0 (2s):
Who's ready to rock today. Fire Nation JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like my first million today, we'll be focusing on following your dream Fire Nation to drop these valley bombs. I brought to Robert Miller into EOFire studios. Robert is a musician who followed his dream later in life and became a rockstar. You are never too old Fire Nation. It's never too late to follow your dream. And today for our nation, we will take you through Robert's journey, the struggles, the obstacles, the challenges, and of course the success of following his dream with so many value bombs all in there.

0 (44s):
When we get back from thinking our sponsors Fire Nation is time to stop trading time for money and start reaching more clients and making a bigger impact. And you can do just that with online courses, try Thinkific for free today at Thinkific.com/EOF. That's Thinkific.com/EOF. According to a survey over two thirds of Americans are planning to travel this summer. This means that airlines restaurants and more have been ramping up their hiring, who do they turn to ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter as technology finds qualified candidates for your job, and you can easily invite your top choices to apply. And right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com/fire.

0 (1m 29s):
Robert say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with

1 (1m 39s):
JLD and what's up to Fire Nation. Look, I believe that you can be successful at any age and at any time in your life. And most people would disagree with that. They think that if you don't succeed, when you're young, that's it game over? Well, I'm a musician and I had a youthful dream to become a rock star, but life got in the way like it does for so many of us, my dream faded away, not just for a few years, but for a few decades, but I finally jumped into the deep end of the pool and it was the best thing that I ever did.

0 (2m 17s):
And Fire Nation. We're going to do a deep dive on that story because so many of you, including myself, by the way, are going to resonate with this. You're going to pull value bombs, inspiration, motivation, because today is all about following your dream Fire Nation. By listening to the story of somebody who finally followed his dream and what that looks like. So as you kind of mentioned earlier, Roberts, you are a child and as a child, your dream was to become a rockstar, share that dream with us.

1 (2m 52s):
Well, you're absolutely right. I was born into a family where my father played music and I was taught from an early age. I was going to be a musician and they started me on piano. And I didn't love trumpet because that was my father's instrument. And then my world changed in the 1960s. When this little band from Liverpool came around and played on the ed Sullivan show. And I'm talking of course about the Beatles. Everybody wanted to be a musician at that point. And certainly I did too. And I formed a little band with my, you know, my friends and started to play. And I switched to bass because I had already learned how to play the treble clef from the trumpet. And somebody had to play the bass. And that's how I became a bass player.

1 (3m 33s):
And I kept playing the bass and I was, I was sure I was going to be a rock star. That was my destiny. But you know what? Life doesn't always take you in the direction that you think it's going to take you. And I went off track and it took me a long time. John, before I got back on that track.

0 (3m 50s):
Wow. I mean, Fire Nation, we all get off track sometimes just for a couple of days, couple of weeks, couple of months, couple of years, or what about decades? Because as it does for so many people, Robert's life gets in the way. I mean, we're talking marriage, kids, job obligations. I mean, so many people get into so much debt into this consumer culture. They are literally shackled to whatever crappy crummy job that they have just to keep going. How did your dream slip out of focus? Take us down that path?

1 (4m 24s):
Well, you're absolutely right. I thought I was going to be a musician. I thought that was going to be my career. And when I graduated from college, I was a broadcasting major. So I got myself an entry-level job in a public television station up in Boston. And I was doing that during the day and I was playing music at night and it was great except for the fact that I was making maybe a hundred dollars a week between the two jobs and this was not a career, this was a dead end. And I finally said to myself, what am I going to do about this? And somebody suggested to me, well, why don't you go to law school? And I said, law school, why would I want to do that? And my friend said to me, well, you're playing with a guy.

1 (5m 4s):
And it was true. Who was a medical doctor? He did his medicine during the day and he played music at night. He said, well, you can, you can do exactly what he's doing. And I thought about it for about a nanosecond. Cause you know, I'm a 20 year old and I went and I went to law school and I thought to myself, okay, great. I'll get a job. As a lawyer. I'll work during the day. I'll play my music at night. This'll be perfect. Except it didn't work out that way at all. Okay. They, as they say, the law is a jealous mistress. I was working 23 hours a day. As a lawyer, I stopped playing music for 15 years. Let me repeat that. I stopped playing music for 15 years.

