (or fifty), the old playbook just celebrates the past while the new one gets written somewhere else… so we decided to write it ourselves
◼️What “FHL AI” actually is — a smaller, more intimate one-time encore in a ~2,200-seat Vegas theater (the floor’s already sold out), built around funnels that run themselves and AI systems that scale while you sleep
◼️A first look at “the next phase” — the bigger, different thing I’ve been quietly building behind the scenes, and why I’m choosing this stage to reveal it
Here’s the truth: we took our shoes off to figure out what was coming, not to quit. The world that created Funnel Hacking Live doesn’t really exist anymore — AI rewrote it in eighteen months — and the question every entrepreneur has to answer now is whether they’re going to keep celebrating the old playbook or help write the new one. This is the room where that gets written, one time only. So here’s the real question: a decade from now, when you look back on this season, do you want to say you watched it happen… or that you were in the room?
◼️FUNNEL HACKING LIVE AI: After ending FHL for good, Russell is bringing it back for one night only this September — a smaller, more intimate encore in a Las Vegas theater, built entirely around using AI to create funnels that run themselves and scale while you sleep. The floor is already sold out. → https://www.FunnelHackingLive.com
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
When Steve Jobs introduced the iPod, he didn’t say “now you can fit fifty songs on a CD instead of ten.” He said CDs are dead — and pulled a thousand songs out of his pocket. That’s not a better product. That’s a new category. And it’s the single idea that changed my business more than almost anything else I’ve ever learned.
Welcome back to the vault. Today I’m opening up an actual course from my mentor Dan Kennedy — the one course, out of the forty or fifty I got when I bought his company, that radically changed my life. It’s called Opportunity Concepts, and it taught me the difference between three kinds of offers… and why the one almost nobody leads with is the one that out-converts everything else. I’ll show you exactly how I used it to launch ClickFunnels, and how to weave it into your own value ladder.
Key Highlights:
◼️The three offer types — “Repair, Improvement, and New Opportunity” — and why 95% of businesses stay stuck competing on the weakest two
◼️The “-er” test — if you can only describe your offer with a word ending in -er (“faster,” “better,” “cheaper”), you’re selling an improvement… and improvements always lose to new opportunities
◼️How I positioned ClickFunnels as a “new opportunity” — not a better MailChimp or Infusionsoft, but a brand-new thing called a sales funnel — to become a “category of one”
◼️The Steve Jobs move — why “CDs are dead, here’s an iPod” beats “fit more songs on a CD” every single time, and how to run the same play on what you already sell
◼️The value-ladder twist — where new opportunity, improvement, and repair each belong in your funnel (lead with the new opportunity, sell the other two higher up)
Here’s what I want you to sit with: most people spend their whole careers trying to be a slightly better version of everyone else — faster, cheaper, smarter — and then wonder why it’s so hard to stand out. The shift isn’t building a better mousetrap. It’s deciding you’re not in the mousetrap business at all. Dan Kennedy charged $1,500 for this one idea, and I bought his entire company to own it, because it’s worth every penny. So before your next launch, ask yourself the only question that really moves the needle: what’s the new opportunity only you can offer — and what would it take to become the category of one?
◼️SELLING OPPORTUNITY: This whole episode comes from a $1,500 Dan Kennedy course Russell bought an entire company to own — now rebuilt as a multimedia book you can read, scan, and watch Dan teach. If you want to position your offer as a new opportunity instead of a “better” version of everyone else, this is the playbook. → https://www.SellingOpportunity.com
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
-
Spencer Pratt — yes, the guy from The Hills — made a campaign ad with AI for zero dollars. No donors, no consultants, no political machine. And it pulled more views than the entire campaign of the sitting mayor of Los Angeles, who’s backed by hundreds of millions of dollars. The political establishment spent a decade building a system to control who gets attention… and a reality TV star with a laptop just broke it.
In this episode I break down exactly how — because the same technique works in your business, not just a mayor’s race. These ads don’t land because they look like political ads; they land because they look like movies. I’ll show you the engine underneath: a 130-year-old idea from French psychologist Gustave Le Bon, the false-belief framework I teach in Expert Secrets, and the uncomfortable line I think all of us have to draw now that anyone can deepfake anyone for free. I’ve lived one side of this — I bootstrapped ClickFunnels against an entire industry that said I couldn’t compete — so I’m not watching this one from the outside.
Key Highlights:
◼️The “$0 campaign ad” that beat the machine — how Spencer Pratt and a four-person studio pulled more views than a sitting mayor backed by hundreds of millions, using a free (and Chinese) AI video tool
◼️The Expert Secrets move these ads run on — “breaking false belief patterns”: they don’t argue that politicians care, that the system works, or that you need money to win… they shatter each belief with a story instead of a fact
◼️The entertainment-format trick — why mapping your audience’s favorite movies (Star Wars, The Dark Knight) onto their false beliefs turns an ad into something they’ll actually share
◼️Gustave Le Bon’s 1895 warning — crowds aren’t moved by facts, they’re moved by images… and why AI just handed that weapon to everyone for free
◼️The line I won’t cross — use AI aggressively to compete with people who outspend you, but putting words in politicians’ mouths they never said is where it tips from equalizer to dangerous
Here’s what I keep coming back to: for 130 years, the people who could afford to create images controlled the crowd. That era just ended. AI gave the images to everyone — and once the tools are free, the only thing left that matters is the story. The political machine is learning that the hard way in LA right now, and your market is no different. So the real question isn’t whether these AI ads are fair or dangerous. It’s this: in your own business, are you still paying for the old machine… or are you the one building with the new tools? Are you Spencer Pratt in this story — or are you Karen Bass?
