John Lee Dumas (2:53)

Yeah, it was massively different what you did. And I will get into it because basically what I think the entrepreneur's journey has to be something like this. And I'll kind of take a step back and just say, like, back in 2012, I said yes to everything because I was just starting out. I was trying to figure out how to podcast. You know, I was 30 years old. I was like, okay, like, I want this to work. I want to say yes to every opportunity because I'll learn something from everything. So I just said yes to everything. And some of those yeses turned out to be disaster. Some of them turned out to be amazing. And then some of them were something in between. And then as you start to kind of gain more success in your life as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, et cetera, as you mentioned, the demands start coming a lot harder and heavier. And also your opportunity cost gets higher and higher. Like, my opportunity cost was basically a zero back in the day because I had nothing going on. So I wanted to get something going on. So I was in the yes season, which I think a lot of starting out entrepreneurs and business owners need to be in the yes season. As you get more success, that changes. So then I start saying to myself, okay, every time I say yes to something, I'm saying no to everything else I could otherwise possibly be doing. And at that point, I was running a seven figure business. You know, I was, you know, very much on demand podcast. I was hosting, I was speaking at events, I was releasing books and journals and all these different things so that I was getting a lot of people that were trying to ask for requests, and then, you know, quote, unquote, demands my time. And so I just became in the no season, where I was saying no to everything because I wanted to just keep saying yes to the very few things that were working really well. And just laser focus on that, Travis. Like, you know, I love that word focus. Follow one course until success. And then here comes this. This dude Travis. You know, like many other dudes, by the way, that, you know, he could have. I get my. In my inbox to this day all the time. But instead of just, like, asking me to help him in some way or to do this or do that or, like, you know what it could be, it was. It was purely like, hey, listen, I've identified a way that I can help you. And then he laid out a specific plan on how he was going to help me. And so when I read this, it wasn't like, okay, like, this. This might be of benefit. It's like, oh, this is obviously a benefit. And, you know, one of the things that comes up is we've done multiple things together, but one of them comes up is I'd recently launched the Freedom Journal. And, like, I was to. To increase sales on that. And Travis is like, hey, I'm great at sales. I'm going to be honest with you because I've done sales door to door. I know how to take a no. I know how to negotiate, and I know how to use nlp. He's like, I will for free come to your next event with you, and I will stand at your booth for free, and I will sell the crap out of your book, the Freedom Journal. And I said, like, how can I say no to that? Like, I don't. I'm not going to stand at my booth because, like, I'm sticking on stages. I'm running around, like, taking selfies and signing things and, like, you know, trying to just be social and have fun. And Travis is willing to do that because, of course, I saw the benefit for him. I mean, obviously there was benefit for him. Obviously, there's a huge benefit for me. But what he did that was so super unique is he came right to the heart of the matter of, this is how I can help you in a major way for free. No risk. What do you say? And I said, let's do this. And of course, he crushed it. And so when you did that, Travis, like, any other time, you came to me now, you weren't just some person, some dude. You were, oh, Travis, who's now my friend, who crushed it for me. Like, what else can we do together?

Travis (6:26)

Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that perspective because, like, I. Like I said, I've told the story a bunch. I was just always curious to hear, like, because people ask me this all the time. Now is like, how do you get in touch with these people? And how do you, you know, craft this message to make sure that you can, you know, pierce through the gatekeeper? And it's like, look, all the other stuff really is just fluff. The bottom line in all relations is that it's, it's built on some sort of exchange of value. And if you don't have any value to exchange, then you're going to find it really difficult to start building relationships, especially with people who have a ton of demands in their time where they have a thousand people a month reaching out for the same exact opportunity that you're trying to reach out for. So you got to be willing to put yourself in situations to be able to win big. I'm curious now, I'm curious now from, from your, from your perspective to John, where you have been able to do this with a lot of other really valuable people. I mean, you've had everybody in the entrepreneurship space, especially, you know, all the way up to Tony Robbins, like five times. You've been to his, his resort in the Caribbean and Fiji. Yeah, yeah, Fiji, that's right. And you have sort of been able to put yourself in rooms where you, you know, a decade ago might have been like, wow, I can't believe that I'm in these rooms. What, what have you been able to do to differentiate yourself in some of those, like, really high tier, high quality type relationships?

