$1.2 Million Podcaster Shares His Business Growth Secrets (JOHN LEE DUMAS)

Foreign.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Ally and you, the business success and lifestyle show. I'm Alison Maslin. My friends call me Allie. And. And today we have a fantastic show. I'm so excited. So listen to this. Since 2012, John Lee Dumas has interviewed over 1200 of the world's most savvy entrepreneurs that have shared their journey on his highly ranked, highly acclaimed podcast, EO Fire, which I was on. I'm going to be on here pretty soon. I'm excited. The knowledge bombs that are routinely dropped by these entrepreneurs, the who's who of the savviest entrepreneurs such as Barbara Cochran, Tim Ferriss, have resonated worldwide, and his episodes, listen to this. In 2015 alone have been downloaded more than 12 million times in 145 countries. That is impressive. Well, today we have John Lee Dumas.

Ali, I am fired up to be here. And you're right, you are an upcoming guest of vofire. We had a great interview.

Yes.

You're coming up later in the month, and I can't wait for you to rock Fire Nation.

I can't wait. That was so much fun. I'm really glad that I got to experience that. And we actually met because you and I are on this documentary inspired by 11 that was produced by Serious Take Productions, our friend Tamara. And that was so much fun to see it up on the big screen. And so, you know, I really feel there is nothing better than being able to share your passions with the world, which is what you do day in and day out on your podcast, EO Fire. But I know that you didn't start just, you know, all of a sudden, you know, it's like that overnight success story. So let's go back a little bit. I mean, did you always want to be an entrepreneur?

I love this question for a lot of reasons. And one of my favorite quotes is, you know, I was an overnight success, 10 years in the making. I mean, that just is so often the case. And I think it's a really important question, like, did I always want to be an entrepreneur? Was I always an entrepreneur? And the answer is absolutely no. And I think that's so important to get out there because so many people think that because they weren't born to be an entrepreneur, because they didn't have that, like, entrepreneurial spirit as a child, that they weren't meant to be an entrepreneur. That just isn't the case, Ali. I mean, Gary Vaynerchuk loves to rant about how as a kid, he was making thousands of dollars on the weekend selling baseball Cards. As a kid, I would mow one lawn for 20 bucks. My neighbor across the yard would say, hey, mow my lawn too. And I'm like, no, all I need is $20 for the day. I don't need to mow any more lawns. Like, I'm good. I can take my girlfriend to a mo. That's it. No mas. And that was me all the way up till 32 years old. I was always doing what I had to do, but no more. I wasn't an entrepreneur. I was very traditionalist. Army law school, corporate finance, commercial real estate. Very traditional. No major successes. A couple major failures, though, but no major successes. And it wasn't until I was 32 that I had my aha moment for EO Fire. That was four years ago now. That was 1300 episodes ago. That was 30 million listens ago. And now I've built a business around entrepreneurship. So whether you're 20, 30, 50, 70, and you have or haven't started your entrepreneurial thing yet, it's never too late. It's finding the right thing. And that's what we can have a great chat about today.

Well, I love that. And I love that you said, and by example, not like you were born into an entrepreneurial family, which is the route that I took. But, you know, I think that we have. We have different phases in our life, right? And so. And I. I embrace the failures. I call that research and development. So that wisdom you can definitely apply. So what, you know, let's go back. I mean, when you were earlier, what did you. Were there some passions where you said, this is what I want to do with my life?

No.

All right, great.

It's the thing about me growing up, I was just always like, you know, I like sports. Like, that'll be fun. Like, I like this. I like that. But I was never passionate about anything. And I always kind of thought that there was something kind of missing in my life. I always questioned, is maybe is there something wrong with me? Like, I see these people, like, you know, of course, Tony Robbins has been all over TV for decades now, and you just see him talking about passion and just being on when he's on stage. And I was like, man, is that normal, or am I just, like, abnormal? I didn't get it. And so I didn't have that passion. I never had passions growing up. And again, it wasn't really until I was 32 that I said, wow, this is something I can sink my teeth into. I can commit myself fully. I can pour my heart. I can Pour my soul into. And I think that's okay because we don't all stumble across that thing at 13 or at 19 or 23, like 17. Sometimes it takes a little longer for us to do that. And it was kind of strange last week, actually, I interviewed Tony Robbins, and it was the first time in 1300 episodes I've gotten the chance to speak with him one on one. It was kind of this surreal moment. Like, it took me back to when I was just a kid watching Shallow how this movie that he was in where he was talking about being, you know, you need to be on fire. Like, you need to be inspired. And, like, I was like, this guy's intense, but, like, now I feel like him when I'm talking about things that I love. But again, it took me 32 plus years to get there.

