Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - YAPClassic: John Lee Dumas on Maximizing Productivity, Generating Passive Income, and How to Start a Successful Podcast | Entrepreneurship

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

From ages 26 to 32, John Lee Dumas went through what he calls his ‘six years of struggle.’ Fresh out of the military and bewildered with what to do with his life, he dropped out of law school and quit his corporate finance job after only one year. When he turned 32, he launched Entrepreneurs on Fire, the first daily entrepreneurship podcast, which skyrocketed him to success. In this episode of YAPClassic, you’ll learn how JLD monetized his podcast and his top tips for new podcasters. He also explains how he batches his time and utilizes his mornings to maximize productivity.  John is the founder & host of Entrepreneurs On Fire, an award-winning podcast where he interviews inspiring entrepreneurs to help you along your entrepreneurial journey. He’s also the author of The Common Path to Uncommon Success, a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment. JLD and his podcast have helped millions of people and revolutionized the podcasting space by putting out daily podcast episodes for over a decade.  In this episode, Hala and John will discuss:  - Being the only option for your audience  - Sticking to your vision amid negative feedback  - John’s unique process of prepping for daily interviews - How batching work can give you several days of free time  - You may be poorly utilizing your mornings  - How John started making 6 figures a month from podcasting  - John’s top tips for generating passive income  - The rise of the ‘procaster’ - How to start a successful podcast - And other topics… John Lee Dumas is the founder & host of Entrepreneurs On Fire, an award-winning podcast where he interviews aspiring entrepreneurs to help you along your entrepreneurial journey. He’s also the author of The Common Path to Uncommon Success, a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment. He has interviewed over 3,000 incredible entrepreneurs, including Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Barbara Corcoran, Tim Ferriss, and many more. JLD is also the creator of The Freedom Journal, The Mastery Journal, and The Podcast Journal, a series of journals dedicated to helping you master the necessary skills you need for success.  LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass, Have Job Security For Life: Sign up at yapmedia.io/course. Resources Mentioned: Entrepreneurs on Fire Podcast: https://www.eofire.com/  John’s Books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/John-Lee-Dumas/author/B00BJXAPKW?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true  John’s Journals: https://www.eofire.com/about/  Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship podcast, Business, Business podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal development, Starting a business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side hustle, Startup, mental health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth mindset.

Hey young improfitors, welcome back to another Yap classic. Today we're resurfacing my 2021 interview with John Lee Dumas, aka JLD. John is the founder and host of the first ever daily entrepreneurship podcast, Entrepreneurs on Fire. His podcast has nearly 4,000 episodes with over 100 million total downloads. JLD is an OG in the podcast game. He's a total legend. and he was the podcast prince well before I was ever the podcast princess. In this episode, John and I talk about how he monetized his podcast and his top tips for new

podcasters. He also explains how he batches his time and utilizes mornings to maximize productivity. And though this interview is from two years ago, now is still the best time to start a podcast. In fact, I recently interviewed Neil Patel. He's one of our generation's top marketing and SEO experts. and he says that podcasting is one of the top marketing trends in 2023. So if you have an idea for a podcast that you've been kicking around, maybe now is the time to take that leap.

Let's dive right into my interview with John Lee Dumas. Hey, John, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. Paula, I am fired up to be here. I can't wait to chat. Yeah, me too. I've been following your journey. I know you've been doing this since 2012. And when it comes to podcasting,

you are really like best in class. Your website is best in class. Your processes are best in class. The way you organize your show is best in class. The way you prepare your guests is best in class. You are a legend when it comes to this space. Everybody respects you in this space. So I know that it always wasn't like this.

You actually weren't a natural entrepreneur, right? And you're known as this like big entrepreneur now, but actually you didn't start that way. You had a very traditional career. And when you were 26 to 32, I heard you say in the past that it was the worst time in your life. So tell me why that was the worst time in your life. What were you going through, share with the listeners, what that was like? Yeah, so I had a great life. You know, I spent the first 18 years of my life in Maine in a very small town and in great high school experience. Went to college on an Army scholarship in Rhode Island. So I loved my college experience.

