Want to be a Content Entrepreneur? You (Probably) Already Know How, You're Just Not Doing It…- The Common Path to Uncommon Success by John Lee Dumas

So you’d like to be a content creator.

A podcaster, writer, youtuber, someone who shares ideas for a living and can do it virtually anytime, from anywhere.

After watching the Tim Ferrisses and Joe Rogans and Gretchen Rubins of the world, a part of you thinks you could do something like that, too.

Maybe not at the same scale, necessarily, but surely you could do at least 10% of what the giants are doing, it’s not that hard, is it?

Or is it?

Because there’s another fearful, uncertain, (and self-described “rational & practical”) part of you that tells you:

“Oh, what’s the use. You know that’s just a pipe dream. There’s no way in Heliopolis that you could ever pull off something like that. Loser.”

Well.

According to podcaster John Lee Dumas — and the author of our featured book for today — navigating the scylla and charybdis of over-idealism versus despairing cynicism is tricky, but can be done.

“Making it” in the content creation world isn’t something that’s entirely based on luck or a career path only available to those born with a silver spoon in their mouths.

If you really want to do this (start a podcast, write a book, be an influencer / content creator / thought leader), it is possible…

You just need to understand and apply a few key principles.

Who this book is for: Specifically, aspiring podcasters who eventually want to make a living starting with a podcast, but many of the concepts are more broadly applicable to anyone who is a content creator (in any medium) looking to make that their “main thing.”

Scylighter rating: 4 / 6 ⭐s (explanation of ratings at the end)

Ready to get started?

Best Ideas From This Book

Find or make a mastermind if you want to go far in your venture, whatever it is. Look for a good mentor who is one year ahead of you on the path you want to walk, and peers who are at the same stage as you, as well.
Ask yourself this question: “What is something I wish existed in the world that doesn’t?”
Become the “best and only” option in the market. Remember, “the higher the barrier, the lower the competition.”
Dumas recommends batch-producing content in a disciplined, scheduled way, and having at least 45 days’ (6 weeks’) worth in the can for a buffer or a rainy day.
If you really want to succeed, as a beginner, do “things that don’t scale,” like talking to your audience one on one.
“Convert the converted”: If you want to build your audience, 1) create great content, and 2) collaborate with other creators in your niche who are serving your target audience.

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BOOK NOTES

Prologue

In This Chapter

Dumas’ military and business background.
How and why Dumas started his podcast.

Dumas opens his book by talking about how he’s been podcasting since 2012.

It took him 32 years to find the “common path to success,” which has been hidden from most people because “it benefits the ‘experts’ to complicate things, to muddy the waters and add confusion where there should be simplicity.”

Dumas describes living his life for 32 years “listening to the gatekeepers,” going to school, joining the Army ROTC, serving in Iraq and seeing fellow soldiers die.

That inspired him to make his life matter.

He tried to do law school after coming home, then for six years experimented with corporate finance, and real estate, but found that none gave him the freedom and fulfillment he wanted.

Then he heard a quote attributed to Albert Einstein: “Try not to become a person of success, but rather a person of value.”

And that was an a-ha moment for him.

Quote(s) & Comments

First line(s): You’ve been lied to.

Last line(s): Are you ready to get started? Turn the page. The common path to uncommon success awaits.

“When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.” — George Washington Carver

I love this opening epigraph, especially who it’s from. GW Carver has long been a fascinating historical figure for me. Need to read more about him.
“You’ve been lied to…Uncommon success is achievable, and the path is a common one.”
Writing-wise, opening with “you’ve been lied to” is brilliant. You can’t help but read on to find out who’s been lying to you and why.
Also, the line about benefitting the experts to “complicate things and muddy the waters” is pretty rhetorically clever.
Is it true? I think yes and no, and I’m leaning toward the yes, but this is a great line to put in a prologue. It’s a call to action that pits “us” against “them.” Another great way to engage the reader’s emotions and interest.
“The common path works. It works because it’s simple. It works because it’s timeless. It works because of one truth you must never forget. If you provide the best solution to a real problem, you will find uncommon success.”
Another rhetorical strength is to make something feel easy. People generally prefer easy over hard. Simple, of course, is not easy, but many people conflate the two words in their heads. This at least makes the content of the book feel understandable, and worth readers investing time to learn more.

Chapter 1. Identify Your Big Idea

In This Chapter

2 mistakes people make when trying to figure out what big idea they should work on.
An acronym to help you remember how to make yourself useful and interesting to your ideal audience.
A profile of Hal Elrod, Miracle Morning evangelist.

Dumas lists two mistakes people make when trying to figure out what their big idea is.

They think only passion matters.
They think they have to be experts.

But Dumas argues that you need to have BOTH.

The passion side is important because that’s what keeps you excited to keep working day after day, because it takes time. And without passion, your competitors who ARE passionate about the topic, will win.

But you also need to answer people’s real problems, to answer “WIIFM” (What’s In It For Me).

When passion and expertise overlap, Dumas calls this the “zone of fire” (his catchphrase, considering his podcast is called Entrepreneurs On Fire”)

So Dumas advises readers to take 10 minutes and brainstorm passions and expertise, and see what overlaps.

In his own case, Dumas’ passion for “having conversations with successful entrepreneurs” blended with his skill at “facilitating conversations” and “public speaking.”

And that’s what gave him the idea to make a podcast.

Dumas then goes into more detail about his post-war experiences, and how he was so miserable in law school that he quit and went to India and Nepal “to find [his] version of eat, pray, love.”

When he came back to try corporate finance, he bumped up against the 2008 financial crisis and resigned from his company. Then he went into real estate and hit another slump.

One day as he was listening to podcasts, he came upon the Einstein quote (above) and realized he was chasing the wrong things for the wrong reasons:

Like learning law to earn respect, corporate finance to earn wealth, real estate to earn freedom & fulfillment, but none of those things panned out.

“I was spending all my energy trying to become this mythical person of success, but what value was I providing? Upon reflection, the answer was simple: none.”

As he walked, Dumas thought of a question that changed everything:

What is something I wish existed in the world that doesn’t?

He realized that he loved podcasts that interviewed successful entrepreneurs, but was frustrated that they only came out once a week. So he decided to make his own DAILY podcast.

His first year of doing the podcast, he only made $27K, but he enjoyed his work and at the 13-month mark, saw a profit upsurge and today is making 100K+ every month (he documents his monthly income reports at EOFire.com/income).

As of the book’s publication, Dumas has published 2500+ interviews and achieved over 85M downloads.

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Hal Elrod, who shares how he hit a low point after the 2007 financial crash.

Then a friend challenged him into waking up early to exercise and listen to self-help (Jim Rohn), and Hal became fascinated with researching the habits/routines of successful people.

That led him to creating his concept of the Miracle Morning morning routine, and his SAVERS acronym for an ideal morning — silence, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, scribing (journaling).

Your big idea may already be a part of your life and you don’t even know it yet. It could be one habit or activity you’ve successfully applied to your life with your own personal spin. — Hal Elrod

Quotes & Comments

First line(s): There are two mistakes people make when trying to identify their big ideas.

Last line(s): Join us on this road to financial freedom and fulfillment, and prepare to ignite!

PRINCIPLE #1: Your common path to uncommon success begins with an idea. A big idea.
“Unless [people] are going to benefit directly from your passion, they’ll never become a customer, you’ll never generate revenue, and your big idea will become nothing more than a hobby.”
Random thought: Dumas takes a page out of many influencers’ books and travels to India (and Nepal) at a low point in his life. I’m not sure why so many unhappy Westerners tend to go there. I have my suspicions, but won’t say them here now.
“I didn’t know my next step, but I knew chasing success had left me unhappy, unfulfilled, and lacking direction.”
This quote reminds me of the Viktor Frankl quote about how happiness is a secondary effect of chasing meaning. It seems success and happiness both are better as side effects not as primary goals.
Dumas was right to name his book “Common Path to Uncommon Success.” So far the advice he gives is very standard. But he does it in his own way, using his own story. In many situations, novel ideas are not the key to good writing, but old (good) ideas presented in novel ways will always find an audience.
“What is something I wish existed in the world that doesn’t?” is a fantastic question. Really interesting and worth thinking about for more than a few seconds. Maybe journal or talk it out a bit. I think this is a more valuable question than Dumas’ earlier advice about brainstorming passions and expertise.
“We always circle back to the question, ‘How can we provide more value to our audience, Fire Nation?’”
“Looking back, Entrepreneurs on Fire was a success because it provided the best solution to a real problem.”
Best and Real are the key words to this quote above. If someone is better than you at solving the problem, find another problem to solve. If the problem you’re solving isn’t really important to the people for whom you’re solving it, find another problem to solve.
I’ve read Hal Elrod’s book on Miracle Mornings years ago. It was mildly interesting then. Today, though, I don’t much hold to it, for several reasons. I may write about it later.

Chapter 2. Discover Your Niche

In This Chapter

Why a big niche can be your downfall.
A clue from a great copywriter about how to harness audience interest for your (hopefully not nefarious) purposes.
Why even having a tiny niche that can’t fully sustain your life is still a good idea, because it does this one thing for you…
A profile of Selena Soo, 7-figure business owner.

In chapter two, Dumas begins with a common misconception that beginners have: they think a bigger niche means more potential followers.

Actually, it’s the opposite.

“When you try to resonate with everyone, you’ll resonate with no one.”

Dumas tells the story of a bug spray inventor who created a spray that kills all bugs. But when he advertised it as such, no one wanted it. It wasn’t until he created bottles of bug spray with the same formula, but different labels, like:

Kills every ant in your household
Kills every cockroach…
Kills every beetle…

…THEN sales exploded.

As Robert Collier says:

“Always enter the conversation already taking place in the customer’s mind.”

People don’t buy sprays because they have a “bug problem,” they usually have an “ant problem” so you need to label the solution accordingly.

As Dumas says, if you want to “enter the conversation” in your potential customer’s mind, you need to:

Identify your big idea
Niche down
Niche down again
Keep niching till it hurts (when you’re nervous that your target market is too small. “That’s when you’ve niched down to a place you can dominate”)

As Dumas says: “within every big idea there’s a niche being ignored…a void begging to be filled. It’s your job to identify that void and serve those people.”

And, if you can’t create financial freedom with such a small niche (which is a real possibility), that’s fine.

Because, Dumas points out, the point of niching till it hurts is to acquire “proof of concept,” so that you can “gain confidence in your mission,” which will lead to “gaining traction with an audience, building trust, identifying a struggle, and creating the best solution for that struggle,” eventually.

Dumas rewrites his list of things to do in a recap:

ID your big idea
Find a niche not being served
Niche down till it hurts
Become the best (and only) option
Gain proof of concept, confidence, traction
Discover where to apply pressure and reach the tipping point

Now, Dumas switches to his own story.

His a-ha moment was to create a podcast interviewing the most successful/inspiring entrepreneurs in the world.

But he still hadn’t quite figured out his niche.

So he made a list of all the things he liked and disliked about podcasts that inspired him.

The list of likes included things like:

Good audio quality, inspiring guests, specific strategies discussed, host asked questions and summarized and didn’t talk too much, interviews were 20–30 min long.

The list of dislikes included things like:

Rambling hosts, bad audio, repetitive stories from host, vague tips from guests with no follow-up questions, interviews lasted 45–75 min when value was < 20 min.

That taught him to:

Buy high-end audio equipment, seek out inspiring entrepreneurs, make sure guests were prepped with stories and strategies, ask clarifying questions and summarize key takeaways, restrict interviews to 15–25 min with no fluff.

