Summary5 min read

The Russell Brunson Show

Episode: Why You HAVE To Celebrate Others' Success

Host: Russell Brunson
Date: July 22, 2019

Episode Overview

In this episode, Russell Brunson dives into a key mindset shift that he believes separates successful people from those who stay stuck: the ability to genuinely celebrate other people's successes. Drawing on personal stories, psychological insights, and lessons from mentors like Tony Robbins, Russell explores how our reactions to the victories of others shape our own subconscious beliefs about success—and ultimately, our potential to achieve it. The episode is equal parts motivational pep talk and practical mindset advice, wrapped in Russell's enthusiastic, down-to-earth style.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Number One "Secret" to Success (01:45)

Core premise: The biggest thing holding most people back in business isn’t tactics or strategies—it's their inability (or unwillingness) to celebrate when other people win.
Russell’s summary:

“If you want to be extremely successful in your life, you have to celebrate the successes of the people around you. That’s it. That’s the big aha.” (02:28)

How Your Mind Shapes Your Success (03:10)

When you celebrate others’ achievements, your subconscious gets excited and starts finding paths for your own success.
If you respond with jealousy or negativity, your brain associates success with negative traits (“Oh, I’m stuck up,” “I’m rich, I’m selfish,” etc.), making you subconsciously avoid it.
Insight:

“Whatever it is you’re inserting into somebody else’s story is what your brain will insert as the natural side effect of success.” (04:18)
Even if you don’t like the person or think they deserve it, celebrating their win is about protecting your own mindset.

The Tony Robbins “Movie” Lesson (06:10)

Russell recounts a formative Tony Robbins seminar moment where audience members groaned about a movie, and Tony urged them to appreciate the effort and risk behind creative work—even if the end result wasn’t perfect.
Tony’s perspective (as paraphrased by Russell):

“Literally, people spent hundreds of millions of dollars to entertain you, and it costs you 10 bucks. And you’re complaining about… the fact that you thought the movie sucked.” (07:10)
The lesson: Stop minimizing or being negative about what others put into the world. Instead, celebrate the risk and effort.

How You Respond to Others is How You’ll Be Treated (09:30)

Your attitude toward others’ creation—art, courses, products—sets an expectation, both in your own mind and in what comes back to you.
If you’re harsh and critical to others, you’ll often get the same energy back.
Russell’s personal commitment:

“Ever since then, I try to celebrate movies… I’m always, like, freaking out, excited.” (08:30)
Key takeaway:

“How you react to other people's success or other people's art or other people's creation is how people will probably respond back to yours.” (09:31)

What Happens If You Don’t Celebrate Others (10:00)

The consequence is not just negative feelings—it’s that your subconscious starts linking accomplishment to negative emotions, which can block or sabotage your own progress.
Russell’s advice:

“If you’re not positive in all these other things, your subconscious mind is going to start associating them with negative feelings, and it’s going to be harder and more difficult for you to go do it.” (10:14)

Russell's Challenge To Listeners (11:00)

Direct challenge:

“When people around you have successes, I highly encourage you guys to celebrate them—even if you don’t feel like they deserve them, even if you are annoyed by it, even if you don’t like the person… If you want to be more successful, you’ve got to celebrate their successes.” (11:44)
The idea is to practice celebration as a habit, not waiting for people you love or admire, but extending it to everyone.

Personal Note: The Challenge of Summer and Staying Productive (12:07)

Russell reflects on the difficulty of maintaining work-life balance during the summer when his kids are out of school.
He humorously details his packed daily schedule (“from 1 to 1:05 you hang out with your wife!”) and how summer makes it harder to keep that rhythm.
Relatable quote:

“I’ll tell you what, we're one month down with summer, and I cannot wait for the next two months to be done so we can get back to normal!” (14:09)

Notable Quotes & Moments

On subconscious self-sabotage:

“You're not celebrating someone else’s success, your brain instantly starts thinking… I don’t want to be successful because then I am stuck up…” (04:12)
On gratitude for creative effort:

“People risked hundreds of millions of dollars to make this movie for you with no guarantee of any success… and you come out like, oh, that movie sucked.” (07:08)
On creative empathy:

“If people are creating this stuff and I’m poo-pooing it… when I create stuff and put my heart and my soul and all my energy into it… I don’t know, it rubs off on you negatively.” (08:10)

Timestamps for Segments

[01:45] – Introduction to the real secret of success: celebrating others
[03:10] – How your mind and subconscious process your reactions
[06:10] – Russell’s Tony Robbins story about movies and creative risk
[09:30] – Why your reaction towards others’ creations determines what comes back to you
[11:00] – The challenge: Celebrate even those you dislike
[12:07] – Russell’s personal summer struggles and daily routine breakdown

Conclusion

Russell's message is straightforward but powerful: The fastest way to unlock your potential is to train your mind to celebrate other people's breakthroughs. This isn’t just about “being nice;” it’s about rewiring your subconscious to associate success with joy, possibility, and excitement—not resentment or fear. If you make this a regular practice, Russell argues, you’ll be amazed at how quickly your own progress accelerates.

