Today's episode is an interview with John Lee Dumas {his book is available to order here!} . John is the founder & host of Entrepreneurs On Fire, an award-winning podcast where he interviews inspiring entrepreneurs to help others on their entrepreneurial journey!
We're so excited to talk to you about:
Be sure to enter the giveaway for his book here.
If you’re ready to jump into visibility, watch the "Podcast, Stages, and Publications" masterclass here!
And if you're ready for the next step of your career, join a community of 100+ entrepreneurs who are taking action with their visibility + seeing huge results! Join here.
Today's episode is an interview with John Lee Dumas {his book is available to order here!} . John is the founder & host of Entrepreneurs On Fire, an award-winning podcast where he interviews inspiring entrepreneurs to help others on their entrepreneurial journey!
We're so excited to talk to you about:
Be sure to enter the giveaway for his book here.
If you’re ready to jump into visibility, watch the "Podcast, Stages, and Publications" masterclass here!
And if you're ready for the next step of your career, join a community of 100+ entrepreneurs who are taking action with their visibility + seeing huge results! Join here.
Hey, and welcome back to season four of the visible entrepreneur, I can't believe that we have made it four seasons. It has been such a privilege for me and I am so excited to bring you this season. We have some incredible guests. And my goal for you this season is to understand what people are using to drive their traffic generators and income generators. We learn by who we are in proximity with. So I've made sure to go through my Rolodex and figure out who I think will be able to support you the most strategically. So we're going to be kicking it off with someone incredible, someone amazing someone that we all have probably been listening to for years and admiring for years. JOHN Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur on Fire, can you believe it? I am so excited that he has jumped on the show. And this is a really fun interview, I think you're going to enjoy it. So if you are not familiar with jld. He's the founder and host of the award winning podcast entrepreneurs on fire. With over 1 million monthly listeners and seven figures of annual revenue. jld is spreading entrepreneurial fire on a global scale in his first traditionally published book, The common path to uncommon success is available for preorder it's launching. He's going to be talking to us about it in this episode, and I want to let you know we are doing a giveaway we're going to be giving away five copies of his book. So go ahead and hop on over to visibility vixen comm forward slash uncommon to enter the giveaway and be sure to do this, I want you to take a screenshot that you're listening to the show, hop on over to my Instagram, tag me in stories and be sure to tag j l d as well. We will be calculating it up doing a random draw of whoever tags us in Instagram stories and awarding you the book for free. So yeah, we're so excited to jump in, enjoy this episode, take some notes, I'm really excited for you to talk to jld and learn a little bit from him today. So let's dive in. We are so excited to be kicking off season four of the visible entrepreneur with you, Jay LD. So welcome to the show. I am fired up to be here. Michelle, thank you so much for having me, I can just tell they're gonna have a wonderful conversation today. So most of us are pretty familiar with you. We've listened to the show for probably a couple of years, give us a little bit of an in depth view of what your life has looked like the past month leading up to this book launch. How well listen, I launched this podcast back in 2012. With the idea of I'm just gonna be the first daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs, which meant I was the best daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. But I was also the worst, I was the only. And now you and I are talking a decade later. 3000 episodes later, over 100 million listens, averaging about 1.4 million monthly listens. And it's been quite a ride quite a journey. And I said, hey, what if I took those 3000 episodes, and I created a 17 step roadmap and keywords here 17 steps, I found the 17 foundational principles that all successful entrepreneurs share put into a roadmap. And I said, that's a book at 17 chapters. After 480 hours of writing. The book was available. I mean, the book was done. And then it was like now that I spend so much time writing this book, I'm going to promote the heck out of his book. And so the last month to answer your question specifically, has been meat doing just that promoting this book, because I believe in it so much. And I'm so proud of it. And I can say that with like zero hesitation because this book is not my genius. This is not me my book. This is the 3000 entrepreneurs that I've interviewed over the past decade. It's their genius put into this book, one time. It's incredible how you were able to leverage all of that knowledge. It was such a brilliant idea for a book. So before we dive into more about the book, I want you to hold up your book cover. I don't know if you've noticed those of you who have been listening to the show for a while but with color psychology. What does that mean? So it's