But Dumas still hadn’t found the unique ingredient that would make him stand out. He still hadn’t niched down enough. He needed a void that wasn’t being filled.

And Dumas found his opportunity in…

Frequency of uploads.

Instead of weekly shows, Dumas would do daily shows. At the time, there were ZERO other podcasts doing this in the business space.

So he decided to become the BEST (first, and only) DAILY ENTREPRENEUR INTERVIEW PODCAST in the world.

Added bonuses? He would be putting in a lot more reps than others doing a daily show, AND he would get to (have to?) network with a TON of people.

“I realized that the higher the barrier, the lower the competition. A daily podcast interviewing the world’s most successful entrepreneurs was such a high barrier to entry that my competition would be nonexistent. That was a race I could win!”

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Selena Soo.

“Choose the niche that you enjoy, where you can excel and stand a chance of becoming an acknowledged leader.” — Richard Koch

Selena Soo was 25 and depressed, so she joined a women’s life coaching group and realized: “when people are looking for real transformation…[they] aren’t just looking for more information, they’re looking for inspiration.”

So Soo combined her skills in marketing, brand building and super-connecting and built a 7-fig business “helping experts, coaches, and authors become respected leaders in their industries.”

Her advice: “What is the thing you love to do so much you would do it for free?” Use that to prove your value, get people results for free and create raving fans and evangelists.

See Selenasoo.com for more about Selena.

Quotes & Comments

First line(s): This is an incredibly important step on your path to uncommon success. Unfortunately, it’s the step people resist most.

Last line(s): I was ready for my next step on the common path to uncommon success.

“If everybody is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.” — Sam Walton of Walmart.
The interesting thing about this quote is not just going sideways, but going in the OPPOSITE direction. But if we’re talking 3-dimensional space, there are lots of potential opposites. Hmm…worth thinking about.
“PRINCIPLE #2: Identify an underserved niche and fill that void to the best of your ability.”
The tricky part of this is finding an underserved niche.
Dumas was clever. He didn’t just look at different subcategories within the big umbrella of “business.” He looked at a totally different factor: timing.
And he came up with a totally overlooked niche: The niche of business podcast listeners who wanted more frequent content.
“Always enter the conversation already taking place in the customer’s mind.”
This chapter reminds me of the metaphor of someone trying to bust down a wall with a hammer. When they hit the wall all over, nothing happens. When they pick a smaller (weaker?) spot and hit it over and over again, they eventually create a hole, which makes it that much easier to tear the rest of the wall down.
“I leaped in the air and gave my invisible twin a high five.”
This is the line Dumas uses to describe his excitement upon figuring out his niche. It’s a little cheesy, but it’s his unique personality, and those who like him will like it.
Not a bad idea to sprinkle a few of these throughout the book. It differentiates him from ghostwritten stuff and AI-generated filler (although of course this was written before AI really took off).
The Selena Soo story at the end was a bit too vague to be of much help. The one quote may be valuable to some, though.

Chapter 3. Create Your Avatar

In This Chapter

How to figure out who your perfect customer is.
An profile of Jon Morrow, Smart Blogger CEO.

Now that you’ve ID’d your big idea and figured out your niche, the next logical step is to create an avatar.

An avatar is a single person who is your perfect customer. Dumas says that although this is an important step, it’s often ignored. But “Everyone is not your customer. In fact, most people are not your customer.”

There are billions of people in the world, but you don’t need billions of customers.

Dumas gives the example of his Podcasters’ Paradise elite community. He’s had 6,000 people go through the program in 8 years and generated $5M just from this one product because of his deep understanding of his ideal customer.

How do you craft an avatar? Dumas suggests writing down your answers to these questions:

What’s your avatar’s…

Age? sex? marriage status? kid status?
Job? And do they like their job? Do they commute and if so how long (Note: This question seems to be more useful for podcasters, specifically)
Passions, hobbies, things they do in their free times?
Dislikes? Biggest struggle in life right now?
Skills? Value that they can bring to the world?
Life goals, hopes, dreams, ambitions?
Ideal day?
Favorite type of content to consume, and how often?
What solution is your avatar looking for?

Then, Dumas says, take your answers and turn it into a 500-word bio.

Why is this avatar so important?

Because in your business you will face myriad decisions. How do you know which path to take? By doing whatever is best for your avatar.

Now, Dumas gives the example of his own avatar, whom he named Jimmy. He was inspired to create Jimmy when his coach, Cliff Ravenscraft, asked him: “What would your perfect listener want?”

And so Jimmy was born. Jimmy is…

40 years old, a wife, 2 kids aged 3 and 5.
Commutes 25-min to work daily, doesn’t like his job but spends 90% of his time at it.
After work, he plays with his kids, has dinner, puts kids to bed, catches up with his wife, and has a pity party on the couch alone.

Jimmy is the ideal listener who needs Dumas’ podcast to inspire and encourage him.

Based on “Jimmy,” Dumas figured that he needs a 25-minute daily podcast to accompany Jimmy on his commute. He figured out what questions to ask his interviewees based on what Jimmy wants. And so on.

Of course, not all of Dumas’ million listeners per month are Jimmys. But having the clarity of serving Jimmy first has helped him build a successful podcast.

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Jon Morrow of SmartBlogger.com.

Morrow testifies that when he “winged the whole concept of the avatar,” he lost a lot of money. So he started conducting formal research to create his ideal avatar, who turned out to be:

Someone trying to build a passive income through niche sites, courses, and affiliate revenue
Someone trying to be an influencer, authority, leader in their niche
Someone trying to make money from their writing.

Morrow’s best tip is that “what is your biggest struggle” isn’t a great question to ask your audience. Because it implies that they have already done something that would cause them to struggle. But in reality 80% of your audience are aspiring, but haven’t taken any action.

Instead, ask:

What are you working on right now?
What are you doing with your time?
What products have you bought to help you with that?

If they haven’t bought anything, they aren’t serious and Morrow invalidates them. It’s more profitable to focus on people who are actively spending time and money on their goal rather than trying to get non-spenders to pay their first dollar.

Jon has used customer surveys leading to 1-on-1 interviews which are recorded and then studied. Questions asked include things like:

What does your average day look like? Where are you right now in your journey and how do you feel about that? How does your family think about that? Where are you going? Why did you buy that product? What were you hoping to get out of it? If you have a before-and-after photo, what does the after-photo look like?

Morrow observes that avatars become more sophisticated over time as they learn and grow. At first, a person might just want to make money from writing. Later, they learn about freelance writing, which leads them to the world of content marketing, email marketing, copywriting, and so on.

“Understanding the flow of money, understanding the attention, that is ultimately what avatars are about.” — Jon Morrow

Find out more about Jon at smartblogger.com

Quote(s) & Comments

First line(s): You’ve identified your big idea. You’ve discovered your niche. Now you’re ready for your next step along this common path to uncommon success: creating your avatar.

Last line(s): Jimmy, thank you for your guidance all these years. I couldn’t have done it without you.

“Everyone is not your customer.” — Seth Godin.
“PRINCIPLE #3: Your avatar is the north star to guide you along your journey.”
For the avatar, I think mixing demographic and psychographics can be helpful, but it might have been better if he explained the difference between the two and labeled the terms separately.
JLD repeats some of his pull quotes, like “if you try to resonate with everyone, you will resonate with no one.” Also this is his own quote and he labels it with his own name afterwards “— John Lee Dumas” which is a little funny, since this is his book so his words don’t need to be labeled 😉
One issue with putting the “avatar” chapter here so early is that for total newbies, they often don’t have a clue who their avatar is (unless it’s their own younger, dumber selves).
It can take a bit of trial-and-error to figure out who you can and want to serve, and that might mean moving on to the later chapters before circling back around to this one.
In other words, put out your ideal content first, and see who is attracted by it, and THEN use that info to define your avatar. But this is a bit chicken-and-egg, of course.
In fact, I’m not so certain Dumas didn’t do that himself. It sounds to me like he focused on what HE wanted first (daily inspirational business podcasts), and then retroactively figured out what ideal avatar would want the same thing…

Chapter 4. Choose Your Platform

In This Chapter

The 3 major platforms people can pick from, and their pros and cons.
An profile of Leslie Samuel, former high school math teacher turned affiliate marketer

Dumas begins this chapter with a mindset note that “life is challenging, but you can choose your hard.”

And then he switches over to talking about platforms. There are 3 major platforms to choose from:

Writing: Easy to share, easier to make and edit. But harder to repurpose, some people don’t like reading, and more competitive.
Audio: Easy to listen while multitasking, intimate (human voice is personal). But lacks a visual element, some people dislike audio, it has a medium barrier of entry.
Video: Humans are wired to be visual and love video. Can easily pause and rewind. Very shareable and also can repurpose the content easily. But it has a high barrier of entry, is time consuming, and watchers can’t multitask while watching.

Dumas, of course, chose Audio — podcasting, mostly because he himself loved podcasts.

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Leslie Samuel.

Leslie was a high school math teacher when he discovered affiliate marketing. He started answering questions in online forums to be as useful as possible, and his affiliate income started to grow.

Eventually he started a blog to promote his affiliate offers, and over time added an email newsletter, podcast, Youtube channel, and more.

He also added courses, consulting, and coaching to his services.

You can find out more about Leslie at IAmLeslieSamuel.com

Quotes & Comments

First line(s): I get it. Life can be challenging. Achieving uncommon success is hard. But we can choose our hard.

Last line(s): Podcasting was the platform my avatar needed and I decided to go all in.

“PRINCIPLE #4: Your platform is how you will share your message with the world.”
This chapter is a bit too broad and general to be of much use. Also, the most helpful advice for podcasters will differ slightly from writers or video makers.
Do the underlying principles still apply though? We’ll have to read the rest of the book to see…

Chapter 5. Find Your Mentor

In This Chapter

How to find your ideal mentor. (Questions to ask, steps to take)
A template for reaching out to a potential mentor.
A profile of Shawn Stevenson, nutrition guru, and how Stevenson found his mentor.

Now, Dumas turns to the idea of a mentor. Ideally, your mentor is not a massive name like Mark Cuban or Richard Branson. You want someone who is a few years ahead of you.

How do you find this ideal mentor? Again, Dumas says to write out your answers to these questions:

One year from now…

What have you created?
What does your day-to-day look like?
Who are you serving?
How much revenue are you generating per month?
What types of projects are you currently working on?

Now look for a mentor who is where you want to be in a year. Since you know your niche, avatar, and platform, look for people who are doing well in those areas.

Pick a few potential mentors, subscribe to their newsletters and social media, and spend time each day consuming their content, leaving comments, sharing their ideas, and sending them kind messages.

See who you resonate best with and narrow down your list until you’ve got one target mentor. Then send them a friendly message.

Here, Dumas includes a sample email which includes these components:

Hi [name]! My name is X and I admire your success
I’ve been consuming ALL your content over the last [time] and specifically loved [example
I’m sending this message because [reason]
My goal is to [X] and I am ready to invest my time, energy and money into your mentorship program if you’ll have me.
I want to be your greatest success story and hope you’ll give me that chance
Look forward to hearing from you soon…[sign off]

As usual, Dumas relates his own experience finding a mentor.

First, he figured out where he wanted to be:

He wanted to have created a daily podcast interviewing the most successful entrepreneurs.
His day to day involves finding and interviewing guests and finding opportunities to expand the podcast.
He’s serving aspiring entrepreneurs, generating $5–8K/mo through 3+ revenue streams, and he’s building a group coaching program to share his knowledge.

Then he scoured the business podcasters in Apple Podcasts and researched people until he narrowed his list down to five, then one.

