How to Win at ANYTHING | John Lee Dumas

like whenever you compare yourself to somebody else who you think is ahead of you, like, of course you're going to despair because you're going to start comparing your shortcomings to what they're doing. So just know that it's a fact that when you compare yourself, you're going to despair. And you should only ever be comparing yourself to one person, and that's you yesterday. And if you're winning that comparison, then you're winning at life.

Hey everybody, Dr. Josh Axe here, and welcome to the Growth Lab Podcast, where we uncover the science behind how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, and take your career and relationships to the next level. Today, I wanna welcome John Lee Dumas. Uh, GLD is the founder and host of the award-winning podcast Entrepreneurs on Fire, where he interviews some really incredible guests. In fact, over the years, I've seen him interview everybody from you know, Tony Robbins to Tim Ferriss. And over the last 11 years, he's interviewed over 4,000 entrepreneurs and accumulated over 160 million total listens. And he's been featured all over the place— Forbes, Harvard Business Review— and he's a bestselling author of The Common Path to Uncommon Success as a book, which we'll get into. And one of the things we really want to— I want to talk to John today about is how to be successful and also how to maintain a great quality of life. And that's one of the things, uh, that I'm excited to talk to today is really about how, how to live a quality life. So, John, welcome to the show.

Josh, I'm fired up to be here, brother. Love your energy. I love the fact that you're a fellow Puerto Rican like myself, uh, just living down here on the Enchanted Islands, loving the sun, all, all the beaches, all the good things, and, uh, enjoying life.

So, so when Chelsea and I were making the move to Puerto Rico, you were one of the first people that came to mind because I was on your podcast. Now, this is a long time ago. I'm trying to remember. This is probably like 7, maybe even 8 years ago. And, um, and I just remembered somebody had mentioned somewhere, and it might have been Brendan Bouchard because he lived in Dorado for a little bit, but somebody said, oh, you know, John, John Lee Damas lives there. So I gave you a call and, uh, you were kind enough to also just direct me and give me some, some thoughts about some places on the island. And then I literally had a couple people tell me when I told them I was listening to Puerto Rico, I mean, they kind of referred to you as sort of like almost the godfather, the, you know, the person that kind of runs the island. So what are your thoughts on that?

Well, I will say I would consider myself the godfather of Palmas del Mar, which is the 3,500-home gated community in the southeastern parts of the islands. This is where Kate and I moved 7 years ago directly from San Diego, which we both loved. Um, Kate was born and raised, my wife, um, in San Diego. We love San Diego, the culture, the energy, the, the weather. Um, but you know, when you decide that you wanna start keeping the money you make, you, you start looking elsewhere than California. And that's when, uh, Puerto Rico came into our peripheral. And when we found Palmas del Mar, the community, we just fell in love with it. We literally bought our dream home, you know, just 240-degree panoramic, you know, view from our kitchen terrace of the Caribbean, the El Yunque mountain range to our left, Vieques and Culebra Island to our right. We can see the US Virgin Islands literally from our door. I mean, it's, it's paradise. And when I tell people this, I mean it, we will never leave.

I mean, it's pretty amazing. You know, when I, when I think about a lot of entrepreneurs, I think that, um, you know, they'll, they'll move places for various reasons or just generally people will. Sometimes you move because you've got family in an area, or maybe if it's for a job opportunity, community. It seems to me like you guys moved because you really wanted to improve your— and just create an ideal quality of life overall, not only because there's tax savings, but also you just really enjoyed the island. And then one of the things I've heard about Palmas, where you're— where you are, is that it's incredibly community-driven. Um, so, so, so would you talk just a little bit about, you know, uh, why you chose to move to Puerto Rico from the United States and sort of what, what the outcome has been?

