The #1 thing that keeps entrepreneurs back from success, that you won’t read about in any business or marketing book.

On this episode Russell talks about the power of forgiveness and shares a small portion of a presentation by Chris Wark that encourages you to forgive everyone who has done you wrong.

-- Find out why someone on the initial Rippln startup team has struggled to progress because he needed to forgive.

-- Hear why Chris Wark thinks forgiveness is the key to healing your heart and in turn healing your health.

-- And find out how to get a hold of Chris’ book, so you too can forgive and heal your heart.

So listen here to find out why forgiveness of your enemies is so important.

People will hurt your feelings, they will lie to you, they will abuse you. It’s going to happen and it has happened to many people in this room. And if you don’t forgive them, you’re basically carrying that poison around. And it’s slowly poisoning you and it will produce a sick body. A sick heart will produce a sick body. And the only way to heal your heart is forgiveness. “And a lot of us are self medicating because we’re carrying pain and we haven’t forgiven someone who’s hurt us in life. So when I say stress leads to most disease it’s because that bitterness, that resentment, that unforgiveness makes us unhappy.

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What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. It’s late night and I’m walking something out to the garbage, it’s raining a little bit out here.

And I just want to share something with you guys that probably doesn’t seem like it has a lot to do with marketing, but it has everything to do with you being successful with your marketing and your business. So with that said, let’s queue up the theme song, and we’ll come back and have some fun.

Alright everybody, it’s a beautiful night right now, I’m out walking. I had a great day with the kids today, church was amazing, just so many good things. About to get back to the next phase of world domination, we’re like a week and a half away from the 10x event, where my goal is to sell 10 million dollars in a weekend. That just sounds goofy saying that. And then a month later we’ve got Funnel Hacking Live.

So a lot of work to do, but I’m super grateful for the opportunities and all the fun stuff that’s happening. It’s interesting, what I wanted to talk to you guys about is a concept, and again you’re not going to think it’s marketing or business related, but I’m going to show you about how vital it is to your success. And that is the concept of forgiveness.

And it’s interesting, probably six or seven years ago now, I was involved in a startup that we were trying to launch, and we all had big dreams and aspirations for this thing, some of you probably remember it, it was called Rippln. In fact, if you go back to the beginning of this podcast, there was a time when I was talking about Rippln all the time because it was one of the things. And I thought it was going to be huge, I thought it was going to be our big payday, like all the things I’d been doing for a decade prior had led to that moment.

And we built a dream team, and we thought it was going to be the thing, we launched it. And I felt I executed on my parts really well, we ended up getting 1.5-1.6 million people to sign up during the pre-launch, before it went live and then you know, there was supposed to be the big roll out, and money would start flowing. And the roll out, it missed its launch date, and it missed another date, and missed five or six dates, and by the time it did launch, 8 or 9 months later we lost all the energy and momentum and it fizzled away.

And I think my check was like $30-40 when all was said and done. It was like six months of my life that I spent on it for like $30. In the process I had used all my favors up, you know, getting people to promote things, and just all sorts of stuff. So when it’s done it’s like kicked in the, what’s the g-rated, kicked in the gut. I don’t, how do we survive from this?

And one of the partners in it, the guy who kind of started it was a guy named Brian Underwood, and after that Brian kind of went his way, I went my way and there were other people involved as well. I think there was a core manag…not core management team, but a core marketing team of dudes who got together to launch this thing together. So after that kind of crush, everyone went their own ways and we just kind of went on our own things. And then fast forward now, what is it, 5 maybe 6 years later, and if any of you guys have watched Funnel Hacker TV you probably saw the episode with me and Brian Underwood on his private plane, him and his new company owned four.

They launched a company called Prove It, which became the category king of ketones. You know, last year they did, I don’t know the exact numbers but it was close to half a billion dollars in sales. It might have been a little over that. And this is four years into the company. Clickfunnels, last year we passed a hundred million dollars in sales, so I always feel like I did really good until I talk to Brian. I’m like, “Oh, we did one fifth of yours.

But my profit margins are higher.” Anyway, that’s always the battle. You know both of us are doing well and successful, and just kind of it is what it is. And I didn’t think too much about it, you know, I never…It was obviously frustrating with the situation, but I didn’t blame him or anybody, it was just kind of like, whatever, and went on and built Clickfunnels, luckily. The next thing happened. And I watched as some of these other people who were involved in that project, went out and started doing different things with different varying levels of success.