That one was Jaime Masters, host of The Eventual Millionaire.

Next, Dumas shot Jaime an email (he includes the text of the email in the book, which includes all the components he mentioned, plus a post script including a screenshot of the 5-star review he left on her podcast).

And one day at 3am, Dumas received an email back from Jaime.

In the email, Jaime said that she recognized his name, because Dumas had been commenting on her social media and podcast episodes all the time, and offered a time to meet up.

They met at Starbucks, and started their mentorship relationship. Jaime had Dumas attend a Blog World event in NYC and introduced him to all her friends, who were speakers at the event.

So before Dumas’ podcast even launched, he had quality guests to interview.

Next, Dumas had to figure out the name for his show. He knew the word “entrepreneurs” had to be in there, and one night while listening to a basketball game, he heard the host say that LeBron James was “on fire!” and that was it.

Dumas checked, found that Entrepreneurs on Fire was available, and immediately bought the domain. He did the interviews, got everything ready, scheduled the release for Aug 2012, but as the date approached he suddenly got cold feet and delayed for a couple weeks.

But when he tried to pull the same trick again, Jaime held his feet to the fire, threatening to “fire him” if he didn’t launch.

So he did. And the rest is history.

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Shawn Stevenson.

Shawn was inspired by a Tony Robbins program to become a master in nutrition. He launched a podcast and book and created content daily on social media.

Then he found a mentor in Ken Balk, who started out as a client. In return, Balk helped Shawn with his financial literacy.

As Shawn says:

“I believe in the Goldilocks approach to mentorship. Not too few, not too many, just the right amount. Don’t be tied to just one guru, and have mentors for different areas in your life. Anyone you admire can be your virtual mentor, and when the time is right, your next mentor will appear.”

You can learn more about Shawn at TheModelHealthShow.com

Quotes & Comments

First line(s): A mentor is a critical component on your common path to uncommon success.

Last line(s): I launched my podcast on September 20, 2012, and the rest is history. Thank you, Jaime.

“PRINCIPLE #5: Your perfect mentor is currently where you want to be one year from today.”
I wonder if one year is a good number, or if 3 or 5 might be better, because depending on where you are, those 1 year ahead can be tricky to find. Dumas used podcast search functions but those in other areas don’t always have such easy ways to sift out potential mentors.
“A mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you than you see in ourself, and helps bring it out of you.” — Bob Proctor
In my opinion, this is the second-most valuable concept in the book.
It’s interesting that Dumas found a mentor BEFORE starting his venture. Some people start first, make a few mistakes, get a clearer idea of what they need to learn, and THEN look for a teacher.
But there’s something to be said for finding a mentor when you’re still completely green. That way you won’t develop bad habits.

Chapter 6. Join or Create a Mastermind

In This Chapter

A framework for a mastermind session style that worked for Dumas.
How Dumas found and created his own mastermind groups.
A profile of Jaime Masters, Dumas’ own mentor, and how she formed a mastermind with her ideal people.

Dumas begins with the famous Jim Rohn quote: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” which he says he shares at the end of each podcast episode.

“If you want to change your life, change your environment.”

Make sure you spend most of your time with your “top 5 people,” the ones who are aiming for uncommon success, like you. How?

Create a peer-to-peer mastermind.

Dumas describes the ideal P2PM:

It consists of 3–4 people, no more, no less.
It meets once a week for one hour, with a strict attendance policy. Everyone must make 95% of the meetings.
Meetings start with everyone taking 5 min to share their biggest success/lesson learned.
Then set a timer for 30 minutes for “hot seat.” The person in the hot seat shares their biggest struggle, and the group helps. The hot seat rotates each week so that everyone gets to be in it at least once a month or so.
The final 10 minutes is for wrap up, when each member shares their goal for the week.

When it’s just you, it’s easy to procrastinate. When you have 2–3 people holding you accountable, you will do much better.

So where do you find these 2–3 people?

Look for people who are at a similar place in their journey as you. They should be motivated and positive.

Dumas now shares a few mastermind stories.

Dumas was listening to Cliff Ravenscraft’s podcast, the Podcast Answer Man, and heard that Cliff had started masterminds of 10 groups of 10 people each. Dumas signed up immediately, even at the cost of $3500 for the year. The mastermind even indirectly led to Dumas becoming a main stage speaker at an event Cliff was managing.
Dumas also formed a mastermind with 2 friends, Rick Mulready and Greg Hickman. They followed the format Dumas shared above, and took biannual trips as friends, during which, at one point, they got to hang out with Tim Ferriss.
Finally, Dumas relates how he created Fire Nation Elite, a 100-person mastermind that people had to apply for. Dumas personally spoke to each applicant and created live video trainings, a Facebook group, and generated over $10K/mo for the 3 years the program ran.

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Jaime Masters.

“The Master Mind principle: Two or more people actively engaged in the pursuit of a definite purpose with a positive mental attitude, constitute an unbeatable force.” — Napoleon Hill

Jaime was a busy young mom when she heard about the Jim Rohn “five people” idea. She made a list of her top five and was disappointed because they lacked the drive she had.

So she started a blog and decided to create a mastermind. She found a forum for online entrepreneurs and started cold emailing successful business owners, and invited Pat Flynn.

But Jaime kept searching and got several impressive entrepreneurs to commit, and tried Pat again. This time he said yes, and she celebrated. Next, Jaime wrote out rules and structures for the mastermind (putting attendance as the #1 priority, because “commitment is key to masterminds…your mastermind [is supposed to become] your family”).

And today, Jaime has been running the mastermind for 10 years. They try to meet in person once a year. The mastermind was the impetus for Jaime’s podcast, in fact — at one session, she was challenged to interview millionaires, and that’s what led to her podcast.

Jaime’s podcast rules:

Meetings last one hour and times are decided in advance
Everyone must be present and on time or give one-week notice if they can’t make it
If you miss more than 2 meetings, the others will vote on whether or not you can continue
Constructive criticism encouraged, putting down others is not.
Host of the mastermind rotates each week, as does the hot seat member
And more…

This section ends with a detailed schedule of how Jaime runs her meetings. There is no recommended url besides the usual one Dumas adds at the end of each chapter to look up the free companion course to this book at EOFire.com/success-course.

Quotes & Comments

First line(s): At the end of every Entrepreneurs on Fire episode, I share this quote. [Referring to Jim Rohn’s quote on you being the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with]

Last line(s): It was a great mastermind and I learned a lot about being a leader. Fire Nation Elite, I salute you!

In my opinion, this is the most valuable chapter in the book.
How to create a mastermind? Give a time, have people check in at the same time each week. If they’re consistent, they’re worth talking to. Write out the plan, and see who’s intrigued.
Dumas’ story of masterminding with two friends reminds me of Mr. Beast, who started Youtubing as a high schooler and was fortunate enough to find a few other obsessive Youtubers like himself with whom he could chat all things Youtube for multiple hours a day (not exactly what Dumas recommends, but Mr. Beast had the time)

Chapter 7. Design Your Content Production Plan

In This Chapter

Detailed questions to help you come up with a production schedule, and Dumas’ own answers and reasoning for those questions.
A profile of Dumas’ wife, who joined his podcasting company and scheduled things so well they were able to ta 2-week hands-off vacation in their second year in business.

OK. Now you have your big idea, niche, avatar, platform, mentor, and mastermind. What’s the next step?

Making content of course!

But here Dumas warns people not to go crazy with ideas. You need to stay focused. Again, he lists questions for you to answer:

What calendar will you use to schedule your content production plan?
Dumas blocked off the first hour of his day for 3 months to write this book. He recommends writing this time down in your calendar. Because “either you control your schedule or your schedule controls you. Which is it going to be?”
What frequency will you release content?
You need to create free, valuable, consistent content to build trust. Consistent doesn’t have to be daily, but consider what your avatar wants.
Which days will you deliver content?
“Action trumps perfection.” Create, publish, respond to comments, use feedback to adjust and improve, repeat.
What’s the average length of your content?
Again, ask “what does your avatar want?” Dumas’ advice about taking advice from others: “Unless they are your avatar, ignore 100 percent of their advice.” (Note: Ha!)
How much time will it take for you to create each piece?
This is tricky but important. Dumas’ first interview took 3 hours to edit. That was way too long, so he came up with systems and shortcuts to cut editing to less than 10 minutes per episode.
Keep in mind that your first piece of content will take the longest. Over time you will become more efficient, so don’t give up too soon.
How far in advance will you create the content?
How many pieces do you want “in the can”? This is a personal preference. Dumas’ is 6 weeks of episodes recorded, edited, and scheduled. So make your decision, take a few weeks to build your buffer, and maintain it going forward.
What days will you set aside per week for content creation?
You need to plan what specific time each week will be dedicated to moving your business forward. If you don’t schedule in advance, you will fail. (In podcasting, this is called podfading).
This creates better quality and efficiency. You don’t want your brain task-switching or it will never get into flow.
For Dumas, he blocked off every Tuesday to record and edit 8 episodes of his podcast. That was his most important task.
Who’s holding you accountable?
Don’t let your parents’ unrealized dreams hold you back. Chase your own hopes and dreams and work hard. Find others on the common path to uncommon success.
What day of the month will you set aside to evaluate your plan?
In the military, Dumas says, one most valuable training was the AAR (After Action Review). Army guys are biased toward action “because a good plan now is better than a great plan later.” But after the action, you need to take feedback and adjust/improve.

For point 7, Dumas recommends reading the book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

In it, the author interviews people at the end of their life and most are saddened by how they “just got by” going from one meaningless task to another.

For point 9, Dumas reminds readers:

“We all stray from our north star, but those who become aware quickly and readjust continuously are the ones who remain successful month over month, year over year.”

He himself creates monthly income reports to be transparent to his audience and helpful for keeping his team accountable. He’d heard stories of businesses with multiple small revenue leaks which added up to massive losses.

Now, Dumas shares his own content production plan:

He uses Google Calendar and Schedule One for his system.
He decided to publish 7x/wk, but he also had to consider:
– Whether or not to include show notes (he did one show notes page per episode with recap, links, and more info),
– How often to send emails (he chose to go with 2x/wk for emails, one to promote podcasts, the other a random-but-relevant topic),
– What social platforms he’d use to promote the show (he promoted with daily tweets and 2x Facebook posts/wk with teasers).
He planned to deliver the content daily, and checked the earliest time New Yorkers began their commute (5am), meaning he would release his episodes at 4am every morning. (He had to be careful not to release too early, because 2:30am Eastern is 11:30pm Pacific time).
As for the email newsletter, he chose to send them on Mondays (teaser for upcoming episodes) and Fridays (recap and tease weekend episodes)
His tweets were daily, and his Facebook posts were sent Wednesdays and Sundays, in between the email newsletter.
He chose 20–30 minutes per episode for his content length, although he would go overtime if he had good reason (like when he interviewed Tony Robbins), and he decided on a template for his show notes (start with 3 biggest value bombs, then links, then end with his biggest takeaway).
He also kept his emails to max 500 words.
Here Dumas tells a story about being a swimmer to remind people: Remember it will take a lot of time and energy to create content at first. It will speed up over time.
Putting yourself on a “create on demand” cycle lowers content quality and stresses you out. Dumas didn’t want that, so he set a goal to always have 45 episodes in the can. That way if he had cancellations or tech issues, he had a buffer. He recommends having 45 days of content as a buffer, in general.
Dumas begins this point by saying everyone warned him not to do a daily podcast. But this just fired him up (“the higher the obstacle, the lower the competition”).
He started thinking about WHY everyone thought daily podcasting wouldn’t work and realized they thought he’d be doing interviews every day, which is impossible to sustain. So Dumas decided to set aside ONE day for interviewing multiple people, instead.
That still sounded like a pain to most folks, but for someone who had been through the army, this was no biggie to Dumas.
So he used Tuesdays for interviews, Wednesdays for editing and show notes, Thursdays for miscellaneous to-dos, Fridays for social media and emails, weekends for resting, and Mondays for “setting the tone for the week.”
As of this book’s publication, he’s successfully recorded 2500+ episodes this way.
The mastermind Dumas joined fueled him. First, with their doubt that he could pull it off, and then because he pushed himself to set audacious goals that he felt beholden to accomplish because of the other members of the group.
Dumas chose the last Friday of each month for his After-Action Reviews.