◼️AI SECRETS CHALLENGE: Most people are either afraid of AI or using it as a toy. Russell built a challenge that teaches you how to actually MAKE MONEY with AI — not just be productive, but build real income. The best defense against being manipulated by AI companies is understanding the technology well enough to profit from it yourself. → https://www.AISecretsChallenge.com
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
In 2020, something got installed in your brain — a switch. And every time the media needs a click, they flip it, because they know it still works. This week it’s Ebola. Three weeks ago it was hantavirus. The CDC says the risk to Americans is extremely low. The WHO went on camera and said this is not the next Covid. But that’s not what the headlines say… because calm doesn’t get clicks. Fear does.
In this episode I show you the machine behind the fear — the funnel, the business model, the exact script. I teach a framework called Hook, Story, Offer, and when I looked at how the media covers these virus stories, I realized they’re running the same three steps I teach marketers… except they’re not selling a product, they’re selling fear. Then I bring in two books — a 1962 warning from French philosopher Jacques Ellul, and my friend Ryan Holiday’s confessions of a media manipulator — to explain not just how they do it, but why. And as a dad, the part that keeps me up at night is who’s paying the price.
Key Highlights:
◼️The “Fear Funnel” — how the media runs the same Hook, Story, Offer I teach, except the hook is a scary headline, the story buries the CDC’s “extremely low risk” at the bottom, and the offer is a subscription to your own anxiety
◼️”Pre-propaganda” — Jacques Ellul’s 1962 idea that the most powerful conditioning happens before the message ever arrives… and why Covid installed the switch the word “virus” still flips today
◼️What Ryan Holiday’s “Trust Me, I’m Lying” exposes — the media doesn’t sell information, it sells attention, and the cheapest attention is fear and outrage that bypass rational thought (your amygdala clicks before you do)
◼️The numbers behind a dying industry — media trust falling from 72% in the 1970s to 28% today (just 8% among Republicans), and fear as the last lever that still works
◼️The “Disclosure Test” — the one question to run on your own urgency: if your audience knew exactly how and why you created it, would they still respect you?
Here’s the uncomfortable part: urgency itself isn’t the enemy. Deadlines work, scarcity drives action, and I use urgency in my business every single day. The line is whether it’s real. A cart that’s actually closing is real. “The next pandemic” when the CDC says the risk is extremely low — when fear just happens to pay the bills — is manufactured. Ellul predicted this in 1962, Holiday exposed it in 2012, and we’re watching it run in real time in 2026, with the most anxious generation in recorded history footing the bill. So the real question isn’t whether the next virus is dangerous. It’s this: which is more dangerous right now — the virus, or the coverage… and which side of that line is your own marketing on?
◼️DOTCOM SECRETS: The media stole Hook, Story, Offer and turned it into a fear machine — Russell wrote the book on how to use it the RIGHT way. DotCom Secrets breaks down exactly how funnels really work, so you can build a real business that helps people instead of being manipulated by one. Grab a free copy → https://www.DotComSecrets.com
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
A mom makes breakfast in her kitchen, an American flag behind her, and tells you how AI helps her stay organized and why it matters that we keep building it here in the US. It feels like a real person sharing a real opinion. It isn’t. She was paid up to $5,000 to read a script — and she was told specifically not to reveal who was funding it. Once you know that, you can’t watch your feed the same way again.
In this episode, I pull apart a campaign that Wired exposed: a $140 million super PAC and its dark-money arm, backed by some of the biggest names in AI, quietly paying lifestyle influencers to make you afraid of China. But I’m not standing on the outside of this looking in. I use AI every single day, I love it, I built an entire challenge around it… and the same companies building the tools I rely on are running a fear campaign to keep me compliant. So I trace the machine all the way back to a Cold War lie most Americans have forgotten — and I hand you the one test I now run on my own marketing to make sure I never end up on the wrong side of that line.
Key Highlights:
◼️The “Doom Loop” — how fear creates urgency, urgency creates permission, and permission creates money… and the $500B “Stargate” announcement the whole loop was built to justify
◼️The $140M “Leading the Future” super PAC and its dark-money arm paying influencers $5,000 a video to deliver scripted anti-China talking points — with explicit instructions never to disclose who’s paying
◼️The forgotten 1957 “missile gap” — how defense contractors and a presidential campaign manufactured a Soviet threat the classified briefings proved never existed, running the exact same two-belief playbook
◼️”Manufactured inevitability” — the persuasion move of eliminating every option except the one that profits the seller (build faster… or the enemy wins)
◼️The “Disclosure Test” — the single question to run on your own urgency: if your audience knew exactly how and why you created it, would they still respect you?