Right. You really just had to evolve into that. And I think that's really a great point that you do say that, because I know a lot of people struggle. And in college, for instance, there are no courses on how to find your passion. And I think people get into something because, you know, they want something, that they're going to make a lot of money, and so they're using their head to make that decision. And then years go by and they're like, wait a minute, I hate this. Yeah. So what was it at 32 for you? Like, tell. Tell us the story.

Well, let me tell you the story. Let me, like, actually address the viewers here first.

Okay.

Because this is so important to me. Like, at 32 years old, like, I heard this quote by Albert Einstein, and this quote just inspired the crap out of me. And the crazy thing was, is that I had heard this quote many times before, but I had never listened to, like, the meaning of the quotes. And until I actually listened, like, it never made any sense to me. But there I was, 32 years old, starting to have an idea about what I wanted to do with my life. And this quote by Albert Einstein just kind of knocked me out. I was like, wow, that's amazing. And the quote is, try not to become a person of success, but rather become a person of value. So let me say that one more time. Try not to become a person of success, but rather become a person of value. And, like, looking back at my journey, Ali, like, I had tried from the moment I graduated college to chase success. You know, I went into the army because I thought that was the right thing to do as an officer and serve my country. And I'm very proud that I did that. And I'll never regret any of those four years. And they were powerful. But then getting out of the military, I was like, okay, now it's time to get serious about life and follow that traditional path. So I went into law school because I thought it was what successful people did. And I failed. And, like, I quit after one semester. So I tried corporate finance, because that's what I thought successful people did. And I quit after 18 months. I tried commercial real estate because that's what successful people did. And then there I was, after six years of unhappiness and failure, 32 years old, hearing that quote, really, for the first time saying, man, I have been chasing success all of these years, finding no success and no happiness. What am I doing? Why don't I listen to this quote and become a person of value first? And to me, that's what EO Fire became. That was a value first proposition. Let me deliver a free, valuable and consistent podcast seven days a week. And I have a secret for you, Ali. That's not that much of a secret. I was a really bad podcaster for a really long time. I had never interviewed anybody before. I had never hosted a podcast before. I was amateur hour all the way. But guess what? I wanted to be a podcaster. So I had to podcast. When I interviewed you for episode 1285, of course, I was a great podcaster. I had been doing it for 10,000 hours. A little practice there. But, you know, back at episode 12 or episode 85, I was crappy. I stunk, and I realized it. Luckily, I was able to bring guests on, you know, like Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, who were amazing and they could bring value in the episode. And even though I couldn't. But going back to the core, I knew that if I just focus on delivering value, creating value, the success would follow. And so it didn't come overnight. It took me over nine months to turn my first dollar out of eofire. But, you know, here we are, 2015, we did over $4.5 million in revenue. We're going to be doing more in 2016. And it's just been a great business that we've created off of delivering value first.

Right? And so that is such a great message is back up. How can you just give value and stop worrying about the success and know the success is going to come because 4 million in revenue when you're focused on giving value, value, value. Because that's really all we want to do anyway.

And that was my third year in business, though. Like, it didn't come the first year, it didn't come the second year. By my third year of just creating value for so long, that's when the revenue really started coming in the door, right?

But here's the thing. That's podcasting every single day, right? Getting guests, organizing logistics, studying, right? And that means there were two of the years that I'm sure it was like, okay, you know, money's not coming in, but you stayed with it so many times because, you know, I work with entrepreneurs to grow their business. After two or three months, it's like, wait a minute, I'm doing this. And it's not generating any revenue. And fear jumps in and they are impulsive and jump onto something else. What was that in you that, that. Stick to it. What, what part of that personality, your personality, the personality you own, did you apply?