Dumas adds a warning: He created this plan for him, which worked in 2012. You will have to figure out what works for you in your time period. Experiment and see what works for you!

For point 5, Dumas tells a long story about how he switched from basketball to swimming due to an injury.

When he realized that his weakness was flip turns, he decided to focus on flip turns for an extra hour a day, half an hour before and after practice.

One day, he says, it clicked. Then he moved on to his next weakness, the starting block. Bit by bit he used this method to improve different areas of weakness in swimming, from length of stroke to how he kicked, to how to breathe effectively with the right posture.

Each improvement “shaved seconds off [his] times” and soon he was in first place, ten seconds faster than his first race record.

The point of this whole story?

“By tackling one struggle at a time, everything felt doable. I could see and feel my progress each week.”

So if you’re feeling overwhelmed, remember to be patient, persistent, and focused.

Then, for point 6, Dumas talks a bit about how he found interviewees: He asked himself where the successful and inspiring entrepreneurs were being featured, and wrote a list. At the top were business magazines and conferences.

So he subscribed to magazines and started looking through all the entrepreneurs they featured. And then he started following those entrepreneurs on the platforms they were most active on.

“One thing I found out quickly was that people pay attention. Just because they have a lot of followers doesn’t mean they ignore their comments and messages.”

As for conferences, he did not attend them, but rather looked up their list of speakers. Then he’d hunt down those speakers online and send them an email that went along the lines of:

Hi, my name is John Lee Dumas and I host a business podcast called Entrepreneurs on Fire [Explains what the podcast is about]
I believe you would be perfect for my show and would be honored if you would join me [details on how long, audio-only, from comfort of your home]
I saw you were presenting on [topic] at [conference] and think you’d be a perfect fit for my audience, Fire Nation.
If interested [link to a calendar they can choose times]. If none of those times work, let me know what times work for you and I’ll make sure to accommodate your schedule.
[Thanks, and sign off]

That email got him a 60% response and 40% success rate.

The key, Dumas says, is to make it easy for them to say yes. They talk about a topic they’re already an expert in from the comfort of their home.

“Always remember, fortune favors the bold. Put in the work, make the ask, and you’ll be surprised at the level of your success!”

For point 9, Dumas includes the questions he uses for his AARs:

What was the goal of this project? Did I accomplish the goal?
What went well or badly?
What did I learn?
Does this project align with my business core values?
Would I do this again? Would I do it differently next time?
What systems/processes can I put in place to improve execution?
Can I delegate this?
What value did this add to my business?
Who else is doing something like this, that I can study and learn from?

Then Dumas runs through the questions using an example: hosting his first webinar to promote his new podcasting course, Podcasters’ Paradise.

He learned that he’d missed an opportunity to engage in the live chat, that he found the webinar valuable enough to plan to repeat it at least 2x/month, to tweak his email sequence to make the experience better, and to study Lewis Howes and Russell Brunson to learn more about webinars.

The reason for doing AARs, Dumas says, is that the 80/20 rule is real, and the AAR will help you identify and improve the 20% that is driving 80% of your results.

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Kate Erickson, his then-girlfriend, now-wife.

“If you’re too busy to build good systems then you’ll always be too busy.” — Brian Logue

Kate was an account exec at an ad/marketing agency when John asked her to join his podcasting company. Kate created the first content production plan and successfully set things up so that in their second year, they could take a 2-week total-unplug vacation, letting the team handle everything.

Every year they extended the vacation and by 2019 they took a 90-day globe-trotting vacation while the business continued to generate 6 figs every month due to their systems and processes.

Kate’s advice:

Know your topic. Create content on your passions/expertise (Dumas calls it the Zone of Fire)
Set a goal. Every piece of content should have a goal and CTA so your audience can take the next step.
Choose a medium. One at a time. When you’ve created a full content plan for that, you can try expanding. Experiment with repurposing.
Establish frequency and length. Consistency is key! Be honest with what you are able to commit to.
Create a format. Template, outline, or checklist, set one up early. Dumas uses the same format for all his episodes, intro, outro, questions, etc.
Get feedback. See what your audience thinks. Feedback could be your CTA.
Put your plan in place. And stick to it.

Learn about Kate at EOFire.com/about

Quote(s) & Comments

First line(s): It’s time. It’s time for the next step in the common path to uncommon success.

Last line(s): Doing monthly AARs (After-Action Review) will help you identify and improve the 20 percent, turning your business into a lean, mean, revenue-generating machine!

“Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” — Andrew Davis.
Yep, I’d have to agree. The best form of exchange isn’t monetary currency, but relational trust.
I love the concept of the AAR. I learned something like this from my art teacher who advised us to ask ourselves after each finished piece — “what could I do better next time?” It’s a great question to ask after each concrete project.
[Referring to different schedules] “What will work best for you? I have no idea, so stop overthinking it and take action. // Oh, and I love you.”
HaHAHA! that line reminds me of Dug from Up. Random Acts of Zany Kindness. (The double slash // symbol means this is a new line)
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
“Those who can’t share something meaningful they’ve accomplished in the last thirty days will have the same answer in thirty months and the same answer in thirty years.”
Although Dumas’ story about swimming was a bit long, having that highly specific detail about what areas of weakness he improved in what order is actually SUPER interesting and inspirational, even to a non-swimmer like me.
It shows you how his brain was working at the most minute level, and allows you to replicate the same thought process with your own tasks.
It also shows another thing about why Dumas succeeded — he was willing to add an extra half hour before AND after regular practice to focus on ONE skill at a time. Showing he’s dedicated, hardworking, intelligent, and optimistic. That’s not a small thing.
As for writing tip learned: having concrete, highly specific detail makes great evidence to back up your points when you’re writing.
Love some of the side stories and the word-for-word template/sample email. Super useful info. Just not sure this is the best place for it, structurally. Or rather, the book might have flowed better if he started with a short numbered TOC of all the points, and THEN deep-dived into each point with his anecdotes and templates.
I’m fascinated by the way Dumas actually starts the hard core part of his work on Tuesdays, using Mondays for “setting the tone for the week.” It resonates with my idea of “don’t start at the beginning.” (When working on a large project, for example, like reading the Bible)
“It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you have a group of people holding you accountable every week. You need that. Why? It’s easy to lose your momentum…lose your way…submit to overwhelm…fade away into the entrepreneurial abyss. // Your mastermind is your lifeline.”
Although this isn’t the mastermind chapter, it’s still a good quote.
“If you’re too busy to build good systems then you’ll always be too busy.” — Brian Logue
This is the reason why my article Want to be a Great Writer worked in its day. This idea of focusing on systems is gold.

Chapter 8. Create Content

In This Chapter

The three words that led to Dumas’ ultimate success.
The trifecta for “uncommon success” + the number one hardest ingredient in that trifecta.
The “baby effect” that pushes many of Dumas’ entrepreneur friends to succeed like never before.
A profile of Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income.

Dumas begins with “‘doing the work’ is the hardest part, which is why most entrepreneurs never celebrate their one-year anniversary.”

Having ideas is exciting, but executing day after day is work.

“The trifecta for the common path to uncommon success is producing free, valuable, and consistent content. What’s the hardest part of the trifecta? Being consistent.”

And by consistent, Dumas is talking about years. If your WHY isn’t strong enough, you’ll quit.

For example, Dumas noticed that most of his entrepreneur interviewees’ a-ha moments occurred after they had a baby. Now that they had a little person to work for, they were much more committed to their thing than when they were childless.

Because work is hard, but failing your baby is harder. Dumas calls this the “baby effect.”

You too need to know that doubts and stress will come, but you need to refocus on your WHY and do the work.

Here, Dumas starts talking about the 3 words that led to success.

First, he talks about productivity. It’s not about being busy, but his definition is “producing the right content for your avatar.”

Next up, discipline. Dumas’ definition? “Being a disciple to a plan of action.” It’s not about having great intentions, it’s about waking up with a plan of action already in place.

He refused to let his “sleepy, hazy, ‘just woke up’ brain take charge.” Instead, he set a “rock-solid plan in place that I had created the day prior” so that there “would be nothing to do except execute.”

How did he do this?

By writing down his plan the day before. Now he could awaken with purpose.

And now for Dumas’ favorite word: Focus. “Follow One Course Until Success.”

Dumas compares himself to Roger Bannister, the man who broke the four-minute mile. Before Bannister, no one thought that was possible. After Bannister, everyone was breaking the four-minute mile.

Similarly, before Dumas started doing daily interview podcasts, no one thought it could be done. Now, there are plenty of daily interview podcasts.

How did Dumas do it? By focusing until he made it happen.

“A major struggle of entrepreneurs who are just starting out is a scattered focus…They go one mile wide and one inch deep with their myriad of ideas…Then, they are shocked when their one-inch impressions don’t gain any traction”

When Dumas started EOFire, it was the ONLY daily podcast interviewing successful entrepreneurs.

As the business evolved, he continued to hone systems and eventually branched out to create the Mastery Journal, which he’s selling at TheMasteryJournal.com.

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Pat Flynn.

“When creating content, be the best answer on the internet.” — Andy Crestodina

Pat created a study guide for an architectural exam and earned $200K+ from it.

But when he was laid off, Pat decided to launch a blog: SmartPassiveIncome.com and created a formula that helps him create content:

Start with the end in mind, reverse engineer the transformation you’re aiming to provide your audience.
Use stories, stepwise guides, case studies, and quotes to support yoru ideas.
Do a brain dump of all ideas.
Organize ideas.
Create the hook
Create the title

Pat uses this process for posts, podcasts, and videos.

You can find out more about Pat at SmartPassiveIncome.com

Quote(s) & Comments

First line(s): Your content production plan is in place. Now it’s time to do the work.

Last line(s): During the thirty-three-day launch, the $39 Mastery Journal generated over $280,000 in sales.

“Content isn’t king, it’s the kingdom.” — Lee Odden
The mention of the Mastery Journal in this chapter seems a bit random and more like a plug to buy than truly relevant to this specific topic. The connection between ideas needs to be made more clear.
Pat Flynn’s advice to “start with the end in mind, reverse engineer the transformation” is not new advice, but it’s still brilliant.

Chapter 9. Launch

In This Chapter

Why Dumas’ podcast almost didn’t get off the ground.
A profile of Jeff Walker, stay-at-home dad-trepreneur and author.

In this chapter, Dumas warns of the danger of perfectionism.

He repeats his launch story, delaying his launch five weeks until his mentor kicked his butt. He finally launched on 9/21/2012.

Why did he delay?

Because as long as he didn’t launch, he could “stay in [his] pre-launch fantasy…hoping for the best and brightest future. But once that launch button was pushed, the fantasy bubble would pop and reality would set in. Reality might contain a happy ending, but it also contained bad ones.”

