EP 122 | Redefining Financial Freedom with John Lee Dumas

140 million. He's averaging about 2 million a month in podcasts, views listens alone when they have a really cool things that I love about his content and what he's teaching people is financial freedom. Not enough people are talking about money. That is why I created building Billions. I want to make and normalize this money conversation and make it more prevalent and really get into the depths of, okay, what

is financial freedom and why is this important? And how can people have this, which was a main topic of today's episode. So give this a listen. If you don't know who Jld is, you should also check out his podcast, because this man is full of incredible insights and wisdom around how to get started, how to be a beginner and become an expert in something and what it really

takes to be successful. So let's dive in. I am excited to do this interview because you're good with talking about money and I think people need to be around more people who are willing to talk about money. I hear that one of your things is sharing the amount of money that your business is making. So we're going to dive into all sorts of things. But first, welcome to the Building Billionaires podcast and thank you for being here.

get to do exactly what I want to do. My calendar says all the things that I want it to say, and I get to spend days with people like yourself having great conversations. I have been interviewing people for a decade. Right now I've interviewed over 4000 inspiring and successful entrepreneurs, and people say, John, you've been doing this for ten years. When is enough enough? And I say never because this is what I love doing. I love having wonderful, smart, intelligent, intriguing,

interesting conversations with brilliant, smart, successful people. Why would I ever want to stop doing that? And people that don't get it? I say, you should probably stop listening to my podcast because you're wasting your time.

of the inspiration for me two years ago. I finally, like kind of broke down and wrote my first traditionally published book because when people are asking me this question fairly often, I was like, Well, let me boil it down because is it really that many things? And it really naturally came down to 17 core concepts. I actually says it's kind of put it in the way of like 17 steps to financial freedom and fulfillment. Like that's literally the tagline of the book 17 Steps to Financial

Freedom and Fulfillment. And every one of those chapters is just literally one step in that journey. That's one of those 17 core concepts and core principles that the 4000 people that I've interviewed over a decade, that's the journey that they took as well. It might be in a different niche, in a different industry. They. Might do it on a different size and they might do it in a different way, shape or form. But at the end

of the day, these are the steps they're taking. This is the journey that they're on at 17 core concepts.

what if I find out that there's 19 steps? Or what if I missed the 18th step and now I've put this book out there and it's 17 steps and just kind of the mentality around being able to put out content that says, Hey, I'm saying that this there's 17 and I'm publishing a book around it.

something because it's not perfect yet. So I'm not going to release my content to the world. I'm not going to release my hopes, my dreams, my aspirations, my thoughts, my tactics, my strategies to the world because I'm a perfectionist until until this is perfect. I'm not going to launch. Well, you're not perfect. You're a coward. And that's what you're hiding behind. And I'm saying it to myself, looking in the mirror. I'm saying it to every other entrepreneur who

has ever used those words perfectionism. And so that's kind of a longer way of answering your question of I don't care if there's an 18th or 19th step that comes along at some point because I did the best that I could with the content and the knowledge I had at that time, and that is the book that I was able to put out in 2021. If I could redo it in 2025 with things be different, most likely. And guess what? Maybe I'll put another book out then, maybe I won't. But I will be very proud of

what I created at that moment in time. It's helped a lot of people and I think people need to release that worry of it not being perfect. Recognize don't be a coward. Get out there and impact the world.

insecurity and self-doubt and all of that comes in. So it sounds like you didn't struggle too much with it from what you said, but have you had those issues of, you know, the imposter syndrome and comparing yourself to everybody else who's creating content? And if you have, how did you go through the process of really getting over that and still creating something that really has had remarkable results?

going to ever escape them. It's the individuals like yourself, like Jeremy, like grants, like me who have been able to embrace those fears and those doubts rise above them and continue moving forward that have achieved certain levels of

success that other people haven't. And I would even take something a step further that you said earlier, that, you know, when people are scared to put out content like they're hurting themselves because they're not sharing that content with others, I think you're also hurting other people whose whose lives you would impact in a positive way if they were able to hear your knowledge, your expertise, your experience, your struggles,

your obstacles, your challenges. And so by you being too scared, being so selfish that you're afraid of somebody saying something about you so you're not going to share something, you're hurting a whole other host of individuals that needed to hear that and now are not going to because of your cowardice.