It's a great question. I think it's one that's not talked about enough in the entrepreneurial and even in the business space in general. But for us, we spent 5 years, 2012 to end of 2016, so just a little over 4, almost 5 years, just working our butts off. Like, we were grinding. We were building this business called Entrepreneurs on Fire. We were putting in 60, 70, 80 hours a week and nothing's wrong with that. You know, I grew a lot from that. I learned a lot from that. I met a lot of great people and I look back fondly over that time, like those 5 years of grinding, of building the business. Like it really shaped me into who I am today, but it also made me realize at the end of those 5 years of like, wow, like I've built a really awesome business. I've built a really awesome brand. What about enjoying it now? Like what about actually kind of living the fruits of my labor and And what would that look like? You know, we had a big team of like 17 people and, you know, our monthly run rate was very high and our revenue was really high as well. But after like, you know, like paying our bills and then especially paying the tax man in California and of course federal, we were like, man, we're working so hard and we're not keeping a ton at the end of the day. Like, don't cry for me, Argentina. Like, we're doing good financially, but like it, it could be better, we feel. So, so we kind of like stepped back and said, what would it look like if we shifted a few things? We adjusted this, adjusted that, and really made some moves that would greatly impact, number one, our quality of life, and then number two, still allow us to have the revenue coming in, at least, you know, making the money that would afford us the lifestyle that we want on that side of things as well. And had a lot of conversations with a lot of great people including our CPA and, and others. And Puerto Rico came up. And again, this was back in late 2015, early 2016. And Kate and I sat down, we're like, what would it look like if we went from paying 51% of our, of our money that we earned, so 51 cents of every dollar, and we started paying 4% or 4 cents of every dollar that we earned? What would that look like? And then we also, you know, kind of looked at it in actual terms of Like really right now, if we look at it in that way, we're working for the government until June 10th of every single year. The first 6+ months, every penny we make is going right to the government. Whereas if we moved to Puerto Rico, on January 17th, we're done for the year. And then every penny that we make January 18th through December 31st stays in our pocket, allows us to do some really cool things, buy a dream home, do some crazy fun investing that we maybe weren't going to be able to do before with all this disposable income, travel our faces off, which we did like 90-day European trips. In fact, before the call, I was telling Josh about a 23-day river cruise we took from Romania to Amsterdam and we're just completely unplugged the whole time. So we made the move to Puerto Rico. You know, we sat down, we trimmed our team from 17 to 5. And just really focus on the really main revenue drivers of our business, which was Entrepreneurs on Fire, and just forgot about the rest. And I think the most important part about all of this, Josh, that doesn't get talked about nearly enough is that we found something that most entrepreneurs and most businessmen and women never find. And that's one word, enough. We found enough. Like we found out what our enough was. You know, we, we figured, you know, we found out that, hey, Making $150,000 a month is enough. And that was what our business was generating after we made all those cuts and figured everything else out where we said, you know, before we were making $500,000, $600,000, $700,000 a month. But at the end of the day, after all of our work that we're putting in and our expenses and the taxes, you know, we weren't keeping nearly that much, but we loved the fact that we're saying, okay, now we're going to be working 20, 25, 30 hours a week, you know, give or take. And we're going to be having lifestyle freedom, location freedom, financial freedom, because we found that word enough. And there's always that desire to add more to your plate, to build your team bigger, to grow. And nothing's wrong with that. And people that want to do that, like the Gary Vaynerchuk of the world, they should do that. The Elon Musk of the world, they should do that, because they're bringing a lot of amazing things to humanity. And that gets them going. They would be bored out of their minds. If they lived a week in my shoes, Josh, they would be bored out of their mind. 'Cause I sit by the pool sometimes for hours and don't do almost anything. I love that. That's me. That's my personality. They would hate that. So I think people need to, A, understand who they are, what drives you, what makes you happy and satisfied. And B, what is enough for you? Does that exist? Is there an enough? And once you have that number, if it exists for you, get there and then just stop. Don't put more on your plates. Don't add things. Don't be stressed out by the fact that you're not growing, you're not going up to the right. Just be satisfied and live and enjoy your life. And that's the transition we made from the first 5 years of Entrepreneurs on Fire, from 2012 to 2016, and then the last 5, 7 years of Entrepreneurs on Fire where we've been living in Puerto Rico. You know, we've been running a very profitable business Averaging 90%, um, net profit on our gross revenue, keeping the money we make because we don't pay taxes, and investing in things that we love, traveling the way that we want to travel, being philanthropic in ways we weren't able to be philanthropic before with all this more disposable income, and overall just loving that aspect of it.

That's so cool. You know, I, I, I, and I, I love that you framed it up like, what's enough? You know, I had a mentor, a friend of mine as well, Jordan Rubin, and he asked me that one time when we were going to go into a business. He said, hey, What's enough for you in terms of what you'd make, like in terms of you and Chelsea and your future and what you think you could live on and invest? What's the number? And I said, well, I don't know. I hadn't thought about it, but it was such a good question for me and for Chelsea and I to sit down and say, okay, what are the things we want to do now for our kids, for the future each year, living expenses and also to that disposable income? And actually took time and wrote that down. And it really is powerful. And I think culture today, I think so much of it is driven on, well, for me to be significant, it's about how much money I make or how many followers I have. And so I think realizing and, and discovering this number— and then I have someone else I know recently, and who he's probably in the top 2% of doctors out there in terms of his revenue and just his skill. He's incredible physician, but he's always comparing himself to the top 1%. So he literally feels like he never measures up, he never is never enough. I'm like, Hey, look at the other 97 or 98%, like you're outperforming right now. So this, this sort of mindset and the perception, I think I'm so glad you brought this up because it's so important. One of the, another question I had for you was, and by the way, John, I didn't know this about you until I went and spent some time reading your bio, but you were in the military for quite a few years, right? Talk to me about your experience there and you know, what sort of life was like versus, you know, making that transition to an entrepreneur to where you are now.

