The 3 Factors About Courage

Click here to get Free Podcast on iTunes

SUBSCRIBE for weekly episodes and bonuses: bit.ly/JoshFSubscribe

MAKING BANK is now a weekly YouTube TV show and iTunes Podcast full of #Success and #Business with Josh.

Subscribe to the Podcast MP3: bit.ly/TumblrSubscribe

Subscribe to iTunes: bit.ly/JoshF_Itunes

Summary

Courage…

We need it to live our lives confidently—to be who we were born to be, not what society tells us to be. The more courage we have, the truer to ourselves (and the happier) we can be.

When it comes to having courage, to connecting with our true selves internally, and projecting our true selves externally, there are usually three factors that keep us from moving forward with confidence:

1. Pain of Loss—the notion that, by being true to ourselves, we stand to lose something important. That fear of loss holds us back.
2. Pain of Process—the fear that the process of change, of being honest with ourselves or going after who we want to be, is going to be hard, going to be painful. The process to get from A to B, the hardships that we may have to endure, keep us from doing what’s necessary.
3. Pain of Outcome—the idea that the effort we invest will fail to improve our stead.

In this week’s episode of Making Bank, we invite John Lee Dumas, founder of Entrepreneur On Fire, to dive into the subject of courage and the critical role it plays in our lives.

John believes success is a byproduct of two things: hard work and courage.

Courage to stare adversity right in the eyes, and hard work to do what’s necessary to surmount it.

SUBSCRIBE for weekly episodes and bonuses: bit.ly/JoshFSubscribe

Transcription

I am Josh Felber. You’re watching Making Bank on the Whatever It Takes Network. Where does courage come from? This is going to get a little more deep today. Many times the moment lies in the moment of crisis. Also, how we live our daily lives. How do we start to gain more confidence and courage in our lives and why is courage important?

As entrepreneurs, as husbands, as mothers, as dads, we all need courage in our lives to be more confident and by being more courageous or confident, it’s going to allow us to become more successful in what we do every day. One of the hardest things is it takes courage to tell the world what you’re about. It takes courage to tell your spouse or your friends or your family members what you’re thinking or how you’re really doing.

A lot of people, “Hey, how are you doing today?” “Good,” when maybe deep down inside they’ve had a rough day. They’re feeling sad. They’re feeling not happy about maybe where their day had been that day. Instead of being courageous and engaging and connecting with that other person, they answer with a service answer of, “Good,” or, “I’m okay.” By being able to go in and connect with ourselves and find that courage and find that confidence in your heart and be able to communicate that in a social outward situation takes courage and confidence as well.

Do you really communicate your thoughts or your real feelings to your loved ones and what is that actually costing you? So many times, whether it’s in business, whether it’s in our personal lives, it takes courage to push through that and connect with that other person, but why are we not courageous? Why are we not able to connect with our spouse or our loved one or our business partner or our employees? Is it our own ego? Is it our own feelings about ourselves that we’re not courageous or confident in?

There are usually three factors that come into play when we’re talking about courage or why people don’t move ahead or connect on a more confident level. The first one is loss of pain. What I mean by loss of pain is by the fact that changing our advancing in our lives, we’re going to lose something that’s important to us. Maybe if we tell our spouse our true, real feelings about a situation, they’ll think less of us. Or we’re speaking with our business partner and we don’t really want to communicate our true feelings about a deal or a situation that may have come up that we may have problems within the business. The loss of something important holds a lot of us back and maybe that’s what holding you back today.

Number two is process pain. The more that we act or that we press into change is going to be hard for us and so that process of what it takes to actually change and move forward in the situation is what becomes the roadblock or the challenge for us. You want to go start your workout routine and you want to lose those fifty pounds and you want to get healthier and live life with more energy by losing that weight, but the process to get there, the hardships that we may have to endure, those challenges that we may have to endure, are more painful or they seem to be more painful than those end results. We may have to cut out certain foods that we like. We may have to cut out sugars. We may have to cut out alcohol. Those things that we find and feel that are so important and so that process changes a big stumbling block for many of you that holds you back from really focusing and having confidence and courage to go do what you want.

Then the third thing is outcome pain. That all the effect that we put into change may not lead to a better outcome in our lives. We look at it as, “Hey, the grass may not always be greener over there.” The outcome pain, “Hey, what is our outcome? Where do we want to go with this?” Maybe we’re moving. We have to move for our job our we have to move maybe our business to another state. What is that outcome? What is that pain that may be holding us back from taking that next step that if we moved our business, it’s going to help us generate an extra million or two million dollars a year by being in a better location because maybe we’re saving money on taxes. We’re getting different breaks by moving our business to another state. What is the outcome pain that is limiting us there? The factors may include, we may not have our friends that we live next to on a daily basis or we may not be comfortable with our environment or our settings. Outcome pain is another big area that holds us back as well.

