In this week’s episode I speak with John Lee Dumas, the founder and host of the award-winning podcast Entrepreneurs on Fire. His podcast reaches over 1M listeners per month and he’s interviewed more than 3000 amazing entrepreneurs, including Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Tim Ferriss.
Today, he switched seats to talk to me about his book The Common Path to Uncommon Success and how it helps entrepreneurs replace procrastination with the common sense approach. He also shares the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make, and why it’s never too late to start your own thing and be successful – if you respect one rule.
“If you can identify a real problem you can create the best solution towards and then produce content around it, you’re going to win.” - John Lee Dumas
Are you more of a reader? Scroll down to read JLD’s most inspirational insights from this interview.
What you will get out of this episode:
- How I got to know JLD (1:45)
- Jimmy, the perfect listener (2:48)
- Who JLD’s book The Common Path to Uncommon Success is for (6:20)
- JLD’s opinion on time (8:00)
- How JLD made time to write his book (9:55)
- Replacing procrastination with the common sense approach (13:36)
- Why JLD shares his numbers openly (16:45)
- How JLD’s business model works (19:40)
- The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make according to JLD (22:05)
- Why it’s not too late to launch your podcast (23:50)
The Common Sense Approach to Success – JLD’s Most Inspiring Insights
Here are the key take-aways and some of the most inspiring insights of my conversation with John Lee Dumas. (If you want to catch all of them, listen to the full episode!)
Time:
All we have in this world is time. So many people spend their time doing OPP – other people’s problems. Other people’s questions. Other people’s desires. You have to spend some of your time doing those things, but be specific about how you spend your time. I spend my time doing what my business needs. Producing the content that my podcast needs. I make sure that everything that is on my calendar needs to be there and is going to move my business forward. That’s how I win.
Meetings:
I only do 15 minute meetings because there’s no time to waste. When you have 15 minutes, you get it done in 15 minutes. I’m a big believer in setting time constraints. Parkinson’s law clearly states: Tasks will expand to the time allotted. If we allot 30 minutes to a task, it will take 30 minutes. If we allot 15 minutes, it will take 15 minutes.
Making writing his book a priority:
I made writing my book a priority. The first two hours of every single day were blocked off in my calendar to write. For 8 months, I wrote for 480 hours, but never more than 2 hours a day. Those are my two best hours of the day – I’m most fresh and clear.
The goal of his book:
Common sense isn’t common practice. People try to complicate things. They go overboard, overthink, stress, second guess themselves. I wanted to take all of that away. I wanted to gift them a 17-step roadmap they can follow to get to their version of financial freedom and fulfilment. This is what my book is about.
The biggest mistake an entrepreneur makes:
The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is they see someone doing something successful, and they launch a pale, weak imitation and end up not being successful. They’re not living in their zone of fire. As an entrepreneur, you need to identify your big idea. You need to be living in your zone of fire. Once you identify your big idea and live in your zone of fire, you’re going to win at a high level.
Starting a podcast:
It’s too late to launch a pale, weak imitation of other successful podcasts you see out there, but it will never be too late to do the following: Identify a void in the marketplace, become the best solution to this problem, and launch it – as a podcast, a coaching course, a YouTube channel. If you can identify a real problem you can create the best solution towards and then produce content around it, you’re going to win. But if you just jump into the fray doing what everybody else is doing, you’re going to get lost in the crowd.
JLD’s book The Common Path to Uncommon Success is available for pre-order now. Are you planning to pre-order it? Take a screenshot of your book-order and tag me and JLD on Instagram!
Connect with John Lee Dumas
- John Lee Dumas
- Entrepreneurs on Fire podcast
- Pre-order JLD’s book The Common Path to Uncommon Success