Happy to. Um, one thing I want to do before that though is step back to your, yeah, pairing situation you were talking about with that 2% looking up at 1%. I feel very strongly about this. And in fact, this phrase that I use on my show quite a bit, I call it compare and despair. Like whenever you compare yourself to somebody else who you think is ahead of you, like of course you're going to despair because you're going to start comparing your shortcomings to what they're doing. So just know that it's a fact that when you compare yourself, you're going to despair. And you should only ever be comparing yourself to one person, and that's you yesterday. And if you're winning that comparison, then you're winning at life. And by the way, some days you're not. On Sunday, I woke up and I'd gone to a party Saturday night. I very rarely drink or eat crappy food, um, but I did both of those things on Saturday night. Halloween party. I had one of the funnest nights of my life. It was amazing. I went as Elf. It was so fun and I danced my, my face off. But I woke up Sunday morning, I, I was feeling a little hungover. I was feeling a little crappy from the food that I ate. So comparing myself to the day before, I was actually losing that day. But you know, 5 days a week, 6 days a week, when I compare myself to the day before, I'm winning. And so if you're doing that on a consistent basis, you're winning at life. So only compare yourself to you yesterday, cuz if you're winning that more than you're losing that, that's good. You're winning at life, period. So for me, and you and I actually may have some, um, some differing thoughts on this, cause I know you have a 3-year-old and a child coming, um, shortly. And myself, I have my first ever child coming, um, any day now, literally. Uh, my wife is basically 9 months pregnant, um, which is pretty crazy. And by the way, I might change my attitude about this when I have a child or children, but right now, I look back and I'm like, man, my dad did it right. Like he created a great life for me up to 18 years old in a very opportunistic and comforting and great environment. And then he said, you're 18, you're going to college. Do not expect a dollar from me for the rest of your life. And I said, cool, dad, thanks. And at the time I was like, you know, what a prick. This guy's a multimillionaire and yada yada. But man, that was the best gift my father could have ever given me. And this is going to your question about the military, because hey, my dad was a multimillionaire, still is. Um, did I need to get an Army scholarship to go to college, like, based off of what most fathers do for their kids when they just write checks? Like, no. Like, he could have kept me out of the military. He could have just, you know, written my tuition check and not even really thought about it, and I would have, you know, who knows what would have happened to me. Good, bad, in the middle, who knows? Um, but my dad was like, you're responsible for college. You know, he, he had saved some, but he's like, anything above that, which is, you know, almost everything, he's like, you're responsible for. Um, that's just how it's going to be. And I went to college and I said, hey, I'm not going to get destroyed by debts like most people do and spend years of their life repaying it. I'm just going to go the Army scholarship route. And I got an ROTC scholarship. And I spent 4 years as a cadet, which, by the way, kept me out of so much trouble in college because, of course, I had to be a cadet and adhere to a lot of rules and regulations there. And then I graduated and I was actually the first class of officers to be commissioned post-9/11. So 9/11 happened when I was a senior in college and we all looked at each other like, whoa, we went from like a peacetime environment to like, we're probably going to war. And of course, You know, later that year I was deployed to Iraq for a 13-month tour of duty, and I was actually an armor officer, which means I was in charge of a tank— sorry, 4 tanks. I was a tank commander, so I was in charge of my tank, 3 other tanks, M1A1 Abrams, and 16 men because there's 4 men per tank. And that was my job as a 23-year-old who just spent 4 years with not a ton of responsibility in college to now being in Ahramadi, Fallujah, Habaniyah, Iraq, commanding a platoon for 13 months in war. I mean, it was, there's no other way to put it. Like, it was a war, not necessarily your conventional war, but we were getting shot at, mortar rounds were dropping every day. 4 of my 16 soldiers in my platoon did not make it home. They made the ultimate sacrifice. So, you know, it was a really horrific and tough and challenging experience. Um, and I was 23 years old, and of course then I was 24 and 25, and I was an officer in the US Army for 8 years, 4 active and then 4 in the reserves. And it was an experience that definitely shaped the rest of my life because perspective was something I'll never lose now. Because no matter how bad my day down here in Puerto Rico can be— and we have bad days from time to time, I mean, everybody does— I can just be like, snap my fingers and I can just think of any of the days I was in Iraq experiencing what I was experiencing and being like, whoa, John, relax. Like, life is pretty good. Have some perspective here. And that was a huge help. Of course, the discipline, the focus, all these different things that come with your Army and military training in general was a huge help to me going forward. And so that, you know, is kind of a longer way of coming back to, man, I have a really hard time believing that I'm going to like try to leave this huge financial legacy for my child or children. Because I think when you gift them that without them ever earning it, you're give— you're taking away the biggest gift that you can give a human being, which is the pride that, for instance, I have of making it on my own, of building what I've built. On my own. Like the pride, like that's, that's, that's all I need. And having that taken away, that's why it doesn't surprise me when you hear of all these, you know, rich kids or child, you know, children of actors and famous people just being absolute disasters. It doesn't surprise me at all. And so it's going to be a challenge because, you know, again, I'm not yet a parent. I don't know that undying love that will, will, I'm about to experience, but, um, Man, I will be pretty surprised if I spoil that, that child financially once they become a man and/or a woman.

Well, you know, I think sometimes my philosophy around this is very much like, we just, you know, we love our kids so much that we want them to be all they can be. And if somebody has a lot of wisdom, it's you want your kids to do hard things because that will make them better, right? And so going to the military, starting your own business, you know, disciplining your kids, this all helps them grow in character. I think that's one of the things we're missing today. I think part of this is, you know, the definition of love is, I think, culturally very off, right? I think if you look more of a biblical definition, love is this thing where it's like, it's self-sacrifice. And it's like, for a parent, they may— some parents may say, well, I just want my kids to like me. Well, that becomes about the parents versus, no, I want to help my kids be the best they can possibly be. Therefore, I'm going to give them greater challenges in life. I'm there to support them and give advice and mentorship and love them and all those things, but I'm going to put them in a situation to where they are forced to grow and become greater. So anyways, I totally understand that philosophy and mentality, and I'm not saying I would do the exact same thing as your dad, but I understand it. And I do think conceptually, I think it makes a lot of sense. And by the way, I can really relate. My dad was in the military, served in Vietnam, and I grew up with a dad just very militant. Before I would come in from school, he would have me do push-ups and pull-ups, you know, and, uh, and that sort of thing. So anyways, I appreciate the, uh, the mentality.

Yeah. Have you read the book, uh, Antifragile by Nassim Taleb?

No. Uh-uh. No, but it's— you tell me about it.

Yeah, it's— I mean, the title says a lot about it, but he really goes back and chronicles the stories of, of these incredibly successful men and women you know, in business mostly, um, their roots trace back to really hard, really challenging childhoods. And, and they became antifragile. Like, like, and that's one of the points he makes is that a lot of parents, to what you were kind of saying, they just want their kids to like them. They want their kids to just be sheltered from everything in a lot of ways. And this is his point, and again, I have no experience as a parent, but his point is that can really create fragile humans. And when you have a fragile human, the first time they encounter something difficult, and they will because it's called life, then they're going to break, they're going to shatter. And, and that's happening a lot. But these other individuals that were literally like carved from stone, essentially, because of how traumatic and difficult and challenging their life was, nothing could get them down. And that's kind of like going back to one of the things I talked about with perspective. It's like, man, my worst day at 43 years old right now in Puerto Rico, you know, living in my dream home, you know, making millions of dollars a year. Like, what am I really, really complaining about, if anything? And it keeps, it keeps my head in check a little bit.