all about moving toward forward to the future. So JLT I'm thrilled that you chose yellow for your book color cover. I think it was a great idea. Well, first off, thank you for talking about the cover. It was a lot of thoughts and we definitely took in at some color combinations for sure. You know, one, you can see that I have the entrepreneurs on fire podcast has a lot of yellow in it for sure. So I've always kind of been a future projecting like wanting to be cutting edge wanting to share the knowledge and the value in the future that we have. And I wanted this book to also be realized narrative of that as well so absolutely a lot of thought was was was put into that and listen this is the core 17 foundational principles that the 3000 entrepreneurs that i've interviewed all have in common and when i looked down at those principles i said i'm going to put these into a chronological step by step roadmap that's going to lead to financial freedom and fulfillment so i put that down in order so the 17 chapters in front of me and boom i went off to the races and every single chapter is critical every single step in this process is important i do have my favorites which we can talk about in length if you'd like to but i do just want to start off with with step one chapter one because this is unfortunately where most people fail they never take the time even to just once identify their big idea they have never even identified their big idea and i'm just going to be honest with you like it is a very very sad reality that most people and i mean most people will die in this world without ever having identified their big idea because what this world needs more of is people living in their zone of fire waking up every single day working on in their big idea and everybody has a big idea within them but so few people ever even take the step to sit down and identify that big idea instead they just live this life of mediocrity waking up doing what they have to do not what they want to do being depressed you know disappointed unrealized expectations and goals and that's a lot of people's lives does not have to be that way there's so much opportunity in this world there's so much abundance in this world if you first sit down and identify not my big idea you know not person x or y or z that you admire their big idea don't be a pale weak imitation of others be the best version of yourself you are special you are unique you are a snowflake you have a unique special and amazing big idea let's uncover it together so question i'd love to hear you encapsulate your big idea i'd love to hear it so in 2012 i was struggling i went through six years of struggle 22 years old to 26 i was an officer in the us army got out of 26 years old thought i was gonna go take over the world and the opposite happens i went through six years of struggle law school dropout corporate finance quit real estate quit all these things fail fail fail six years and then i identified the fact that i had to improve the five people i spent the most time with because i was hanging out with debbie downers and don do littles and that just wasn't going to happen anymore so i committed in that moments to reading the right books to at least surrounding myself in the written word and then the audio word if i was listening to audio books with the right people sharing the right content and that's honestly when i heard the words by albert einstein that changed my trajectory which was try not to become a person of success but rather a person of value and i was like what does that even look like i don't even know what that means like i've never been a person of value i've only been chasing success and albert telling me to do the exact opposite so i committed to that process of planting the seed of becoming a person of value which eventually led a couple months later to launching entrepreneurs on fire the first daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs but now what am i big idea look like my big idea was when i was walking one day listening to a podcast loving it and saying man i would love to be doing this like to be talking to amazing people that i'm inspired by so there's my big idea i'm going to i'm going to start a podcast that's a big idea but listen step two in this process is so key once you've identified your big idea you have to discover a niche you have to identify a void that's not being filled you have to find a problem within your big idea that is not being solved that you can solve the best so what did i do i said okay well a podcast there's 1000s of podcasts i'll get slaughtered what about a business podcast that's niching down one time well there's hundreds and hundreds of business podcasts i'll still get destroyed what if i niche down into business podcasts that interview entrepreneurs okay now we're getting somewhere there's only seven but did i want to be the eighth best business podcast interviewing entrepreneurs absolutely not so i said well what's the problem that i'm finding with these seven podcasts what's a void that needs to be filled and to make a long story short you know my biggest complaint about these podcasts where they came out once a week i wanted a podcast that came out every single day to inspire me and i said i can't believe that show doesn't exist why not follow gandhi's words here and be the