Here’s what makes this so hard to see: the most dangerous propaganda always has a kernel of truth buried inside it, because the truth is what makes the lie invisible. China is real. AI is real. And the fear is being engineered by the exact same companies that win the contracts when you give in to it — all of it true at the same time. The machine runs on fear, and right now $140 million is being spent to keep you locked inside the loop. So now that you can see it, the only question left is the one that actually matters: are you going to let it run you… or are you going to learn this technology well enough to build something of your own?
◼️AI SECRETS CHALLENGE: Most people are either afraid of AI or using it as a toy. Russell built a challenge that teaches you how to actually MAKE MONEY with AI — not just be productive, but build real income. The best defense against being manipulated by AI companies is understanding the technology well enough to profit from it yourself. → https://www.AISecretsChallenge.com
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
There’s a moment when you realize the most powerful military in the history of the world just got out-marketed by a group of teenagers with laptops. Not outgunned. Not outspent. Out-marketed. Iran’s $0 propaganda budget — a few Lego figures, some AI rap music, and a couple of memes — pulled more eyeballs and more shares than the Pentagon’s entire $886 billion public affairs operation. And the strangest part? They didn’t invent any of it. The exact techniques they used were written down a hundred years ago… by an American.
In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I break down what The Wall Street Journal is calling “Lego Ganda” — the AI-generated Lego-style videos out of Iran that ran the table during the 2026 Iran war. I take you back to Edward Bernays’ “Propaganda” (the first-edition copy is sitting on my desk), through Neil Postman’s 1985 warning about entertainment-as-propaganda, and right into the four-part framework I use to decode what just happened. Because the exact playbook a group of anonymous Iranian students just used to humiliate the United States is the same playbook I used twenty years ago to bootstrap a company past a billion dollars in sales without a single dollar of venture capital. Same science. Different story.
Key Highlights:
◼️The “Lego Ganda” breakdown — how a group calling themselves Explosive Media racked up millions of views per video, got referenced at Coachella, got their channel pulled by YouTube… and just kept popping back up everywhere else
◼️Bernays’ 1929 “Torches of Freedom” campaign and the cultural-hijacking technique Iran just ran in reverse — using American Legos, American rap, and American memes to undermine the American narrative
◼️Why Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” predicted all of this in 1985 — and why “slop-aganda” (cheap AI content + propaganda) is now the marketing format that beats every legacy media operation
◼️The four-part “Lego Lesson” framework: (1) use the audience’s culture, not yours, (2) entertaining beats convincing, (3) fast and frequent beats perfect and rare, and (4) the audience IS the distribution
◼️Why the Pentagon spent $886 billion and still lost the narrative war — and what every entrepreneur with a phone and an AI tool can take from a group of students who beat them with cartoons
At the end of the day, this episode isn’t about Iran or politics or even the war. It’s about a hundred-year-old technique that just resurfaced in a brand new form — and the entrepreneurs who’ll dominate the next decade are the ones who recognize it. Because if the most powerful military on Earth can lose a narrative war to students with laptops, your business can lose its audience the exact same way — to someone who tells a better story, who’s more entertaining, who understands your customer’s culture better than you do. So the question I want you to sit with is this: are you still trying to win by being the biggest, the most credentialed, the most polished voice in your market… or are you ready to win by being the most entertaining one?
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
It was Saturday, May 14th, 2005. I was sitting in the middle of a packed auditorium on graduation day from Boise State, and I looked left, I looked right, and I saw hundreds of people with huge smiles on their faces. And I was confused. Not for myself - I’d gone to college for one reason and one reason only, to wrestle - but for them. Because I knew what was about to happen the next morning. Most of them were about to walk into entry-level jobs that wouldn’t pay enough to cover the monthly payments on their student loans. Loans that, by the way, you can’t even discharge in bankruptcy. They follow you forever. And they were smiling about it.
This is the episode I’ve been thinking about for months. The idea that you need a college degree to be successful is not a fact - it was manufactured. It was sold to an entire generation by the same system Edward Bernays used to sell wars and cigarettes, and it’s grown into a $1.7 trillion debt machine - more than every credit card in the country combined. And there’s a new piece nobody has fully connected yet: AI just made almost every technical skill colleges still charge $200,000 to teach obsolete, while schools across the country are banning students from using the one tool that actually matters in the modern economy. I walk you through the manufactured-consent history, the moment in my own sophomore-year economics class that built my entire business, the seven skills AI just made worthless, and the framework I now use with my own kids.