John Lee Dumas (7:47)

Yeah, when that show came out, Hamilton, when the play came out, and then, of course, you know, I got to hear the soundtrack and it was that whole sound, that song of the room where it matters. Like, I want to be in the room where it happens. The room where it matters. I was like, I want to be in the room where it happens. Like, I want to be in that room, like. But that was like, before Hamilton. That was like back in 2012, I was like, I want to be in the room where it happens, like, where stuff matters. And to me, it was just like, how can I do that? And, you know, I always go back to an Albert Einstein quote, which is, try not to become a person of success, but rather a person of value. Like, how do you become that person of value? And that, of course, leads, you know, back to the story that we just shared about yourself, about how you just came forth with just this, you know, incredible value option and this value opportunity that it was just impossible to say no to. And so for me, you know, that was the podcast of 2012, because nobody was doing podcasts. It was very rare. So I was building this Platform that was just valued that I could then take individuals like Tim Ferriss and Lewis Howes and Amy Porterfield way before they even thought about starting a podcast to bring them onto my platform and just expose them, you know, to the world of. Of who my. Of what my audience was. And, you know, that's how I. I became so close with Russell Brunson is. He was just, like, trying to do his thing, selling his books, selling click funnels. He came on my show and we did 800 book sales on one podcast episode that blew his mind. He said, like, wow, like, this is a platform that matters. This is a show that matters. This is an audience that. And then we went on to do multiple seven figures of net profit to myself of affiliate, you know, revenue with clickfunnels over the years following that. Because Russell's like, my eyes are open. Like, you're. You've created something of. Of massive value. Now, what I did in 2012 with a broad topic of entrepreneurship, like, I was early, I was a pioneer, I won that game. And that game is no longer winnable, but the game that's still winnable for anybody out there is saying, how do I become the number one solution to a real problem in a growing industry? You just have to think more micro niche. You need to think, what is the space like for you, Travis? Like, you were smart. You didn't come out with another interview show. You said, hey, this is how Travis makes money and people want to make money. And now you're kind of documenting your journey by talking to people, by trying things out, by sharing these things, by being transparent, by pulling back a curtain. Like, that's a niche that you're grabbing. Like, not a lot of people are being that transparent, are being that open and genuine. So, like, what is that, that thing that you want to become the number one solution to? You know, that's a real problem, and it's in a growing industry. And those are the factors that you need to be thinking about that's going to allow you to build what I built back in 2012 that's still paying me dividends in 2026 and beyond. And to build what Travis has been building for eight and a half years, coming up on nine years with what he's doing. Like, you can't Compare your day one to Travis's, you know, year nine to my year 14, because that's not fair to you. But you also can't copy us because that's just sales. Like, that's. I would never start entrepreneurs on fire today. It Would fail.

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Right.

John Lee Dumas (11:02)

I would start what I did start 18 months ago.

Travis (11:04)

I was gonna ask about that today.

John Lee Dumas (11:06)

Yeah, let's do it about one company and that shows making 12k a month. And I spe 20 minutes a day on that show. 20 minutes a day? Yeah.

Travis (11:15)

That's insane. Tell me more about that one. Because. So. So this is. This is a perfect example of what

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you were just talking about.

