John Lee Dumas had a rough decade, which we’ll refer to as his 20’s. After graduating from Providence College at the age of 22, John spent 4 difficult, scary, and rewarding years as an Active Duty Officer, to include a 13-month tour of duty in Iraq. John promptly spent the rest of his 20’s failing, but managed to have some fun along the way. From backpacking in India for 4 months and appearing in the #1 Bollywood movie of 2009, to winning a car on The Price Is Right, John managed to mix failure with fun, and a dose of optimism.

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The Top 5 Takeaways from 999 eps

5. If you want to be… DO

Embrace being BAD… embrace failure… embrace fear and the imposter syndrome! Once you learn to embrace it, you’ll be able to breakthrough the fear of failure and just start DOING.

CTA: Look within yourself and find a passion that you have, or something you want to pursue.

You may not even know you have this passion right now – it might even be something you KNOW you’ll be bad at because you’ve never tried it before (piano, iron man, poems…) Maybe it’s one that you just haven’t practiced extensively – yet. Don’t let these things hold you back from starting to DO what you want to BE.

Challenge: Read ‘Start Something Stupid’ by Richie Norton. The title says it all.

Come up with a 30-day challenge where you start something that both excites and scares you daily.

Document your process and be CONSISTENT. You’ll be SHOCKED at where you are in 30 days…

4. The Riches are in the niches

1” wide…. 1 mile deep. If you try and resonate with everyone, then you’ll resonate with no one.

CTA: Look at your business. Are you currently experiencing the type of momentum and traction you’d like to be?

Sit down and niche your idea down, then niche again… then niche again till it HURTS!

Still having trouble with your niche? We cover this topic in detail in Chapter 4 of The Fire Path; sign up to receive this chapter + 4 more as a part of your free Roadmap!

Challenge: Sit down and actually define your niche as you see it.

Find that niche within a niche that you think BEST serves your current BEST Avatar.

Reach out to that avatar and have a conversation… see firsthand how much of an impact you serving them so much better would be!

3. Enjoy the journey

Earl Nightingale says, Success and happiness is the gradual realization of a worthy ideal.

Keywords: gradual and worthy.

So many people have their head down as life races by, and then they reach their ‘finish line’, look up, and realize the hollowness of their accomplishment. Turns out they’ve wasted what’s most important: the actual journey.

CTA: Block off specific time on your calendar ever single week to ‘reflect’ on on your journey.

Be grateful.

If you are not finding much to be grateful for, then that’s a red flag. Better to identify it now than later.

Challenge: Try journaling for 30 days with The 5 Minute Journal.

2. The Dip

We will all experience The Dip as Entrepreneurs. We have to be ready and know that it’s coming.

Identifying whether it’s time to stay the course, pivot, or quit is tough, and sometimes the only way to get out of a hole is to stop digging.

When you approach these types of situations as an entrepreneur, it’s important that you have the right support in place – whether that be an accountability partner or a mastermind group.

Having others to turn to for advice along your journey is priceless, and we’ll be chatting about this a bit more later…

CTA: Take a step back and try to look at your situation from a non-Founders perspective… In other words, take yourself out of your situation as the business owner.

Now that you are ‘separated’ from your Founder persona, identify whether or not you still feel excited about the direction the company or project is headed.

This is part of the importance of setting goals or milestones. Without them, it’s difficult to determine whether or not you’re making progress.

When you do have goals and milestones, it becomes quite simple to identify whether or not you’re making progress, and therefore, whether or not it’s worth it to keep going.

Challenge: Read Seth Godin’s The Dip.

Set goals that your business HAS to hit over the next 6 months in order to justify the continuance of your current path. Be harsh.

1. Relationships are EVERYTHING

The relationships I’ve built over 1,000 episodes are the reason why EOFire was able to establish its initial momentum, and they’re also the reason why I’m able to continue building on that momentum.

CTA: Write down the names of 10 influencers in your industry who you admire and who you would like to establish a relationship with. These don’t have to be “Top Influencers” with huge names and/or audiences – it can be anyone who you follow and would like to get to know.

Also, write down how your relationship with each of them could be mutually beneficial.

Challenge: Start following those 10 influencers on social media – like, comment, retweet and share their content. ENGAGE. Be a follower of VALUE who is consistently keeping the conversation going.

THEN reach out via email with a value exchange.

Perhaps it’s a guest post outline SPECIFIC to their audience and niche.

Maybe you can create an infographic for them.

Why not turn an epic blog post of theirs into a Slideshare presentation and hand it over to them – no strings attached?

ADD VALUE.

Click here to check out an infographic created by one of our very own Fire Nation Faithful, Shenna!

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Best Business Book

The Fire Path: A Beginner’s Guide to Growing Your Online Business. Set your online business up for rapid growth today with the step-by-step approach we followed to create EntrepreneurOnFire!

Killer Resources!

1) The Common Path to Uncommon Success: JLD’s 1st traditionally published book! Over 3000 interviews with the world’s most successful Entrepreneurs compiled into a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment!

2) Free Podcast Course: Learn from JLD how to create and launch your podcast!

3) Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 podcasting community in the world!

SPECIAL EPISODE! The Top 5 Takeaways from 999 EOFire Interviews with John Lee Dumas and Kate Lynn Erickson