What I want you to do that’s going to help transform and change your life are come up with three areas right now that you can go out and take more bold action. Areas in your life that you can take and have more confidence and have more courage in and take that and put that down that you’re going to go after and implement in the next sixty days.

My next guess is John Lee Dumas. He came from the military, had no experience, nowhere to go, and created a podcast, an online business that now has over millions of followers and creates millions of dollars a year for him and that takes courage and confidence, so I am Josh Felber. You’re watching Making Bank on the Whatever It Takes Network.

Hi, I’m Josh Felber. You’re watching Making Bank on the Whatever It Takes Network and I’m really excited today. We are here with John Lee Dumas. He is the founder and host of Entrepreneur on Fire where he interviews today’s most inspiring entrepreneurs seven days a week. He does not let up.

After serving his country, and we appreciate that, John, for over eight years as an officer in the U.S. Army to include a thirteen-month tour of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom, John comes home and he launched Entrepreneur on Fire in late 2012. Now with over one thousand episodes and one million monthly listens, he generates over 250,000 a month in revenue. Entrepreneur on Fire has established itself as the media empire and it was awarded the highest podcast honor, “Best of iTunes”. Making Bank listeners, are you prepared to ignite today? Welcome, John.

John: Josh, it is a pleasure to be here. I know personally I am prepared to ignite, so let’s do this, my friend. Thanks for the great intro and just excited to chat.

Josh: Super, man. You’re in the military and when you came back and everything, what really got your head? How did you say, “Hey, I want to be able to generate podcasts.” How did you get in there?

John: I think it’s a great question because a lot of people look to success that I had and success that a lot of other people have had in this industry and it seems to have come very quickly at just first glance. You see that word “overnight success” get thrown around quite a bit, but this the reality, man. It was a long road to that overnight success. I spent the first four years after college as an officer in the U.S. Army. I was in Iraq for thirteen months. Did that thing. Learned a lot.

Then I got back at the age of 26 in 2006 and I spent the next six years, so six years, over half a decade, failing. Went to law school. Quit after one semester. Went to corporate finance with John Hancock. After eighteen months, I was dying a slow death in a cubicle. Tried commercial and residential real estate for four years in San Diego, back in Maine. Not my style. Had some successes, but mostly failures over those six years and it wasn’t until 32 years old that I had the a-ha moment, which has now turned into Entrepreneur on Fire, which is that seven-day-a-week podcast, little over a thousand episodes, over a million listens per month, and last month of May, we did our biggest month at over 525k.

Josh: That’s awesome. That’s just an exciting story to hear that, like you said, a lot of people look at the Facebooks and the Ubers and they think it’s an overnight success or John Lee Dumas, an Entrepreneur on Fire podcast, it’s an overnight success, but they don’t realize the hard work and the grind and the hustle you’ve put into it that gets you to that point. It’s cool to hear that story of where you’ve come from in that part of that background and probably the real estate market at that time when you were involved probably wasn’t the best timing.

John: Worst timing.

Josh: Yeah, I was going to say, it sounds like probably the worst timing overall.

John: On that note, and I think this is really important, there’s an amazing book out there called, Anti-Fragile. That book talks so eloquently about how the most successful people in this world, if you go back and look at them, the vast majority have gone through significantly difficult times that hardened them, that made them stronger, that created them, forged them of steel. We need to realize that when those moments in our lives happen, like at the time it sucked that I was in the real estate industry and it was real estate bust of all times, but looking back on it, man, I had to get creative. I had to go guerrilla. I had to scrap. I use all of those things creating Entrepreneur on Fire and it ended up being a massive benefit to have gone through that period of life.

Josh: Sure. I guess as soon as you got out of the Army, you’re an officer, you were sitting in that cubicle, what were you feeling that made you think, “Man, I’ve got to just bust out of this cubicle, this jail cell that I’m in, and get out there and be an entrepreneur”?

John: This is something that is inside me and I know it’s within so many of the viewers right here today is that we have this energy, this enthusiasm, this passion to unleash somewhere, but the problem is that a lot of us find ourselves in these cubicles, in these jobs that don’t inspire us, that don’t allow us to really make the most of this just great, burning passion within.

That’s what I felt like. I kind of felt like a caged animal. I had all of this excitement and energy to pour into a project and an adventure, but I didn’t have that right adventure to pour it into. I always was holding back and because of that I was mediocre at everything that I did which is why I ended up failing because I was like, “I’m going to be a mediocre lawyer. I’m going to be a mediocre financial advisor. I’m going to be a mediocre real estate guy.” I didn’t want to be mediocre, but I was going to be because I was not able to just unleash this fire within, but when I had the idea and the a-ha moment for Entrepreneur on Fire, that’s when I said, “Man, this is something that I can just completely open myself and commit myself and pour myself into and this is what I’ve been looking for, this is the outlet.” Once I plugged into that and focused on that journey, I mean, the sky was the limit.