Travis (11:19)

Because what happens is. What happens is people see successful people and then they want to model what that person's done without realizing that all they're doing is putting themselves in competition with somebody who's already been doing this for, like a decade. You know, like, and I know you. You been teaching podcasting for a really long time. And now I have as well, the volume of people that come to me that are like, I just want to be like Joe Rogan. And you know what I mean? I don't know if you heard the same thing from. From everybody, but I just want to be like Rose. Want to be like Rose. Want to be like Rogan. It's like, well, you can't. I mean, like. Well, I mean, like, technically you can, but, like, nobody's gonna listen. Exactly, exactly. And that was after he, like, toured the country doing stand up comedy and, like, was in a sitcom, you know, was a host of Fear Factor. He was like, he was. He was a tried and true host with a very interesting network of, well, cool friends to talk to. Like, you and your buddies in your garage have no chance of duplicating what. What Joe Rogan's done. And then, but then you came in, you know what I mean? Like, Jordan Harbinger came in, did part of Charm, which turned a Jordan Harbinger show that was its own thing. You came in, did it for entrepreneurs. That became his own thing. And then everybody started trying to be like, well, I'm going to do a daily entrepreneurship show. And it's like, well, but you, you, you can't. You can't just copy and re. Like, copy paste the same exact thing. You have to look for. What was the model? What was the thing that they did that was. And how can I duplicate the strategy, not the actual, like, mechanics of what you did? And so you now, a year and a half ago, start this other podcast that has. It's not an entrepreneurship.

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Travis (15:50)

not a generic show at all. Insanely micro niche type of an audience, but to the point where, like, most people listening would be like 12k a month on a podcast. Like, sign me up. How did you do that? So what, what, what exactly is that show? And can you explain the, the, the, the benefit of being super, like, micro niche in this, in this case?

John Lee Dumas (16:09)

Yeah. And just to kind of go back a little bit as well is like, like, nobody wants a pale week imitation of somebody else. Like, there's only so much time people have in a day. Nobody's gonna listen to an entrepreneurship show that's almost as good as mine or half as good as mine because they only have so much time to listen to it. So they're just gonna listen to the best. Like, that's like, you want. People are gonna be a path to the doorstep to the number one solution to their problem, and they're going to ignore all the rest. So you have to become the number one solution to your problem. Like we talked about Dr. Cabral, like, he came down here in 2017 with yourself, like, trying. He was trying to figure out, like, what am I going to do? I said, it has to be daily. It has to be micro niche in your area of expertise. That dude has not missed a podcast episode in nine years. Now he's doing a daily show for nine years. It's like a brawl concept. His company's now, you know, approaching nine figures in valuation. Like, it's insane what he's done. He's built a whole business around this because he is, he, he could never do Entrepreneurs on Fire. His style, it would have failed. But he just went to his niche, his area of expertise, his knowledge, his passion, which is functional medicine, health. And he's dominated that space. He's the, he's won. He's the winner. Like, he's crushing it. He's dominating it. And so for me, like, 18 months ago, you know, here I am being like, I'm loving Entrepreneurs on Fire, but I have such a great team and, like, I'm so streamlined. Like, I have a ton of extra time. Like, yes, there's a lot of demands on my time, but I say no to everything. So I actually do have a lot of free time. You know, I'm spending with my son. I'm spending some of it on my business, but it's so streamlined. I'm like, you know what? What else am I excited about right now? And I realized that, man, like, I've been, like, into Bitcoin since 2018 as an investor, and then I really, in this, like, 2023, 2024, started becoming pretty obsessed with this man called Michael Saylor, who runs this company called MicroStrategy, now called Strategy. I just am such a believer in what he's doing in the Bitcoin treasury space. Like, what he's building. I could go on and on because I'm so passionate about it. But, like, what he's doing in digital credits, like, he has a preferred Stock that pays 11.5% annual interest. That's tax free. Like, it's insane. People don't even know about what's happening. But, like, he's building something unbelievably special. And I see it. I know it's going to be the biggest company in the world with my heart. Of course, I could be wrong, but I truly believe it's going to be the biggest company in the world. And I just think that he is the financial engineering genius of our lifetime. So light bulbs are going off, Travis. Cause I'm like, man, I'm so passionate about this topic, about this subject, about this founder, about the person, Michael Saylor, who's running this company, about what he's building. Like, how do I. How do I express this enthusiasm? How do I express this passion that I'm having? And I said, well, listen, like, entrepreneurs on fire is crushing it. But I'm really only audio. I'm only audio only because just how I've always been. I've never wanted to go the video route for various reasons, which I think is. I think people should go the video route. I just don't. For reasons.