who are going through their lives. And I was drawing so much inspiration as well as like really tactical strategic knowledge from those conversations. And I said, Man, I'm driving to work every single day. You know, this is well over ten years ago. I'm hitting the gym multiple times per week. I'm walking my dog. I'm like folding laundry. I want to have like this in my ear balls literally the entire time I'm doing all these things because

the more I can consume this content, the better. So I literally went on a search for that podcast that was a daily interview of successful entrepreneurs. And Natalie, the show did not exist. It just did not exist. And it was so weird to me. I don't know if you remember that movie. It was called yesterday where this guy wakes up and suddenly, like nobody had ever heard of the Beatles or like a band, like all these

weird things. And he's like, How is that even possible? Like, that was my moment where I'm like, How does this not exist? And I said, I'm going to do it. I'm going to be the person that creates the first daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs because I want to hear more

of those conversations. So I might as well facilitate those conversations so I can ask the questions that I was kind of wishing the host of the other shows that were coming out once a week or twice a month, we'll be asking them questions that they would wish they were asking or they should be asking. And I just took, you know, my reins and launched entrepreneurs on fire. And I was a really bad podcast host. I had no

experience interviewing people. I didn't have any technical broadcasting, communicating knowledge at all. But guess what? I woke up every day and I did it. And I woke up another day and then I did it. And after a couple hundred episodes, I'm like, Wow, I'm not terrible. I'm just really bad. Then after a couple hundred more episodes, I'm like, Man, I'm just bad now. Like, this is getting pretty cool. And here I am 4000 episodes later. And listen, nobody's

a bigger fan of Grant Cardone than me. Like, I've been friends with Grant Cardone for 8 or 9 years now, so I can tell this story and I know that he will know if he ever hears this, that it comes from a place of love, because I've told the story to him on a public stage before. So it's not like I'm just breaking this news now. But the first time that I interviewed Grant Cardone, I was like, This is 2013. You know, I'm like, Grant's coming on

my show. Great book. The ten X was out there and ten X rule, and I was excited to have the conversation with him. And he was good. He was okay. You know, he was talking the talk and he was being Grant. And I was like, okay, he's he's, he's, he's good. He's doing his thing. And then he invited me on his show and it was so janky, like he had this setup where, like the lighting was terrible,

the audio is terrible. He was just like and I remember that episode being like, Man, he's not he's not going to make it in that area of like producing a show, producing content. I'm sure he'll be successful in something because he's such a hard worker. He's not going to stop. But boom, guess what? This guy, he just woke up every day like I woke up every day and he just got a little bit better at doing the thing, the content, the production, the this. He hired

the right people around him. And that's my evolution as well. And everybody who looks at anybody right now, anybody and says, wow, that person is great at that thing. It's because that person has gotten up 10,000 days in a row and done that thing. They're not better than you naturally than that thing. Most likely they're just 10,000 days ahead of you of putting in the work. And just to kind of end this point, I'm watching the show on Netflix

right now. It just came out called Quarterback. And it's about, you know, three of the top ten quarterback in the National Football League, Mahomes, Kirk, Cousins and Mariota. These guys are unbelievable. And you're watching behind the scenes of them. And what are they doing? They're getting up every day. They're sore, they're aching, they're in pain. They have bruises. They have doubts. They have fears. They think they're terrible.

They think they're a mess. They have the imposter syndrome, but they're getting up and they're doing the thing every single day. And it's just like what I'm doing. It's just like what Grant's doing, you know? I don't know much about your story, Natalie, but I'm sure you've gone to where you are because you've gotten up and you've just done the thing every single day.

in the work. So with putting in the work. If we can give the audience like a couple of tools for how they can put in the work, but also shorten the time frame, what would be the the one thing that you would say that you've learned out of maybe the 17 success principles that you could share with the audience about just putting in the work? Plus this thing will be helpful and beneficial to you along your path of becoming great.

from my failures. You can avoid them. You can learn from my successes. You can emulate those, and you can apply it to your journey, to your story. So people are already doing that right now. So I commend them for that. But if I can say like the biggest thing and and the common path to Uncommon success is the name of my book, because I really wanted people to understand that to get to uncommon success, it's a very,

very common path. You just need to follow these 17 steps that I've seen 4000 successful entrepreneurs follow over the course of a decade of interviewing them to have achieved massive success. Like they've followed those steps. Now, for the individuals that are listening right now, to me it's very, very clear that there's one thing that most people cannot

honestly say right now. They cannot look in the mirror and say the following sentence, which, by the way, if I was asked to sum up my book, which is like 300 pages into one sentence, the sentence would be become the number one solution to a real problem in this world. That entire sentence is very intentional. Every word is meant to be there, become the number one solution

to a real problem in this world. And probably the most important word within that sentence is the word real, because a lot of people have become the number one solution to a problem in this world. But it's not that big of a problem. People don't care. It's not that painful of a problem. So people aren't willing to pay you for that. They're not willing to invest their hard earned money into your solution because it's it's a problem,

but it's just not that big of a deal. So a lot of people are like, oh my God, but how do you become the number one solution to a problem like ecommerce? How do I beat Amazon? Well, you're not going to beat Amazon. Why should you even try like that? Shouldn't even be your your desire, your effort, your goal. In fact, that's why step two, which is also chapter two in my book, is Discover the niche