Well, let me again address the viewers. I really want to make a point here. Is like this entrepreneurship, this journey that you've chosen that you're on right now, this is a marathon. This is not a sprint. You have to get into the right mindset from the very beginning and be in this for the marathon. So to kind of directly address your question, which I think is a phenomenal one, you know, I really look back to my military days where we had to train for hours and months and even years at times, for sometimes what amounted to just minutes of action. But that years of training can save your life because now you know how to react when the mortar rounds come in, when the bullets start flying, whatever that might be. And that might sound dramatic, but it's not because that happened in my life. I mean, I was in Iraq for 13 months. I had a platoon of 16 men, four tanks, and I returned with only 12 of my men. Like four of my soldiers gave the ultimate sacrifice. It was a very intense 13 months for a 23, 24 year old that I was. So I realized that the actual buildup and the patience, and I love the word delayed gratification. It's so important that you are willing to work now for later success. And there's actually a great study, I won't go into super detail about it, but it's a study where back in the 50s and 60s, they had these kids who were very hungry and they would have. They would take them into a room with a marshmallow on the table and they say, if you don't eat that, when I come back in, in 15 minutes, I'm going to give you three marshmallows. And only 10% of the kids of thousands that they did this to were able to not eat that marshmallow. And over the next 30 and 40 years, they tracked those. And the 10% did outrageously better in life adults from that one study as a kid because they were able to delay gratification for future benefits. So going back to the Smirn and the marathon, like this is a marathon, you got to look at it like that. I was willing to put in the work for a significant amount of time, knowing that if I did, I'd hit that tipping point, and then things would start. Tony Robbins would reach out to me to be on my podcast. Gary Vaynerchuk every time he launches a book. Tim Ferriss just released a great post on how he crushed his podcast.

I saw that.

And he names me as one of the few people that guided him in that way. So, like, that is what's happened from a guy that, you know, back in 2012, didn't even have a Twitter or Facebook account because I had nothing in that area. But I said, okay, now's the time. Let's podcast. Let's be unique. Let's do this.

Yeah. Well, that's incredible. And I think that your military background, I'm sure, served you in so many ways. The discipline that you had to learn. Right? You mean to show up every time and show up on time and. And work hard and I mean all of the things that it takes in business, because there's never. You know, I've been running business for over 30 years, and there isn't. Like, you can't call in sick, you know, and you just. You don't think about it, am I doing this or am I not doing it? You just. You're doing it. It's all on you and I. And it's similar in the military.

So true. We had a saying in the military that we get more stuff done before 9am than the rest of the world does all day. And I hope I don't offend anybody, but I want you to know I get more stuff done before 9am than you do all day and just deal with it. That's just how it is. And you can probably catch up, but right now, that's probably the case.

Probably the case. Probably even more than me. So I was talking to them, not you, Alex. Well, that's okay. That's okay. And I was thinking that maybe I'm successful because I don't like marshmallows.

You'd be like, I don't want to eat that anyways. Yeah, I don't like, keep your three marshmallows.

I lucked out. I lucked out. So. So there are some of the viewers here that they're saying, I want to do that, too. I would love to have a podcast. I'm going to be disciplined. I'm going to do it. If you could just kind of step back a little bit and say, all right, these are the. If you're going to follow this path, these are the three things or the five things that you absolutely have to do. Could you share that?

I would love to. And let me just kind of start off by saying, like, I have built my business off of giving free, valuable and consistent content. Like, I've built my entire business off of that. So I want to continue doing that today. So the first thing I would say, if anybody is really interested in podcasting, there's a killer resource that I've created, 100% free, that's a complete step by step on how to podcast. Free podcast course dot com. Okay, so you visit that site, you can sign up for this course, all the tutorials. It's a complete A to Z course. Like, you'll be good to go.

Free podcast course dot com.