Key Highlights:
◼️The manufactured-consent history of college - how the post-war GI Bill created a massive customer base for universities, how tuition has gone up roughly 1000% since 1980 while wages stayed flat, and how $1.7 trillion in non-dischargeable student debt became the most successful piece of manufactured consent in American history
◼️The single concept I wrote in my notebook during a sophomore-year economics class that built my entire business - and why every other thing I learned in four years of college is worth less today than a $15 book or a YouTube weekend
◼️The seven skills colleges still charge $200,000 to teach that AI now does for free or close to it - programming, accounting, design, writing, legal research, marketing, and finance - and why schools are banning AI for the same reason newspapers banned the internet
◼️The two things real education should actually focus on right now (deep reading and AI literacy), the exact books that taught me more than my degree did, and why I’d rather my kids master those than collect another credential
◼️The framework I give my own kids about college - “stay in school until you’re making more money than your teacher” - and the story of why I let three MBAs go in a single year because they couldn’t grasp concepts my college-less students mastered in two weeks
At the end of the day, this isn’t an anti-college episode. There’s real value in the social experience, the friendships, the network - I met my wife and most of my closest friends in school, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. But the value is in the people, not the diploma, and you can get that without taking on six figures of debt that follows you to the grave. The propaganda that sold a generation on “you need this degree to succeed” was manufactured. It’s maintained by a $1.7 trillion industry that cannot survive if people stop believing it. So the real question for every parent and every young person listening is: are you going to keep paying the tuition the system needs you to pay - or are you going to give yourself the education that actually matters?
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
The most sophisticated sales funnel ever built isn’t from a tech startup. It’s not Amazon, it’s not Apple, it’s not from any business-school case study you’ve ever read. It’s a religion. The man who built it wasn’t a theologian or a prophet - he was a science fiction writer who held four Guinness World Records, published 65 million words on a custom typewriter with extra keys for common words like “and” and “the” so he could write faster, and engineered a customer journey that starts with a free personality test and ends with a $380,000 offer delivered on a cruise ship in the middle of the Caribbean.
This isn’t an episode about what Scientology believes. I’m a Mormon, I’ve got friends who are Scientologists, and I’m not here to debate theology. This is about the architecture of one of the most sophisticated value ladders ever built in human history - and I walk you through every step in the language every entrepreneur in this audience actually speaks. Free lead magnet, $35 tripwire, $11,200-per-grade core offer, $30,000-a-year high ticket back end, a premium tier only deliverable on a boat, and an “unreleased” next level that’s been “coming soon” since 1986. Then I trace their closing technique back to my mentor Dan Kennedy’s “find the bleeding neck” framework, and I show you why all of it actually works using a 1951 book by a longshoreman named Eric Hoffer called The True Believer.
Key Highlights:
◼️The complete value-ladder breakdown - the free Oxford Capacity Analysis as the lead magnet, the $35 “throwaway” intro courses as the tripwire, the $11,200-per-grade core offers, OT levels that top out on the Freewinds cruise ship, and OT 9 and OT 10 - the “next level” that’s been coming soon since 1986
◼️The Jeff Hawkins direct-response case study every entrepreneur should study - $2,000 in production cost that generated $200 million over 35 years, and the Sigmund Freud unconscious-mind trick L. Ron Hubbard built right into the Dianetics cover art
◼️The “Dissemination Drill” - the 4-step closing technique Scientology recruiters are trained on (contact, handle, salvage, bring to understanding) - and why it’s the exact same psychology Dan Kennedy taught me as “find the bleeding neck”
◼️Eric Hoffer’s three insights from The True Believer that explain why intelligent, successful people stay in any movement for decades - people join for refuge not doctrine, every movement needs a devil more than a god, and conviction beats content every single time
◼️The single line that separates a movement from a cult - the techniques are identical, the architecture is identical, the psychology is identical, and the only difference is what happens to the person at the end
At the end of the day, this episode isn’t really about Scientology. It’s about the fact that the same architecture that built a $380,000 funnel on a cruise ship is the same architecture I teach entrepreneurs to use every single day. The value ladder works. The bleeding-neck close works. The “us vs. the gatekeepers” enemy works. The conviction that makes people follow you works. The tools are neutral - the only difference between a movement and a trap is what you actually do with the person who walks in the door. So the real question I ask myself every single day - and the one I want you to sit with after you hear this - is: are you building something that genuinely helps the person at the end of your funnel, or are you building a system that uses their pain to keep them paying for forty years?
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
There’s a moment when the future shows up and the people writing about it forget to check who’s actually building it. The New York Times just profiled a guy who built a $1.8 billion company from a house in LA with two employees and a stack of AI tools. The internet lost its mind. Sam Altman said he wanted to meet him. Inc. ran a glowing follow-up. There was just one problem - the entire customer-acquisition machine was built on more than 800 AI-generated fake doctors selling real weight-loss drugs to real people on Facebook, and the FDA had already sent a warning letter six weeks before the article ran.
In this episode, I walk you through what’s actually happening underneath the headlines - fake doctors with profiles claiming to be from Kiev with interests in Bronze Age archaeology, AI-generated before-and-after photos so sloppy that one “patient” has her fingers melted into her phone, FDA warning letters the Times never mentioned, and 1.6 million patient records exposed in a data breach at the clinical partner. Then I trace it back 100 years to Edward Bernays, who invented this exact technique - “manufactured third-party authority” - by getting real doctors to endorse cigarettes and bacon. Same playbook. Same psychology. Same manipulation. Except now AI made it infinitely scalable, infinitely cheaper, and the doctors don’t even have to exist.