change that i want to see in the world and so that will Need to niche down a fourth time and become the first daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. So what happens? From day one, I was the best daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. I was also the worst daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. I was the only daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. And as a result, I was able to carve that niche out be the best solution to a real problem. And over time, work that wedge that I got into the industry into a big media empire that I am now here today, all from that one big idea that again, step one, step two niching, down into an underserved niche and dominating that niche. And then, of course, I moved on to steps three through 17, to get to where I'm at now, financial freedom, and fulfillment. That's such an important point that you niche down and niche down and niche down even further until you really found what could separate you. So it's a really great takeaway. So now let's move into what your current traffic generator is, and your income generator, I know, our audience would love to hear how that's broken down for your business. So my biggest traffic generators, the podcast, entrepreneurs on fire, you know, it is a top rank business podcast where we have over 1.4 million listens, every single month to the show. One thing that we do on the show to capture that traffic is I have eight different calls to action at the end of every show. And those are different rotating calls to action. So there's one per show, and I rotate eight, in over the course of you know, the eight episodes as are going forward, they're all lead to a different funnel. And those different funnels all lead to a revenue generating part of our business. And one thing that we've done that I know that you're fully aware of is for 91 months now we've been publishing monthly income reports. And those monthly income reports break down exactly how much money we make, where the money comes in how the revenues generated all all of that jazz. And so excuse me. And so we are very focused on taking the traffic that we get into our podcasts, entrepreneurs on fire, giving them a call to action to a free, great offer, whether that be a PDF, a course, you know, some kind of lead magnet that we have, that then leads them down a funnel to a paid offer, you know, whether it be a course a product, a service, a community fill in the blank. And that's how for all of these years, we've been generating a minimum of $100,000 of net profit every single month, sometimes much more. But nevertheless, amazing. What I really like about you is that you have focused your entire career with entrepreneurship with relationship marketing. And you know, some people do abuse this, some people get nervous, they've had bad experiences, so they back away from it. So I'd love to hear how have you grown? Not only personally but with your business with relationship marketing, and what do you advise for other people when it comes to bringing that aspect into their business? It was very obvious to me early on, that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. That's a great quote by Jim Rohn. It really sunk in and I again, realize, as I mentioned earlier, that my fiver, pretty average to below average, a lot of Debbie downers a lot of Don do, littles. And I said, Well, I'm the average of these people, and it's my own fault. So how do I improve my average. And one of those ways, again, was reading the right books, listening to the right audio books, and eventually listening to podcasts and kind of being a fly on the wall. And, you know, hearing at least conversations of amazing entrepreneurs, and kind of being part of those conversations and having those people believe it or not be like my average, because they were the people I spend the most time with, like I was listening to so many of these conversations that they became part of my five, and the average started going up. And then I tend to take it to the next level by launching my own podcast, and interviewing a successful entrepreneur, literally every single day. And I did that for five and a half years 2000 episodes in a row. And that allowed me to just continue to uplevel my networks, my connections, my relationships, and just continuously taking it to the next level, over and over and over again, upping my average surrounding myself with the right people making it happen. And you know, it fast forward all the way to this book launch. Now we're now you know, I've interviewed over 3000, successful entrepreneurs, yourself included, and now being able to reach out to that massive network and say, Hey, I have a book coming out, which by the way, you were a huge part of because you know, I took your genius, your knowledge, and I put it into the book like the 3000 entrepreneurs that I interviewed. Now, can you help me get this message out to your audience, because this is essentially your genius and I would love to do that. And you know, of course, I'd built up reciprocity, which is a huge word for people to think about, you know, by having all these people on my show, bringing them on my platform, elevating their message, their mission with the world. And that allowed me to you know, really tap into that reciprocity in go on. In