And then from 22 to 26, I was an officer in the Army, which had its ups and downs. I spent, you know, some time in Iraq, so during a war. So that was pretty intense for obvious reasons. And then when I left the military from 26 to 32, those years that you mentioned, I called them my six years of struggle because that's not really trying to find what the rest of my life was going to look like. Like, was it going to be law school? No, I dropped out. Was it going to be corporate finance? No, I quit after a year. Was it going to be commercial real estate, residential real estate? And none of it really clicked for various reasons. And I was struggling. as a result. But at 32 years old, I did have an idea to launch a daily podcast interviewing

entrepreneurs and nobody was doing anything close to that back then. So the day that I launched, it was the best daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. It was the worst daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. It was the only daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. And that's one of my biggest pieces of advice to people today is how can you be the only? Because you're not going to be good when you start. Nobody's good when they start something new. So how can you be the only? Just like back in the 90s, I don't even know if you can remember this holla, but there used to be one blockbuster in town. So if you wanted to rent a movie, you had to go to that blockbuster. They were the only game in town. That's why they won until, of course, Netflix destroyed them. But the thing is, how can you in your life be the

only? I was the only daily podcast, innovating entrepreneurs. So even though I wasn't good and I wasn't good, I was the only option for people. So I just brought great guests on and I said as few of words as possible. I stepped out of the way and I let Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, I let them provide the value

and then I just shipped the product and I got a little bit better every single day. And Hala, I was doing seven days a week, 365 a year for 2,000 days in a row for five and a half years. So that's how I got good. Yeah, it was all about putting in those reps. I love that. And I think you call that unique value differentiator UVD, right? I've heard

you talk about that before. So that's really cool. It's very important to have a niche. It's very important to stand out, be different. That's what you did with your daily show. But you actually had some doubters. You had a mentor. Her name was Jamie Masters, right? And you actually hired a mentor to prepare for your podcasting journey. You decided you weren't going to do it alone. You were going to try to learn from someone who's already been down that path and has done it successfully. So you invested in yourself and you got a mentor. But this mentor who's been in the space and you really respected her, she told you, hey, a daily show's not possible. It's never going to happen. It's never going to work. You're going to exhaust yourself. You're never going to be able to research.

So how did you distill good feedback from bad feedback? Because I'm sure she gave you so much good advice, but then you stuck to your gut when it came to a daily show. Tell me about that. Yeah, so 95% of what Jamie told me, I listened to because I wanted to be a successful business podcast host. She was a successful business podcast host. She'd been running her podcast to the eventual millionaire for over a year at that point. And she had a lot of great connections, a lot of great knowledge. She had made a lot of mistakes, which she was able to help me avoid. She had a lot of successes that she was able to really guide me towards. And the reality was she did not think a daily show was possible for a number of reasons. But her reasons just really didn't make sense to me.

She said, well, you know, John, it's just so much hard work. It's going to be so busy. And I'm like, I know it is, but this is what I've committed to. So why would I not want to work hard? And then she said, and there's just like, you have to find guests. There's not that many successful entrepreneurs out there. And I knew that wasn't true. I knew that there was a countless amounts.

And in fact, as you and I are sitting here today, I get over 400 pitches every single month for entrepreneurs trying to get on my show. And by the way, most of them are successful, but I just don't have room for everybody. And it's just like, that's never been the case. So in my gut, in my heart, I knew that I was not going to be good when I started. So I had to be different when I started. And I also had to put in the reps like you mentioned. It's so important so I could actually get good.

Doing one show per week, just doing 52 per year? Come on. I'm not going to get good practicing once per week. Is there an NBA basketball player that's ever made the pros by practicing one day per week? Of course not. You do it every single. day you put in those reps. And so I knew Jamie was wrong there, but I also love the fact that she said that because I said, well, man, if one of the top business podcasters thinks it can't be done

and I figure out a way to do it, that's the opportunity. Yeah. I love how that fired you up instead of deterring you. That's like such a great unique quality because a lot of people would just, you know, take that advice and kind of think of another idea. But it's great that you actually, you know, push through and now you're one of the biggest podcasts out there. So tell me about this. I know that you batch your podcast. We're going to get into your productivity hacks in a bit. But how do you end up studying for that many podcasts? Do you do prep for your podcasts or is it just on the fly? Like what's your process for prepping for each one of these guests? So listen, I love that you do prep. That's your style and I respect it. I think it's a great philosophy. It's just not my style.