That's so good. You know, and I, I have heard of the book Antifragile. I may, I may bump it up on my reading list cuz it's somewhere on my, which I have way too many books on my audible.com reading list. But it's, you know, you have your wishlist and mine, it's just, it's so long, but I think it's on there. And then I've got it. There's a Jonathan Haidt book, which I read part of and watched a whole series of interviews he did on this. And I wanna say the book was called The Coddling of the American Mind. And it was a very similar thing. And he talks about things like being very conscious of a parent and saying, hey, I'm going to, allow my kids to be in tough situations. And if they get pushed down, like, I'm not going to jump in every time and try and rescue them. Like, I'm going to— yeah, teach them. And then one thing he talks about, and I think you and I— well, I'm curious if you grew up in a similar situation. I grew up in Ohio in kind of a, a small neighborhood, and, um, and like, you know, we would just kind of go out and play, and my, my parents were like, when the street lights come on, come back inside, it's time for dinner, you know. And he talks about how that thing of just like giving your kids the freedom— they need to be able to run around the neighborhood and play is so important. Like, they did a study on it. It's so important for them being successful and independent later on in life. So anyways, I'm so, I'm so glad you, you brought this up.

Yeah, and not too difficult for me, uh, different for me. I grew up in an incredibly small town, 2,000 people in southern Maine. And, you know, like, right down the street for me was this amazing park which was actually built by the Army Corps of Engineers, like, back in the '70s, and they were doing their their works projects. It was this really awesome park. And just getting on my bike, going down there, playing basketball, you know, kickball on the, on the swing set. And then it got dark out, get on my bike, might go home and have dinner. Like, that was, that was growing up.

Yeah. And I hear parents saying, some of them might say, well, you know, today isn't what it was yesterday in terms of the, you know, the, uh, you know, some of the predators out there and those sort of things. But I think Jonathan, one of the things he gets into, he's just a professor at NYU, you know, this is also why being conscious, if you can move to own area where, where your kids can do that. Or then, hey, just, just push the fence out as far as you can and get to give your kids as much freedom as they can have, because it's an important thing for later on in life.

You know, John, one of the things you mentioned, um, real at the beginning of our talk here was Palmas del Mar being this community that we never really got to. And you're completely right. That's one reason that Kate and I love this place and can't wait to raise our child/potentially children here is because that's what it is. You know, it's this community, it's 3,500 homes. So, you know, we're talking like 7,000, 8,000 people. So it's like this, like kind of bubble. We have a K-12 academy right inside the gate. So like when you're 12 years old and older, you're literally getting in a golf cart, taking yourself to school. You know, the playgrounds, there's tennis courts, there's pickleball courts, you know, there's golf, all these things. That are just right here that just kind of, you know, brings this small town environment, you know, to a Caribbean island down here in Puerto Rico, which has been really cool.

Yeah. I think like if I'm going to move to a place, I'm really convinced right now, the number one reason I'm gonna move to a place is because of community, you know, because it's this iron sharpens iron and not only for you, for your kid, for our kids, you know? So anyways, I love that you guys have such great community down there as well. You know, I, um, One of the things, John, I've always really admired about you is you're just an incredibly passionate person. And you have been able to, as you have shared with us, like build a really, really incredible business as an entrepreneur. Talk to me about how important you believe it is— a two-part question— one, to be passionate in business, and number two, what are some of the essential things people need in order to build this sort of, you know, a purpose-driven business like you've built? Okay.

Number one, passion. It's probably one of the most underrated tools that successful entrepreneurs have in their toolkits. And I actually love when people are hiring individuals, when they have the mindset of like, you know, I hire for attitude, I hire for passion because I can teach them the skills. Like I can teach a person how, but you know, the most skilled person in the world on, on what I'm hiring for, they have a bad attitude. If they're just no passion as a human being, no emotion, then like, that's just, this is not what I want to bring into my organization. I'm not going to be able to get that person to the level I want them to get to. So I always thought that was an interesting philosophy. And I always agreed with that because for me, it's very obvious that there are multiple things that are making a valuable, or that are, that, that are part of the making of a successful entrepreneur, and that is passion on one side, but then also skills on the other side as well. And you have to kind of think about how those intertwine. So whenever I'm, you know, coaching or mentoring people in business, or specifically if they're doing a podcast, which is kind of my area, really deep area of expertise, is I'm always saying, okay, a lot of people make the mistake of just doing a podcast or a topic or just creating content in general on an area that they're really knowledgeable about, but they have no passion for. So then what happens then is you start going down that path and then you just get burned out because if you're not really excited to get up every day and do something, you're eventually going to stop and there's going to be somebody that's a competitor of yours that does love doing that and they're never going to stop, of course, because they love doing it. So just having skills and knowledge is, is a losing operation. But at the same time, just passion and just enthusiasm and just having excitement, that's also a losing proposition if you're just starting with, with that point. Because at the end of the day, when you're creating a product or a service or a business, or you're creating content on anything in general, the person's gonna consume that product. They're going to use that service. They're gonna listen to that podcast. If it's solving a problem of theirs, if you're providing value to their world, if you are actually creating a, a solution to their real need. And so you have to have both for that very reason. You have to be passionate and excited about a topic so that you get up every single day, or at least multiple days per week, wanting to do that thing. But you have to combine it with knowledge, with skills,, that you've acquired over the years so that you're also bringing value to that equation. And like, that's something that I think a lot of people underrate. They don't have both of those in that equation. And I call that area in the middle where those two intersect, where your passions do intersect with your skills, that's your zone of fire. That's where everything has to start, that zone of fire right in the middle where your passions, your excitement, your enthusiasm intersects with knowledge, skills, and just overall talent in that area. So that's a combination that has to happen, and it's, it's one that really a lot of people that don't succeed can look back and be like, I was missing one of those ingredients. And that's, that's it.

