Growing up, Russell Brunson was, self-admittedly, not “into” books.
“I remember going to bookstores with my mom and being like, ‘Why would somebody come here?’” he says, laughing.
Those who meet Brunson today might find that hard to believe. As the multihyphenate founder of a robust roster of companies (most notably the sales software company ClickFunnels), he’s a New York Times bestselling author and bona fide bibliophile. In the past three years alone, he’s purchased more than 18,000 books.
Today, these tomes are (literally and metaphorically) the story behind his success.
It began in college, after he started his first business selling “How To Make A Potato Gun” DVDs online, earning roughly $1,000 a month in 2005. At a marketing seminar, the speaker asked who had read Think and Grow Rich, a 1937 personal development book by Napoleon Hill.
“Everybody’s hands went up except for mine,” Brunson recounts. Then and there, he connected the dots: “Everyone in here is making money. They all have a business. They’ve all read it. I should read it.”
Think and Grow Rich would be the first of many, many personal development books and similar publications (including early editions of SUCCESS® magazine) Brunson would read and own. So began a career of learning, experimenting and sharing. He recalls poring over endless pages and sitting through countless seminars in search of just “one little nugget.”
But if it was the books that got him interested, the real-life applications of their lessons are what hooked him—after finding one idea in a book, and applying it to his new business, he increased sales by 30% (when he realized that “one little nugget”) could dramatically change one’s chances of success. “I thought, I just gave myself a 30% raise by taking one idea and applying it,” he says. “Then, I became obsessed.”
Game changer
After learning and testing, and more learning and testing, Brunson sought a way to share his findings. Enter: ClickFunnels, an all-in-one online marketing and sales platform. In partnership with entrepreneur Todd Dickerson, Brunson co-founded the software company in 2014, providing a streamlined solution to the very obstacles he had faced in launching and growing his own online sales ventures.
“It was just us testing these different things on a sales page, and learning what would get more people to buy,” he explains. “And it’s crazy, because [it was] the exact same product—exact same everything—but by tweaking a headline or the color of a button, I could go from 3% to a 9% [conversion rate]. I can triple my money from the exact same amount of effort…. That’s how I [became] obsessed with this. Learning that game and how you make these little tweaks and how big of an impact that has. It’s like a little hinge that swings this huge door [open]. It makes the game really fun.”
Today, ClickFunnels helps entrepreneurs apply best-in-market strategies to scale their success online. The company, which hit $100 million in annual revenue within three years of launching—all without any venture capital backing—allows users to create sustainable, successful customer journeys using the “funnel mindset”: attract, sell, upsell, ascend, repeat. “I remember in the early days, I had a mentor who said this one time, and it became my mantra. They said, ‘You’ve got to figure out how to give yourself a raise every day,’” Brunson explains.
With the success of ClickFunnels, his empire grew to encompass numerous other companies, as well as a podcast, social media channels and books, all of which are conduits for sharing these insights. He explains the different mediums are not just different steps along the same customer journey; they’re unique avenues for him to refine his messaging.
“That’s how I look at all the social media platforms. It’s my spot for me to test my material,” he explains. “I’m testing it on Instagram in 60-second reels. Then, on my podcast, I’m going to tell a 20-minute version of it…. I’m trying to see what landed and what didn’t make sense. And, that way, the message gets clearer and clearer.”
With this approach, he proposes that social media engagement may lead to the purchase of a book, which might lead to attending an event, which ultimately can result in the customer signing up for coaching. “That’s where I think the value is, is in the human connection,” he says. “Let’s give them an experience that changes their lives.”
Build it and they will come
It’s why Brunson is building a 20,000-square-foot center near Boise, Idaho, that’s one-part library, one-part museum and one-part event space—a modern-day interpretation of Hill’s dream of a “School for Success.” A place where “all the greatest thought leaders of our time will have a chance to leave a legacy behind for the future,” as Brunson describes it in the pitch video on SecretsOfSuccess.com/atlas.
What will fill such a space? A $12 million (and growing) book collection.
Shortly after unlocking a love of reading, Brunson also discovered another obsession: eBay. “Obviously the greatest site on the entire internet,” he says, laughing.
The successful search for and acquisition of a first edition Book of Mormon sparked a love for owning key historical books, which in turn led to buying an entire collection of Hill’s works, including the manuscripts of unpublished books, signed first editions, early issues of SUCCESS® magazine and other first works in the field of personal development. Brunson also acquired a galley copy (as in, pre-first edition) of Think and Grow Rich for $1.5 million alone. The seller had amassed the collection over more than 20 years; it was so large it required a private plane to transport the entirety of it from Arkansas to Idaho.