Travis (19:07)

Yeah. Now, yeah. Yeah. Well, people don't realize that back in the day, it was like, you're either going to do YouTube or you're going to do podcasts. They were. They did not exist in the same world, like, now. It's silly to even think that, but

John Lee Dumas (19:17)

silly wasn't anything like it is now. Now YouTube is the immense opportunity that's right before us. So I said, how do I leverage YouTube? Because YouTube's amazing. And so I said, well, how would I start a show that just talks about what happened the last 24 hours of strategy of Just that one company that very few people have heard about. The ones that have heard about it, they either love it or they hate it, which, by the way, is another great thing, because you want it to be polarizing, you want it to be contrarian. So people either love this company or they flip and hate it because they think it's a Ponzi scheme, because they think bitcoin's going to zero, because they think Michael Stiller is a fraud. And I loved that because I'm like, I know he's none of those things for a fact because I put in a thousand hours of work studying this company to invest, and they've put in zero work. They're just spewing nonsense because they think it's going to get them engagement and clicks. And I love this company. So I went to find the show Travis that was reporting on strategy and nobody was doing it on a regular basis. And I'm like, I'm going to step into that void and I'm going to. I'm going to do a show every morning. I'm going to wake up and I'm just going to talk for 10 minutes about what happened in the last 24 hours and I'm going to publish it and I'm going to walk away like, boom, record for 10 minutes, edit, upload, walk away. That's all I do every single day. It takes me 20 minutes total. And that show took off like a rocket, you know, for the niche that I'm in. I was getting, you know, I get anywhere from between, you know, 3,000, 6,000, 10,000 views. This is every single day. This is seven days a week. I released the show seven days a week. I've gotten 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 views on one video before. But I'm averaging, you know, somewhere between, like, usually like between 4 to 10,000 is the norm. But again, that's every single day. Like every single day. That's a massive audience for the micro niche. It's basically like everybody that really cares about this company listens to my show. Like, that's basically it.

Travis (21:17)

Right?

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Right.

John Lee Dumas (21:18)

Honestly, like, if you really care about this company and you care enough to, like, want to hear more about it on a regular basis, you 100% listening are listening to my show. And the comment section shows that too. Like, thank you. Like, I look for your shows. The first thing I do every morning is look for your show. And, you know, luckily I'm in Puerto Rico in ast time, so I'm like, I get to launch my show early. I Usually launched it at about like between 6 and 7am Eastern time. And so it gets out early for people when they wake up, usually it's there for them. And that show's making 12k a month because I have two full time sponsors. You know, it's doing, it's doing really well and it takes you 20 minutes a day.

Travis (21:51)

Yeah, that's the beautiful thing about the micro niches too is that you tend to get higher CPMs than what standard podcast advertising rates go for. You know, I'd be making like a

John Lee Dumas (22:00)

million dollars a month if I was getting these CPMs for entrepreneurs on fire.

Travis (22:03)

Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. But I can't exactly. But that's, that's kind of the point though, right? It's like those companies need to advertise just like other companies need to advertise, just such a micro niche that it's like, are they, is their money going to be well spent on Google or meta ads? Probably not. Like they have to look for where their audience is hanging out.

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John Lee Dumas (22:43)

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Travis (24:06)

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Travis (25:17)

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Travis (26:11)

And like you said, if, if you care about this company at all, there's no like a simple Google search will pull you into your, your content like immediately. Because you're the only one that's doing something like this for that type of a, that type of a concept. But it's also, it's also funny too, man, because like, can you talk a little bit about maybe some of the shows that you've started and that have not done well or that you've like sunsetted? Because it was like, ah, I, I thought that'd be cool. It was kind of fun, but just didn't do what I wanted it to do. Think some people listening might be going like, well, yeah, that makes sense because you're John Lee Dumas and you know how to podcast. So like of course whatever you start is going to do well. It's like, yeah, but like, I think I've seen you probably launch like four other podcasts, maybe five, six, I don't even know how many that just like you kind of were like, eh, sunset. That one didn't work that well.