Dumas has seen many entrepreneurs “falter at the starting gate” due to their perfectionism.

So, he says, go ahead and launch.

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Jeff Walker.

Jeff was a stay at home dad who published a free newsletter on the stock market. He sent lots of great info, built up goodwill, then asked for the order. His first launch made him $1000+ and was an a-ha moment.

His next launches made more and more money until he was making $100K in a week.

The point of this story?

Don’t just launch. Hollywood movies always have a buildup before the movie is released. You also want to create buzz so people are anticipating the offer BEFORE it comes.

Jeff later published the book Launch which was an NY Times bestseller. Dumas summarizes a few takeaways from the book.

You can learn more about Jeff at JeffWalker.com

Quote(s) & Comments

First line(s): Perfectionism. It’s a curse.

Last line(s): We launch. We launch ugly, we launch awkwardly, we launch scared. But the important thing is, we launch. You got this!

“The most dangerous way we sabotage ourselves is by waiting for the perfect moment to begin.” — Vironika Tugaleva
This is fairly standard advice. In fact, that’s the reason why this chapter is a bit weak. In some cases, you don’t WANT to launch with much fanfare. You just want to begin, so that you can get feedback and reiterate until you figure out what works.
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” — Walt Disney
This reminds me of Proverbs 14:23 “All hard work brings a profit but mere talk leads only to poverty.”
Not sure the takeaways from the Launch book were valuable. Mostly commonsense things like “sales help your business because it allows you to build your team and increase marketing.”

Chapter 10. Pinpoint Your Avatar’s Biggest Struggle

In This Chapter

One thing you must do to figure out what your avatar really needs (a powerful method that few are willing to do)
The 4 questions you should ask any audience member willing to talk to you.
Then the 3 follow-up questions you need to pinpoint your avatar’s biggest struggle.
A profile of Ryan Levesque, author of Ask.

Dumas says that a common problem that stops most people from even starting is the fear that they can’t figure out something to monetize.

But, he says, that won’t happen to you if you’re on “the common path” (refer to title of book), because things will be clear to you as you go.

As a reminder, by this point, you have:

Identified your big idea
Niched down to an underserved market
Created your avatar
Chosen your platform
Found your mentor and formed your mastermind

The next step is to figure out your avatar’s biggest struggle. Because once you’re producing valuable free and consistent content, you are building an audience.

And you will then ask your audience 4 questions:

How did you hear about me/find my stuff?: This will show you how people are finding you so that you can “pour igniter fluid on the ways your avatars are finding you” and quit wasting your time on the things that aren’t helping.
What do you like about my content?: If you don’t ask, you won’t know what’s really resonating with your audience. Plus, people like being heard. If you see a pattern among people, double down and make more of this content!
What don’t you like?: You can avoid or correct simple mistakes with this question. Dumas warns, though, not to change everything based on one person’s opinion. They might be an anomaly. But if you see a pattern, then change.
What’s your biggest struggle right now?: This is the MOST important question. Document every single response and sort the responses based on similarity. Dumas recommends getting at least 30 responses and looking for groups of at least 5 similar struggles. Then decide “which struggle you want to create the solution for.”

How do you do this?

Dumas insists that these surveys must be done one-on-one with as many people in your audience as possible. Reach out to them and ask for a 5-minute call.

Why one-on-one? Because people who only believe in only scaling “never achieve uncommon success.”

As a beginner, you’re not ready to scale or leverage your time and knowledge just yet. You have to “do things that don’t scale” and that means talking to your audience one-on-one and asking them these four questions.

Now, after going through each of the four questions in depth, Dumas tells the story of his own use of the four questions:

It’s August 2013, and Dumas is 11 months into his podcast. He was generating some revenue through sponsorships and coaching, but he wanted to take it to the next step.

So he asked his audience (which he called Fire Nation) by sending out emails, creating an entire podcast episode requesting direct feedback, posting on social media, private messaging people with the main question “What is your biggest struggle right now?”

Dumas documented and categorized the responses and learned that his audience’s main problem is not knowing how to start a podcast.

So Dumas attempted to create a solution for that problem, (more on that in the next chapter, and he gives a spoiler alert here: his first try was a miss.)

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Ryan Levesque.

Beginning with a quote from Chip Heath:

“To make our communications more effective, we need to shift our thinking from ‘What information do I need to convey?’ to ‘What questions do I want my audience to ask?’”

Ryan began by in very obscure niches like orchid care, water filtration systems, memory improvement, and Scrabble tile jewelry. He figured out what people wanted by asking them, and realized that was the key — the asking.

Ryan came up with a methodology to help other businesses grow and scale like him.

But here Dumas interrupts to say, What about Henry Ford’s quote: “If I asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for faster horses?” or Steve Jobs’ quote: “People don’t know what they want until I show it to them?”

Dumas agrees with them, but adds: To discover your avatar’s wants, “you must go through the side door” by asking 3 questions:

When it comes to X, what is the single biggest challenge or frustration you are dealing with right now? Please be as detailed and specific as possible. (Dumas calls this the SMIQ, the Single Most Important Question) Also, when asking this, pay careful attention to the language your avatar uses, and use that in your marketing.
If you were to quantify it, how much time have you invested trying to solve this problem? Your goal as the questioner is to look for people who have experienced a lot of pain and spent a lot of time trying to solve the problem. They are most likely to pay for a solution.
How much money have you invested trying to solve this specific challenge? “Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.” Those who’ve invested before are likely to invest again.

Ryan wrote a book about this, called Ask.

His point is that these 3 questions above will help you “pinpoint the hyper-responsive segment of your market and the specific language they use to describe that problem so you can echo it back in your marketing and in your product.”

You can read more about Ryan at AskMethod.com

Quote(s) & Comments

First line(s): There is a major misconception on the common path to uncommon success that stops most people from even starting: they doubt their ability to identify an idea that will generate revenue for their business.

Last line(s): It’s time for the next stage along our common path to uncommon success. Create the solution to your avatar’s biggest struggle. Let’s go!

Along with the mentor and mastermind chapters, I think this is one of the most important chapters in the book. Most people will never do what Dumas suggests — talking to as many members of their audience as possible. It’s time consuming and hard for shy people to do. I myself need to figure out a system to do this.
“Inside of every problem lies an opportunity.” — Robert Kiyosaki
“Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.” — Robert H. Schuller
That’s a very optimistic way of looking at things. And a bit uncommon, so it probably works.
“My recommendation is to get at least thirty responses to this question [what is your biggest struggle right now?] and look for groups of at least five similar struggles.”
This quote is not clear. Groups of 5+ people suffering the same problem, or groups of 5+ problems that are similar? (which may or may not have more than 1 person per problem?)
Getting Ryan Levesque for this section is a perfect fit. Also the 3 questions are very valuable — this chapter is clear and well done.

Chapter 11. Prove the Concept and Craft the Solution

In This Chapter

Four steps to figure out your perfect product.
A sampling of multiple kinds of potential products.
A profile of the Webinar Ninja founders.

Now it’s time to create the solution for the problem you identified in the last chapter, right?

Dumas says no.

A lot of people lock themselves in a room for months, trying to create the perfect solution, he says, but no one really cares.

“Before we craft the perfect solution for our audience, we need to verify that people will pay for the solution…People vote with their wallet.”

Don’t make the solution before proving it. You’ll save yourself lots of time and grief.

But first, what kind of solutions can you offer?

Here are some ideas Dumas offers:

1-on-1 coaching, group coaching, leading a mastermind, writing a book, creating a course, hosting a virtual summit, running a paid challenge, creating software (SaaS), creating a physical product, hosting a premium community, being an affiliate promoter of someone else’s stuff, offering certification, hosting live/virtual events.

Dumas began with 1-on-1 coaching, starting a few months after his podcast launched, when a listener reached out for help on his podcast.

“On the spot, I created a one-, two-, and three-month coaching program” at the cost of $800/$1400/$1800. The program involved 30-minute calls and unlimited email access, and minutes later he had a 3-month coachee.

That was his proof-of-concept for 1-on-1 coaching.

Next, Dumas tried leading a mastermind, because he heard that his audience wanted a place to interact with other listeners. He reached out to other entrepreneurs who had succeeded with masterminds, learned from them, and launched Fire Nation Elite (consisting of a FB group, weekly live open Q&As, and a monthly guest speaker. Limit = 100 people, and everyone must be interviewed to join)

The price started at $300/quarter with a minimum 3-month commitment, and he increased the cost over time. It generated $12K/mo in revenue.

Then Dumas decided to write a book. How it happened: He wanted to boost his podcast knowledge, so he first tried to buy all the books on podcasting that he could find on Amazon, but there were none.

At this point, Dumas knew more than 99% of the world on podcasting, so he decided to write a book and called it Podcast Launch. The book sold well AND brought in more listeners, as a lead generator. It also increased Dumas’ credibility, so he was invited to speak more.

Next, Dumas decided to create a course, Webinar on Fire, because his audience kept asking about webinars.

Running a paid challenge: Challenges usually run 3/5/7/10/15/or 30 days.

Dumas himself took a “Ten-Pound Takedown” challenge run by Cristy Nickel (goal: lose 10 pounds in 30 days).

Then he collaborated with Jill and Josh Stanton of Screw the Nine to Five to create a 5-day “Think Like an Expert” challenge to promote Tony Robbins’ course as affiliates.

They found that their biggest sales came from those who’d done the 5-day challenge because it had built a sense of trust with participants.

In other words, a paid challenge can be super valuable for like-minded people and develop high trust. You can run free challenges, of course, but remember, “when people pay, they pay attention.”

“When you have your sights set on one goal and are pursuing that goal with supportive and like-minded individuals, your likelihood of success skyrockets.”

Dumas also tried creating a SaaS by partnering with another company, but unfortunately it didn’t work out. Why? Dumas says “we weren’t offering a solution to a big enough pain point.”

He warns: This is an advanced model that shouldn’t be attempted early in your entrepreneurial journey.

As for physical products, well, Dumas stayed away from it for 3 years, but when he decided to go for it, he started by asking his audience what their biggest struggle was.

They told him, goal-setting. They wanted a step-by-step process for setting and accomplishing goals, so he planned out the process and created the Freedom Journal.

The goal with the product was to help people “accomplish their #1 goal in a hundred days.” He partnered with Prouduct.com, founded by friend Richie Norton, to create the journal, and decided to release it through Kickstarter.

The idea was that he could print a few copies of the journal for the launch, but wait for the BIG printing once he saw how many people were willing to back the project.

He reached his goal of $25K in 25 minutes, and finished the day with $100K of pledges, ultimately earning $453,810 and 6th place for “most funded publishing campaign of all time.”

After that, Dumas has launched two other journals, Mastery Journal and Podcast Journal (which you can find at TheFreedomJournal.com, TheMasteryJournal.com, and ThePodcastJournal.com)

Next up, hosting a premium community. These are groups where people pay a monthly fee to be part of a group that wants to a) increase knowledge or b) increase revenue re: a topic or industry.

Dumas created Podcasters’ Paradise in 2013 (and plans to share that story in the next chapter), but says the key difference between a premium community and a mastermind are “the video tutorials, templates, and structured guides to help the community members become experts in the topic of focus.”

then we have becoming an affiliate.

For years, Dumas’ biggest affiliate partner was ClickFunnels, because he was friends with its founder, Russell Brunson, and also because he knew his audience would benefit from the product.

Dumas’ advice?

Make a list of products and services YOU use often and look for affiliate links and terms. If they don’t have something already in place, you can just use their contact form and reach out to their affiliate manager.