1 (5m 46s):
I was miserable about it, but I couldn't get myself out of that hole. I was married. I had kids, I had a job, I had obligations. I had a dream, but that dream was fading. And it was a bad point in my life.

0 (6m 1s):
I mean, Fire Nation. How many of us have fallen into that trap? And of course, there's good times during those years, that kind of keep moving you along. I mean, I look back to my twenties when I got out of the military, my dad was a lawyer and by the way, he wasn't really pro attorney. He wasn't like, this is a great profession. He's like, yeah, if he can find something else, I'd kind of would recommend that. But I still was like, now, like, you know, it's my dad. He makes a lot of money. Life must be good. And I went to law school now, fortunately I pulled the plug after just one semester because I could find it. It was not for me. And I was again fortunate because I was a single guy, no kids, no responsibilities, no house.

0 (6m 41s):
I'd saved up some good money from my time in the military specifically during my 13 month tour of duty in Iraq. So I had some cash in the bank, which gives you so much freedom Fire Nation, which is why you stay away from debt. And it allowed me to be like, you know what? I'm just going to stop and off. I'll find something else out. Cause I knew I could at that time, but not everybody finds themselves in that situation is because again, life gets in the way, marriage, kids, jobs, obligations, your dream will slip out of focus if you don't hang on with every fiber of your body. But I kind of want to keep moving forward here because at east 60 and this is where most people are like being like, okay, time to hang it up, go golfing every day or fishing or just sit by the pool and just get fatter.

0 (7m 21s):
You decided it was time to go after your dream. So fill in anything you want between, you know, your kind of middle years of struggling and working 23 hours a day up to age 60, and then talk about what you decided to do at that point.

1 (7m 37s):
Well, look, I had a dream and I believe everybody has a dream. We start out life usually as when we're younger and the dreams are big. I mean, people dream about becoming an astronaut, becoming a baseball player, maybe becoming a rock star like I did. We all have those dreams. And for most of us, the unfortunate answer is that we get sidetracked from those dreams. And it's not because it's anything evil or anything like that. That's just the way life takes us. We fall into a job. We fall into a lifestyle. We fall into one thing or another, and then we wake up one day and we say what happened? And that's kind of what happened to me. I was on a track.

1 (8m 18s):
I was on a path to do what I love, which is to play music. And I had gotten off that path. Finally, when I was in my forties, I started to get a little bit closer to the path. It was like, I, I got on the entrance road for the highway. Okay. And I was starting to play again. I started to get my chops together, as we say in music and I made a record and I put a band together and we played it several gigs and stuff like that. But it was more like a hobby, more like an avocation. I was halfway there, but I wasn't where I wanted to be. And course, all of my friends when I was younger and I was, and music was it for me.

1 (9m 0s):
They had already been there. They had already done it. They heard made successes of themselves. And I was jealous as could be. And I said, something has to happen here. And you never want to go through your life and regret things. That's my belief. As I said, we all start off with a dream. We all, some of us get there. Some of us don't get there, but you never want to wake up at any point in your life and say, gee, I wish I had tried. And that's the big essence of what my messages here. I woke up finally when I was about 60. And I said, I am going to regret it for the rest of my time on this planet. If I don't take my shot, I may not make it.

1 (9m 41s):
I may not be successful. Who knows where it's going to go, but I never want to look back and say, I didn't take the shot. And so I made a decision and I just kind of put everything else to the side. And as I like to say, I figuratively jumped into the deep end of the pool. What did that mean? Well, the first thing it meant is that I had to start writing music. Again. I hadn't been writing music in years and I needed to form a band and I wanted to infuse myself with youth and vitality because let's face it, the music business as a young person's game, I am the odd ball in music. I don't know if anybody else that went into music full time when they were my age and made it everybody else that's in their sixties or so, you know, they've been around for 30, 40, 50 years in playing.