Wow, that's so good. I want to go back to you sharing a little bit about your time in Iraq in the military. Were there any lessons, or maybe there is one lesson you took away from your time serving in the military, time at war, that you have been able to take this principle or an idea and apply it to your business or your life?

I would use really 3 words that the military taught me that have not only been something that I've used every single day creating my business and now running my business, but I've also interviewed now 4,184 entrepreneurs. And almost all of them possess all 3 of these things. And at least 2 of them is in almost every single one of these equations, which is number 1, the military helped me be productive. And by productive, that meant that I was actually doing the right thing. Being productive means that I was getting up and I was actually doing the right training. I was doing the right exercises. I was preparing in the right manner. I was being productive with my time. On the right things. Because Josh, I'm sure you hear it all the time. It's like people are like, oh my God, I was so busy today. Like, I, I just— I woke up and I was busy all day. I'm like, okay, what did you do that was productive? And let's just say, you know, they're running a business. What did you do that was productive? And when I say productive, I mean what did you produce today that was meaningful in moving your business forward? For me in the military, like, what did I do today that made me a better officer, a better leader of men, better at my craft of my tank, you know, the terrain, preparing for the enemy, those things. How was I being productive in those areas? And people are just like, oh man, I mean, I was like, I ran here and I ran there and I was busy doing that. I was like, yeah, you were really busy, but you were not productive, and that's why you're not making progress, and that's why you're probably failing. And another one is discipline. Like the military taught me so much in the area of discipline. And for me, when I say the word discipline, I really define that as being a disciple to a plan of action. Like you need to have a plan every single morning. And I actually had a saying that I learned in the military, which was win tomorrow today. Now, how do you do that? You plan for tomorrow today. You don't wake up and be like, okay, what am I going to do today? What am I going to plan for today? You wake up knowing exactly what your plan was and you become a disciple. You are disciplined to executing that plan. Period. End of story. Like, I remember when I launched Entrepreneurs on Fire, people were like, John, you can't do a daily podcast. I mean, like, you're not gonna find enough guests. You're not gonna find enough people to listen on a daily basis. You're gonna get burned out. Your listeners are gonna get burned out. There's a reason why people do, do a once a week podcast. I'm like, wait a second. Did Kobe Bryant get good at basketball practicing 4 days per month? No. Did Tiger Woods get good at golf swinging the club 50 times a year?

No.

Like, these people got up every day and they put in the flipping reps. I was not a good podcaster, speaker, communicator when I was starting my podcast back in 2012, but I got up every day and I put in the reps. I worked my butt off every day finding the guests, getting them on the show, editing the episodes, becoming knowledgeable in acquiring skills to become better and better and better at my craft. So I became disciplined at that. And the last word I'll use right here that was big for the military was focus. It was following one course until success. You had an objective in the military. You're, you're, you had to focus on that objective and you had to accomplish that objective with that focus. Follow one course until success. It's people that are just like the bright shiny object syndrome that's out there all over the place. Of course, there's X and Instagram and TikTok and all these things that can distract you. They're designed to distract you. And so spend your time on there and waste your time on there, you know, lose your focus on there, and let people like me, you know, launch a daily podcast 11 years ago and be the only daily podcast in the world interviewing entrepreneurs 7 days a week, still to this day being the only daily podcast in the world interviewing entrepreneurs 7 days a week. Is there a big surprise that I'm making millions and millions of dollars a year and you're not? I have focus.

Wow, it's so good. So 3, 3 big takeaways here, uh, productivity— like, are you producing, uh, discipline and focus? And I, and, and I love these, and I could riff off these quite a bit, but I'm gonna jump in the next question here in a minute. But I just want to say, I think that It's— these are things that are just so important, I think, for everybody to consider here. And listen, whether you're an entrepreneur or not, whether you're in business or not, or even as a parent, thinking about, okay, and what I doing right now, am I just busy? Am I just busy? And it's this sort of— I have artificial significance because of it, versus no, is this actually moving myself forward, my kids forward, my family forward? I love that. Also, from the, from the discipline standpoint, this is something I see in a lot of entrepreneurs Uh, is that it's this— I'm kind of all over the place, and that could be focused too. But, you know, I've got this— somebody I know, he's probably the most talented entrepreneur, like, most talented marketing mind I know, but because of lack of discipline, it just never goes anywhere. And so anyways, I think that this is, you know, great, great concept. You know, one of the things you mentioned— yeah, it happens all the time. And I know you probably can get as frustrated as anybody because You've interviewed thousands and thousands of entrepreneurs, but, well, you're probably interviewing some of the more successful ones, but there's a, there's a lot of ways to tell it out there.

I interview them and they're an entrepreneur on fire and they're crushing it, but not every one of them's a Josh Axe where 9 years later, 7 years later, 4 years later, they're still crushing it. Like some of them were just bright shining stars and they burned up into the ether because they weren't able to keep that focus, to keep that discipline. I mean, that's me, longevity, 11 years. Years. I know you've been at the game for a long time. And I, you know, I go back through my old guest list and I'm like, man, a lot of these people aren't even A, relevant in the world anymore, or B, are doing something completely different because they just couldn't maintain the success that, that they did have doing that thing. And, you know, something for your listeners slash viewers, you know, I would ask them to really hold a mirror up is, did you wake up this morning with a plan in place to crush life, to crush business, to move yourself forward, 99% of you are going to have to say no. And that sucks.