within your big idea that is not being solved. And so for me, that was podcasting, which was a big idea, niching down into business, podcasting, which was a smaller idea but still a big idea with a lot of competition niching down to business, podcasts, interviewing entrepreneurs. And back in 2012, Natalie, there were nine of them, believe it or not. And I said, Well, do I want to be the 10th best podcast interviewing entrepreneurs? Know what's another niche Down Well,

what about daily podcast interviewing business entrepreneurs? There were zero. So the day that I launched Entrepreneurs on Fire, I was the best daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. I was the worst daily podcast, interviewing entrepreneurs. I was the only daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. And so I won as a result because I was the only solution to what was a

real problem. There weren't everybody in the world didn't want to listen to a daily podcast, but there was a big enough audience that wanted to consume what I was looking for a daily interview with successful entrepreneurs that allowed me to build a thriving business that's been rocking for

ten years. It's brought in, you know, over $30 million in revenue since that, you know, 96% of which I get to keep because I live in Puerto Rico, which is another conversation that we could talk about at some point. But the reality is this if you can't right now, look in the mirror and say, I'm the number one solution to a real problem, you are going to struggle because nobody wants the second best solution, the 10th best solution, the 37th best solution to their problem. They want the

number one solution. So they will beat a path to the door of the number one solution to their problem and they'll ignore all the other ones. So unless you want to be ignored, which a lot of entrepreneurs are, which is why it's so hard to succeed as a business entrepreneur, become the number one solution to a real problem. I didn't say to a. Big problem, I said to

a real problem. And there are so many people out there that are creating amazing solutions to micro real problems and they're thriving Natalie.

known and they can't overcome that. So their business ends up going to their potential business ends up going to a competitor because they already they spend so much time and take so much pride in the craft of being the best that they don't spend much time on the promotion, on the marketing. So what would you say to the business owner that really has done a great job of niching down and is a great solution, but just nobody knows them and that they exist?

be focusing on. But it's neither or because, like you said, if you're just the best solution but nobody knows about you, like you're going to try it because there's no clients coming and there's no revenue coming in the door. But if you're the best known in your services or crap, especially in this world that we live in right now, I mean, you will get reviewed, you know, one star, you know, all the way down, word of mouth will be terrible. And before you know it, like you've just

got a terrible reputation. So. So both so like, like blinders is not going to work on either strategy, which is why I like for me it's like, how do you create the number one solution to a real problem in this world? So you have this unbelievable opportunity and offer to give to the world. And then how do you find people like Grant Cardone, like Gary Vaynerchuk, like other amazing entrepreneurs and business minds that are out there, Learn from them to actually elevate your business in your

brand into the limelight. So now you have both wheels working for you where you have this amazing, number one solution to a real problem, and now you're getting clients in the door who are loving you because of that. And then everything is going to kind of be this like all ships rise in a high tide and that's going to give you that high tide to allow you to succeed in that. So it definitely has to be a combination of the both. It's really not an either or. But I love the conversation.

And they said, you know what? We're going to take the people that work the hardest, that employ the most people that bring the most revenue into the states in the most awareness, because we talk about it because, you know, we talk about where we're living, of course, and all these things, and we're going to tax the crap out of them and we're going to make them demotivated to grow, to add more revenue streams, to build a bigger team,

to hire more people, to serve more people. And that was happened to me when I was living in San Diego, California. Like I was paying out $0.51 for every dollar that I was making. So I remember every single time I'd have like a $50,000 webinar in my mind, I'd be like, Well, okay. Like, after all my expenses, that's like 40,000. And then now I've got to cut that in half again because I'm paying taxes on that $50,000 webinar was like 18, $19,000.

And that just gets pretty demotivating after a while because you're like, not that that's not a lot of money, but you know, we're putting so much time, energy and effort and having so much success in this. It's like you're taking two steps forward and one and a half step back every single day, week and month. And fortunately back in 2016, I was made aware of this unbelievable opportunity for entrepreneurs which will never again exist in our generation.

For Americans specifically, which is moving to an American territory in the Caribbean called Puerto Rico, and you are paying a flat 4% corporate tax rates, no federal tax, no state tax. In addition to that, you're paying 0% capital gains on any investments. And listen, Grant Cardone looked hard and long above Puerto Rico because he knows that there's nothing better than that. But there's certain things that you've got to you got to live with. And, you know,

that's one of the things. But the reality is I literally was able to move to Puerto Rico and give myself a 47% raise with a snap of a fingers. I used to work for the government until June 16th of every year because that's how long it took me to pay my tax bill every single year. Now I work for the government until January 17th, and the rest of the year the money flows to me, to my business, to my team, to my philanthropic causes, to the investments that I want to make, to the real estate that

I want to invest in. And by the way, when I sell that real estate, I'm paying 0% capital gains. When I get paid for that company that I invested in that went public, I'm paying 0% capital gains when I sell my business, whenever that may be, I will pay 0% tax on the sale of my business, which will be an eight figure sale. So think of the taxes I'd be paying anywhere in the continental United States.