Josh: That’s awesome. Earlier in my segment we were talking about courage and confidence and everything and why so many people hold back and they don’t take that courage or that confidence to that next level. Like you said, you were stuck in that cubicle. A lot of people are just like, “Hey, I have that fear of,” one of the three processes or whatever, of the change, of the outcome, or I may lose somebody important along the way and they’re not willing to summon up or grab that confidence and courage like you did to be able to take that next step and bust through that. I guess how did you find or what did you use, steps did you take, to really find that courage or create that confidence in yourself to just be like, “Bam! I’m done. I’m out of here”?

John: The best thing that I did by far was that I looked to somebody who was where I wanted to be. For me, that was a successful business podcaster. Her name was Jaime Tardy. She had a great podcast called, The Eventual Millionaire. It was a podcast that I had been listening to for years and I admired her and I really wanted to create something like she had created.

I swallowed my fear and I reached out to her and I said, “Jaime, I want to learn from you. I want to be mentored by you. I know that it’s going to take a significant financial investment, a significant time investment, and a significant bandwidth investment, but I’m willing to do all of these things. Can I be your apprentice?” Because she did mentor people, I was able to become one of her mentees. That changed everything.

Josh: That’s awesome, John. Hey, we’ve got to take a quick break. Can you stick with us a few minutes longer?

John: Sure. For you, anything.

Josh: I am Josh Felber. You are watching Making Bank on the Whatever It Takes Network.

I am Josh Felber. Welcome back. You’re watching Making Bank on the Whatever It Takes Network and we left off speaking with John Lee Dumas about courage and what it took to break out of that cage that he was in in his cubicle and take those next steps. He went and found a mentor in his focus field that he was really wanting to get into. He humbled himself down and said, “Hey, help me out here. What will it take me for me to work with you?”

Welcome back, John. I’m glad you’re on the show.

John: It’s exciting to be here. We’re sharing a lot of awesome stuff so let’s keep the fire burning.

Josh: Sweet. Ha ha. You reached out to her and she’s like, “Hey, I’ll go ahead and mentor you”?

John: Absolutely. It was one of those things where I had to reach out, write an email, explain who I was, what I was looking to do, because a lot of people wanted to be mentored by her. She was a very successful podcaster and I had to realize that, “Hey, this is competitive. I need to put all my cards on the table and let her know that I’m serious and that her time is going to be well-spent with me.” It was a very detailed and focused email that went out to her for sure.

Josh: Now she’s probably like, “Hey, look who I mentored.”

John: I’m her best case study by far. Now she’s like, “I mentored John Lee Dumas.”

Josh: That’s awesome. You talked about over the years and you had a lot of failures and everything. What was one of the key pieces you could pull from one of your failures that helped changed and transformed your direction, your path, to becoming an entrepreneur?

John: My biggest failure by far was my failure to launch. I had the right mentor. I had the mastermind. I had the interviews completed. I had the website. The social media. Everything was in place and then I woke up August 15, 2012, which was the day I was supposed to launch the podcast that I had had on the calendar for months and I was terrified. I was paralyzed with fear. I said, “What if this fails? What if all this hard work goes down the drain?”

I knew, Josh, that if I didn’t launch, then I could never fail. I couldn’t succeed, but I couldn’t fail, either, because my idea of a seven-day-a-week podcast had never been proven. I knew it was about to be proven as a success or proven as a failure. I was terrified about the reality of what was going to happen. I came up with all these b.s. excuses and I delayed for five weeks my launch.

I would have delayed longer, but fortunately my mentor caught wind of what I was doing and called me up and said, “John, if you don’t launch today, I will fire you.” The only thing that scared me more than launching my podcast was losing my mentor. I was just like, “All right. I’ve got to do this.” I launched my podcast and all of my fears were for naught.

The reality is thirteen months almost to the day I launched my podcast and after I launched my podcast was my first six-figure month. That six-figure month took thirteen months because of the time, energy, effort that I had to put into it going forward, but if I had launched five weeks prior, I would have had that first six-figure month a whole month before that. I actually call that “my hundred-thousand dollar mistake” because that was a hundred-thousand dollar mistake because I would have a hundred more thousand dollars to my name now if I had launched when I was supposed to, but I let the impostor syndrome take over.

Josh: Yes. That’s awesome that you had that role model or that mentor to be able to connect with and give you that push. Do you remember other than, “Hey, you’re going to be fired,” what did she use or what did she say to motivate you to kind of take that next step?

John: That’s all she said.

