John Lee Dumas, founder and host of the award-winning Entrepreneurs ON FIRE podcast, shares the "secret sauce" to success, the steps to setting and accomplishing your #1 goal in 100 days, why to set SMART goals, Parkinson’s Law, and starting a chain reaction of awesome.

We have a social media superstar in our presence today,

my friends, John Lee Dumas, the host of Entrepreneur on Fire,

one of the web's biggest and largest podcasts, he's had a

million bazillion downloads. I don't know that number grows so

fast. He has a book that is out. It's called the Freedom Journal.

And so here he is, John, it's great to have you.

There is no place I'd rather be the thanks

for having me on, brother.

So I just want to jump right into the Freedom Journal.

And what kind of caused you to put this together?

For me, you know, EO fire Entrepreneur on

Fire has been rocking and rolling, and a lot has been

going on. And I've had great past guests. So what happens

when that happens? Well, my audience Fire Nation is like,

John, why do your guests who are successful and aspiring

entrepreneurs have success? What's the magic bullet? What's

their secret sauce? And that question would often frustrate

me because my answer was always Hey, they work really hard. They

just work hard. They're hard workers, butcher, I never loved

that answer, because it wasn't something that I could really

give them there was a tangible, good, tangible solution to what

I saw they were struggling with. So when I took a step back, and

I really analyze all of my interviews and all of my past

guests, I said, Man, successful entrepreneurs know how to set

and accomplish goals. And people that are reaching out to me and

saying that they're struggling in the entrepreneurial world, in

the business world, etc. They're struggling with that very thing.

They don't know how to set and accomplish goals. So I decided

to create that tool that resource, that solution to

bridge the gap between unsuccessful entrepreneurs who

don't know how to set and accomplish goals and those

successful entrepreneurs that do so it took me a year, you know,

this was not a quick and easy process. Because number one, I

wanted it to be perfect. Number two, like I wanted it to be a

physical product. And it's my first physical product that I've

created. I mean, it's a beautiful leather bound gold in

Boston journal that I had to source the materials and you

know, everything behind behind it, get the production, get it

over to the distribution centers, like it was a heck of a

process. But it's been an amazing journey. And I've just

loved seeing where we've come full circle, because what the

essence of the Freedom Journal is, it is how to set and

accomplish your number one goal in 100 days. So a very focused

and specific tool that will get you to knock over that one big

flip and Domino that for many of us has been there for way too

long. Because once you knock it over, hey, then it's time for

the chain reaction of awesome to start.

People need help with goals. But what do you think are

some of the mistakes that people do make when it comes to setting

their goals or more importantly, executing on the goals?

There's a number of mistakes to really come to

mind that I want to focus on number one is they use that word

goals. They say goals multiple. And so then they wake up every

morning, and they have all of these goals in front of them.

And they spend time energy and effort moving each one of those

goals a little bit forward every single day. And they wake up six

months later, they're like, Hey, I've been working at these goals

every day for six months now. And I haven't really made much

progress with any of them what's going on? It's because they're

just pushing the balls a little forward every single day, why

not just say, Hey, what's that one big lever that if I pull it,

what's that one big domino that if I crush it is going to open

the door for me. And it's going to make the other goals that I

have even easier and more simple. So for me that big

Domino was EO fire my podcast. And when I accomplished that

goal, everything else became achievable. Speaking from stage

creating products and services, building an audience, etc. You

name it, I had to focus and accomplish that one goal first.

So that is so key focus on that one goal. That's that biggest

move that biggest game changer for you stop thinking about

goals. Think about one goal at a time and just focus it and crush

it. And then another thing and that huge struggle. This is the

number two that I was talking about, is they don't even know

how to set a SMART goal. A smart goal is specific, measurable,

attainable, relevant time bound, that's five attributes. When you

say I want to lose weight, you're only doing one of those

five attributes specific. Yes, you want to lose weight,

measurable, I want to lose 10 pounds attainable, Is it

attainable? Will I've been 10 pounds lighter, so yes, I know

it is attainable. Relevance is irrelevant to my life. Well, I

want to be thinner, I want to look better. I want to have more

energy. Is it time bound? Well, with the Freedom Journal now you

have 100 days. So that's how I just took what most people use

as a goal and they never accomplish it. I've turned it

into a SMART goal. And now they have the right five attributes

checked off to accomplish that goal in 100 days and Having the

Freedom Journal, guiding them every single day with our daily

tasks, our nightly recaps our 10 day sprints, so that you're

accomplishing a micro goal every 10 days building up to that big

one goal, and then a quarterly review every 25 days looking

back over the previous 25 to see like, what your struggles were

to avoid those in the future. If you need to pivot adjust, make

decisions to move forward in a different direction. And then by

day 100, following the system, you will have accomplished that

number one goal.