But remember: “you must believe in the products and services you are promoting. Always do what is best for your audience adn you will remain firmly on the common path to uncommon success.”

Dumas also hosted a live event, for 40 people for 3 days, which was a lot of work but very worth it.

Virtual events can also be powerful if done right. Just make sure if you want to do this that it matches what your avatar wants.

Dumas also speaks a bit on the monetization methods he hasn’t tried (or hasn’t mentioned trying in this book):

Hosting a virtual summit: This is “a collection of interviews from experts on a certain topic.” Cons — You’ll have to find experts, create landing pages, host videos and upload them on time. Pros — you get to create more connections with influential people. Dumas recomends Dr. Mark T Wade at HustleandScale.com as his resource for virtual summits.
Offering a certification?: If you’re an expert in your industry, people will want to learn from you. And going beyond just offering courses, you can offer a certification program. But remember that it’s your reputation that’s on the line, so make sure the people you train really develop the skills.

In summary, don’t be overwhelmed by the options. Always refer back to what your audience wants. The steps to take are…

Ask your audience for their biggest struggle
ID the solution you want to deliver
Get proof of concept
Deliver the solution

Dumas isn’t done yet, though. Here, in a section titled “My Solution,” he elaborates on how he figured out the solution for his audience’s biggest problem (mentioned in the last chapter).

He begins with the HL Mencken quote:

“For every problem there is a solution which is simple, clean, and wrong.”

The first year of his podcast, Dumas made less than $28K. Trying to think of ways to increase his revenue, he referred to what he’d learned from interviews with entrepreneurs and figured it out:

“The most successful entrepreneurs were offering one amazing solution to one real problem. They had positioned themselves as the ‘go-to expert’ in their area of expertise and were focused on going one inch wide and one mile deep…they refused to be distracted by anything other than providing the best solution of a real struggle their audience was experiencing.”

So Dumas surveyed his audience and discovered that their main issue was wanting to know how to create a podcast around their passion.

Dumas figured that the reason why people were struggling was because they were intimidated by the thought of how much time and energy podcasting would take. So his solution would be to create a platform that would let them do the bare minimum.

He would call it PodPlatform and it would host, edit, add intros and outros, create show notes, and publish the podcast for people.

But one thing he forgot? To check in with his audience. Dumas spent months and tons of money to create the product, but made only 1 sale total. And that one person “turned out to be a nightmare.”

Dumas ended up refunding her investment and shutting down the service. “PodPlatform was an utter failure.”

In hindsight, Dumas says, he’s thankful PodPlatform failed so spectacularly. If a few people had signed up, it would have been barely successful enough to keep him busy, tying up his time and attention from better things. Yet, sadly, many other businesses operate in this way — on a model that takes all their time but produces very little.

So next, Dumas came up with the idea of Podcasters’ Paradise. A place where people could go for answers to all their podcasting questions and concerns.

This time, he emailed his audience with the bare-bones concept and asked for feedback and suggestions. This time, he got a great response and lots of suggestions, like creating a collection of templates for every part of podcasting (guest requests, release forms, locking down sponsors, etc.)

But that still wasn’t enough.

Dumas had to see if people would vote with their wallets.

So he outlined what Podcaster’s Paradise would include (video tutorials, templates, an online community, monthly livestream Q&A), announced that it was going live in 45 days (at $500) if at least 20 early birds invested by midnight on Sunday (at a discounted lifetime cost of $250) and that he would be building the program with the feedback of these early birds.

This time, he got his 20 sales. Actually, he got 35 early birds, and Podcasters’ Paradise was a success, today generating over $5M in revenue with over 6000 members.

And Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Nicole & Omar.

“If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.” — Steve Jobs

Nicole and Omar were underpaid teachers who launched The $100 MBA to train people in business for $100. They did weekly live trainings and business was good, but soon Omar realized:

The work he was doing to do the weekly webinars, he had turned into a checklist. Why not sell that checklist?

And so was born The DIY Webinar Guide. They launched the guide, but no one wanted it. They realized people wanted a done-for-you solution, not a checklist. So they scrapped the checklist and kept moving.

Then they noticed that attendees kept asking what software they were using to run webinars. And that inspired them to create WebinarNinja with a freelance developer.

This time, it worked. And today, they have 15K users.

They regularly survey users and study cancellation forms to see why people leave the platform. Their biggest areas of focus?

Keeping the platform simple, and all-in-one
High quality support
“Keeping their finger on the pulse” of users to evolve as the market evolves

You can learn more about Omar and Nicole at 100MBA.net and WebinarNinja.com

Quotes & Comments

First line(s): You’ve done all the right things along your common path to uncommon success.

Last line(s): The common path to uncommon success is not a straight line to success, but rather a guide to stack the odds in your favor. You got this!

“Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or her solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service.” — Brian Tracy
Dumas’ use of multiple URLs as well as riffing on a concept that works for him (The X Journal) plus launching on Kickstarter are all very clever business decisions. No doubt his masterminds really helped him in this.
The idea of verifying your product by getting people to put their money where their mouth is, is one I first learned from Tim Ferris’ 4-hour workweek.

Chapter 12. Build Your Funnel

In This Chapter

How Dumas created and marketed his lead magnet.
How to design a lead magnet that doesn’t just bring people in but moves them to the next stage of your funnel.
A profile of Russell Brunson, Click Funnels founder.

Now, Dumas starts this chapter with a famous marketing illustration about how few people (like, none) get married on the first date, or buy the first house they see.

Similarly, in marketing, your audience needs to go on a journey before they’re ready to buy from you. That journey is called the funnel.

“Humans buy from humans they know, like, and trust.”

At EOFire, Dumas’ team has built multiple funnels, each ending with the offer of a product, service, or community.

Here, Dumas creates a hypothetical real estate agent named Mary who gets a copy of Dumas’ book and uses it to create her own avatar and a free pamphlet answering her avatar’s most important questions. As a result, she wins clients.

“Reciprocity is real. When you provide massive value for free, people look for a way to reciprocate.”

Now Dumas relates his own story:

In early 2014, Podcasters’ Paradise was slowing down, so he realized he needed to create a funnel to bring in people interested in podcasting.

First, he figured out where his leads were coming from. The obvious answer? His podcast.

He knew he had many listeners interested in podcasting but not yet ready to invest in a premium course. So he created a free podcast course for them, making five tutorial videos.

“When creating a free course, it’s important to deliver a clear result. Creating a free course of fluff will only annoy people and send them elsewhere”

Then Dumas promoted his free course on all his platforms and added a CTA at the end of each podcast episode.

He put the course on FreePodcastCourse.com, which people could access by giving him their emails.

And here is where the funnel “began to bear fruit.”

The free course successfully showed people how to create and launch a podcast. But now they had a new problem — how to grow their audience and monetize.

And JLD just so happened to have the answer — Podcasters’ Paradise.

People who finished the free course were thus far more likely to join his paid course.

Over time, Dumas added more layers to his funnel, such as a 20-episode podcast called Free Podcast Course Podcast, a webinar called The Podcast Masterclass, a series of emails with podcasting tools…all leading to Podcasters’ Paradise.

“When you provide free, valuable, and consistent content and build a funnel that presents an irresistible offer, it’s only a matter of time before you’ll see the fruits of your labor.”

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Russell Brunson.

Russell began his entrepreneurial journey by selling DVDs on how to make potato guns. But when Google raised its ad rates, his margins went down, and he needed to pivot.

He met a friend who shared with him the secret of up-sells: offer your customers the next logical solution after buying your product.

Russell realized that people who bought his DVD would need to buy the supplies for their potato gun later, so he found a company selling potato gun kits and formed a partnership so that every DVD-buyer was then offered a kit, and Russell would get a commission for each kit sold.

Russell soon started applying this principle in other markets, looking for “the next logical step” after each purchase.

“When creating a funnel, you need to ask, ‘What is the next obvious problem that needs to be solved?’…Remember, when you sell a product and solve a problem, a new problem appears.”

In other words, your funnel is built around the question “How do I solve the next problem?”

Russell suggests thinking strategically through your customer journey / sales funnel to “make more money from every person that enters your world.”

Find out more about Russell at ClickFunnels.com

Quote(s) & Comments

First line(s): How many people get married on the first date?

Last line(s): When you provide free, valuable, and consistent content and build a funnel that presents an irresistible offer, it’s only a matter of time before you’ll see the fruits of your labor.

“You have to tell a story before you can sell a story.” — Beth Comstock
In this chapter, Dumas uses the hypothetical illustration of two real estate agents to describe the funnel. But here are too many irrelevant details in here for my liking (how one agent had a father in the army, details about the precise avatar she creates, etc.)
Rule of thumb: Details are powerful when they are from real life, relevant, and personal, not so great when they are made-up and hypothetical.
Also, there’s lots of repetition about the steps readers have taken so far with this book (“You have ID’d your big idea, created your avatar, etc., etc.”) But this is actually not a bad idea. Reminders are helpful in long form content like books, as long as they’re quick and efficient.
FreePodcastCourse.com? Boy, JLD is great with URLs! ;D Also, he’s lucky to have jumped in on the action early enough to snag these great domain names. Actually, he’s just great with names in general. Simple, clear, short, memorable, logical, and sometimes alliterative.
In the “Russell Brunson” section, Dumas takes a quick detour to describe “what exactly is a sales funnel.” This part would have made more logical sense earlier in the chapter rather than in this featured profile section at the end.

Chapter 13. Diversify Your Revenue Streams

In This Chapter

5 questions to ask your audience when you’re ready to create more revenue streams.
A profile of Stu McLaren, and how he diversified his revenue streams.

Chapter 13 begins with a warning not to put all your eggs in one basket.

In Chapter 10, you asked your audience 4 questions, and now Dumas says, you need to go back and ask them 5 more, to figure out how to diversify your revenue streams:

How did you discover my content?: Again, you need to know the top ways people are finding you, so you can focus on those areas.
What do you want to see more of?: As your business matures, you may make changes that you are unaware of. Keep asking this question to stay tuned in to why listeners are drawn to you.
What do you want to see less of?: Content people once loved may not be appealing over time. Use this question to catch negative trends and pivot as necessary.
What’s your biggest struggle right now?: This is always your most important question. Your audience’s struggle evolves as you do, so keep on asking.
If I could give you a magic button to reveal the perfect solution to that problem, what would that solution look like?: This allows your audience to share their ideas of what a solution would look like. They can share their wisdom with you.

Dumas reminds readers that the world is unpredictable and fragile and ever-evolving, but that’s where opportunities lie, so “embrace it.”

As he says: “The ‘next big thing’ is always coming and there will be an opportunity for you to go all in and create something special.”

Dumas himself knows this personally: He wasn’t the first to launch a podcast, but he was the first to go all in with a daily interview business podcast and was able to dominate that niche.

“When you achieve that status [as an authority and expert], the snowball effect takes on a life of its own and your authority grows both with and without your efforts.”

Now. Dumas digs into how he’s diversified his income streams. Over the years, he’s created multiple 7-fig funnels, using the tactics he shared in this book.

For example, as Podcasters’ Paradise grew, he analyzed it to see what was working best and realized it was webinars. So his team created systems and processes around the webinars to make them better.

When he realized his audience had lots of questions about webinars, he created a course, “Webinar on Fire,” that worked quite well, too.

And so on.

The point is, as you “follow the common path,” you are building a foundation to support diversified revenue streams that will let you adapt as needed.

“You don’t have to know all the building blocks in your foundation now. They’ll be revealed as you continue along the common path to uncommon success.”

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Stu McLaren.