That's it. So simple, completely free, and it's everything you need to know. But I'll kind of step back and post, like, three things that are really important from within that that I really want to talk about. Number one, you have to have the right topic when you start. So a lot of people say, oh, John Lee Dumas is a successful podcaster and this is what he podcasts about. I'm just going to copy that now. We're all standing up on the shoulders of giants, but we can't copy and mimic exactly. We need to find our own voice, our own unique value distinguisher that's going to bring us out. So your topic is very important. It has to speak to you and through you. So I'm a big believer, number one, in finding the zone of genius. And there's a great book by Gay Hendricks called the Big Leap. He talks in depth about this. I had him on the show. He's an amazing guy. Love the connection. And the zone of genius, for me, when it comes to podcasting, is where your passions overlap with your expertise. So you've been building an immense amount of skills, Ali, for years and years. And you also have passions and things that you are fired up and excited about. When you can find the intersection where they overlap, there's going to be a bunch of them. But your zone of genius lies in that Overlap. It doesn't just lie in the space where you're just passionate or the space where you just have skills. It's in the overlap. So somewhere in there, your podcast topic lives. So you just need to understand that and find that. So that's so important. Number two, your avatar is so critical, and your avatar is your one perfect listener all the time. Ali when you know, we have Podcasters paradise, which is my podcasting premium community that I run. You know, we have this one course that says, you know, share with us your avatar. So people will write in their avatar and they'll send it in to us like, you're one perfect listener. We're very clear. And they'll say, oh, my avatar are females between the ages of 14 and 44 that live in the Midwest, that want to go to nursing or whatever it is. And I'll be like, when's the last time you've had a conversation with a 14 year old girl?

Right.

And then another conversation with a 44 year old woman? Those are wildly different conversations.

Yeah.

So it's good to have a targeted demographic. But that is not an avatar. An avatar is one perfect listener. So I won't go into super detail about who my avatar is, because I could. I've written over 2,500 words just about him, so I know him inside and out. But my avatar is Jimmy. He's 36 years old. He has a wife and two kids, ages 3 and 5. He drives to work by himself every single day. It's a 25 minute commute to work. He hates his job, he commutes home, he gets stuck in traffic. So it's a 32 minute commute home. He gets home, he plays with his kids, he has dinner with his family, he puts his kids to bed. Then he hangs out at the end of the day and he says, why do I spend 90% of my waking hours doing things I don't enjoy doing? And 10% doing what I love, spending time with my kids and my family. Jimmy is my avatar. And again, I could go on about.

Him forever, but hopefully after listening to a few episodes, he's gotten rid of that.

That's why he's my avatar, because every morning he needs to be listening to EO Fire when he's driving to work. So he's hearing my guests like, you share your worst entrepreneurial moment and your lessons learned. And when he's driving home, he needs to listen to my episodes with the aha moments and how they turned the idea into success so he can understand what it looks like, to become a success. And then instead of having a little pity party for himself at home, on the couch at night by himself, he's actually listening to my lightning rounds, where people like yourself are sharing the best advice you've ever had, your favorite resource, your best book, the $500 question, et cetera. So Jimmy's my avatar, so I know exactly who he is. So. So anytime I come to any fork in the road, I just say, wwjd, what would Jimmy do? And that's my answer to every single fork in the road. I don't put the weight of the shoulders on me, the podcast host, to make those decisions because I'm not the perfect listener. I'm the host of the podcast. So I go to my perfect listener. He makes the decisions and he knows all of them because I gave him all the knowledge that he has. And we're off to the races.

And that's really with any business. I mean, you always need to. So if you have a retail store, you need to buy merchandise that the customers would want, not necessarily what you would want.

Exactly. So because if you are creating a store filled with what you would want and you're just different than 99% of people that are coming in your door, you're going to fail.

It's just a reality, right? You'll be the only one using the merchandise.