I don't like to prep. I don't want to prep. And one thing that I like, by the way, is going into interviews curious, not having the curse of knowledge. Because for me, I know that when I go into an interview kind of clueless and curious, I'm going to ask the questions that I know my listeners have because I have the questions. I don't know. I don't have that curse of knowledge.

So a lot of times, me doing prep if I had done it, would have made for a better interview, for sure. But sometimes, because I don't do prep, I'm asking questions that. I know my listeners have. And one of the biggest compliments that I get from my listeners that I love is they say, man, John, it just seems like you're always asking the question that I have when I'm listening to the show. And I'm like, yes, that's my goal because my listeners can't raise their hands in the audience and ask questions. So I need to be the person that's asking questions for them. Because listen, I've been running a multi-million dollar business for eight years now. Like, I'm in a different place than most of my listeners. So I don't really have the same questions likely that they have because

they haven't yet gotten to my level of success. But it's still my job is the host to be having the questions answered that they have brewing in their mind as are listening to that content. So I go in clean slate, no zero prep, and I just do my best. And also, I think it kind of makes me better on my feet too, because I'm always having to think. I don't have the super, super prepped show that I can kind of rely on and go back to, which again, I love shows that are super prepped. I've been on a ton. I think they're fantastic. Just not me and not my style. And I think that's a great lesson for everybody listening is like, what's your style?

Maybe you want to be that super prepper. Maybe you want to have zero prep or maybe you want to be somewhere in between. And guess what? It's your show. It's your rules. Yeah, I totally agree. It's so funny. We are like polar opposites then because we do so much research at Younger Profiting Podcast.

But I have clients like you who also just don't really like to do research and prefer. It's really up to everyone's style, like you said. So let's go back to when you first started becoming an entrepreneur, when you were going to make that decision, you decided you were going to do this daily show, you were going to enter the market with something completely different. And at the time, I think you were in real estate. And so you had a very traditional background. I'm sure there was a lot of naysayers, whether it was like your family, your friends, maybe internally, you had some doubts. Like what made you decide to be an entrepreneur and not start this as a side hustle? Like that's one of my biggest questions for you. because a lot of people start a podcast on the side because it's very uncertain, especially in 2012. Nobody knew that you could make money off a podcast, right? So how did you decide, like, I'm just going to do this 100% in and become an entrepreneur? I think this does go back to know thyself. And I mean, Hala, I'm just going to, again, reveal something about myself that, you know, a lot of my listeners now, but I'm just kind of an all or nothing kind of person.

Like, to me, I'm not the kind of person that just dips my toes in the water and it's like, okay, I guess the temperature feels good. It's like, I'm either just going to jump in to the water, or I'm just not going to do it. It's like literally one of the two. And that was kind of my attitude with entrepreneurship. And luckily, because of my ROTC Army scholarship in college, I had no debt. Luckily, because of my four years as an officer in the Army, I had some decent savings. I had six figures worth of savings. And single guy didn't have much overhead. I could live on that for a significant amount of time. So I had the opportunity to literally make. no money for 18 months, 24 months. I had that. I didn't want that. I didn't want to make no money for

24 months. But if the worst case happened, I could still be getting by on that because of how I set myself up financially up to that point at 32 years old. And I said, you know what? I could just dip my toe in and do like one episode per week or maybe one per month. But I'm not going to get good at podcasting doing that, going back to our practicing and putting in the reps conversation. And it's just not my personality. I'm either going to go all in. It's going to be all that I do. And I was going to be all consuming or I'm out. I've been that way with my relationships. I'm either like all in a relationship or I'm out. You know, we're either like together or we're not. You know, like for me, like with sports, like I'm either all into this new sport like for me right now is pickleball. I'm all

in a pickleball or I'm not. It's like one of the two. And like to me, that's just my personality. And I wanted to leverage that. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. You're able to put out this daily show and you're able to do it in a way where I've heard you say that you don't work that much. You say, you know, everybody thinks you're super busy, but you actually aren't really working as much as people think you are. So talk to us about batching, how you batch your episodes, why you do that and kind of the power of batching. You have done your research. I mean, you're basically taking the words out of my mouth in these scenarios because it is true. I honestly don't work that.