Josh: That was it. That was enough for you to just get up off your butt, take action, and get moving.

John: Yeah.

Josh: No, that’s awesome. I guess, since we’re talking about courage and fear and everything else, if you could articulate, what was that fear and why do you think you had that there? I know it seemed like it was from a sense of loss or what may have happened or what the outcome may not work in what you think it’s going to be.

John: It’s a simple answer and I think it’s really going to resonate with a lot of viewers. I’m a human being. That’s why I had that fear. That’s where that fear came from. It’s called being a human being. We are born with fear, with a survivalist instinct. We are born with what I call the impostor syndrome, which is that voice inside your head that says, “Who are you to launch a podcast? To reach out to people that are Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, to have them on your show? Who are you to do these things, to spread your voice, your message, your brand?” It’s that impostor syndrome in your head that is never going to completely go away. That’s just a reality. We have to instead embrace it and realize it’s part of being a human being.

It’s what kept our species alive when we got up in the middle of the night and wanted to go outside and look at the stars and the impostor syndrome said, “Hey, there’s a saber-tooth tiger outside that cave. You’ve got to be careful.” Guess what. There probably was and that kept us alive and that is never going to be gone. That is just something that we’re born with and we need to realize, “Hey, I’m always going to be scared of getting up in front of a crowd and speaking.” It’s the number one phobia of humans is public speaking. I’m always going to be doubting myself on some level, but am I now going to be able to rise above that doubt and embrace that fear and move forward? It’s those people that can that achieve the success.

Josh: That’s awesome. I think that’s a huge takeaway my listeners of Making Bank really need to grab onto because so many people they look for a solution or, “Hey, how can I fix this?” We’re all human and it’s what you do with that and use that fear to empower you to move forward and not try to eliminate because it’s an innate nature that’s built into us. We’re not the Terminator. We may want to think we’re the Terminator, but everybody always still has that fear.

John: I just saw the preview for the next one and I can’t wait.

Josh: That’s why I thought of that. Really cool. What was the best advice that you ever received? I know you had a mentor and everything. For you, what was that best piece of advice that she gave you or maybe it was somebody else that helped you become successful with what you do.

John: The best advice that I ever received is a very simple quote. If you want to be, do. The reality of that quote is very simple. I wanted to be a podcaster, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be a good podcaster when I started. I wasn’t going to be a good interviewer. I had never done it before. I wasn’t going to be a good host. I didn’t understand the technical side. A lot of people let that stop them from ever starting, but the reality is if you want to be a podcaster, you had to podcast. If you want to be a writer, you have to write. If you want to be a golfer, you have to play golf. It’s that simple.

Tiger Woods was not a great golfer when he started. Michael Jordan didn’t hit the first free throw he ever took. They were bad at that thing, but they practiced and got better and that was why doing a seven-day-a-week podcast was awesome for me because I was really, really bad when I started, but doing it seven days a week, I got a little bit better every single time by doing that thing. Whatever it is in this world that you want to be, you have to do that very thing.

Josh: Sure. It’s that whole 10,000 hours. You’ve got to keep practicing to get better and become more successful and everything. One real quick maybe idea or thought you could empower our listeners with before we wrap up here would be awesome.

John: That thought I want to kind of leave everybody with is a quote from Albert Einstein which is, “Try not to become a person of success, but rather become a person of value.” For me, for those six years that I was failing, I was trying to become a person of success. I was chasing fame, fortune, and money, law, finance, real estate, failure, failure, failure. When I finally flipped it on its head and said, “I’m just going to become a person of value,” which is free, valuable, consistent content which is my podcast. Seven days a week. Free. Valuable and consistent.

When I flipped it on its head and just focused on providing value first, the success followed. I never found success by chasing success, but I found success by providing value. Follow that great Albert Einstein quote and try not to become a person of success, but rather become a person of value. The success will follow. That’s what I’ve done with Entrepreneur on Fire and that’s why I generate seven figures every single year is because of that mentality.

Josh: That’s awesome and that’s what I’ve always lived by is create value and make that obsession with what you do and everything else will fall in place. John, it was such an honor to have you on Making Bank today and I really appreciate you time. Especially since you’re on vacation. Sharing your background, your successes, Entrepreneur on Fire. People can go to entrepreneuronfire.com, correct?

John: The word “entrepreneur” is tough to spell, so I even made a shortcut eofire.com.

Josh: Boom. There we go. Simple. Easy. Eofire.com. Check out John Lee Dumas. He has tons of valuable information and subscribe to his podcast. Thanks again, John.

John: Josh, awesome. Thank you.

– See more at: http://joshfelber.tumblr.com/post/138861318149/the-3-factors-about-courage-with-john-lee-dumas#sthash.5jvaQ4W2.dpuf