So the third and final thing that I'll just brush over and again we go into in depth in the free podcast course is equipment. All you need is a computer, a microphone, and recording and editing software. Those three things, nothing more. So for a computer, again, it could be anything. It could be a tablet, could be a laptop, a desktop. For a microphone, I highly Recommend. My number one recommendation is called the ATR 2100. It's a dynamic microphone, USB. It'll plug right into your USB port. It's $60 on Amazon prime shipping, it'll be. And then recording and editing software. There's really three options. And this is where you record and edit your podcast all in one place. Adobe auditions Amazing. For Mac and PC, it is 20 bucks a month. Audacity, completely free, but it's for Mac and PC as well. And then there's GarageBand, which comes pre installed on all Macs. So that's all you need to know. And you can literally be sharing your voice, your message, your mission with the world.

That's so exciting. What's that message? Are you ready to share that with the world and follow in the footsteps of the genius here himself and we are going to do. We're gonna do a contest here in a second because we want to give away John's beautiful Freedom Journal. So stay with us because we're going to ask some questions. We've got a couple books to give away. And I was, you know, I was looking through this myself, and I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to start using this thing. I absolutely love it. So why don't you share a little bit about this? What was the inspiration for it? And, yeah, love to hear.

Well, thank you for allowing me to share this, because this was my passion project for an entire year. So early 2015, I went to my audience and I said, what are you struggling with? Fire Nation, which is what I call my audience. And overwhelmingly, they came back and they said, john, like, we see that your guests know how to set and accomplish goals, but we struggle with that. How do you set and accomplish goals in an effective manner? So I said, I'm gonna solve this problem. I'm gonna create the bridge to this solution. Like, I'm gonna bridge that gap. But I didn't want to just do it with a PDF or with an app that could be easily modified or just kind of hidden, like, you know, on your computer. Like, I wanted to be something, like, of substance that would be, like, on your desk or on your nightstander. You'd pull it out of your book bag at Starbucks. You'd be, like, proud to hold it like something that was worthy of your number one goal. Like, I want it to feel, like people to feel like this is worthy of their number one.

And I love that. I like to hold a book in my hand and especially a journal, you know, to be able to. There's something energetically when you're writing with a pen more than when you're typing.

On the computer, both consciously and subconsciously. Like, what flows from your mind through your hands onto paper. It makes it real.

Yeah.

Nothing against typing. I type my fingers off every single day. But something about writing and bringing it back to the core will always be incredibly special. So I spent a year, literally 2015, crafting, creating, editing, just adjusting what I now consider the perfect goal accomplishing journal. And what the Freedom Journal is, is setting and accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days. So it's a very specific journal for a very specific point. There's a lot of journals out there that I love. But one thing that I realized when I was journaling, I'm like, you know, this is beneficial to me, this journaling, but it's just I'm not getting anywhere. Like I'm doing the same thing every day, which is fine and that was helpful. But I am a very goal oriented person. So the Freedom Journal is not only fulfilling a need that I have, but I could just see and I got the feedback from my audience that they were having the same problem. So the Freedom Journal starts off by teaching you how to set a smart goal, which is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant time bounds. So there's five attributes to a smart goal and you have to hit every single one if you are really going to set a goal that's worthy and worthwhile accomplishing. So we teach you how to set that smart goal and then we guide you in a very unique step by step process over the next 100 days in the accomplishment of that goal. Now, you will accomplish your number one goal in 100 days. If you follow this process, period. It is an absolute JLD guarantee it's going to happen. We have 10, 10 day sprints. So every 10 days you're accomplishing a micro goal that's getting you 10% closer to your overall goal. Every 25 days you're doing a quarterly review where you're looking back and really identifying what went wrong in the previous 25 days. So you can adjust and pivot, but also what went right so you can amplify what went right. And then every day and every night you have specific tasks that you are completing within this so that you over 100 days accomplishing your number one goal, period. We set records in Kickstarter. We launched it on January 4th. It became the sixth most funded Kickstarter campaign of all time in the publishing category. We have sold now over 11,500 journals to date. And we just continue to have an absolute blast. And the home for the Freedom Journal is just the freedomjournal.com and I want to be one really clear about one thing because you talked about how like, it is a very beautiful and like leather, it's faux leather. Like, I'm an animal lover. Like, I was insisting that this is going to be a faux leather, gold embossed, beautiful journal. And I just wanted to be something that people could be proud of, that they could have on the dress and be like, oh, like what is that? And they're saying, well, this my number one goal.