Key Highlights:
◼️The full $1.8B AI fraud breakdown - 800 fake doctor profiles (including a “Professor Albus Dumbledore”), AI-generated patient photos with fingers melted into phones, 5,000 active Facebook ads, an FDA warning letter the New York Times never mentioned, and a 1.6M-record data breach at the clinical partner
◼️Why Edward Bernays’ 100-year-old “Manufactured Third-Party Authority” technique - the same one that sold cigarettes and bacon - is the exact playbook this company just ran through AI, except infinitely cheaper and scaled to people who never existed
◼️The on-the-record prediction I’m making: the FTC shuts this company down within 12 months (and why every entrepreneur celebrating it should be thinking about what “compliance from day one” actually costs)
◼️The 4-part playbook for building real authority the legal way - real testimonials from real customers, real expert relationships, knowing the FTC and FDA rules before you run your first ad, and the question that tells you whether your product is actually good enough
◼️Why every legitimate marketer pays the price when one billion-dollar fraud breaks - and the comment I want from you if you’re one of the entrepreneurs building businesses the right way
At the end of the day, this episode isn’t really about one founder or one company. It’s about what happens when the people writing the headlines stop checking the work, and the rest of us treat that omission as proof of the future. AI doesn’t have a conscience. The technology doesn’t care if the doctor in your ad exists. You have to be the conscience. So the real question is: now that the same tools that build a legitimate business can build a billion-dollar fraud just as fast, are you the kind of entrepreneur who’ll be the conscience the technology doesn’t have - or the kind who finds out the hard way?
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
There’s a moment when you can’t tell what’s real anymore. You watch a U.S. Senate candidate look right into the camera, speaking clearly, saying words that match things he’s posted online for years - and a few hours later you find out he never sat in that chair, never opened his lips, and never had a single thing to do with the video. That’s not science fiction. That’s a campaign ad that ran in front of millions of voters last week. And once you see what’s actually happening behind it, you can’t unsee it.
In this episode, I walk you through five of the AI propaganda moments stacking up right now - and then I introduce you to a French philosopher named Jacques Ellul, who back in 1962, before the internet, before social media, before AI, predicted almost exactly what we’re living through. But here’s where it gets uncomfortable for me. I’m not standing on the outside of this looking in. I use AI every single day in my business, and I’ve run the exact tension Ellul warned about - including one experiment that converted cold traffic perfectly and made my own community feel betrayed. So I share what those experiments taught me, and I give you the 3-question framework I now run every AI-assisted piece of content through.
Key Highlights:
◼️The five AI propaganda moments stacking up right now - from deepfake political ads on both sides, to Grok generating 6,700 explicit fake images per hour, to the grandmother scam calls one in four Americans have already received
◼️Why Jacques Ellul’s idea of “sociological propaganda” - written in 1962, before the internet existed - predicts every algorithm and “for you” page running today better than anything Bernays ever wrote
◼️The behind-the-scenes story of two AI ads I tested with my own audience: the deepfake “AI Russell” that converted cold traffic but made warm fans feel betrayed, and the cartoon “Baby Russell” that flipped both
◼️The 3-question framework I now run every AI-assisted piece of content through - the “Amplification Test”, the “Disclosure Test”, and the “Relationship Test”
◼️Why borrowed trust always comes back to bite you - and how to tell when AI is amplifying your real message vs. fabricating a fake one
At the end of the day, this episode isn’t about being anti-AI. I genuinely believe it’s the biggest opportunity entrepreneurs have seen since the start of the internet. But Ellul’s warning was that the most dangerous propaganda is the kind that gets built into the system itself - and right now, we’re building AI into everything. Into our ads, our content, our politics, our kids’ education, and the way we decide what’s true. So the real question is: when the propagandist is no longer a person but an algorithm with no conscience and no off switch, who do we hold accountable when the line gets crossed - and how do we know we’re not crossing it ourselves?
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
There’s a dangerous moment in marketing… when a lie gets wrapped so tightly in a feel-good story that people don’t just believe it - they defend it. And this week, I couldn’t shake that feeling as I watched the world celebrate someone whose business model quietly reshaped an entire generation. Not through force… but through framing. Because when you learn how to rename something controversial as something virtuous, you don’t have to convince people anymore - they’ll convince themselves.
What you’re about to hear isn’t really about OnlyFans, or even the man behind it. It’s about a pattern - a playbook that’s been running for over 100 years. A playbook that turned cigarettes into symbols of freedom… and is now turning exploitation into empowerment. And once you see how it works, you’ll start recognizing it everywhere - in headlines, in culture, and even inside the marketing strategies we use every single day.
Key Highlights:
◼️The “Reframe Formula” that transforms harmful products into movements people proudly support
◼️How Edward Bernays’ “Torches of Freedom” campaign mirrors modern creator economy narratives
◼️The hidden data behind OnlyFans: who actually profits… and who pays the real price
◼️The escalation trap - why platforms reward pushing boundaries further and further
◼️The ethical line every entrepreneur must face when using persuasion at scale
At the end of the day, this episode isn’t about judging one platform or one person - it’s about understanding the responsibility that comes with influence. Because the same tools that can build billion-dollar companies… can also destroy lives if used the wrong way. The real question is: when you master the art of persuasion, will you use it to reveal truth… or to hide it?