1 (10m 33s):
I started from square one and you know what? In five years, John, I've got 10 albums, including a billboard. Number one, I've got over 4 million video views over a million Spotify streams, over 50,000 Facebook fans. I've played festivals and concerts around the world. I've opened for artists like Edgar, winter and blues traveler. It's been an unbelievable experience for me. And it's because I decided to jump into that deep end of the pool and to give it a try and you know, it's all about the journey. It's not the destination. If it hadn't worked, I would have been just as happy that I had given it a shot,

0 (11m 15s):
Our nation. There are so many things to take away from this. I mean that last part that Robert just shared. It's about the journey. I mean, think about this Dale Carnegie quote, which is so relevant to this success and happiness is the gradual realization of a worthy ideal, the gradual realization of a worthy ideal. That doesn't mean it's the realization of a worthy ideal. He put gradual in there for a reason because the gradual realization is the journey is the journey you need to enjoy. And I've recommended this book before. I'm going to recommend it again. The five biggest regrets of the dying. And that's when a hospice nurse, tons of people who are on the last days of their life.

0 (11m 57s):
And one of the biggest regrets, one of their top five biggest regrets is that they never followed their dreams. They let other people's opinions. Other people's just peer pressure dictate their life. And they had nothing but regret as a result. So if that's you right now, Fire Nation, take this estimate inspiration. Cause I can tell you right now, Roberts, when he gets to the end of his life, hopefully many, many years from now, he is not going to regret what he did at 60 years old, one iota. And we have so much more to talk about when we get back from thanking our sponsors, according to Forbes, gyms, nail salons, hotels, mom, and pop stores, and more are set to go on an epic hiring spree in the coming months to meet the pent up demand for these services.

0 (12m 42s):
And all of these businesses reopening means that millions of jobs will need to be filled. So where do these businesses turn to fill these roles, fast ZipRecruiter. And right now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/fire. When you post a job on ZipRecruiter, they send your job to over 100 top job sites, giving you access to their network of millions of job seekers. Then ZipRecruiter's matching technology scans, resumes to find qualified candidates for your open roles and proactively presents them to you. ZipRecruiter's technology is so effective that four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com/fire that's ziprecruiter.com/fire.

0 (13m 27s):
One more time. ZipRecruiter/fire. ZipRecruiter. The smartest way to hire whether you're a guitar teacher, a business coach, or a yoga instructor, entrepreneurs all share something in common, a desire to reach more clients and make a bigger impact without trading their time for money. So how do you do that by creating an online course with Thinkific, expose your business to hundreds, thousands, or even millions of new clients worldwide with low impact on your time. But don't just take our word for it. Meet Vanessa. She runs group therapy, a business that offers beginner dance classes for adults. Vanessa was hearing time and time again that people couldn't make it to class because of time constraints, anxiety, or not living close enough to attend. So Vanessa decided to put her dance classes into an online course with Thinkific.

0 (14m 9s):
So people could take lessons at their own leisure. Her online courses took her business to a new international level and they pretty much run themselves. Not only that she started making thousands of new revenue every month hitting her financial targets and freeing up time to work more on her business. More than 50,000 entrepreneurs have already used Thinkific to build revenue and educate their students worldwide. Try Thinkific for free today at Thinkific.com/EOF. That's Thinkific.com/EOF. So Robert we're back and you kind of gave us a little insight into project grand slam. We're talking to those 10 albums, including a billboard number one, 4 million video views, a million Spotify streams.

0 (14m 49s):
You've been rocking it with people like Edgar, winter, blues travelers, Bonnie James and Mindy, a bear and so many more people. Are we ever too old? Is it ever too late to follow our dreams?

1 (15m 3s):
No, I, I believe very strongly that you're never too old and it's never too late to follow your dream. I mean, just look at my life. I shouldn't be able to be saying all the things that I'm telling you on this show, John, they shouldn't have happened, but they did. And they did because I had a strong belief system. I had a dream. I went after it. Maybe there was a little talent in there as well, but I decided afterwards that because my story was so unique and people found it inspiring and motivating that I wanted to do something I wanted to kind of give back if you will. And we were in the midst of the pandemic, of course, and that was a miserable time for musicians and artists of all different types and stripes.