hard. Now, there is an asterisk there because I work unbelievably hard three or four days per month. Like, I'm putting in long days. And this happens to be one of them, by the way. You are one of 20 interviews I'm doing today. This is a very hardworking long day. I'm doing more interviews today than most people are going to do this year, period. But that's how I operate. I'm either all in or I'm out. And so back to the batching thing. I'm batching interviews on other shows today. just like last week was my interviews for entrepreneurs on fire. I did eight back-to-back interviews in one day for entrepreneurs on fire. I love it. It fits my personality because Hala, I wake up in the morning and I say, today is entrepreneurs on fire day. It is my Super Bowl. I'm from New England,

so I love the Patriots. I love Tom Brady. Tom Brady wakes up on Sundays and he's like, today is my Super Bowl. I'm going out and I'm playing a football game. I'm giving it everything I got. And that's my attitude on my interview batch days. I wake up in every interview I'm giving it everything I've got because guess what? It's my one Super Bowl. And then I'm going to have two, three, sometimes four weeks before I do another one of those days. So it's not like I'm doing those days back to back because my head would explode. I'd pop off because it is a lot of work. It is a lot of mental bandwidth and energy and it's tough and it's you know I'm zonked by the end of the day but I've left it all on the table and then that opens me up to relax the following day or the following week

to focus on other things to just kind of like keep my energy in check and balance like that so to me bashings everything because it gets I get in the zone I crush the eight interviews and then I'm then I turn off if I had to do one every single day there'd be days where I'm I'm just like, oh, I just don't feel like turning on all my equipment and like getting everything all set up. And I just don't feel like doing one interview today. Like, I'll have days like that for sure. And I'm glad I don't do interviews those days. But when it's my Super Bowl, one day I've got to commit to. And again, at most two days per month for my entrepreneurs on fire interviews, man, I am 100% on all the time for those days. It goes back to you the fact that you didn't do it as a side hustle. Because if you did it as a side hustle,

because if you did it as a side hustle, you wouldn't be able to just dedicate a full day towards batching. Like, that's the situation that I'm in. I've been doing this as a side hustle for two years just now, transitioning out of my job at Disney streaming. And I just can't imagine the growth that I would have had if I did this full time, you know? And so it's just so incredible.

And like the way that you've structured it makes so much sense and you probably just have such a fulfilling life because you get to do everything that you love and still work on something that you love, but in a very super, super productive way. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. At Yap, we have a super unique company culture.

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of financial services. Hello, young improfitors. Running my own business has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done, but I won't lie to you. In those early days of setting it up, I feel like I was jumping on a cliff with no parachute. I'm not really good at that kind of stuff.

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So when you want more for your business, more privacy, more guidance, more free resources, Northwest Registered Agent is where you should go. Don't wait and protect your privacy, build your brand, and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit Northwestregisteredagent.com slash Yapfree and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registeredagent.com slash yapfree. something else that I've heard you say before in the past is that your first hour or your day, you feel like the most mentally productive. So talk to me about like why is it important to think

about when you do your work? And how did you figure out that your first hour of your day is kind of the most important when it comes to your productivity? Yeah, listen, a lot of people wake up and it's all about OPP, other people's problems. They jump on email and it's about people wanting this from them, wanting that from them, meeting this. They jump on social media and it's other people's problems, other people's outrage, other people's anger. And they do all of those things first. Like, this is the first thing they get into. And then by the time they finally shift back to like what they should actually be working on and what they should be doing, like the content that they should be creating, they're zonked because their brain's been like getting pinged by all these like,

help me, help me, help me, hate me, hate me, love me, love me, love me. And it just never works and they're just like, oh, I don't have any energy for my own stuff right now. So I'll do it tomorrow. And then tomorrow is a repeat of today. And you never get anything unique or special done. You don't build anything meaningful. So I actually wrote my first traditionally published book in 2020. And I knew that if it was going to be a great book, that I was going to dedicate the first two hours of every day to nothing else except writing that book. So I woke up in the morning. My phone's in airplane mode. It stayed in airplane mode. I came in to my office here. I brewed a cup of coffee. I made some tea. I did my thing. I hydrated.