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
There’s a moment when a message stops being information… and starts becoming identity. And when that shift happens, logic doesn’t just lose - it becomes irrelevant. That’s the thread I couldn’t stop pulling on this week. Because what’s unfolding right now isn’t just about war, politics, or headlines… it’s about one of the oldest persuasion frameworks ever created quietly running in real time. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
In this episode, I break down what I call the “Moral Crusade” technique - how leaders take a cause and elevate it into something sacred. Drawing from Gustave Le Bon’s crowd psychology and the origins of modern propaganda, I show you how identity gets fused with belief… and why that fusion is so powerful it can move people beyond reason. Then I bring it back to what we do as entrepreneurs - because the same psychological drivers behind movements, religions, and even wars… are the exact same ones behind the most successful brands and communities in the world.
Key Highlights:
◼️The “Sacred Propaganda” framework and why turning a cause into a belief system changes everything
◼️Gustave Le Bon’s 130-year-old discovery about crowds (and why it still runs the world today)
◼️How identity fusion makes people defend ideas like they’re defending themselves
◼️The real reason movements outperform products (and why logic alone never wins)
◼️The 5-part “Identity Stack” I’ve used to build tribes, not just customers
At the end of the day, this episode isn’t about agreeing or disagreeing with what’s happening in the world - it’s about recognizing the pattern underneath it. Because once you understand how identity is shaped, you start to see the same mechanics everywhere… in media, in movements, and inside your own marketing. The real question is: are you consciously building something that empowers people… or accidentally creating something that controls them?
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Three million pages drop overnight… and somehow, everyone walks away knowing less than they did before. That’s the paradox I couldn’t stop thinking about. Everyone’s arguing over names, sides, and headlines - but they’re missing the real story happening right in front of them. Because when you zoom out, what you’re actually watching isn’t transparency… it’s a masterclass in how information is controlled. And once you see the pattern, you realize this isn’t new - it’s been happening for over a hundred years.
In this episode, I break down one of the most powerful persuasion techniques ever created: narrative control. Drawing from the work of Edward Bernays (the father of public relations), I walk you through how the sequence of information - not just the information itself - shapes what people believe. And then I connect it to something way closer to home: your marketing. Because the same exact framework being used to manage global narratives is the one I’ve used to build funnels, create movements, and scale companies to massive levels.
Key Highlights:
◼️The 5-step “Narrative Control Sequence” (promise, delay, controlled release, flood, and algorithmic gate)
◼️Why overwhelming people with information can be more effective than hiding it
◼️The real meaning behind “whoever controls the sequence controls the belief”
◼️A wild historical breakdown of how Bernays made the color green fashionable to sell cigarettes
◼️How to ethically apply the same principles inside your funnels, ads, and customer journeys
At the end of the day, this episode isn’t about politics or conspiracy theories - it’s about awareness and responsibility. Once you understand how narratives are built, you start to see them everywhere… in the news, in social media, and inside your own business. The real question is: are you intentionally building the world your customers step into… or are you accidentally letting someone else build it for you?
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I’m sharing something I never thought I’d say again… Funnel Hacking Live is coming back. But to really understand why, you have to go back to why we ended it in the first place. For over a decade, FHL wasn’t just an event - it was the heartbeat of an entire movement. And we chose to walk away from it at its peak. Not because it wasn’t working, but because the world had changed. AI is compressing decades into days, and I knew the old playbook wouldn’t build the future. So I stepped back, created space, and started rebuilding everything from the ground up.
What I didn’t expect was what happened next. The community didn’t move on. People kept asking for it, talking about it, missing the connection, the energy, and the transformation. At the same time, I was deep in the trenches discovering something new - how funnel hacking combined with AI is changing everything. Faster launches, higher conversions, smaller teams, bigger impact. And that’s when it clicked… we had to come back. Not as a reunion. Not as nostalgia. But as something completely different - an encore event built for the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Key Highlights:
◼️Why we ended Funnel Hacking Live at its peak - and what had to change before it could come back
◼️The official announcement of the Funnel Hacking Live Encore event (and why it’s a one-time experience)
◼️How AI is compressing decades of business growth into days - and why most people are still using it wrong
◼️The breakthrough moment where AI + funnel hacking became the ultimate unfair advantage
◼️Behind-the-scenes examples of campaigns built in hours instead of months - and why they outperform everything
At the end of the day, this episode isn’t just about bringing back an event - it’s about stepping into a new era. There are moments in your life where everything shifts… before and after. I believe this is one of those moments for entrepreneurs. The return of Funnel Hacking Live isn’t about going backward - it’s about preparing you for what’s coming next. The only question is: will you be in the room when it happens?
◼️https://www.funnelhackinglive.com
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I’m breaking down something that most people completely miss when they look at big global events. Everyone is arguing about whether a war is right or wrong - but that’s not actually the most important question. The real question is: how did millions of people already agree with it before it even started? I take you behind the scenes of a real-world example and show you exactly how consent is engineered long before any decision is announced. And once you see it, you won’t be able to unsee it.