So you talked about SMART. Is there a most important

ingredient to succeeding with your goals?

Well, it's really interesting. So I had 33

of my past guests of EO fire back on the show. Wow, guess

Wow. And I asked every single one of them, I said, which one

of the five attributes of a SMART goal is the most

importance. And I thought that one would kind of rise to the

top. But what's really interesting is it was so evenly

spaced, every guest, you know, gave their idea of what what

they thought was the most important attribute of a SMART

goal. And across the board, they got pretty similar votes from

specific to measurable, attainable, relevant and time

bound. So I think you need to look at your life and say, Hey,

where's an area that I as an individual struggle, that's the

area that I need to make sure that my goal absolutely has I

know, for me, it's time bound, if I don't actually put

something that's time bound together behind my goal, then

Parkinson's Law falls into effect, and that is tax will

expand the time allotted. So if I don't have a lot any time, my

task just expanded to infinity. And if I have a lot 200 days,

it's going to take me 200 days to accomplish that goal. So

that's why I really wanted to focus on 100 days for that goal,

because it's long enough. So you can accomplish something big and

meaningful, but it's not so long, where it's like taking you

a long time to accomplish that big goal. Like let's put some

time parameters on this. So that we can really be setting in

accomplishing our goals in a meaningful and intentional way.

And that's exactly what the core essence of the Freedom Journal

is it guides you with those daily tasks and daily recaps, 10

day sprints quarterly reviews, and it just keeps you nudging

every day, keep it keeping you present, that you have some of

the you're moving towards gaining that momentum so that by

day 100, that domino has been knocked over.

You mentioned that the freedom journal sort of falls

out of all these guests that you have had on the podcast. And I

guess, what, it started in 2012? So if you had to choose one

podcast, what one guest do you think has most influenced your

thinking? This radically changed the way that I will think about

x forever? And I'm putting you on the spot here.

Absolutely no doubt about it. My answer. It's

very clear in my mind, I mean, honestly, as soon as you started

talking about it, I said, Hey, this is the person and why. And

even before I kind of share that, I do want to say that my

favorite question to ask people like people that I really admire

is, what's something you've changed your mind about in the

last six months? Because I'm fascinated by what people change

their minds about within the last six months? Because to me,

that's a huge clue. For me that question, I'm kind of flipped on

for as a as a host of EO fire is a guest. But that name is Sally

Hogshead. She came on my show back in the day. And when Sally

came on and talked about her fascination test how the world

sees you, that shifted my mindset that changed things that

changed how I carried myself how I ran my business how, you know,

I looked at different aspects of my life. And it was so great for

me to number one be such a fan of Sally like, well, before I

had her on my show, I saw her speak live multiple times from

stage. And there's a reason why she's considered one of the best

speakers in the world because she's amazing. She really

shifted my mindset with that.

I love that what a great answer. One of the other things

real quick, I know we're wrapping up, we got to wrap this

up here pretty soon, but Pencils of Promise, you're doing some

like really good stuff there.

So I've had a lot of success with my business

with Entrepreneur on Fire, we don't have a lot of overhead. So

we're just a very successful financial business. And so for

me, like I wanted to take the success I've had with EO fire

and really start to make a significant impact in this world

and start to really build a legacy. So that when I decided

to create the Freedom Journal, and I really knew because I know

my audience that it was going to be a great financial success. I

knew that I wanted to be more than just another revenue

stream. So I called up my good friend, Adam Braun, who's the

founder of Pencils of Promise. And I said, Adam, I want to do

this launch. But I want to partner with you. I want to

partner with Pencils of Promise because I love what you've done,

and how you are bringing education to this world. And

I've personally written checks in the past two Pencils of

Promise for $25,000 to build a school in a developing country,

which is what they're all focused on. And so I wanted to

bring that to the backers of the of the Freedom Journal. So every

single time we hit a funding goal with the Freedom Journal,

the first funding goal was $25,000. And we hit that in

three hours, I wrote a check for $25,000 and Pencils of Promise.

And as backers we built a school in a developing country in less

than three hours and think of the lifelong impact the Think of

the the hundreds of years of impact that's going to have the

we as you know, an audience is as entrepreneurs together did in

three hours, and that's what I wanted to bring was significance

to this campaign.

Well, my brother, I wish you the very best. We are so

excited and honored to introduce you to our crew. Thanks for all

the work that you are doing and for being a fire in the world

and setting fire to people and helping their passions come

alive. Keep doing what you're doing and let us know how we can

help.