But then boom, I turned my computer on and nothing came on except my Word document. And I wrote for two hours. Not two hours straight, by the way, because I'm a big believer in Sprint. So for me, I've just found out over time that 42 minutes is really a great time for me to work. So I like to work for 42 minutes. I set a timer. And it's called the Pomodoro method, by the way. And for those 42 minutes, I had zero distractions. 42 minutes works for me because I know that I can get a lot done in those 42 minutes, but it doesn't seem like it's this long time frame, this daunting. So if I knock it out 42 minutes, the timer's going, and then the timer goes off, I stop.

I take 18 minutes, the remainder of that hour, the next 18 minutes, and I relax. You know, I might do some stretching, do some meditation, do some breathing exercises. and then my next 42-minute sprint starts, and then I'm done for the day, writing for that book. I wouldn't allow myself to any more writing. Just those two 42-minute blocks. It took a total of two hours every day. That's it. In over six months, I wrote 71,000 words, 273 pages.

My book was finished ahead of schedule because I committed to that. And it's great because I gave my best, most uncluttered, most energetic. time of my day to the book writing process. And I'm convinced that's why I beat my timeline. There is some great book. And I got everything accomplished that I wanted to because I dedicated that portion of my day, the best part of my day to that process. That's amazing. And so this is not one of your journals, right? Did this book come out already? So the book is available for pre-order. And just knowing how amazing and big of a following you have, I would love to talk about it, really quickly. So over 3,000 interviews I've done to date now. I've interviewed people for thousands and

thousands of communities of hours. And I've taken all of those successful entrepreneurial tactics, strategies, stories, and I've boiled it down into 17 steps, 17 steps that is a roadmap to uncommon success. And I've titled the book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success. And I've titled the book, the common path to uncommon success. And it is a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment. Period. End of story. I'm a little controversial here, but I believe this. Like, if you can't find your version of uncommon success after reading this book, you should not be an entrepreneur. Go do something else. And nothing's wrong with not being an entrepreneur. Not everybody should be. And this book will tell you and show you if you have what it takes or not. And it's 17 clear steps.

It was pretty cool, Hall, as I brought in 17 entrepreneurs to share how they use each step in their journey as well. So it's a very impactful, amazing book. Pre-orders are available right now. We have sick bonuses that come with it, like hundreds and hundreds of dollars of real value and bonuses if you pre-order. And I mean, these are real dollar amounts. Like, we're going to ship all three of my journals to your door as a pre-order bonus. These are $39, $39, $49.49 journals that you can buy on Amazon right now. This is real value. And the other four bonuses are crazy good as well. So anybody that wants to learn more, visit Uncommon Successbook.com. Amazing. So exciting. And I can vouch that everybody loves his journals, you know, super highly rated. So if you can get that as a bonus, that's amazing. So you have

definitely achieved uncommon success. When you started your podcast, after 13 months, you had already hit 100K in revenue. So that is pretty much unheard of. It's crazy. And so I want to understand, like, what was that growth like for you as a podcaster? Like, what was it like when you first started? When did you start getting huge download numbers? Was there some sort of event that triggered that? How did you promote it? Like, how did you end up getting the downloads that you do? And then how did you first start to generate money? Like what was your monetization journey like? So the first 12 months were not pretty monetization-wise.

Like $27,000 was like our total revenue over 12 months, which isn't terrible, but it's not awesome either. And it was really month 13, the one that you mentioned, where we actually had our first six-figure month. And that was six figures of net profits. So just over $100,000. And I am very proud to say that we've now published 86. income reports every month for the last 87 months. So for 87 months in a row,

we've had a net profit of over $100,000 every single month. So fantastic as far as like consistency with bringing the revenue in, which of course leads back to the fact that we are providing massive value to a lot of people. Like that's what's resulting in the $100,000 of net profit or more every single month. So at first, you know, again, I was like, I'm just going to create a daily podcast, interviewing entrepreneurs, and I'll let my audience tell me what the best path to monetize is. And so I kept asking them, what are your biggest struggles? What are your biggest obstacles? So I could create solutions for them in the form of products and services and communities. And pretty quickly, my, and again, by quickly, I mean over 12 months, my audience