John Lee Dumas (26:59)

No traction, no momentum. I lost the joy for it sometimes. So like, yeah, it's kind of like summation either like those things you're talking about and I'll get into some details in a second here either. Never got traction. Never really kind of seemed to like hit a, hit a nerve with an audience. Some of them even if they did seem to start to go in that direction. Maybe I lost passion for it and just wasn't excited about it. And I was, you know, lucky enough to be able to say, well, I don't need this, so I'm just gonna let it go. So like, I remember when I first, first launched Entrepreneurs on Fire, I started this podcast that was called like Kickstarter Lab and I would just interview people who are like the top creators on Kickstarter, which I thought was a great idea and actually was a fun show. But then at the end of the day I'm like, I'm already doing a 78 week show called Entrepreneurs on Fire. This is actually kind of fracturing my audience. So it was like, it was like taking people away from listening to my, to my show because they were kind of picking between the two and so I decided to stop that. I think I did like almost 100 episodes.

Travis (27:53)

Really?

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Wow.

John Lee Dumas (27:54)

Yeah, I did a lot. And, and that's probably why I ended up doing the Kickstarter campaign a few years later because I was like, I really got to know Kickstarter as like a platform. So I did that for a while. I did another one where I was just. It was called like Shark Tanks on Shark Tank on Fire, where I was just interviewing people that had been on Shark Tank. And like, that was fun. But a lot of those people, like, they just like didn't really. It was too early. They didn't understand podcasting and they were hard to get a hold of. So like that was like another one that failed. Another one I launched was called Memoir, which was like, about. I just had this idea of like, I'm just gonna like find like the, the most interesting because I love history, like people of history, like Benjamin Franklin, Alexander the Great. And I'm just going to do like a four or five part series on their entire life story. And I did Alexander the Great and it took me like 20 or 40 hours. I forget how long it took me, but it took me forever. And I honestly did enjoy doing the actual show and I was kind of proud of the final result. Before I finished it, I was like, I have no desire to ever do one of those again. And so I just stopped doing it. So I'm trying new things all the time. Like this MSTR Today show that could have lasted a couple months, you know, honestly. And, and Honestly, I'm on 18 months now, which is a pretty long run because again, that's a seven day a week show. So there's like five or six hundred episodes there. And you, you know, I might stop it in six months, I might stop it in three months, I might be doing it in five years. Like, like, it's just. For me this is just like a fun experiment that is working both financially and joy both ways. So I'm just having fun doing it.

Travis (29:28)

Yeah. One thing that I've. I want to point out that I've always appreciated and respected about you is that you, you, you have a lot of self awareness around what you want out of life and then you're unapologetic about getting that thing and then not needing to do anything else. Like there's so many people who were maybe in a similar position to one

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that you were in.

Travis (29:49)

Maybe not as much success with the podcast, but still, like, you know, all intents and purposes Successful people who, who felt a pull from culture, society, whoever, to, to continue like doing more stuff. Like, I gotta, you know, like, like they would feel bad about, you know, I'm only working eight days a month, so, like, I gotta go do these 14 other things. And they drive themselves crazy for the pursuit of trying to please everybody else in their life and then forget that. Like, the core reason that most of us get into entrepreneurship to begin with is so that we can do whatever we want with our time. You know what I mean? And then we just get stuck doing everything for everybody else because we feel like we should. And that's something I've always appreciated. Respect about you is like, you, like, the game is won. Like, you already won the game. Like, the game is to be able to do what you want to do with your time. And some of these projects that you've said, like, okay, started that one. I did the Alexander the Great thing. Yeah, it was fun putting it together. But also the volume of work that was required. Nope, I'm out. I'm not doing that anymore. That, like, the ability to do that and make that decision is literally the reason that we all get into this game to begin with. Yet we get, we get sidetracked along the way and our focus gets pulled in 15 different directions, especially once you see a little bit of success. How have you been able to sort of like maintain this, like North Star in your, in your mind of, this is where I'm going and I'm unapologetically becoming that person regardless of what other every everybody else wants me to do.