And what’s interesting is, I can’t tell the details right now, we’re in talks of an acquisition of a really big company, I’m really excited about. And Brian may potentially be part of that. And I wasn’t there for this conversation, but Dave Woodward from our team, he was talking to Brian and all sorts of stuff, and we’re trying to bring Brian in on the deal. And Brian told Dave, “One of the coolest things about Russell, when the whole Rippln thing went under, he never blamed me, he was never angry.” And he’s like, “By the way, I got a phone call from one of the guys the other day.”

And I won’t mention his name, but one of the people, one of the main guys that were part of the whole launch with us. He said that guy texted him like, “I need to talk to you.” And he’s like, “I’m about to jump on a plane.” He’s like, “I gotta talk right now. We have to talk.” And this is like 5 years, 6 years later after Rippln went down.

So Brian jumps on the phone really quick and the guy starts talking. He says, “Hey, I just need to forgive you.” He’s like, “What?” He’s like, “I have to forgive you. I’ve been angry at you for the last 5 or 6 years, and the more success you have the more angry I get and I’m just frustrated and angry and upset and I have to forgive you because I can’t move on in my life. I’ve been trying and I can’t. All the business ventures I do, I can’t get past it because I have so much, I’m so angry at you and I need to forgive you. I just need to forgive. So I’m sorry.” Or whatever and kind of forgave.

I wasn’t there, so I don’t know the exact conversation, but that was kind of the gist of it. So Brian told Dave like, “Man I’m so, Russell didn’t hold a grudge, moved on and built this huge thing called Clickfunnels.” And you know, he was grateful I had never kind of blamed him or held that against him. And this other person who had, had been literally held back and stuck for the last 5 or 6 years of their career.

And now he’s finally asking for forgiveness and hoping that by doing that would give him the ability to continue to start moving forward again. It’s crazy how forgiveness, when you forgive somebody it puts you back into momentum, gets you moving forward, and when you don’t it gets you moving back. Anyway, there’s one amazing thing I want to share. So after I started thinking about this tonight, before I started recording this podcast, I remembered at my last set of inner circle meetings, one of the people that was there, one of the most fascinating people I’ve met, bar none, on this earth, someone I’m just so impressed with, so grateful to have a chance to get to know him and to meet him.

His name is Chris Wark, some of you guys know Chris. He runs a blog called ChrisBeatCancer.com, he has a new book that came out recently that everyone should read called Chris Beat Cancer. Go to Amazon and you’ll get it. And even if you don’t have cancer…If you don’t have cancer now, either someone you love or yourself someday is going to have it, probably. I went through his entire course and book just to understand when I meet, when I have people around me with cancer, what do I do? If my kids ever get, my wife gets it, my parents get it, if I get it. A lot of times we worry about cancer when it’s too late, or too far down the road.

I was like, I would rather understand it now and figure it out how to prevent things as opposed to trying to figure out the cure after. Anyway, if you read his book, he’s amazing. Go and give him money because it will be so good for you for now, and for the future. Anyway, I digress, so Chris is a 15 year cancer survivor and in his journey of sharing what he’s learned, he’s helped save thousands of other people.

Anyway, he was at our meeting and the very first thing he talked about, “you guys want to know how to not get cancer?” And we’re like, “Of course, please tell us what you’ve learned the last 15 years.” And I’m not going to go deep into it, but he talked about how to change your diet, how to exercise and things like that, that are really, really powerful. Things you will read about in the book. The one thing he talked about that was kind of towards the end, he just threw it in, and it was amazing what an emotional impact it had on me, on the people in the room.

In fact, at the end of the mastermind, which is a marketing meeting, how do you grow your company, how you impact more people, we always do this thing at the end where everyone gives their biggest takeaway. And like half the room the biggest takeaway was this piece from Chris about forgiveness. And it was so powerful and so amazing. So I wanted to share it with you guys, because I think that it could be potentially what’s holding some of you back.

And I think that, while it doesn’t seem like a marketing thing, it is probably one of the most important things. I look at my friend now whose spent 5 ½ - 6 years holding a grudge and it kept him from moving forward and impacting the people that he’s been called to serve because of that. And it hurts me to know that man, there’s people that you could be touching and changing and effecting, but you might not be, because of this.