I love it. Because you say you're talking about the wonderful things that happen, then what you struggle with, but then what are the solutions for the struggle? Let's not stay in the struggle. Let's figure out what the solution is so then we can move on. Exactly right. And then you can learn from it. So I just think it's great. And I always say entrepreneurs struggle with this disease called E add, which is entrepreneurial add, and this is the medicine. So let's give a couple of these away. And let me, let me get onto the chat here, just rebooting here, and we're going to ask some trivia questions and I'm gonna let you ask the first question.

Sure.

All right, so here's the deal. Get ready, because the first person that answers this question is going to win. John Lee Dumas, the Freedom Journal.

So question number one. I am a podcaster, so it's going to be a podcasting suede question. What is the largest podcast directory in the world? In other words, where are most podcasts listened to? What directory holds and contains the most podcasts in the world? It's one simple answer, and the first person to answer correctly is going to get a Freedom Journal. Maybe we'll even open these up and I'll sign it and then we'll ship it off to you. So that could be pretty cool.

Yeah.

So the largest podcasting directory in the world.

Okay. Having a little bit of a challenge here. Hold on.

You might do the two finger split.

Yeah, yeah. Having a little trouble here seeing it, but we'll be able to tell who is the winner here by going back on there and seeing.

She just wants to give it away to her.

Can you, can you all see it? I got my team here. Who's the first person that answers the question? What's their name?

Judy Fricks.

Judy. Judy. All right, Judy.

Woohoo. Woohoo.

All right.

Or the streamers coming down.

Yeah, exactly. Okay, we are going to give another viewer a chance to win John's book in just a second. I'm gonna go on with the interview here. So besides the journal, which we know is phenomenal, what are some other rituals that you have?

So I'm a huge believer in meditation and I'm not good at meditating, but I like to do it daily. And I'm getting better because I'm using the right tools. I actually interviewed the founder of this company called Museum N U S E. And it's literally a little, kind of looks like a little headband that kind of hooks around your ears.

Yeah.

And it will measure your brain waves as you're meditating. And there's little speakers that hook over right over your ears. So as you're meditating, you're hearing the Waves crash against the ocean nice and softly. But then as your mind starts to wander and your thoughts get too busy, then lightning and thunder will come, and, like, you'll hear rain coming, and you'll be like, okay, got to focus again. Like, you'll hear it, and then when you really get into the flow, you'll start to hear birds tweeting.

You're like, that is incredible. So picking up the energy, the brain waves. That is so amazing. I've got to get one of those, because mine would be crashing all the time.

Yeah. But you recognize it, and then you're able to train your brain, because a lot of people struggle because they just try to meditate with no help, and they don't really know what they're doing. They have no guidance. And so they just spend, you know, basically 15 minutes just having all these crazy thoughts and thinking they're meditating. This forces you to get into the flow.

Right.

And I'm still a beginner, but I'm getting better.

Yeah, I've got to get one of those. That's fantastic. So in all of the things that you've achieved, which are quite a few in your young life.

Not that young.

So what are you most proud of?

I will say this. With the Freedom Journal, we'd already achieved a lot of financial success in my business prior to the launch of this, and with the size of my audience, I was pretty convinced that this is going to be a financial success. I mean, you know, getting to $453,000 in 33 days, it did exceed my expectations. But I did have big expectations. Like, we were thinking somewhere between 250 to $300,000 we would generate with this. So, like, going into that and knowing that that was our goal, I didn't just want this to become like another revenue stream for EO Fire. I wanted to make it even more special. So I contacted a good friend of mine. His name's Adam Braun, and he runs the company called Pencils of Promise. And what Pencils of Promise does is they build schools in developing countries for $25,000. So you write a check for $25,000. Your check is building from soup to nuts a school in a developing country. The. That will be there for generations to come, giving the gift of education. So we partnered up. The Freedom Journal, EO Fire and Pencils of Promise partnered up, and we launched this essentially together. And every time we hit a funding goal with the Freedom Journal, I wrote another check for $25,000 on behalf of the backers to Pencils of promise to build a school in a developing country. And over the course of the campaign, we built three schools. That is so exciting. Like, two are going to be in Ghana, one's going to be in Guatemala, and it's dedicated to the backers of the Freedom Journal. So everybody that purchased a Freedom Journal during the campaign has contributed to the building of those schools. And every single person that purchases the Freedom Journal from this day forward, a portion of every single sale is going to build more schools in developing countries. So what I'm really proud of is that I can look people in the eye and say, like, listen, give yourself the gift of accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days, and, like, you deserve that gift. And you're also giving the gift simultaneously of education to those less fortunate. I love that combination. It's really moving from success to significance, which is the move that I wanted to make. And we were able to accomplish that with the Freedom Journal.