Stu had a mentor named John, a self-made millionaire who ran a seminar business. John had started out as a car mechanic until he entered seminars and real estate investing in his forties.

Stu learned to create recurring revenue streams (where people pay monthly fees for coaching, masterminds, software) because the more of these you have, the more stable your business is.

To diversify, Stu “goes deep in one specific segment of the market and stacks the momentum.” In other words, he serves the same market with similar offers to avoid “re-creating the wheel.”

This allows him to be the acknowledged leader in his space and offers multiple solutions for your audience.

Off the internet, Stu diversifies in real estate: long-term residential rentals (steady, dependable income) and short-term luxury rentals (premium price, higher profit margins).

“The key is to stack the momentum by staying in the same market and going deep to discover more ways to serve your audience at a higher level.”— Stu McLaren

Stu also recommends using short-term riches to invest in offline long-term things to build lifetime wealth.

Stu’s website is: Stu.me

Quotes & Comments

First line(s): We’ve all heard the wise words don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Last line(s): Trust the process, trust yourself, and above all, take that first step!

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
This is a famous quote, but not sure I fully agree with it.
“Never depend on single income. Make investments to create a second source.” — Warren Buffett
Wish he elaborated more on stacking momentum, not really clear on what that entails.

Chapter 14. Increase Your Traffic

In This Chapter

Why it’s critical for you to “do things that don’t scale.”
A profile of Billy Gene and his paid ads.

Now that you have a funnel, you need to fill it with people (aka “Traffic”)

Here, Dumas debunks the infamous Field of Dreams quote “if you build it, they will come.”

Not true, actually. Dumas corrects that quote to: “If you build it, they won’t care until you make them aware.”

How do you do that?

By 1) creating great content and 2) collaborating with other creators in your niche who are doing great stuff for your avatars.

“Convert the converted. These are words I live by.”

Instead of trying to get random people to listen to his podcast, JLD focused on people who ALREADY LOVED listening to podcasts.

He focused on marketing to the average podcast listener using these steps:

He went to the Apple Podcast directory and looked up the top 200 business podcasts
He narrowed it down to every interview-based podcast and studied their last 10 episodes
If he felt he could add value to their show, he’d visit their website and learn about the podcast host
He’d contact the host with an email that went something like this…

Paraphrased:

Hi [Name], my name is JLD and I’m the host of the podcast EOFire. I’ve been checking out your podcast and I’m impressed.

I just listened to your recent episode [episode name] and my favorite takeaway was [takeaway example here]. I noticed in your last 10 episodes, you’ve covered lots of great topics, but haven’t yet focused on [X], which is my area of expertise.

[Here, JLD offers to make it easier on them by proposing a title, with some bullet points for the interview, also name drops his audience (Fire Nation), and offers to do an interview swap. Then he drops his calendar link and signs off]

[At the end, JLD adds a PS to add that he’s given the podcaster a 5-star rating and review]

This pitch landed him on 10+ podcasts every month.

And, in JLD’s words “This is why it’s important to do things that don’t scale. The more personal and specific you are with your outreach, the more success you’ll have.”

To wrap up, JLD says there are many ways to grow traffic, so try them all, test and focus on what’s best for you.

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Billy Gene.

Billy Gene has an interesting podcast title: Billy Gene Offends the Internet.

His main way to increase traffic is to spend money. The key is to “Make your money back as soon as possible, preferably the same day.”

Another major tip: Ask for the sale.

Many people are afraid to ask others to buy something because it puts them out of their comfort zone. But Billy? He asks people to buy every single time.

And if you have nothing to sell, be an affiliate working on commission for someone else.

Billy says:

“You’re never stuck, you’re just not being creative enough and a lack of creativity will put you out of business, and so will boring.”

You can learn more about him at BillyGeneIsMarketing.com.

Quote(s) & Comments

First line(s): If you’ve been following the common path to uncommon success, you’re on fire!

Last line(s): Think about your avatar, where they currently are, how you can best access them, and how you can add value to their world so they will seek out your content and become part of your tribe.

At one point in this chapter, Dumas writes: “Before you overthink this, please remember the following: All ships rise in a high tide.”
Actually, the popular form of the saying is “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Rewriting it can do two things 1) make it stick in your readers’ memory because of its unfamiliarity 2) annoy readers.
“Convert the converted. These are words I live by.”
Side note: This reminds me of a sad anecdote I heard from certain missionaries in a third world country — that after they would go door knocking and share the gospel with a family, a cult would move in afterwards like a buzzard and try to add things and sway that family to join their church instead. However, of course this is not what JLD is talking about.
“A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.” — Henry
JLD uses a lot of these epigraph quotes — consistently at the beginning of chapters, and beginning of featured entrepreneurs. It’s interesting.
“You’re never stuck, you’re just not being creative enough and a lack of creativity will put you out of business, and so will [being] boring.”

Chapter 15. Implement Systems and Build a Team

In This Chapter

Dumas’ method for delegating tasks smoothly.
A profile of entrepreneur Amy Porterfield.

Dumas begins by warning readers:

“It’s critical to know your business from the inside out before you start to implement systems and build the team that will allow you to grow and scale. // We need to understand how every facet of our business operates.”

Here’s Dumas’ system:

First write down everything you do in a week, and be detailed.
Then split your list into two. One is repeatable tasks, the other is one-time tasks.
Then take your Repeatable Tasks list and arrange it in order of what’s most to least time-consuming.
Then create a system for your most time-consuming task, writing a step-by-step process for that task.
Now create a video of yourself talking and walking through the process and save it in a folder called “Systems.”
Create one of these trainings every week until you have a library of tutorials to train your future team with.

Dumas started building his team in the beginning of 2013.

“When you are operating as a solopreneur, you can only do so much.”

He started by reading Chris Ducker’s book Virtual Freedom and took notes on how to hire and build his first team.

First, he wanted a social media manager. So he used Virtual Staff Finder to look for people. He Zoom-interviewed the candidates, gave them test tasks and made his first hire.

Then he joined his then-girlfriend Kate to take over operations, and added a couple more VAs over the years.

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Amy Porterfield.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” — Helen Keller

Amy left corporate in 2009 to start her own business and vowed never to build a large team.

But as her courses sand communities and students grew, she needed to build a team. Today she has 18 full time employees and 5 independent contractors in 4 departments (marketing, content development, community, operations).

She has a director for each department, and she meets them once a week. Under the directors are managers and coordinators so no one is overwhelmed.

She uses Slack to communicate with her team, and Asana to manage projects. Amy also uses an HR and DEI consultant. Their goal is to find a good “culture add” (not culture fit. They don’t just want people who are like those already on the team, but those who can add insights)

They put candidates through a test run, then an in-person interview with each level of management. Then there’s a 90-day at-will employment with a detailed onboarding process. At the end of 90 days, the employee is fully in.

You can learn more about Amy at AmyPorterfield.com

Quotes & Comments

First line(s): Those of us on the common path to uncommon success are committed to putting in the reps. We do the work. We get stuff done.

Last line(s): Creating systems and building a team does not happen overnight, but if you work at it steadily and consistently, you’ll be incredibly proud of the business you’ve created on your path to uncommon success. You got this!

“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. — Donald Berwick
This is a fairly short chapter. Not too relevant to me, and probably not super relevant to his ideal audience (beginners), either, but worth including as a “here’s what’s coming down the pipeline, probably, if you stay the course.”
Just realized: Dumas’ success was really rapid. From launching the podcast in 2012 to building a team 2013. But some background things he had were his experiences in the business and military world, his mastermind group and mentor.

Chapter 16. Create Affiliate Partnerships

In This Chapter

How to figure out what products to partner with as an affiliate.
A profile of a couple who started ScrewTheNinetoFive.com

When addressing your avatar’s pain points, you can’t (and shouldn’t) solve them all yourself. That’s why you look for affiliate partnerships.

You sell their products to your audience, and you get a percentage of the sale as your commission.

Ideally you want the partner to give you an affiliate link, not just a promo code so you can see how much traffic you’re sending to the sales page and what your conversion rate is. (This info can help you figure out whether the sales page needs tweaking.)

The reason why referrals work is because people are more likely to buy when they are recommended by people they “know, like, and trust.”

If they can, ask your affiliate partner to create a landing page for you, and you can also add your own value to enhance the offer (like JLD offering his Freedom Journal to every person who signs up for ClickFunnels through his link), and convince people to buy using YOUR link, specifically.

For JLD, affiliate revenue makes up about 50% of his monthly revenue.

His main affiliate product is ClickFunnels, which is a monthly recurring subscription, so JLD gets monthly recurring revenue.

When JLD saw how lucrative this partnership was, he sponsored them on his podcast (for a discount) and created a free course teaching his audience how to create funnels that would point them to ClickFunnel’s 14-day trial.

Basically he promotes ClickFunnel wherever he can.

You can use that to spark your own ideas.

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Jill and Josh Stanton.

The Stantons started out in skin care affiliate marketing based on market research showing people bought a lot of skin care products online.

They created content around skin care and requested samples to review on video, and started getting organic traffic. Their content contained affiliate links and they were able to hit their goal of $5K/month.

Over time, they added makeup, hair, personal hygiene, weight loss, supplements, and more.

And then they launched ScrewTheNinetoFive.com as a lifestyle blog to teach others affiliate marketing.

Their tips?

Make a list of potential products in your niche that you can review
Make a list of the products/programs you use and create tutorials on how to maximize their value
Focus on the thing you’re best at and connect your audience to solutions elsewhere as needed

You can find out more about the Stantons at ScrewTheNineToFive.com

Quote(s) & Comments

First line(s): We’ve talked about how understanding your avatar’s pain points is a key ingredient in the common path to uncommon success.

Last line(s): You can focus on what you do best and promote other companies’ products and services in the areas in which they excel, creating that win, win, win for all parties involved. You got this!

“To have an impact on your audience, you must understand their pain points.” — Neil Patel
Starting to notice that Dumas is adding “you got this” to many of his chapter endings. Would recommend not doing that, if I were his editor.

Chapter 17. Keep the Money You Make

In This Chapter

Why Dumas left California for Puerto Rico.
How Dumas can take a 90-day vacation every year.
A profile of Ramit Sethi (of I Will Teach You to be Rich fame)

Dumas reminds readers of how he started the book with the line, “You’ve been lied to.” Especially when it comes to money. A lot of people are lying online.

Dumas says he has many friends who work hard and make a lot but it all disappears into ad spend, payroll, and taxes.

“Those big three will eat away at your profit every second you’re not focused on keeping the money you make.”

Another Dumas quote:

“The common path to uncommon success is not about creating the next Amazon. It’s about creating a life of financial freedom and fulfillment. It’s about creating a business that lights you up every day. It’s about creating a business that adds massive value to the world in your area of expertise…a business that allows you to live the life you want, beholden to no one.”

Today, Dumas says, he’s able to travel on a whim, spend 90 days a year on vacation, and live in his dream home in Puerto Rico.

But first, he says, you need to start keeping the money you make.

Too many people are living paycheck to paycheck, and that creates unremitting stress. Plus the inability to invest in your business.

Here, Dumas recommends two books to read:

The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
Profit First by Mike Michalowicz

Dumas first realized the importance of “keeping your money” when he lived in San Diego in 2015 and had to pay $250K in taxes after making $2+M.

He sat down with his accountant and realized he was keeping less than 25% of his revenue. His accountant said:

“John, it’s not hard to make money in California, but it’s near impossible to become wealthy.”

That’s thanks to the 51% state and federal tax.

Then Dumas heard about Puerto Rico, a US commonwealth that has a tax rate of 4%. So in 2016, he and Kate moved to Puerto Rico and have been there ever since.