John Lee Dumas (31:17)

Because I understand one word that few entrepreneurs ever understand. Can you guess that word, Travis?

Travis (31:24)

Oh, gratitude.

John Lee Dumas (31:29)

The word is enough. Like, I understand that word. Like, like. And the reason why I understand that word is because I sat down and I said to myself, like, honestly, John, like, like, yes, life can be the wildest expectations of like, whatever it might be, like million dollar months. Like, those are within a gra. Grasp at some points in my career. Like, I had a $500,000 a month before. I'm like, would it be that hard to double this? Like, not really. Like, I mean, it would be hard, but I mean, how hard? But then at one time I'm like, but like, for what? Like, what? What team am I building? What size team? What size infrastructure? What am I taking on? Like, what am I, like, what does that look like? And that really made me sit down and say, like, what is actually a perfect day for me? Like, what is actually a perfect week for me? Like, what is A, A perfect life look for me. And what do I actually need to achieve that? You know, obviously, no debt. Obviously, like a lot of money in the bank. Like, obviously, like good income coming in because it's nice to have that, you know, replenishment that's happening. But, like, what does, what does enough look like? And I sat down and I got to that number, like on paper, and I'm like, okay, I'm going to work until I get to that number. And then once I'm there, that's enough. And I'm just going to not stop or hit the brakes. But now I'm going to hit that little button that we all like to hit when we're on the highway. That's called cruise control. And I'm just going to cruise, baby.

Podcast Sponsor Announcer (32:58)

Yeah, right.

Travis (32:59)

Well, people get stuck in the pursuit of perception where the perception of a million dollars a month is greater in their mind, the actual profit that they're pulling in. So it's like, yeah, could you have gotten to a million a month? Absolutely. Like, there's no question in either of our minds that you could have done that. But what would that have done to the total volume of work that you're putting in and the total monthly net profit that you're bringing home? It's like, it probably would have been about the same, you know what I mean? Like, you're going to scale to a million a month. It's like, I mean, you're paying more

John Lee Dumas (33:26)

ads, you're paying a bigger team, you're doing things. I mean, are you able to dry brush, you know, while you're being interviewed by Travis? Probably not. You probably can't do those things, you know?

Travis (33:37)

Oh, dude. I always love hanging out and look forward to the next time we get to spend some time in person, you know, besides Entrepreneurs on Fire and everything like that, where do you hang out online the most? Where should people go connect with you?

John Lee Dumas (33:47)

Yeah, eofire.com that's the homepage. That's the, that's, that's the headquarters. Entrepreneurs on Fire is the podcast. And I'm starting to do some pretty fun things over on YouTube, my actual Johnny Dumas YouTube channel. So check that out. Launching a course called 50 Days to Something. It's not, it's not actually a course, it's just a video series because it's completely free. But 50 days to something, because as you know, I'm a big, I'm a big high level fan. I'm the global ambassador. So I'm kind of doing some cool builds for them. And that's. That's part of that process.

Podcast Sponsor Announcer (34:17)

Sweet. Love it, dude.

Travis (34:18)

John Lee Dumas over on Instagram, on YouTube. You guys follow his. Follow his podcast, all the stuff he's putting out. He's one of the OGs in the space. Almost every business podcast that you listen to or have heard of has been touched in some way by John or his team at some point along the way, including the Tim Ferriss and Lewis Howes of the World show.

John Lee Dumas (34:36)

Both of them.

Travis (34:37)

Yeah, Yeah, I was gonna say, like, that he was before all these guys. So, John, appreciate you for tuning in or for joining me. I know you've got a lot of demands in your time. Everybody else listening. Remember, money only solves your money problems, but it's easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got money in the bank. So let's start there here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you guys next time. Peace.

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