Yeah. And I think it's— this is a call to start now. This is a great time, you know, wake up with a plan. And I love that thing that you said is, you know, win tomorrow today. It's so good. It's so good. So John, one of the, you know, if somebody would go through, uh, your podcast and look at all the guests you've had, you've had some tremendous people— Tony Robbins, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk. What are some of the traits or core principles that you've noticed that these ultra-successful people, influencers, embody?

Well, you know, honestly, we had to kind of circle back to things we've talked about because it's just the truth. Number one, yeah, they all have passion for what they do. Number 2, they're all providing solutions to real problems in this world. They all have discipline, productivity, and focus in their vocabulary on a daily basis. They're doing those things. There's one thing that I like to say about my book, The Common Path to One Common Success. Like, if you could sum it up in one sentence, it would be create the number one solution to a real problem in this world. That sums up the book. I mean, the book's 300 pages long. That one sentence is the one sentence definition of the entire takeaway of the book. Create the number one solution, not the number two solution, not the number three solution, the number one solution to a real problem. Not just any problem, 'cause a lot of people, Josh, they create the number one solution to a problem that nobody really cares about. So that's not going to work either. So it's going to be to a real problem in this world. Like, that's what successful entrepreneurs have done. And of course you build off of that and you can go with different, you know, just like a plant has all these different roots and you can go from there. But the core essence of what you do has to be that. And that was Entrepreneurs on Fire. Listen, this might sound cocky, but the day that I launched Entrepreneurs on Fire, it was the the best daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs in the world. It was the worst daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. It was the only daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs in the world. So guess what? I solved a problem, a real problem in the world, and I was the number one solution. I was also the only solution, but I was number one solution to that real problem. There were people, not everybody, but there were people in the world that wanted to wake up every day and on their crappy commute to their crappy job or their 25-minute workout session or while they were walking their dog or folding their laundry, they wanted to listen to a successful and inspiring interview with an amazing entrepreneur. And guess what? Now we have 2 million listens a month. We have 160 million total listens since we started. And that's not everybody. That's not an incr— you know, that's not even a percentage of everybody in the world. But I discovered a niche that needed to be filled, that had a real problem that I could become a number one solution to. And I haven't stopped. And many people have tried to copy and many people have tried to catch up. And they never can or will because I'm never going to stop. Of course, until I do, but until then, they're never going to catch up, and that's just how it is. And so what is that thing for you, the listener or the viewer of this content right now?

Yeah, you know, I, I think we've— I've seen this with some of the people. I'm thinking about people, uh, in my industry, in the health industry, and I think for a lot of them they will get into, um, whether it be somebody who's focused on functional medicine or psychology or whatever it is, they'll get in because at first they're very passionate about this thing that they have going on. And then a lot of times I see 5 years in or so, it's like maybe they got punched in the face once, just, you know, they had something happen financially, or maybe they just kind of don't feel the same way. But I guess the, the thing I'm trying to ask here is, is I think a lot of times people will start to Maybe some of that passion, that fire will start to fizzle out. Do you have any advice for people who have started to feel like, I'm just not the passionate the way that I was, to either reignite that fire or another solution for them?

Listen, I think it's probably time to pivot. I mean, there's so many amazing opportunities that are out there in this world. You became a success once, like you obviously know what it took to, to get there and you know the path that it's gonna take to get back there. Now, now go create the number one solution to another real problem. Like keep reinventing yourself as many times as you want to or need to. Yeah. Like to me, that's exciting. And again, this might be another controversial topic and I'm fine with controversy. I'm, I'm a big believer in love me or hate me because there's no money in the middle. So that's just how I've always been. But when people come to me, they're just like, oh my God, like, did you hear that? You know, like Jeff and Joanna got divorced. I'm like, oh man. Tell them congratulations next time you see them. And then they're always like, what? I'm like, hello, they're obviously not happy together. Like they're finally getting a divorce after probably a long time of not being happy together because, you know, people just have this stigma against divorce. So they try to kind of make things work and do this and do that. Like, man, there is so much opportunity for happiness for both of those humans that they're obviously not giving to each other. Go find it. Maybe it's with another partner. Maybe it's being by yourself. Maybe it's X, Y, or Z. Like, I'm a huge proponent in change. I'm a huge proponent in that. And that's why, you know, I bring up divorce because like a lot of people are like, oh my God, like, how can you say that? I'm like, listen, everybody's like, oh man, marriage is work. Like, you've got to work hard in your relationship. If you're in one of those relationships, like, you know, that's fine. Like, that's fine. But for me, I've never felt like my relationship with Kate, which has been going on for 12 years now, has been work. Work. Never. And by the way, the multiple long-term relationships I had before her did feel like work. They got to a place where they felt like work, which is why Kate is the first and probably only person I'm ever going to marry. Probably. Who knows what the future holds. But it's never felt like work. I've never had to work hard at my relationship. And that's me, and that's my, that's my belief. And again, who knows, you know, I think everyone should have their own opinions and follow their own paths, but change is good. Change your business, change your life, change this, change that. I was in law school, Josh, like so miserable. Like, I was deep into my second semester of law school, and everybody around me was miserable too. Every law student— there was like 3 happy law students and then like 300 of us that were just contemplating, like, how do we end this misery? And guess what? 299 of them became unhappy lawyers and unhappy humans with mountains of debt and unhappiness. Um, and one of them, me, said, you know what, I don't believe in the sunk cost theory. I don't believe that just because I spent $40,000, which, which hurt, in, in law school, that I should spend another $120,000 the next 2 years to then get a law degree that I know that I'm going to feel forced to become a lawyer to pay off these bills and then just become this unhappy person. I said, you know what, it's not going to be easy. It's gonna be awkward. I'm gonna— a lot of people are gonna be like, oh, do you hear about John? Like, he dropped out of law school. Like, he's gonna be that guy now. It wasn't easy, but I did it, and it was the best thing I could have ever done. And it wasn't like a straight line. It wasn't like the next day I launched Entrepreneurs on Fire and became a multi-millionaire. No, I had a couple more missteps and mistakes over the next few years, um, but all of them allowed me the opportunity to finally get to what wanted to do for the past 11 years and maybe the next 11 years, maybe not, maybe. And here I am, you know, with a business that I love, you know, with a wife that I love, with a child that's coming into the world, with, you know, living in the Caribbean, which I love. And that would not have happened if I wasn't willing to just wake up and say, you know what, change. It's time to change. It's time to pivot. I'm not happy now. I'm able to find happiness because it's out there. I just have to be willing to do— going back to what we talked about earlier— what's uncomfortable, to be uncomfortable for a while. The military made me uncomfortable a lot of times, so I could pull off of that past history that I had of being like, you know what, it's okay to be uncomfortable. I'm going to be uncomfortable dropping out of law school. I'm going to be uncomfortable trying to find my next thing, but I know there's something else out there that's better. And I kept swinging the bat until I finally found that thing.