“If you want to be more successful, you’ve got to celebrate their successes.” (11:44)

Perfect for: Entrepreneurs, creators, and anyone feeling stuck or frustrated by the success of others. If you struggle with jealousy, comparison, or negative self-talk, this episode gives you a practical—and mindset-shifting—way out.

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[00:00]
A
What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today, I want to talk about what's probably the biggest thing that keeps people from having success in their business. So let's keep theme song. We come back. I'm going to share the number one secret with you. So the big question is this. How are entrepreneurs like us who didn't cheat and take on venture capital, were spending money from our own pockets? How do we market in a way that lets us get our products and our services and the things that we believe in out to the world and yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Russell Brunson, and welcome to Marketing Secrets. All right, so what is the secret to success? Well, there's a lot of secrets to success, but there's one that's, like, really, really interesting that I don't know why, but over the last two weeks has come up over and over and over and over and over again. Not so much in convers, but with people who are not successful. And it's like this pattern that I keep seeing over and over and over again. And I keep thinking, I need to do a podcast up so bad this. There's somebody out there that must need to hear this, because I keep on hearing it over and over and over again in my head and seeing the practical application of it in people's lives. So it's actually really simple. And when I say, like, oh, wow, that makes a lot of sense, but it's something that I think that a lot of times, subconsciously, we struggle with. So this is the big secret. If you want to be extremely successful in your life, you have to celebrate the successes of the people around you. That's it. That's the big aha. We can end the podcast right now. Let me elaborate, though, for those who want to hear me pontificate on this for a few moments. I'm such a nerd. Anyway, so the reason why I bring up is, like, when someone has success and you celebrate, you're like, oh, my gosh, that's so cool. Good for you. Then your mind is like, your subconscious mind starts looking at that and saying, okay, wow, that person has success. We're celebrating it. Like, I want to celebrate. And then it starts trying to figure out pathways for you to have success. When you see somebody successful and you're like, oh, that person's so annoying, or, oh, I hate the fact that blah, blah, or, oh, and like, every time success happens, you shut it down and you talk about why it's not good and why the person doesn't deserve it and why whatever, whatever, you know, fill in the blanks of whatever reason it is. You're not celebrating someone else's success. Your brain instantly starts thinking. Your subconscious mind's like, oh, my gosh. Like, I don't want to be successful because then I am stuck up. Oh, I'm rich. Oh, I'm a bad person. Oh, I'm selfish. Oh, like, whatever it is that you're inserting into somebody else's story is what your brain will insert as the natural side effect of success. So what that means is when somebody around you has success, you need to, like, freak out and celebrate them no matter what. Even if you hate that person, right? Even if the person is like a bad person and you're like, I hate that person. I wish I wouldn't be. Actually, you should. Probably shouldn't be, like, watching success that people you don't like. But you know what I mean, it just is becoming super conscious of that. Like, hey, this person had success. I'm going to celebrate that. Congratulations. So cool. I'm so excited. Not having any tinge of jealousy or bitterness or being upset or any of those things. Because as soon as you don't seem to enter your mind, if you don't get rid of them quickly, then your mind's going to start associating success with all the negative things you're dumping on, even though it's not your own success. And those things will keep you from being successful. It's interesting. Like, man, when was it? And the first time I think I was ever aware of this was probably the very first time I went to a Tony Robbins event. And it was like a dorky thing, but he was talking about movies and he said something about like, you know, hey, whoever saw this movie? And you hear, like, half the audience groan, and I can't remember what the movie was, but he kind of stopped and he's like, do you realize that. That people, like, there are people that risked hundreds of millions of dollars to make this movie for you with no guarantee of any success, right? And they hired people. They spent years writing the scripts and doing, producing the things and doing all this stuff. And it costs you $10 to go and be entertained for two and a half hours. And you know, and you come out like, oh, that movie sucked. You're like, literally, people spent hundreds of millions of dollars to entertain you, and it costs you 10 bucks. And you're complaining about. About. About the fact that you thought the movie sucked. And he talked about, you know, if you look at kings back in, you know, you know, hundred years ago or a thousand years ago, whatever, you know, and they had court jesters. They had people that would come entertain them, like, like, what we can get for $10 is better than. Than what all these people come on for, you know, you know, for hundreds of millions of dollars. And yet we come and complain like, oh, that movie sucked. Oh, it was boring. Oh, it didn't. Blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever. The thing is, and it really started getting me to think, like, man, if I, you know, if people are creating the stuff, and then I'm like, poo pooing it. It's like if, you