told me, hey, we'd love to be part of a mastermind. So I created Fire Nation elite, which was a $150 per month mastermind per person per month. And we had 100 people join. So that was five figures of monthly revenue the day that we opened it up. And again, that was not month one. That was deep into our year of podcasting. Also, people were asking for me to coach them one-on-one. So I was getting some one-on-one coaching revenue. People were asking how to podcast. So we launched Podcasters Paradise, which is now the biggest podcasting course and community in the world. We generated over $7 million to date in revenue just from podcasters paradise. And we continue to bring in people every single day into that course,

people who want to learn how to create and grow and monetize their podcast. And again, that was just me not saying, oh, I should create a podcasting course. It was me saying, Hala, what are you struggling with? And you saying, well, John, I'd love to start a podcast and I don't know how to do it. And I was like, oh, wow, I've gotten like 10 people asking that question. Let me create the solution for them. and so on and so forth. And that's been the evolution of our podcast is anchoring on those, you know, for 2,000 episodes in a row, those daily episodes. Now we're at four days per week.

And actually in 2021, we're bumping it up to five days per week. But creating massive value for freedom of my audience, asking them what their biggest struggle was and then creating the solution for their struggles. Yeah. That's so cool, you know. And it wasn't about the vanity metrics from what you're saying. It wasn't CPM sponsorship deals or anything like that. It was totally about having a connection with your audience and having them trust you enough to buy from you. And that's really how you generated money. And it's so interesting to me. So for me, I generate money off my podcast. I started a podcast marketing agency. So I have all these top podcasters. And so like I help them get guests, prepare for their shows, do their LinkedIn marketing, their Instagram marketing,

their video marketing, all that kind of stuff. and that's how I've been able to generate like big dollars for all these top podcasters celebrities. And you did it a totally different way. So it's just so cool that there's so many avenues to kind of monetize like how you build money around your podcast or build a business around it, I should say. Yeah. And by the way, your idea is fantastic. And it was actually one that I tried back in 2013, but it was too early then. Like there just wasn't enough interest in the podcasting space. And then I had to find other ways to monetize. And then, you know, by the time, it became something that was viable, which is what you're doing now. You know, I just have

other focuses and other income streams that I don't want to add that to my plate. But that's just a great way of, you know, sharing with everybody watching and listening that, like, timing can be so important too. Like, I tried things that were awesome ideas. It was just the wrong time for them. I was too early. Or in some cases, I was too late. And, you know, for you, your timing was perfect. Yeah, that's so interesting. So, One other thing that I want to talk about is the fact that you're amazing at passive income. You're just so good at it, whether it's affiliate marketing, whether it's, you know, you partnered with podcast websites.com and basically what I heard is that you do like a 45 minute webinar each month.

And that's all you do for that business. Basically, you just help bring in the leads doing that webinar. And so there's so many different examples of you kind of making money without doing too much work. And I'm jealous of you because the marketing agency is a lot of. to work. And I'm sure you basically finish your book and then it's off to the race as you finish your course and then people just keep buying it. So like what's your philosophy on that and how can people like learn from you in terms of like thinking about ways to make money without the daily grind and work that it takes to make money typically? I always ask the question, number one, like how does this scale? How could I potentially leverage this? Maybe not right away because I've got to

put in the initial work and the initial grinds, but what would this look like if it could scale and I could leverage this? And another great example that you haven't mentioned, because you brought up a couple great examples, but is me realizing that, hey, my audience loves click funnels. They need click funnels because it's a great software and you should be using it to create funnels and landing pages and webinar registrations and all this stuff. And we use it. We've used it for years. So I said, well, how would I create a free course that's going to be like four video tutorials that I call Funnel on Fire? And I just teach people how to create a funnel that converts. And then at the end of it, I just say, oh, by the way, I hope you enjoyed this free course. If you want to build your own funnel,

I use ClickFunnels. So I recommend it. Here's my affiliate link. And Hala, we've generated over $1.4 million in revenue just by promoting ClickFunnels. And so at the end of my podcast, every like five or six episodes, I have rotating calls to action. So every five or six episodes, one of those rotating calls to action will be, hey, if you want to learn how to create a funnel that actually converts, I have a free course. Visit funnel onafire.com. People will go there. And again, I created that course years ago. I haven't touched it since. It's just an evergreen, valuable course on the idea of funnels. And people will go through that course. They'll build up reciprocity towards me because I'm giving them free value through this training. That's just for video tutorials. And then when I ask them to join