Yeah, you know, I, I think that— went ahead on a few things here, and then I've got a couple more questions for you. But, uh, one is, I, I think it's so important at this getting out of your comfort zone and embracing change. You know, I think I, I probably have a different view of— well, I know I have a different view of divorce than you, so I just want to touch on this for a minute because we've got a lot of faith-based people on this. But, you know, I think the way that I think about, uh, divorce specifically is you know, is, uh, I'm going to give a health analogy here. I've had so many patients over the years and people come up to me and say, hey, should I get on this medication? Should I take this drug for this condition? And what I'll tend to— the way that I tend to answer that is not at first. Let's do everything we possibly can to do things naturally because we know there's side effects. There's going to be all of these repercussions, especially if you got, you know, the divorced kids as an example too. But there's all of these repercussions if you decide to get on that heart drug or that thyroid drug. Let's first try the selenium, the B12. Let's try all of these things. Let's exhaust everything for the next year or two. And if still you, you're not well, then there maybe that, you know, there's a time and place. There, there's a time and place for that. So I did want to mention, I do think that, you know, uh, and I think that sometimes in those situations that maybe those people are going to be just as miserable both leaving, you know, leaving, you know, as they were divorced. Just because it's It's they have to see change within themselves and maybe if they would've gone and worked on it. But I do believe there's obviously, there is a time and a place when people are unwilling to change abusive relationships. And so I know I'm going to get this question. That's why I'm getting comments while I'm addressing it there. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Some people right now need to hear what you are saying because that is the right path for them. And I personally believe, and maybe not on this show, But out there, some people need to hear what I'm saying. And I'm a big believer. It's great to have healthy conversations when people can agree to disagree. And in fact, whenever I'm like on a panel at a conference, I huddle with them first and I'm like, hey, it's so boring when all of us just say the same thing and agree with each other. So even if we don't believe necessarily what we're about to say, like, let's just play devil's advocate every now and then, just kind of spark something. Debates, and, and I think the audience really enjoys that too. So yeah, I mean, I hear what you're saying.

And can I say, John, like, I'm wired that way too. I think that society in general today, it's so interesting. On social media, everybody will just, you know, throw the biggest, you know, stones and sticks you've ever seen. And then in person, it's like, oh, you know, or this sort of— when you're actually having more of a real interaction, it's like, well, that's not Let's not disagree about anyways. So, it's funny. I'm glad you're like that because I think it's good because this is how you figure things out. And, I think this is also why something like I'm so against censorship online for the most part because not against things like everything for pornography but against something like free speech because if you don't fight things with words, you end up fighting it with swords or something even worse later on. So, Anyways, that's one of the things that I mean, I really appreciate about you is just how outspoken you are about so many things and sharing your perspective, which you've had so much success. And so, obviously, there's a lot of value to so much of what— I mean, already, I have so many takeaways from all of the great stuff you've shared. One of the things I wanted to ask, and this is another thing that I think I really admire about you and what you've done is that It seems to me like your definition of success is not the typical that we would see projected by the media today. When you think about what success is or how to measure success, what are some of those metrics that you use?

My definition—

the way you think about it—

is very simple. It's waking up in the morning, and my first reaction to waking up is smiling because I know that everything that my day is about to entail was chosen by myself, that I had the freedom and the desire to choose everything that I'm about to do that day. And I can say that because a lot of my life was not that way, and it wasn't a bad thing, but I never— I didn't get to wake up when I was in the Army and choose what I wanted to do. I didn't get to wake up when I, you know, was in law school or corporate finance and choose what I wanted to do. And, and that's fine. That's, that's one way of life, and I learned a lot of great lessons from that. I had some great times with that as well. But for me, where I stand right now at 43 years old, like, that's my definition of success, is waking up in the morning smiling, knowing that today was created by my desires of yesterday. And having the freedom to do that is success. It's not the size of my bank account. It's not the number of zeros, you know, in, in my bank account. It's not, you know, how much, uh, how many likes or how many shares, you know, my social media posts have. It's, it's that. And like, that's where I've gotten to. And it wasn't immediate, it wasn't overnight, but it was the evolution of me as a human over time. And hey, ask me in 10 years and my definition might be different. And I think that'd be interesting as well.

