The Russell Brunson Show
The Most Dangerous Thing You Can Do Is Play It Safe | #Success - Ep. 23
02 Apr 2025
In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I share the wild story behind why I’m currently rocking a sling…and what ripping both of my biceps taught me about risk, purpose, and why playing it safe is a trap! You’ll also hear how an unpublished Napoleon Hill course from 1917 inspired me to level up not just as a marketer, but as a person. I break down 15 qualities Hill believed made someone unfireable, and they’re just as powerful today as they were 100 years ago. The good stuff never goes out of style or becomes irrelevant! We also talk about wrestling tournaments (You know… old dudes with replaced hips still chasing greatness), the true role of an advertiser, and why “a ship in a harbor is safe… but that’s not what ships are built for”! This one’s a personal one. It's part motivation, part business masterclass, and part time capsule from one of the greatest thinkers of all time. Key Highlights: The bicep story: Why I wrestled through torn arms—and don’t regret it Two types of “What ifs”—and which one will change your life The 15 qualities that made Napoleon Hill say: “I’ll hire you on the spot” Why personal development is the secret to great advertising (Hill + Collier knew this) The Peterson Academy model, and why it fired me up about education A ship in the harbor is safe… but that’s not what ships are built for This episode will hit home if you’ve ever felt stuck, soft, or like you’ve been playing too small. Let this be the push to get back in the arena! Resources & Links Mentioned in This Episode: Join the Secrets of Success waitlist 👉 secretsofsuccess.com Watch the Napoleon Hill training inside the app (coming soon) Learn more about Peterson Academy 👉 petersonacademy.com https://sellingonline.com/podcast https://clickfunnels.com/podcast Special thanks to our sponsors: NordVPN: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal https://nordvpn.com/secrets Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Northwest Registered Agent: Go to northwestregisteredagent.com/russell to start your business with Northwest Registered Agent. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Get a $100 credit on your next campaign at LinkedIn.com/CLICKS Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster at RocketMoney.com/RUSSELL Indeed: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/clicks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Now, obviously, if you want to sell stuff online, you're going to need a good funnel. But if you want a great funnel, then you're going to need to use ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels is the number one funnel builder in the world, helping more first-time entrepreneurs to leave their nine-to-five and to launch their dream than any other company on earth.
ClickFunnels was built for the dreamer and the doer, and you can get a free 14-day trial by going to clickfunnels.com slash podcast right now. That's clickfunnels.com slash podcast. ClickFunnels, because you're one funnel away from changing the world. This is the Russell Brunson Show. What's up, everybody? This is Russell. Welcome back to the show. Excited to be hanging out with you guys today.
And excited for a lot of reasons. I'm going to tell you guys some stories about my arm. Why am I wearing a sling? If you're watching the video version, you can see I've only got one arm. I'm going to talk about some Napoleon Hill stuff I found in an unpublished manuscript slash event, like a course that he taught, and a whole bunch of other things. So I'm excited to hang out with you guys and talk.
I wanted to start by addressing the elephant in the room, which is, for those who can see me, like, Russell, why do you have your arm in a sling right now? And if you listened to one of the last podcast episodes, I had just gotten back. I had done a wrestling tournament, and you guys knew I had hurt both my biceps.
I was driving to go get an MRI, and that was, I think, the last podcast episode I recorded. Since then, my life has been crazy. After getting the MRI, we found out that both of my biceps had detached from the bone inside my arms, which is why it was really hard to curl anything or lift anything up. I needed to get surgery to get both of them back.
Some people have been asking, what was the process? How did you detach the biceps? uh, some years ago there there's a, every single year there's a wrestling tournament. It's called the master's division. So it's for people who are older. Um, and I remember when I was wrestling in college, I remember going to, to one of the bigger national tournaments. And so they have different levels.
Like there's like the senior level and then, you know, whatever. And then, um, there's a master's and a veterans division division. I remember going again while I was, you know, I was in college. I remember seeing these guys are like in their seventies or eighties with gray hair, bald out there wrestling. And I was like, Oh, so cool. And then, um, like I done my wrestling career, I kind of,
you know, that was kind of the end of it. I wasn't planning on wrestling again and kind of forgot about it. And fast forward to, you know, a decade and a half later is when I bought my new home. I built a wrestling room in it and, and, um, and I started inviting some of my old wrestling buddies over and we started wrestling. So that was kind of a fun thing. We do it once or twice a month.
So my buddies come over, we'd wrestle again. It was just so much fun to get back to like my favorite thing in the world, which is wrestling. Right. And then, Um, what's interesting is one of my buddies who, who, uh, wrestles with us, his name is Lex. One day he came back. He's like, Oh, I wrestled the tournament two weeks ago. I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, there's a tournament that I competed.
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