Dumas wraps up this chapter with an interview with Ramit Sethi.

“There is a gigantic difference between earning a great deal of money and being rich.” — Marlene Dietrich

Sethi advises people not to play defense but offense with their money.

He started his blog in his early twenties and was already saving for his wedding, before even meeting his future wife.

“Why is it so weird to plan for things that we know are going to happen?” Sethi asked. Most people will get married, have children, a car, a house, retire, have elderly parents to care for, so why not plan for these likely life events?

The point is to spend money on what you love and cut ruthlessly on things that aren’t important to you.

Sethi recommends a 10-year savings strategy. Consider what big purchases you’ll make in those years. Write it down so you have plenty of time to work toward those goals.

Find out more about Ramit at IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com

Quote(s) & Comments

First line(s): Truer words have never been spoken. (Referring to Kiyosaki’s quote, see below)

Last line(s): You’re on the common path to uncommon success. We’re here to make an impact and create a life of financial freedom and fulfillment. You got this!

“It’s not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for.” — Robert Kiyosaki
Interesting quote. I mostly agree with it, but I’d add: how do you define “it”? What is the ultimate purpose of having money, making it work for you, and passing it on to future generations?

Chapter 18. The Well of Knowledge

In This Chapter

Dumas’ favorite quotes from major influences in his life.

In this section of the book, JLD stuffs the chapter with “JLDisms” which are his favorite truisms, like:

FOCUS: Follow One Course Until Success
For JLD, he was always working on “one more quality interview” for his podcast. “Everything else was a nice-to-have” but not his “driving FOCUS.
Looking for permission? Check the mirror
This is your life, why let someone else lead the way?
Compare and despair
There will always be someone better and worse than you. So only compare yourself to yourself, from yesterday.
Get traction and hang on for dear life
Opportunities don’t last forever, so don’t go into coasting mode. If you can get proof of concept, go all in! “Make hay while the sun is shining,” as farmers say.
You only need to be right once.
This one needs some explanation. Dumas is referring to the attitude Edison had when he said “I have not failed. I’ve just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.” But the 10,001st way worked, and voila! Light bulb.

Also:

Live below your means. Get 1% better daily. Put in the reps (you won’t be good at something you’ve never done before, don’t expect it). Be consistent. All the magic happens outside of your comfort zone. Figure out what sets you on fire and have tunnel vision.

“Entrepreneurs don’t fail. They just stop doing the things that would eventually make them successful.”

Finally, Dumas shouts out James Clear’s Atomic Habits book and newsletter (jamesclear.com) and throws in some more quotes and line he learned from Clear:

“If you don’t get what you want, it’s a sign either that you did not seriously want it, or that you tried to bargain over the price. — Rudyard Kipling
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is a quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” — Mary Anne Radmacher
“When one teaches, two learn.” — Robert Heinlein
“People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” — FM Alexander
“Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.” — Penn & Teller

And then Dumas throws in a section on “How to Get Better at Sales”:

Sales can be complicated or simple. You decide.
Sales is about people and problem solving, not technology or code.
People only buy 4 things: time, money, sex, peace of mind/approval
People buy aspirin always, vitamins occasionally. So sell aspirin.
People buy from their friends, so make a lot of friends.
Being valuable and useful (consistently and authentically) and “people will find ways to give you money. I promise.”
People only care about the problem you are solving for them (not your problems)

And more quotes from Clear:

Be forgiving with your past self. Be strict with your present self. Be flexible with your future self.
Wealth is the power to choose. (NOTE: As in how to spend time, money, who to hang out with, etc)
If you want to take something more seriously, do it publicly.
Most failures are one-time costs. Most regrets are recurring costs.
Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.
The more you repeatedly deliver value, the more people seek you out for that value. Your reputation is a magnet.
Once you become known for something, relevant opportunities come to you with no extra work.
In a world where information is abundant and easy to access, the real advantage is knowing where to focus.
The best way to get the attention and respect of exceptional people is to do exceptional work. Like attracts like.
Not taking things personally is a superpower.
If you have good habits, time becomes your ally. All you need is patience.
Where you spend your attention is where you spend your life.
Stop worrying about how long it will take and get started. Time will pass either way.
Without a great strategy, hard work becomes a nightmare.

“I remember my first negative review…It was like a punch to the gut [but my mentor said] You’ve finally arrived! She explained that everyone who creates something meaningful in this world is taking a stance, and whenever you take a stance, you’ll have haters.”

Then Dumas throws in some quotes from Kevin Kelly (KK.org) who published 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice on his 68th birthday:

Learn how to learn from those you disagree with, or even offend you.
Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.
Don’t be the best. Be the only.
Don’t take it personally when someone turns you down. Assume they are like you: busy, occupied, distracted. Try again later…often a second try works.
The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation.
The more you are interested in others, the more interesting they find you. To be interesting, be interested.
To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just re-do it, re-do it, re-do it. The secret to making fine things is in remaking them.
You are what you do. Not what you say, not what you believe, not how you vote, but what you spend your time on.
The universe is conspiring behind your back to make you a success. This will be much easier to do if you embrace this pronoia.

Next up, quotes from Naval Ravikant:

Avoid competition by being authentic
Be impatient with actions, patient with results
She who experiments the most wins.
Inspiration has an expiration date.
Millionaires aren’t busy, or productive, or the hardest and longest working people, they are those who produce the right things.
People have already dug in all of the obvious places, you have to be willing to dig deeper or in new areas.
Become top 25 percent at three things and combine them to become top 1 percent.
Future millionaires live at the edge of…specific knowledge
You can become rich by giving people what they want at scale.
A busy calendar and a busy mind will destroy your ability to do great things in this world.

Quote(s) & Comments

First line(s): What a journey we’ve been on. Now it’s time to take your ship out to sea.

Last line(s): Slake your thirst here often, and financial freedom and fulfillment will be yours!

“A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” — John A Shedd
Not sure the advice to compare yourself to yourself, yesterday is really all that good advice. What if you were doing well back then and are currently in a hole? Don’t compare yourself at all. To anyone, self included. Focus on something else besides yourself. And then you won’t be tempted to compare.
This is basically Dumas’ worldview chapter. Interesting that he puts a bunch of quotes here with his personal commentary. Some of his commentary is insightful, which I’ve taken note of below the bullets I liked the most.
Most of his commentary is pretty expected though (like the oft-repeated story of the pottery class — sometimes known as the photography class story— That one got way popular).
But that’s what you get in a book called the COMMON path to uncommon success. Really, there’s nothing new under the sun. But it’s good to be reminded.
Also: More valuable than reading Dumas’ “Well of Knowledge,” it would be worth taking the time to make your own!

Epilogue

In This Chapter

Dumas peaces out (for this book!)

JLD tells readers the hard truth:

“If you’re not currently enjoying financial freedom and fulfillment, you’re coming up short on at least one step of the common path, possibly multiple.”

Uncommon success won’t come overnight, but it will if you follow the common path patiently and persistently.

And when you need inspiration, JLD points you to the Well of Knowledge (previous chapter)

He suggests readers use this book to lay the foundation, but know that your path to uncommon success will change as the world changes.

“Trust the process, commit to the journey, and financial freedom and fulfillment will be yours.”

Quotes & Comments

First line(s): I’ve been open, honest, and transparent with you at every step of the common path to uncommon success. I’m not going to stop now.

Last line(s): Trust the process, commit to the journey, and financial freedom and fulfillment will be yours. — -John Lee Dumas

Solid ending. No comments here!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Why I Rated This Book 4 Stars

I use this criteria to rate every book (out of 6 points per category):

Star ratings:
1 star = Basically, trash. Or worse.
2 stars = Only worth it if you really like the topic.
3 stars = Average.
4 stars = Quite Good.
5 stars = Worth re-reading more than once.
6 stars = Life-changing.

3. Craft ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍

Is this work is well-written, and are the ideas clearly and skillfully presented?

Dumas wrote this book in a friendly, straightforward voice, which matches his actual (audible) voice, which he uses on his podcast. There’s no advanced grammar or SAT-words here, and that’s a good fit for his topic.

Since it’s the COMMON path to uncommon success, you should use language that the COMMON people can understand (not just ivory tower elites), and Dumas nails it here.

That said, he can be bit too long-winded with some of his stories, in certain cases.

Another stylistic drawback:

There are a few too many CTAs for different things (like the Freedom Journal). Some I would say were put in inappropriate places, but it’s a minor issue. And if Dumas tested it and saw that adding those CTAs helped increase his Journal sales, who am I to criticize?

2. Concept 📖📖📖📖

Is this an interesting concept, well-executed? (Are implicit and explicit promises paid off?)

LMA/LDB: This is primarily a “doing” book. The ideas laid out are highly practical and meant to be quickly understood and immediately applied.

I thought Dumas did an excellent job making and delivering on the promise of this book, which is to teach aspiring content creators how they might achieve success, via the mechanism of sharing his own stories and insights.

The only downside I would say is that he didn’t spend as much time warning people what NOT to do as what TO do, as well as the caveats.

And those ARE important.

Part of that may be that Dumas himself is a little blind to certain advantages he may have that others do not have, assuming that everyone is “just like him.” (This is called survivorship bias).

His military and monetary background, for instance. Or his super-helpful girlfriend-turned-wife, his irrepressible energy, his likability and charisma, his age and placement in time (starting a podcast now feels very different from when Dumas did it, decades ago), etc.

That doesn’t mean that no one else can learn from Dumas’ advice unless they have all the advantages that he has.

Everyone has their own set of advantages and disadvantages (and yes, luck plays a role, too), and I still think most of the principles presented in this book are solid, but I also think the book could have been brought up even one more notch if Dumas acknowledged potential pitfalls or advantages he has that others probably won’t have — and then addressed how to go around or over those obstacles.

1. Core ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Are the worldview, themes, and arguments of this work true, edifying, and worth learning?

The basic worldview presented in this book is one of “hard, smart work pays off if you don’t give up,” which for the most part is a solid, workable worldview. It’s not mind-blowing or surprising…

…but in a time when the opposite, damaging worldview is often being pushed, to the detriment of aspiring creators and entrepreneurs, it’s a good reminder that “all hard work brings a profit, [though] mere talk leads only to poverty.” (That’s Proverbs 14:23, by the way).

I think that if someone were to seriously follow Dumas’ advice and plan laid out in this book, to the best of their ability, they WILL achieve some measure of success. It may not be at the same level as Dumas himself, depending on the person’s own luck, timing, charisma, and so on, but it will be something worthwhile 🙂

LED Assessment

How did this book lighten, enlighten, or delight the reader (that would be me, in this case)?

I would say this book was a bit “load-lightening,” in the sense that his ideas were inspiring, reminded readers of good foundational principles, and made him feel like “one of us,” someone who understands what it feels like to be a beginner, but who has worked his way up to success.

Dumas didn’t really say anything I haven’t heard before, but things that stick out in my memory are:

His story about improving his swimming by breaking down the different skills and focusing on each one (FOCUS = Follow One Course Until Success)
Also, his chapters on mentorship and mastermind building were really important to include. The one on masterminding in itself is a topic worth having a book written on it alone.

Writing Tips & Practical Application

Make your own Well of Knowledge: Start a spreadsheet or document and start noting down quotes and concepts that you find particularly helpful in your life.
Plan your content creation schedule: Write it down, but keep it simple, and then execute immediately. Don’t wait for an auspicious day to set it in motion. Take a couple hours if you need to brainstorm, then execute your plan and adapt as you go.

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