With this collection as a base, Brunson describes a vision of a center where people can come (in person and, in the future, via virtual reality devices) and explore all the teachings of the philosophers and thought leaders that came before.
Take Elsie Lincoln Benedict for example. Her book, How to Get Anything You Want, was one of a series of 12 tiny blue books that came with the collection. Benedict was a suffragist leader and famous lecturer, drawing record-setting crowds in the 1920s and 1930s to hear her insights on everything from global matters to emotion and motivation. She would ultimately speak to an estimated 3 million people in her lifetime.
Now, Brunson’s team is republishing How to Get Anything You Want for modern readers. “It’s one of the most timely, fascinating, coolest books I’ve ever found,” Brunson says.
But before there was Benedict, there was Orison Swett Marden, the founder of SUCCESS® and another hero of Brunson’s. After prolifically authoring dozens of books, Marden launched SUCCESS® magazine in 1897 with much of the same style of content you see today: explorations on personal growth, leadership and business insights, and interviews with influential men and women.
“It literally shifted the country. No one was talking about personal [development]…. And then the magazine showed up, and it was the first time someone was speaking success principles into the minds of America as a whole. And I don’t think people understand how big that was,” Brunson explains. “From that, all these other people sprouted up, like Napoleon Hill and Elsie Lincoln Benedict…. But it was the founder of SUCCESS® magazine [who] literally launched this… and changed the country.”
Brunson has almost every issue of SUCCESS® that was published in the 1800s (and is attempting to collect all of them), as well as photographs, signatures and original artworks that became SUCCESS® covers.
It’s works like these that Brunson hopes to preserve and share for future generations through the library. He points to the fact that, back then, these authors didn’t have much proof of their theories; but today, we’re gaining the tools to explain the science behind things like mindset or the subconscious. Access to these early materials shines a light on the genesis of many of today’s philosophies, now proven by science.
“That’s why I’m collecting Napoleon Hill and Orison Swett Marden and all these people who have had such a big impact on me that nobody else even knows about,” Brunson explains. “I need to tell these stories and get them out there…. We’re trying to bring these people’s legacies back, extending those legacies.”
The next chapter
But there’s another book on Brunson’s radar right now as well—his own next publication. Following three previous bestsellers, DotCom Secrets (2015), Expert Secrets (2017) and Traffic Secrets (2020) (as well as 11 privately published books on marketing and sales), Brunson has now set his sights on helping entrepreneurs navigate the deeply personal aspects of success and failure.
“I was an athlete growing up, so, in my mind, success was equal to accomplishment, right?” he says. Eventually, that would change. “I remember Tony Robbins said something to me. He said, ‘Success without fulfillment is ultimate failure.’”
To a high achiever, with eyes always set on the next medal, it can be a tough truth to accept. But the other option is burnout. And Brunson has seen it—in himself and others. “I’ve been on both sides of it. I’m not perfect, but I feel like I’ve got really good balance in my life where I feel fulfilled. I’ve got a great marriage and family; I’ve got a great business, so I’m trying to help people [by telling them], ‘Here’s the things you need to be successful and here’s how to not burn it down.’”
It’s through understanding of one’s subconscious, and one’s mindset, that Brunson says entrepreneurs can achieve success with fulfillment. He says the brain is such a powerful tool for success, but we’re not really given any kind of operating manual for it. He hopes that, with the book, he can simplify things.
“I feel like that’s the place I can be the most efficient in helping [entrepreneurs] right now,” he says. Readers can pick up the book and plug in any goal: win a state title, start a business, fix one’s marriage. “You can take the framework and plug in whatever you are trying to be successful in.”
Success is scientific, he explains—but fulfillment, now that’s an art. “Achievement plus fulfillment equals success…. What is the yin-yang of those two things? It’s the science and the art…, and I think it’s the blend between those two that make you actually successful.”
And while he shares these musings across different platforms, both print and digital, he says he finds books to be one of the most—if not the most—impactful formats. “In the last 20 years, I’ve launched so many courses and products and software, but when I meet somebody at the airport or in a weird place, they’re always like, ‘I read your book. It changed my life’…. They always come back to the book. There’s something about the written word,” Brunson says.
It’s all part of the same vision: resurfacing and republishing works otherwise lost to the archives. Publishing new works. And proving that maybe reading really is the key to success—or at least a step along the way. “I want some kid like me a hundred years from now to find my book on eBay and read it and have it change his life.”
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Photo By Erin Blackwell
