IAM2396 – Host of EOFire Shows the World the Power of Podcasting

John Lee Dumas, the founder and host of EO Fire (Entrepreneurs On Fire), an award-winning podcast with over 1,400 episodes and seven figures in annual revenue.

John explains how EO Fire has grown over the years, with 2,000 episodes and over 75 million listens to date.

He discusses the importance of providing value to the world, knowing that success will follow.

John emphasizes time blocking and how he uses Parkinson's Law to ensure focused and efficient work.

Additionally, John  values the ability to choose what he does daily, which contrasts with his previous experiences in the military and corporate world, where he had to follow orders.

Website: Entrepreneurs on Fire

LinkedIn: John Lee Dumas

Previous Episode: iam233-host-of-eofire-shows-the-world-the-power-of-podcasting

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Transcription:

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John Lee Dumas Teaser 00:00

We also have three physical products that are journals. One's the Freedom Journal, which is how to accomplish your number one goal in 100 days.

The other one's the Mastery Journal, which is how to master productivity, discipline, and focus in 100 days.

And the third is the Podcast Journal, create your podcast in 50 days. So we have those three physical products as well. We have a ton of free courses, a course on funnels, on goals, on podcasting.

Intro 00:28

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:54

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have John Lee Dumas of EO Fire. John, it's awesome to have you on the show.

John Lee Dumas 01:03

Gresh, I am glad to be here, brother. Thanks for having me.

Gresham Harkless 01:05

And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about John so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing.

And John Lee Dumas is the founder and host of EO Fire, an award-winning podcast where he interviews today's most inspiring entrepreneurs seven days a week.

With over 1,400 episodes and seven figures a year in revenue, John Lee Dumas has shown the world the power of podcasting. Prepare to ignite.

What I wanted to do was just start everything off to hear a little bit more about all the awesome things that you're doing.

And I wanted to ask you for what I call your CEO story. What led you to get started with your business?

John Lee Dumas 01:35

Yeah. So for me, I spent a life in my 20’s in the army, in corporate finance, in law school, and it was a great decade, but I never found my thing.

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But when I entered my 30’s, I said, you know what? It's time to become an entrepreneur, to become my own CEO.

And that's when I launched Entrepreneurs On Fire because I just wanted to talk to cool people, have great conversations and share value with the world through a medium that I loved, podcasting.

So back in 2012, I launched Entrepreneurs on Fire. Here we are seven years later, 2,000 episodes later, over 75 million listens to date with over a million listens every single month.

And the business does a couple mil a year. And here I am down in Puerto Rico, just living la vida loca. Life is good.

Gresham Harkless 02:19

There you go. There you go. Definitely living the dream. And now I wanted to hear a little bit more about what you're doing with the EO Fire, because I know you have tons of resources and information for podcasters and people that are trying to start businesses.

Could you touch a little bit more on that and what you guys are doing?

John Lee Dumas 02:31

Yes, we do a lot of things with entrepreneurs on fire. Of course, we have the podcast, which is completely free, just sharing value bonds with other entrepreneurs and people that are looking to get going.

We run Podcasters Paradise, which is the biggest podcasting community in the world where we teach people how to create, grow and monetize their own podcasts.

We're running that now for coming up on six years. We have over 2000 members and it's just a phenomenal community that just keeps growing.

We also have three physical products that are journals. One's the Freedom Journal, which is how to accomplish your number one goal in 100 days.

The other one's the Mastery Journal, which is how to master productivity, discipline, and focus in 100 days.

And the third is the Podcast Journal, create your podcast in 50 days. So we have those three physical products as well.

We have a ton of free courses, a course on funnels, on goals, on podcasting over eofire.com slash resources.

But our headquarters is eofire.com. So if you want to check out more, I'd love to have you guys over there. Subscribe to the podcast, listen away.

Gresham Harkless 03:34

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I definitely appreciate you for creating all that. I know when I first started getting podcast started, I went directly to you.

So it's great to hear that. Yeah, no problem. And I wanted to ask you for what I call like your secret sauce.

And this is what I usually explain kind of sets you apart or your organization apart. What do you feel kind of makes you unique?

John Lee Dumas 03:52

What I think makes me unique is that from day one of the podcast, I've had this mentality. Don't try to become a person of success, but rather a person of value.

And I know I made the mistake for over 10 years, those 20’s I talked about, of trying to chase success, become successful, and I never found success nor happiness.

But in my 30’s, I was able to flip that on its head. And I've really just focused on saying to myself, before I do anything, how is this adding value to the world?

How am I adding value to the world today with what I'm doing? And when I know that I'm doing those things, then I know I'm off in the right direction, which is super important.

So not focusing on success, focusing on giving value, knowing that success will follow, that has been the biggest key to my success. That's been my secret sauce.

Gresham Harkless 04:36

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And did the, I guess, did the light just flip where you understood that you wanted to do that? Or did something happen specifically that made you.

John Lee Dumas 04:44

It was a light that flipped because the reality was I had seen that quote before, which is an Albert Einstein quote, but it never resonated with me. When I saw it in my 30’s, I was like, oh, I get what he's saying. Let me do that.