1 (15m 49s):
And so I decided that I was going to start a podcast and of course I have called it, follow your dream and my desire. And my wish is that I would be able to inspire and motivate others to follow and to succeed at their dream. Whatever that dream might be.

0 (16m 11s):
Tell us a little bit more about this follow your dream podcast. Like who should listen? What do you do? What's your frequency like give us some details.

1 (16m 18s):
It's once a week I started this in March of this year. It's already, I'm pleased to say in the top 5% of podcasts in terms of downloads, I mean, that's something I'm really proud of. And what I think that means is that it's resonating. This is for all those people out there, all the ones that I've described earlier, people that had a dream that maybe don't even remember their dream, or if they do remember it, they just never went after it for whatever it is. And it could be anything John, it could be, you know, starting a new business, starting a hobby, opening a store dreams, come in, all different shapes and sizes. Mine happened to be music, but that's not the only type of dream.

1 (17m 1s):
There's a zillion dreams out there. And what I'm trying to do is to help people figure out their dream and then take those baby steps, which is what's necessary in order to accomplish their dream. And I really believe in that everything that has succeeded in my life has been a result of me developing an action plan. And to me, an action plan is nothing more than a series of baby steps to get you from point a to point Z. If one thinks about the project as being the entire project, whatever that might be right from the beginning, you start to get intimidated and scared. Oh, how can I possibly do that?

1 (17m 42s):
It's too big. It's too unwieldy. It'll take too much time. But if you break it down into small steps and say, okay, what do I need to do next week? What, what's my first starting step. I did this. When I went back into music, I wrote down literally on a napkin. I said, here are the first five or 10 steps that I need to take. And I believe that if you start with that kind of a premise that you can accomplish, whatever it is you want to do, and that you can break it down into an action plan of baby steps, you'd be amazed at what you can accomplish. What's

0 (18m 19s):
You're doing robbery, you're putting great content out into the world and I just can't help it. Cause you know, I've been coaching podcasters for over a decade now and we have over 6,000 members and our podcast is paradise community. And I look at your show and I see that you're doing a lot of things, right? One thing you're doing wrong, frankly, is you're only doing one show per week and I have a big solution for you. That's going to make your show so much better. It's going to also help other people listening who are creating content right now, because this is the mindset you need to have when you're just interviewing people, Fire Nation, you are bringing amazing people on, which is what Robert is doing by the way. And you're taking the spotlight and you're shining it on them.

0 (18m 59s):
Cause they're the guests, they're the spotlight. They should be. So every now and then you've got to step back and say, you know what? I need some personal time with my audience to know like, and trust me to look at me as an authority and an influencer, just some personal time with them on a solo show. So my recommendation for you to test out Robert, I think you're going to have fantastic results with it is the next time you interview an individual and you say bye to them and boom, they're off. Go ahead, hit the record button again. And right in that moment, when you've just gotten done with that episode, say what's up my friends, thanks for tuning in to the next episode. Here are the three biggest takeaways I had from the last episode with David Antionne, whoever that person that you just interviewed with, and then just go through in three to five minutes, no more, no less three to five minutes.

0 (19m 50s):
Just the top three takeaways that you have from that episode and boom, and just about five to seven more additional minutes when you already have the mic set up and you're already just got done with the interview. You have just created your second show of the week. That is now this personal look into your biggest takeaways. From that episode, that's going to double the frequency of your show and it's going to quadruple the value you're providing to your audience is going to bring in a lot more listener. So that's my big piece of advice for you. We'll see if you take it, but I will say hopefully somebody in Fire Nation is going to be like, that's a fantastic idea. I'm going to do that with content that I am creating. So I want to finish strong with the follow your dream handbook, which actually comes out, I believe on August 26.

0 (20m 36s):
So later this month, Fire Nation, talk to us about this handbook. I know it's part memoir part. How to, why should Fire Nation get their hands on a copy? And what do you love about this project?

1 (20m 49s):
Well, first of all, I want to say that your idea that you just expressed is fantastic. I've written it all down, start doing it immediately.