So when people say, John, like but you live, you live in Puerto Rico, I'm like, hey, it's not for everybody. Living on a Caribbean island is not for everybody. And honestly, and I'm being genuine, there are pros and cons. It's not like Puerto Rico was this first world perfect islands. No, there's problems here. There's obstacles, there's challenges. But for me, it is an unbelievable Paradise of a life when it comes to running my business. And I absolutely love it.

And so I tell people, listen, do not move to Puerto Rico until you are ready to keep the money you make. When you're ready to keep the money you make, then you move to Puerto Rico. Until then, somebody's got to fund the black hole of the government. And so please keep doing that.

United States of America. And now I'm keeping the money that I make as I as I enter my elder years.

us for the path. And that's hopefully part of what this conversation is helping them do, is saying it is possible I can learn from these individuals, I can apply myself, I can put in the reps, I can do the hard work, and I can make it happen. And again, at the end of the day, if you are able and willing to create the number one solution to a real problem and then learn from people like Natalie and myself, Grant and others how to properly market yourself so that

you are exposed and seen to the right individuals. It's literally just a matter of time. I mean, that's it's an inevitable thing.

like so hard. Because you got to understand, I went from high school like the number one athlete in my high school to an Army ROTC scholarship. So right away I'm like, I knew I was going to be spending time as an officer in the US Army to being an officer in the US Army and being a decorated war veteran to then going to law school. And then it all kind of fell apart because I was in law school and I was like, This is the worst.

I'm 27 years old. I've gone along this straight and narrow, traditional path that I thought was the path to follow. But I'm so unhappy. I'm so unfulfilled. I see nothing but unhappiness and misery in my future. What can I do? Which is when I started consuming content like the ten X Rule and Gary Vaynerchuk and Tim Ferriss four hour

workweek and believing there were other opportunities. But I was still so scared to let anybody know that I was going to drop out of law school, which I finally did, and, you know, embarrass my family, which I did. They were embarrassed that I dropped out of law school because my dad's a lawyer. He had to now go and have that lunch with his lawyer friends. Oh, how's John doing? And second year contracts. He dropped out. And you just know what the look on their faces were at lunch.

They probably felt terrible, you know, from my father, because now they're like, well, that's another, you know, son that you're going to have to take care of until he's well into his 30s and, you know, beyond and, you know, blah, blah, blah. He couldn't hack it for any reason, like, oh, we thought John was on this trajectory, you know, to be whatever someday. And it was like it was bad. It

was scary, it was terrifying. But I just said, you know, my long term happiness is much more important than my short term shame because it was short term shame. Like I was ashamed. I literally left Natalie the country for four months. I went to India with a backpack and just traveled to India because I knew that if I didn't want to be in touch with anybody, I could use the excuse of like, there is no internet. Of

course I could have accessed the Internet. I just decided not to and I just disappeared for like four months and I just backpacked the entire country of India. Now, looking back, it was a fantastic four months. I had. I had such a wonderful time, but I did it to escape because I was ashamed of what other people were saying because, you know, I just broken this perfect path that I had thought that I had created for myself.

And then I knew when I came back from India, I was going to give my thoughts in hopes and aspirations a try. But it was a huge question mark if that was going to work. Now, of course, looking back, it's like it's easy to say in hindsight, I made the right decision because, you know, I built a multi-million dollar business, you know, for ten years running and lifestyle, freedom and fulfillment. And I'm living in Puerto Rico, you know, on the Caribbean. It's an amazing. But you don't know

that at the time. You don't. You have no idea. So I feel for everybody that's listening right now. And I feel for those people that you're talking about, about how there are so few people make it or really even try, because that fear that dealt that shame is too much for them. And it was almost too much for me. And I'm telling you, if I hadn't been in war and like seeing death on such a regular basis and realize how short life actually was, I probably

would not have had the courage to do that. But I was able to continue to go back and perspective and say, How bad could it really be if I fail? If I fail, I'll just try it again. And like I saw what the worst of the worst could be. But for some people, they don't understand that. And so it's tough.

about that? This isn't your thing while still making it the thing, because this has been incredibly valuable.

That's right now over 2 million listens every single month. So if you want to join a lot of people listening to a lot of cool content, check out Entrepreneurs on Fire and my website's fire. We keep things simple and free over there and it's just been great chatting with you, Natalie, and I love what you guys are doing over there. You know, like I said, I've been really good friends with Grant and Jeremy for some time and it's great to connect with you.