know, when I create stuff and I put my heart and my soul and all my. My energy into it, and then people come out like, oh, that course is boring. Oh, I didn't learn anything new. Oh, like, whatever the, you know, insert the blank is, I don't know, it rubs off on you negatively. And so ever since then, like, I try to celebrate movies, which you probably see me, like, when the Avengers come out or the new thing comes out or whatever. Like, I'm always, like, freaking out, excited. And then people come back and the reviews are always like, oh, the movie's lame. I'm like, are you kidding me? It cost me ten bucks. And for two and a half hours, I was on the edge of my seat. Yeah, that one part was weird or stupid, but, like, people risk so much to entertain me. I'm so grateful for that. And, like, because I'm so grateful for it, like, it shifts my mind. I'm creating courses to, like, I don't know, it just shifts around where it's like, I'm gonna produce the best thing possible I can and give it to my audience. And I don't know, it just shifts the perspective in your mind. So that's kind of what I shared with you guys today, is in all sorts of things, like how you. How you react to other people's success or other people's art or other people's creation is how people will probably respond back to yours. But more importantly is how your subconscious mind is going to start associating those things. And so if you're not careful, if you're not positive in all these other things, your subconscious mind is going to start associating them with negative feelings, and it's going to be harder and more difficult for you to go do it. Does that make sense? Anyway, hopefully that wasn't too like woo, woo on a weird level for you, but it's super true. So what that means is when people around you have successes, I highly encourage you guys to celebrate them. Even if you don't feel like they deserve them, even if you are annoyed by it, even if you don't like the person, even like, whatever. The thing is, if you want to be more successful, you've got to celebrate their successes. And so that's my challenge for you today. All right, with that said, I'm at the office. I'm going to go get some work done today. I don't know about you guys, but summer, summer is so hard. I remember as a kid looking forward to summer. But like I was telling my. I was talking to Colette about this last night. Like it's, it's, it's crazy. Like if you, if you think about a typical day, right? Like my day when the kids are in school, like, I wake up, whatever, at 5:30, I work out, I do all my stuff before they wake up and then they wake up. And then I try to be like a present dad from 7 till 9, I take him to school, drop them off. From 9 till like 5, I'm like working my butt off getting all my stuff done. And then I try to be present. So I get home, from 5 till 9, I'm there present with them playing. And then from 9 till 10 or 11, my wife and I hang out until we pass out. And that's the night, right? And it's like a brutal schedule to keep present all day long, right? And then it's like summer happens and the kids suddenly are like, like, I still have to wake up early because like, the only time I can work out is early. So I still wake up same time, right? And then you do your day, but now the kids aren't in school. So I don't know about you, but at least for me, I feel guilt. Like, oh, I can use my kids more. So then I like stay later in the morning and then I come home early and I try to like, you know, like the other day I went and spent three or four hours in the middle of the day to go hang out with them, to go do some fun stuff, right? So like, I'm doing all those things kind of, kind of throughout, but I still have to get the same amount of work done, right? And then we get home at night and then it's like I gotta be present. And then at 9 o', clock, when kids want to go to bed now, it's like, it's Summertime I don't have to go to bed. And you're like what? Like it's, you need to go to bed. They're like no I don't. And so they don't go to bed till like midnight. And so like you have to go stay up till midnight to get those punks to actually go to bed. And then it's like, then midnight you finally go to bed or one o' clock or whenever they finally get them to bed. And then it's like, then you want to spend like five minutes with your wife. So it's like from 1 to 1:05 you hang out and you all just pass out and you're tired and then you know the clock, the alarm clock goes off same time next morning so you have to jam like three times as much a day into every single day. So I'll tell you what, we're one month down with summer and I cannot wait for the next two months to be done so we can get back to normal schedule because like my body is shutting down. So tired. Anyway, I digress. I'm gonna go work because I got a few hours to hang out and get some stuff done. Working on my book right now I'm about a third of the way done with the Traffic Secrets book which is exciting. I'm also working on the Unlock the Secrets event slides. I have to get the slides done this week so I can have a chance to get them the workbooks created and everything for the event coming up next month. That's all fun stuff I'm working on. And I'm working on the funnel hacking live event schedule right now too. I'm planning out the amazingness for next year for you guys so that's what I'm doing today. Appreciate you all. Thanks for listening and I will talk to you all again soon. Bye. Everybody want more marketing secrets? If so, then go get your copies of my two best selling books. Book number one is called Expert Secrets and you can get a free copy@expertssecrets.com and book number two is called Dotcom Secrets and you can get your free copy@dotcomsecrets.com Inside these two books you'll find my top 35 secrets that we've used to become the fastest growing non VC backed SaaS startup company in the world.