That's beautiful. Perfect example of conscious capitalism. And I've heard about Adam's story and all that. He's doing so with pencils of promise.

Beautiful organization.

It really is. So what is ahead for you? What is on your bucket list? I know we were talking earlier about some big news and some exciting things.

Well, you know, what's really ahead for us is to continue to recognize what's working with an EO fire. And that's a lot, I think, a lot of entrepreneurs, and they start to achieve success, they start to lose sight of what got them there. So we do a big kind of accountability. We look back over what's really working, and we amplify those successes. And we've introduced some things over the past couple years that frankly have kind of stopped working or never really picked up steam. And we definitely prune those things pretty quickly so that we can spend our time, energy, and effort focusing on our successes. You know, Podcasters paradise, which is our podcasting membership community, we have over 2,800 members. We've done over three and a half million dollars in revenue in the past two years. Like, that's a massive success. We're focusing on that. The Freedom Journal, you know, it did $453,000 in just 30 days. And it's continuing to do, you know, thousands of dollars of sales every day. Now that we've opened the doors of the freedomjournal.com it's continuing to be a massive success. My podcast, you know, now my presence on Snapchat, like, we're identifying the things that are really working for our business and we're amplifying those.

So I think that's the Pareto's principle.

Yes. Right. 80, 20.

The 80, 20 really look at. Because so many entrepreneurs are spread too.

Thin, way too thin.

Right. And so try some things, do more of what's working, drop what's not.

Right. 20% of your actions are producing income, 80% of your desired results. When you recognize that, like, why are you doing the other 80% of crap that is not part of your 20%? You can take that time back, meditate, start exercising, do other things, focus on your 20 trapeze. Amazing stuff. One thing that you kind of alluded to a little bit is we actually are on the brink of a massive move. So Kate and I have been in San Diego since 2009. We did do a two year stint in my home state of Maine during these last seven years. But we've been in San Diego for a lot of these past seven years. And we're officially moving to Puerto Rico on May 1st. Every time I pronounce it, like on publicly or on Snapchat, I always have a Puerto Rican.

You've got the nice R. Rolling the.

R. I'm getting there. I'm getting there. Because I would just say Puerto Rico and they're like, no, this is how you say Puerto Rico. Oh, you got even a little hip swing. Yeah, pretty good. So we're moving there on May 1st. That's a new adventure, new chapter in our life, which we're very excited about. We get a nice Airbnb for the first couple months and we'll explore the island and find a more permanent home for the rest of the year.

And hey, this is the benefit of being an entrepreneur. And especially in the type of business that you have, you can really be anywhere. I mean, if there's good Internet, it's.

Got to be good Internet.

That's the crucial thing.

We are location independent entrepreneurs, but we do rely on solid and fairly fast Internet.

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of important.

Our grandkids will laugh at us and be like, what? Like, you can't just be anywhere in the world because Google Glimpse will be like hanging out above us, just giving us like, you know, a thousand download 100 upload speed for free. But until that day, we're still struggling.

Yeah, well, yeah, it'll be the olden days, but, well, I'm bummed that you're leaving San Diego, but gosh, we'll just have to come visit you in Puerto Rico.

Hey, four bedroom, four bath, plenty of room.