Yeah, yeah, that's good. I want to jump back actually and just make a comment on something you talked about, uh, in reinventing yourself. I mean, this is something that I've, I've done in my career in the health field, and even I'm doing now, is, you know, I, um, when I, when I started off, I had a— I was full-time in functional medicine in, in a, in chiropractic, in a brick-and-mortar clinic. And then I'm like, I don't want to be in a brick-and-mortar clinic. I want to get out there and speak and communicate and build an online business. So we built Ended up building DrAxe.com. And during that time, I've been known as like the guy in different areas. It was like, "Oh, who's Dr. Axe? Oh, he's the detox guy," or, "He's the gut health guy," or, "The essential oil guy," or, "The keto guy." And so, I just wanted to point out for anyone listening, as Jon had mentioned, you can continue to reinvent yourself in your same industry or even change your industry. We had a guy on— and now, you maybe have interviewed him at some point, Donald Miller. He wrote "StoryBrand." Yeah, many times. And Donald was a, you know, he was a Christian author and completely switched careers to teaching people about how to build businesses. And so anyways, it's something I just wanted to mention. I'm doing this now. I'm going from health to— I'm still focusing a little on health, but more body, mind, and spirit health, how to grow in these other areas of your life. And so just wanted to say for anyone listening, as John had mentioned, like, you can reinvent yourself. Change is good. Embrace it. One of those key components, as he mentioned though, was that passion piece, which is so important. You know, John, as we talked about, you've interviewed so many people and I'm— this is sort of, answer this how you want. How, what is either, either one of the two, what is the best piece of advice that you've ever received? Or as you've done these interviews and you've asked those questions, what is one of the most compelling things that you ever walked away from with one of those, from one of those interviews that somebody said?

The best piece of advice that I've ever heard or read or consumed in any way, shape, or form came back in 2012 when I was kind of trying to find my thing. I was reading all the books, I was listening to all the interviews, and I literally stumbled across this quote by Albert Einstein, which was, "Try not to become a person of success, but rather a person of value." And it literally was one of those experiences where it was like somebody just slapped me in the face because I was like, wow, that's a wake-up call. Because for 32 years of my life, I've been trying to become a person of success. I've been chasing success. I thought this was the right path— law school, corporate finance, commercial real estate— and I wasn't finding success. But I also wasn't providing any value whatsoever. I was chasing, so focused on chasing success. And that quote opened my mind of like, wow, what would being a person of value look like for me? And that turned into, well, what do I love doing? Well, I love listening to audiobooks about business and entrepreneurship and, and hearing people interview other successful entrepreneurs about their journey. And it just kind of led me down that path of like, well, what would that look like if I became a person of value by giving people value for free on a platform like podcasting? What would that look like? And that just continued to have me go down this path that eventually led to the launch of Entrepreneurs on Fire, you know, 11+ years ago. And so that was like, that one quote was really the tipping point that led me down the path to all those questions. And it's, it's just so critical to realize that So few people really have that mentality of value first. How can I become a person of value in this world? And the ones that figure it out, whether you're 32 like I was, or 52, or 2, or 82, like, you have an opportunity to honestly become a person of value, identify a real problem in this world, and then create the number one solution to that problem. And just be that person of value over and over again and show up every day and do that and do that. And I've seen that echoed throughout the 4,000+ interviews that I've done with successful entrepreneurs over the years. And to me, it just always comes back to me waking up and saying, how am I being that person of value today and every day going forward?

Man, I love that. That's so good. And I love that, that quote. That's a good one. What is your best piece of advice for you know, everyone listening here on how they can build a more successful life?

Number one, it's what is a successful life for you? Like, I think if you really asked a lot of people, like, straight up, you came up to them and asked them that question, they wouldn't have a great answer for you. They might if they thought about it for a day, but what's shocking is in that moment in time, up to that point in their life, they hadn't thought about it. Like they hadn't thought about that question. And so of course they're not moving towards that because if you don't have a North Star, there's nothing you're moving towards. You don't know what that plan of action looks like that we talked about earlier. You don't know what you should be producing in that world of being productive. You don't know what that one course until success is. So define that for you. And again, it may change over the years. For the first 5 years of the business, you know, that was one thing for us. And then for the last 6 years in the business, it's been something else for us. And like, that will always evolve and always change. So take some time over the next day or two and develop your answer to that question.

Yeah, that's great advice. Um, I want to say a few things. One, John, I want to let you know I'm really grateful for— I know it was years ago, but hey, thank you so much for your service to our country and serving in the military. And I really mean just incredibly grateful for your sacrifice and your time in doing that. Also want to let everybody know, John's got a fantastic book out. It's called The Common Path to Uncommon Success. You can simply go on Amazon.com and just search The Common Path to Uncommon Success, or just go and search John Lee Dumas. You'll find that on there as well. It's a great book. If you're an entrepreneur wanting to build a successful business,. I want to encourage you to check that out. You can find out more about John on EO Fire. That's eofire.com. And also his podcast. If you are wanting to learn more about how to build a successful business and get that fire back as an entrepreneur and listen to some incredible guests, you can check out his podcast Entrepreneurs on Fire there as well. John, thanks so much for, for coming on today. And we need to, we need to find a time to get together when I'm back in Puerto Rico.

We'll make it happen, brother. Thanks for having me. And until next time.

All right. Hey, thanks everybody for tuning into the Growth Lab Podcast. Remember, every week we're covering the science behind how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, and take your career and relationships to the next level. Hey, make sure to subscribe if you're not subscribed. And also, hey, I'd love to hear from you watching this in the comment section on what was your biggest takeaway from the wisdom that John Lee Damas shared with us today. I can't wait to see what you write, and I can't wait to see you on the next episode.