a very big and successful book promotional tour, which I'm doing right now, which we'll see what happens come March 23. But you know, I'm sprinting to the finish line, I can tell you that. Absolutely. So with this book, what are your goals? What are you hoping will happen, the kind of people who are going to pick this up and what they're going to hopefully achieve? What are your dreams with your book, it's honestly how I really think how I dream, what I think about for every single one of my episodes is like, I want something in this book, to speak to somebody in a certain way that makes them do something they otherwise would not have done. And now that person is going to go and do something that they otherwise would not have done, that's going to inspire a whole sector of people that would not have otherwise been inspired by that person that wasn't about to do that thing. And now those people are going to go off and do amazing things, and so on and so forth. That second, third, fourth, fifth degree of separation. To me, it's just so inspiring and so amazing. And that's what I love about the world we live in the ripple effect. That's what it's all about. I think that everyone's given like you're saying that big idea. And it's because we're meant to give back, I believe we all have been given an instinct of where the world needs to improve how we can help. So that's the journey, right? That we're able to grow our businesses to be able to give back to be able to change these problems that are on our hearts in the world. So before we wrap up, let's transition into your daily routine, what makes you healthy, productive, what keeps you in that continuous state of creation, versus stress and burnout morning routines are everything and you know what, what most people do is they wake up and they immediately drop into OTP other people's problems and they open their email, they go into social media, it's filled with other people's problems, and now your day's ruins. Instead, you need to say what is a morning routine that's going to fill me up is going to you know, make sure that I'm the best version of myself for the rest of the day. So I wake up every morning, I take my dog Gus for a walk, you know, we're walking outside, I've got the sun hitting my face in Puerto Rico and breathing in the fresh air and listening to a podcast like it's a great way to kind of get the blood flowing. Then I hit my gym. And I'm working out with my trainer doing some weights three days a week and then the other days that I'm not working on my trainer, I'm doing other things in the gym. I always hit my 30 minute Infrared Sauna to sweat it out. I have a rebounder in there. So I'm jumping on my rebounder to get the blood even flowing a little bit more. You know, I have a cold plunge to jump in the cold plunge to you know, really spark that energy up a little bit and get to that nice freezing cold morning routine going and get get the energy the just kind of sparking through the fingertips that it lays out by my pool, as I'm taking in that nice vitamin D from the natural Puerto Rican sun. I read for 15 minutes, I journal for 15 minutes and then I meditate for 15 minutes. So that's a long morning routine typically takes between 90 minutes to two hours. But it does what I needed to do. It centers me it grounds me It fills me up so that when I then go to conquer the day of Fire Nation, I'm on fire. Absolutely. I think the big takeaways from this have been grab that big idea niche down, protect your morning routine so that you can stay happier and healthier. And number three, buy the book. It's available right now remember, you can go to jail DS site grab the book, he's going to talk about that in just a second. But also you can go to visibility vixen comm Ford slash uncommon and enter to win a free copy. So jld as we wrap this up, I'm going to pass the mic over to you. Where do you want to leave things with our visible entrepreneur audience parting words. Try not to become a person of success, but rather a person of value. If you follow those worship Einstein Your life will change. And if you take the advice of this amazing host here and you head over to uncommon success book.com you are going to have five amazing bonuses. You can look at amazing endorsements from Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Neil Patel, Eric amantii, Dorie Clark, the first chapter is there for free that you can read at your leisure to see my writing style, a video of me going in detail about the book and then jumping in my Florida and Puerto Rico with all my clothes on and so much more. But the words that I do want to end with are that try not to become a person of success, but rather a person of value. Well, thanks, jld thank you for being on the show. Thanks for titling my show. For me, I appreciate it. Be sure to go out, buy the book, take a selfie with the book tag jld. There's nothing better for an author than knowing that their book is being bought and appreciated by its audience. And if you love the show, take a screenshot on your phone. tag us both on Insta stories. We would love to say hello to you. And we appreciate you watching this episode and in the meantime, go out there Subscribe by the book. Let me know how it goes and I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for kicking off season four with us.