Gresham Harkless 04:55

Yeah, that makes sense. It's like any good marketing, you have to hear it seven or eight times and then all of a sudden it clicks and then you take action from there.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack.

And this might be an Apple book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

John Lee Dumas 05:11

Well, the thing that makes me most effective and efficient in my life is my calendar. And by calendar specifically, I mean schedule once.

That is a tool, an app, a piece of software that I use that runs my life so that I can be as efficient as possible.

So for instance, one day per month, I am on up to 20 other podcasts in one single day. Now to make sure that runs effectively, everybody that books me to be on their show has to go through the scheduler and that gives them all the information they need.

It gives me all the information I need without me having to do all the direct communication back and forth, etc, etc.

So I run my life through my calendar. I love it. I'm obsessed with it. And I think everybody needs to have that tool in their toolkit to be effective as a CEO, as an entrepreneur, just as somebody who is going to be really effective with the use of their time.

Gresham Harkless 06:00

Yeah, absolutely. Time is one of those resources that you can't get back. So you want to make sure that you leverage that as much as possible.

And it kind of sounds like you do a little time blocking as well, too. So you make sure that you can be effective.

John Lee Dumas 06:09

Big time blocking. To me, Parkinson's law is real. Tasks will expand to the time that you allot.

So like honestly, if we allotted 30 minutes to this interview, we'd have a great 30 minute interview.

But we're going to get as much value in these 15 minutes as we would have in the 30 minutes because we've allotted a specific amount of time to it.

And so that's how I live my life. That's how I focus. That's how I make things happen.

Gresham Harkless 06:31

Absolutely. Absolutely. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you could happen to a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

John Lee Dumas 06:40

Honestly, I would tell myself to relax. I feel like too many people are going too fast, nose to the grindstone, working too hard.

And they're just not stopping to smell the roses. Like if I could go back in time, I would say, John, relax, focus on one thing, getting 1% better every single day, not 20%, not 100%, 1% better every single day.

That way you're not going to burn out. You don't get tired of what you're doing, sick of what you're doing.

You're not going to be putting out mediocre work. You're just going to be doing great stuff.

And for me, that's why I work in 100% 100 day sprints, I always have one big goal every 100 days.

And that's what I focus on to create whatever it is within that one big goal. That's my focus. That's my drive. That's my energy. And I keep that going.

Gresham Harkless 07:22

Absolutely, absolutely. And do you find that there's a reason for the 100 days and it's not 99 is that 200 or anything like that?

John Lee Dumas 07:27

100 days is a magical, to me it's just a nice round number where I can break it up into 10, 10 day sprints.

So every 10 days I know I'm getting 10% closer. Every 25 days, so there's four 25 day blocks, I do what's called a review.

A quarterly review to look back over those last 25 days and really identify what worked, what didn't, so I can go forward bigger and better.

Gresham Harkless 07:48

Absolutely. Absolutely. And now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO.

And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. But John, I want to ask you, what does being a CEO mean to you?

John Lee Dumas 07:59

To me, it means lifestyle freedom. It means location freedom because I'm an online CEO. It means financial freedom because I can make as much money as I'm willing and able to make.

And so I have those three freedoms, lifestyle, location, and financial freedom. That's what it means to be a CEO to me so I can wake up in the morning.

And I can do what I've chosen to do from my calendar. I can say, you know what, everything on my calendar, I put there. It was my choice.

And I haven't always lived that life. I was in the army. I was an officer for eight years. I know what it's like to wake up and to take orders all day long.

I was in law school. I was in corporate finance. I've lived those lives. And that's why I love this life that I'm living right now as my own personal CEO.

Gresham Harkless 08:43

Absolutely. And I definitely love that a lot of times you have to experience the alternative to truly appreciate the freedom that you spoke of.

So to be able to kind of balance those both and you having been in the military. So thank you for that.

And also going to law school and able to move over for that. So definitely appreciate you for that.

And John, I truly appreciate your time. What I want to do is pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know, and of course, how best they can find you.

John Lee Dumas 09:06

All I would say is to go back to what we shared with the Albert Einstein quote, try not to become a person of success, but rather a person of value.

Ask yourself that. What did I do today that was of value to the world? And if you can't quickly come up with something that was of real value.

That was providing a real solution to an actual problem that people are having, then you need to figure out what you can start doing going forward that's going to make sure you're answering that question, yes, in the future.

For me, all the magic happens at eofire.com. We have free courses for entrepreneurs, for future CEOs on podcasting, on funnels, on goals, on big ideas.

We have it all. It's waiting for you, eofire.com. Plus, my podcast is Entrepreneurs on Fire. I would love if you wanted to give it a listen. We drop value bombs there all the time and we have a blast doing it.

Gresham Harkless 10:01

Absolutely, absolutely. And we'll make sure to have those links in the show notes. But again, I appreciate you again for all you're doing and all the awesome stuff I've learned from you as well, too. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day. Enjoy Puerto Rico.

John Lee Dumas 10:11

Thanks. Take care, brother.

Outro 10:12

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase. It's a community.

Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at Blue16Media.com. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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