What might surprise you is that the same psychology used to guide public opinion at a massive scale is the exact same psychology behind every great sales funnel, webinar, and presentation. I’ve spent over 20 years studying persuasion - from Edward Bernays to modern-day marketing - and in this episode, I connect the dots between propaganda, influence, and ethical selling. I even break down how I used this exact framework on stage in front of thousands of people to generate millions in sales in just 90 minutes.
Key Highlights:
◼️The concept of “manufacturing consent” and how it’s been used for over 100 years to shape public opinion
◼️The 5-step “Consent Ladder” (moral foundation, promise, escalation, emotional lock, and the final move)
◼️Why people rarely make decisions in the moment - and how those decisions are actually pre-engineered
◼️A behind-the-scenes breakdown of how I used the same psychological framework to generate $3M in 90 minutes
◼️The critical difference between manipulation and ethical persuasion - and why intent matters more than technique
At the end of the day, this episode isn’t about politics - it’s about awareness. Once you understand how influence really works, you’ll start to see it everywhere… in the news, in marketing, and even in your own decisions. The big question is: does simply knowing the process protect you from it - or are we all still climbing the ladder without realizing it? If you’re an entrepreneur, marketer, or anyone who wants to truly understand human behavior and persuasion, this episode will completely change how you see the world - and how you sell inside of it.
◼️Watch the Secrets of Propaganda: https://www.secretsofpropaganda.com/yt
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I sat down with Kaley Chu, and we talked about one of the most powerful personal transformation stories I’ve heard in a long time. Kaley started out extremely introverted, struggling with confidence after immigrating from Hong Kong to Australia. For years she stayed in a small bubble, avoiding conversations and feeling like she didn’t belong - until one moment of embarrassment in a meeting pushed her to do something radical: schedule 100 lunches with 100 strangers.
What started as a simple New Year’s resolution turned into a life-changing experiment. Those lunches didn’t just help her learn how to talk to people - they opened doors to mentors, business partners, and opportunities she never imagined. One connection led to writing a book, which led to her first speaking opportunity, which quickly turned into a full-time career traveling and inspiring audiences around the world. It’s a powerful reminder that sometimes the fastest way to change your life is to step outside your comfort zone and start connecting with people.
Key Highlights:
◼️The “100 Lunches with Strangers” experiment that helped Kaley overcome extreme introversion and build life-changing relationships
◼️How one unexpected connection encouraged her to write a book - which eventually led to her first speaking opportunities
◼️The behind-the-scenes story of how she transitioned from a shy financial planner to a full-time keynote speaker
◼️The difference between keynote presentations, webinars, and TEDx talks - and why a TEDx talk focuses on a single “idea worth spreading”
◼️How Kaley and her team created the Next Top Speaker competition to give everyday people a platform to craft and share their stories
We also talk about why speaking is one of the most valuable skills any entrepreneur can develop, how telling your story can unlock opportunities you never expected, and why the people who succeed are the ones who simply make commitments - and keep them. If you’ve ever wanted to share your message, step onto a stage, or just become more confident connecting with people, this episode will inspire you to start.
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I sat down with Adam Leeb, the founder of Freewrite, and we went deep into one of the most fascinating product journeys I’ve seen in a long time. If you’ve ever struggled with writing because your brain keeps switching between creating and editing, this conversation is going to hit home. Adam built a completely distraction-free writing device that looks like a modern typewriter - and the whole idea started from a simple conversation about separating the drafting process from editing.
What blew my mind is that Adam didn’t set out to build a huge company. He just wanted to make something with his hands. But after a viral moment online and a simple landing page collecting emails, the idea exploded - eventually leading to a Kickstarter launch that took off almost instantly. From working on Wall Street to building hardware from scratch in Asia, Adam’s story is a masterclass in product design, patience, and creating something people genuinely want.
Key Highlights:
◼️How a single conversation about “write first, edit later” sparked the idea for a completely new category of writing tools
◼️The viral press moment that sent 100,000+ people to a simple WordPress page and helped generate thousands of email leads before the product even existed
◼️Why dedicated tools can dramatically increase focus (and why laptops are secretly designed to distract you)
◼️The behind-the-scenes process of building a physical product from scratch - including prototypes, tooling, and manufacturing in Asia
◼️How Adam used Kickstarter to validate demand and turn a side project into a real company
We also talk about the psychology behind creativity, why separating drafting from editing can dramatically increase your writing output, and how a product designed to do less can actually help you produce more. If you’re an entrepreneur, creator, author, or anyone who struggles to stay focused while writing, this episode will give you a completely different perspective on productivity - and maybe inspire you to rethink the tools you use to create.