0 (20m 56s):
You'll love it. You will love doing it by the way, and your audience

1 (20m 59s):
Is going to love it. I should also add that. One of the things that I do is I put out periodically new bonus music episodes because I recorded two albums during the pandemic remotely, very, very different experience than recording albums, pre pandemic. You can't all get in a studio together. Everything has to be kind of emailed to one another. We put together an album and the second album, which is called Miller rocks because it's back to my rock and roll roots. I am releasing in a completely novel way. And that is one song at a time in a special bonus music episode of the podcast.

1 (21m 42s):
And I've already done that now three times. Brilliant. So everybody can kind of follow that along. And that's me, that's all about me and my songs. And I talk about the songs and my inspiration for the songs. And then I play the songs underneath my voice. And then at the end I play them again. So it's a little bit of the idea that you've just given us a John, which I love going to the handbook. I said to myself, you know, I've got my music and I've got the podcast, but I really wanted something more tangible that I could offer to my audience. And I came up with the idea of putting out the follow, your dream handbook.

1 (22m 23s):
Why do they call it a handbook? Well, you know, I thought back years and years ago, there was somebody called the preppy handbook and I kind of liked that name. And I said, okay, it's not really a novel. It it's more like a handbook. It's more like a, how to kind of thing. So I tell my story, which I'm kind of summarizing in this podcast with you. And at the same time I offer my steps, my, my dream theory as to how you can get from point a to point Z. And so it's a really interesting book, I think because it gives people that motivation and that incentive to do something. And then it shows them exactly how they can get it done no matter what their dream is.

1 (23m 5s):
And on top of that, I threw in a whole bunch of very cool photos of not only my life, but my music and everything. So I think people are fire

0 (23m 14s):
Nation, check that out. And what's the best way for them to be able to connect with you Roberts and also get their hands on stuff like follow your dream handbook.

1 (23m 24s):
Well, I would love it if people would subscribe and at least listen to the podcast and again, it's called follow your dream. It's on all the various platforms and you can get to the website, which is follow your dream podcast.com. That's got everything connected with the podcast. You can reach me just by emailing me@robertatfollowyourdreampodcast.com. And the other thing is I'd love everybody to check out my music. The name of the band again, is project grand slam. So you can go to project grand slam.com. We've got a store just like everybody's got a store, but more importantly, you can hear the music.

1 (24m 5s):
You can see the pictures, you can kind of check out everything that we're doing. And it would be really great if everybody did it before I

0 (24m 12s):
Let you go. You shared a lot of value with your entire story. What's just one takeaway that you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets before we say goodbye.

1 (24m 23s):
The one takeaway is again, you're never too old and it's never too late to follow your dream,

0 (24m 30s):
Man. I'll tell you, you definitely inspired at least one person, maybe multiple listening to this right now to just say, you know what, what the heck am I waiting for? Life is so short Fire Nation. And you know that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with RM and JLD today. So keep up that heat and head over to EOFire.com, just type a Robert in the search bar in the show notes page will pop up with everything we talked about. Follow your dream podcast.com. You can find that on the website, or of course, any of the podcast directories, email. Robert, if you want to talk to him and thank him, say anything to him, Robert at followyourdreampodcast.com.

0 (25m 11s):
And of course you go project grand slam.com for all the Austin that he has over there. And Roberts, I want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today, for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

1 (25m 25s):
Hey, JLD. You are awesome. And thank you so much for having me on the show.

0 (25m 29s):
Hey, Fire Nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by our Roberts and Fire Nation. Over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 3000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17 step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment. And I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. And so many others. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com to learn more and order your copy today.

0 (26m 9s):
And I will catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side. Fire Nation is time to stop trading time for money and start reaching more clients and making a bigger impact. And you can do just that with online courses, try Thinkific for free today at Thinkific.com/EOF. That's Thinkific.com/EOF. According to a survey over two thirds of Americans are planning to travel this summer. This means that airlines restaurants and more have been ramping up their hiring, who do they turn to ZipRecruiter ZipRecruiter as technology finds qualified candidates for your job, and you can easily invite your top choices to apply.

0 (26m 50s):
And right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com/fire.