So I’m hoping this podcast will get you in the right state. And I hope that Chris’ message here will have a huge impact on you. So with that said, I’m just going to cut to that clip from the meeting, where Chris is talking about forgiveness. “The big, big thing you can do, one of the best gifts you can give yourself in terms of stress reduction… When I turn this way I get really loud. …is forgiveness. Okay, forgiveness. Forgiveness will heal your heart, your emotions, it will reduce your stress and there’s two things that you need to understand about forgiveness. One is it’s not a feeling. It’s not a feeling, it’s a choice.

People will lie to you, they’ll cheat you, they’ll take your passport and credit card information and run off into Asia to never be found again. “People will hurt your feelings, they will lie to you, they will abuse you. It’s going to happen and it has happened to many people in this room. And if you don’t forgive them, you’re basically carrying that poison around. And it’s slowly poisoning you and it will produce a sick body.

A sick heart will produce a sick body. And the only way to heal your heart is forgiveness. “And a lot of us are self medicating because we’re carrying pain and we haven’t forgiven someone who’s hurt us in life. So when I say stress leads to most disease it’s because that bitterness, that resentment, that unforgiveness makes us unhappy.

What do we do to compensate for that? We drink, we do drugs, we become workaholics, we become sex addicts, we become either pharmaceutical or illegal drug addicts. All of those habits destroy your health. “So I just want to encourage everyone here today, some of you are probably thinking about somebody in your life right now that you’re still kind of pissed at, right? That’s hurt you? So I just want to kind of encourage you to give them to God.

Just be like, “you know what, I’m choosing to forgive them. I don’t feel like it, I’m still mad but I’m making this decision. They’re all yours.” Right, “I’m letting it go. They’re all yours. You can deal with them. I’m not going to hold it against them anymore.” That’s what forgiveness is, it’s a choice. It’s not a feeling. But what happens when you make a choice, your feelings change. That’s when God heals your heart. “So forgiveness is so huge. It’s so huge. It won’t make you any money, but it will heal your heart and help you stay in a state of wellness, which is super important. So just whoever it is, so what I did in the cancer process is full circle.

As I was learning this and I realized, whoa, stress and bitterness and unforgiveness is a root cause of cancer, I was like, “I gotta forgive everybody who’s ever hurt me.” So I just made a decision to just go through my life and think through my life and every time I would get in a quiet place, or in prayer or meditation, I would just dig up all the people in my life who had hurt me, and just one by one, I just forgive them by name and give them to God. And just pray the way I just said, “They’re all yours. I’m not going to hold it against them anymore. I’m making this decision for life. I forgive them.” “And then I would say, “I ask you to bless them too.” When you ask God to bless people who have hurt you, something really happens in your heart and that changes everything. And he knows you don’t want him to, right. He knows you want like the lightning bolt.

He knows it, but he’ll honor the request. When you’re like, “God, I don’t want them to be blessed, but I’m asking you to bless them anyway.” That’s a very powerful thing you can do. So forgive and pray for your enemies, that’s what Jesus said, so you know, I think he had some pretty good life advice. “So this stuff works, I promise you it’s so powerful. I mean it changed my life. I see it changing people’s lives left and right. It’s like the weight’s lifted off of you when you forgive people. And be quick to forgive.

That’s the other one, because we’re all going to get screwed over in the future. People are going to let us down, insult us, embarrass us, whatever. Just be quick to forgive, just be like, “I’m letting it go. I’m not going to hold onto it. God bless them. Moving on.” Be quick to forgive.” Okay, I don’t know about you, but isn’t that amazing? I just, once again, Chris is one of the most amazing people and I highly recommend all you guys go buy the book and just read it for yourself, read it for a loved one, read it because it’s worth it, it’s worth understanding. Anyway, with that said, I just wanted to come out tonight and record that before I went to bed.

Hopefully it will help some of you guys in your journey. It re-reminded me, I’m going to do what Chris said, I’m going to get a list of people, I’m going to start trying to consciously do this more in my own life because I’m sure there’s things that are holding me back as well. With that said, you guys, appreciate you all. Have an amazing night. If you got any value from this episode, do a couple of things.

Number one, go buy Chris’ book, buy one for yourself, buy one for someone you love, buy it for your family, your parents, your kids, go do that. I don’t get anything for it, but it’s worth it. And then number two, if you do like this as well, screen shot the podcast app you’re using right now and go and post it on Facebook or Instagram, tag me, and then do hash tag Marketing Secrets, I’d love to see it. With that said, I will talk to you guys soon. Bye everybody.