Well, we will Definitely be there, but let's give another Freedom Journal away. And so the trivia question is. And so, Jared, I'm going to have you follow this because you'll be better than I would will with it. How many recipes did. Oh, my gosh, now I can't remember his name from Kentucky Fried Chicken. Colonel Sanders. Did he bomb at before he came with the, you know, the successful recipe. That stuff still runs today. That's so healthy.

So healthy.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to go have some mashed potatoes after this. All right, so. Oh, well, we got. I know there's a tiny little delay here.

I'm sure there's a lot of sevens, but what's the right answer?

Do you have an answer?

You have to. Does he know what the right answer is?

I think he does know the answer.

Because what my answer was was not the right answer.

Do you know the answer? Oh, that's not good.

You can say it out loud then.

All right. Are there answers that come sevens? No, it was a lot more than seven.

I tricked you.

What are some of the answers I just seen everyone's writing seven. Oh, come on, people. Let's get a little more creative than that. He was totally guessing.

I really was.

Come on, one more. One more chance here. I feel like five more seconds.

Google, that you guys could probably be talking about.

I know. Really?

I'll let you know if it comes in.

All right. All right, well, let's. Let's give everybody just another second or two while I ask you this. So as we kind of sign off, this has just been so much fun. What are some words of wisdom, your brightest words of wisdom that you could share with our viewers?

Well, that Albert Einstein quote is really important. I'm not going to sign off with that, but I do want to reiterate that trying to become a person of success, but rather become a person of value, because if you put that first for me and for entrepreneurs in general, like, that is the path to success for sure. But the quote that I want to leave people with is a very simple Chinese proverb. If you want to be, do, like, it's really that simple. I wanted to be a podcaster, Ally. I had no experience, no skills. I was not going to be good for a significant amount of time, and I wasn't. But I had to podcast. That was the only way I was going to become a podcaster. I wanted to be a podcaster. I had to podcast. It was really that simple. And I really want people to understand it can be that simple. Like, just Fill in the word, podcast, whatever it is that you want to be. If you want to be a writer, write. If you want to be a videographer, do videos. Like, that's what you need to do is doing that thing. And it's going to take time and it's going to take effort. But being a podcaster has made me a much better speaker, presenter, webinar, host, you know, live tv, you know, co host, you know, you name it, fill in the blanks. Like, everything has been from that doing.

Your confidence rose after doing it over.

I mean, did Tiger woods sink the first putt that he ever took? You know, did Michael Jordan hit the first free throw he ever took? No. Like, it was thousands and thousands of hours of practice. You have to be willing to put in the work and just do that thing, right?

It's all fantasy if it's in your head, right? Thinking and thinking, and without launching and just putting it out there. Don't worry what it looks like, right? Just make it happen. And then you're gonna tweak it, improve it, embellish on it all along the way, which is what you have done. And so are there more answers? I'm gonna put a thousand.

Nine.

It's.

And some.

All right, it was a thousand. So whoever said. Who was the person that said a thousand?

Bernard.

Bernard. Bernard. Bernard. Lucky you. You get the Freedom Journal. Make sure you get their addresses and let's share the links again. We will put them up, but go ahead and share with everybody how they can hear your podcast and get the Journal.

Absolutely. So if you guys are interested in podcasting at all, I'll reiterate, my completely free course on podcasting is free podcast course dot com. Check it out. It's a killer course, beginning to end. If you're interested in checking out just what we have going on in general, our headquarters, our home, is eofire.com that's where all the magic happens, I like to say. And of course, if you're looking at learning a little bit more about the Freedom Journal, we have a killer website with a great video that talks about it and a lot more details@thefreedomjournal.com and again, a portion of every sale, which is on this page, by the way, which is on the. The freedomjournal.com is going to Pencils of Promise, and we will be building multiple schools together in 2016, which is so exciting.

Well, this has been awesome. So much value, right? That's where we're here to give value and just do what John said, right? If you want to be, do. And if you want to create success, think of giving value first. And on that note, we will see you again next Wednesday, 4 o' clock Pacific, 7 o' clock Eastern on Allie and you. Thank you, everybody. Bye.

Later, guys.