ClickFunnels through my affiliate link, those that want to join ClickFunnels, use my affiliate link because, again, the rest of the process is there. And so now, you know, I'm getting checks from ClickFunnels for $10,000 and $15,000 a month. And I have for years and years and years because of the clients that I send them. It's amazing. It's so cool how you've built this up. So the last question I have for you is basically advice for new podcasters. So the podcasting game has changed drastically. You know, when you were first coming on, it was so easy to kind of land big guests because there was no other big entrepreneurship podcast out there. So you were able to get Gary V. Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin. And now it's much harder. I actually was very lucky to interview Seth Godin recently.

But like it's much harder. Thank you. Thank you. It was like one of my highlights of as being a podcaster because he's amazing. But anyway. Anyway, it's way harder. And I think it's even way harder to make a splash on Apple. I think in general, Apple is losing market share. It's not the same how it was in terms of like word of mouth and in general. There's a lot more platforms you need to think about. So in your opinion, like, where would you recommend a podcaster to kind of pay attention to

when it comes to their success as podcasting? Like in terms of promotion, in terms of getting guests, like what's your advice for a podcast that's starting in 2021, knowing how different the game is these days. Listen, the biggest piece of advice is you're not going to just come on and interview entrepreneurs and, like, build a multi-million dollar business like I did, because that is so 2012. When I say that, like, half jokingly, but half serious, like, it was not unbelievably difficult to do in 2012 because, again, I was the only person doing this daily show.

And there wasn't a ton of business shows out there. Like, I was in the Apple podcast top 10 forever. because there just wasn't that much competition, and now there is. It's just a different ballgame. Spotify's coming in, spending nine figures to acquire Joe Rogan, millions and millions to acquire Michelle Obama and Prince Harry. And it's just like the money is pouring into the space now. And it's like we like to say the procasters have arrived now.

Like they're pros. People that are professionals are coming into podcasting now because it's the best place to be for people like you and I that, you know, can talk to talk and walk to walk and have the desire to work hard and do these different things. So if you're going to start a podcast, it's going to be a specific podcast. You have to be focused on delivering a specific solution to a real pain point, a real problem. And then you've got to be the best podcast doing that. And if you think, well, there's already five podcasts that are already out there doing this great, you're not niche enough. You've got to niche down and become the best podcast.

that's delivering the best solution for that specific real pain points and problem and struggle and obstacle and challenge. That's how you're going to win. And then when you want to grow the show, you've got to put in the reps. I mean, look at me, Hala. I'm still doing 20 interviews today on other people's shows. And by the way, very few of the shows that I'm on today have nearly as big a following as yours. And I don't even check. I don't even try to verify. I just say pretty much yes, because number one, I kind of look at it as a way of giving back to the podcasting community. so I'm happy to do that, which is why I limit most interviews to 15 minutes. You know, of course, you're a little bigger time, so I gave you double the time.

But the reality is, is I spend so much time every single month being a guest on other people's podcast because, hey, it's no secret that podcast listeners listen to podcasts. And so I just want to be one of seven podcasts that Hala's listeners listen to. Because Hala, they're not going to stop listening to your show. They love your show. But your average listener listens to six other podcasts. I want to become one of their six. Like listen to my show too.

So I'm on here trying to deliver value to your audience so that I become one of the seven podcasts that your audience listens to. And that's my schick and I'm sticking to it. It's such great advice. Thank you so much, JLD. You did such a great job. The last question I ask all my guests is, what is your secret to profiting in life? perspective. Because if you have the right perspective, you know that you're winning in the moment right now

because things could be so much worse. Like, yes, things could be better for all of us, but they could be so much worse. So perspective. I love that. And where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do? Well, listen to entrepreneurs on fire, my podcast, after, of course, you listen to Hollis podcast. And please check out Eofire.com. That's where of our free courses for entrepreneurs are. Awesome. Thank you so much. So much great podcasting advice.

So much great life advice. We appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you.