If you’re serious about writing more, staying focused, and finally finishing that draft you’ve been putting off, check out the distraction-free writing tools Adam built at https://getfreewrite.com/russell
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Most people skip over the chapter on sexual transmutation in Think and Grow Rich because it feels uncomfortable. I’ll be honest… for years, I did the same thing. But recently, I pulled something fascinating out of my vault - a 1937 issue of Practical Psychology magazine, published the same year Napoleon Hill released Think and Grow Rich. Inside was an article he wrote called “Sex Urge Stimulates Genius.” And it forced me to finally have the conversation most entrepreneurs avoid.
Hill makes a bold claim: men seldom succeed before forty - and often not until fifty - because they dissipate their strongest driving force. After studying more than 25,000 people, he believed the highest achievers learned how to redirect their sexual energy instead of constantly releasing it.
That idea might sound controversial in today’s world, but the principle underneath it is powerful: if you want extraordinary success, you have to stop chasing pleasure and start channeling energy toward purpose.
In this episode, I open up about why this topic makes me uncomfortable… why I avoided teaching it during our Think and Grow Rich Challenge… and why I now believe it’s one of the most misunderstood keys to creativity, drive, and long-term achievement.
Key Highlights:
◼️Why Napoleon Hill believed the majority of high achievers don’t “hit their stride” until after forty
◼️The difference between pleasure and fulfillment - and how chasing the wrong one kills momentum
◼️What “transmutation of sexual energy” actually means (without the weird mysticism)
◼️The modern trap of dopamine addiction - from pornography to social media - and how it quietly drains ambition
◼️Lessons from Tim Ferriss’s 30-day “No Beer, No Masturbating” challenge and what happened when people removed instant gratification from their lives
At its core, this episode isn’t really about sex. It’s about discipline. It’s about learning to hold tension instead of constantly seeking release. Just like music builds anticipation before delivering the chorus, your life works the same way. When you stop giving away your strongest energy to quick rewards and instead aim it at your mission, your creativity expands, your focus sharpens, and your drive multiplies.
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Most entrepreneurs are dabbling with AI right now… testing prompts, playing with tools, maybe even writing a few emails with it. But what I’ve realized over the last year is this: AI isn’t just a productivity hack. It’s a force multiplier. And if you learn how to feed it the right context and guide it the right way, it can become the most powerful copywriter, funnel builder, and marketing assistant you’ve ever had.
In this episode, I’m recording from my sauna (yes, really) and pulling back the curtain on how I’ve been using AI behind the scenes to write long-form VSLs, build entire challenge funnels, craft 100+ email sequences in hours, and even script full webinars in a single afternoon. I share the exact shift that changed everything for me - from asking AI to “write me a VSL” (and getting garbage) to building a process that produces scripts as good as, or better than, what I could write myself. The result? Some of the highest-converting funnels of my entire career.
If you’ve been wondering whether AI is just hype - or the biggest opportunity of our lifetime - this episode will open your eyes to what’s actually possible right now.
Key Highlights:
◼️The "500 words of context for every 1 word of output" rule that transformed the quality of my AI-written VSLs
◼️How I wrote three 50-page VSLs in a single day, and why they’re performing at the highest level of my career
◼️The funnel-hacking + AI framework I used to reverse-engineer multiple 8-figure challenges and rebuild them in hours
◼️How we used AI-assisted emails, ads, and scripts to create our highest-converting funnel ever
◼️Why I believe the next billion-dollar companies will be run by tiny teams (or even one person) leveraging AI correctly
The game has changed. The speed of creation, the volume of output, and the leverage we now have as entrepreneurs is unlike anything I’ve seen in over two decades online. The old way of building companies - with massive teams, long timelines, and slow execution - is disappearing. The entrepreneurs who learn how to think, build, and market with AI won’t just keep up… they’ll dominate. And if you’re willing to dive in and master it, you might just find that your next breakthrough is only one prompt away.
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Most businesses don’t stall because the product is bad. They stall because the architecture can’t handle scale. In Part Two of this live Scaling Online Q&A, I go deeper into the structural shifts that turn a working funnel into a scalable machine.
This episode is a behind-the-scenes look at how I think through bottlenecks in real time - when webinars flop, when ad costs spike, when only 1% of visitors book a call, or when organic momentum is the only thing holding a funnel together. We talk VSL strategy, certification positioning, SaaS trials, bridge pages, continuity layers, and how to engineer predictable growth instead of riding emotional launch cycles.
Key Highlights:
◼️Why certification often outsells coaching - and how to reposition your offer for career-driven buyers
◼️The difference between a Level 1 opportunity and a Level 10 opportunity (and why picking wrong caps your income)
◼️How to fix a funnel when only 1% of visitors book a call (and the exact VSL strategy I use)
◼️Why ad costs always rise over time - and how new angles and new VSLs reset your CPA
◼️How to structure SaaS webinars so prospects use the product live instead of just watching a demo
◼️How to scale paid workshops without depending on high-intensity organic pushes
◼️The real role of AI in writing, testing, and mass-producing new creative at speed
This episode is about business architecture. It’s about understanding that scale isn’t luck - it’s structure. When something stops converting, the answer isn’t panic. It’s new messaging, new angles, new front-end positioning, and smarter leverage.
If part one was about identifying bottlenecks, part two is about redesigning the machine.
◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast
◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices - Laat meer zien
