The Transcript

How Becoming a Digital Entrepreneur Helped Jarmar Dupas Get His Life Right

Voiceover: Rainmaker.FM. You’re listening to The Digital Entrepreneur, the show for folks who want to discover smarter ways to create and sell profitable digital goods and services. This podcast is a production of Digital Commerce Institute, the place to be for digital entrepreneurs. DCI features an in-depth, ongoing instructional academy, plus a live education and networking summit where entrepreneurs from across the globe meet in person. For more information, go to Rainmaker.FM/DigitalCommerce.

Jerod Morris: Welcome back to The Digital Entrepreneur, the show where digital entrepreneurs share their stories and the lessons they’ve learned so that we can all be better in our online pursuits. I am your host, Jerod Morris, the VP of marketing for Rainmaker Digital. This is episode No. 36.

This episode of The Digital Entrepreneur is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform. I will tell you more about this complete solution for digital marketing and sales later. But you can check it out and take a free spin for yourself at Rainmaker.FM/Platform.

On this week’s episode, I am joined by someone who started his journey out of frustration. He didn’t have anyone to turn to when it came to his problems with money. He knew something had to change, and so it did. He did. He began to question his beliefs about money and who stood to make the most from financial advice from mainstream media.

After intensive research, he learned from those doing it wrong. Today, he wants to help others achieve financial freedom. He gives his advice through his podcast, Get Your Money Right, where he strives to help others take back their purchasing power. He is Jarmar Dupas, aka The Money Misfit, and he is a digital entrepreneur.

Jarmar, welcome to The Digital Entrepreneur.

Jarmar Dupas: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Jerod Morris: No, it’s awesome to have you here. You and I first became acquainted as part of The Showrunner Podcasting Course. You joined the course when we launched it. How’s the podcast going?

Jarmar Dupas: The podcast is going pretty good, actually. It’s surprising. After taking the course, just decided to start it with you and Jonny helping me out. It’s been growing ever since. I’m not on your level or Tim Ferriss or anything like that, but it’s amazing the tens of thousands of downloads we’ve gotten from just my little old voice. I don’t do any interviews or anything like that. It’s been great.

Jerod Morris: It’s been all monologues and you basically giving people advice. Your show is Get Your Money Right. So you’re giving people advice about money, and it’s just been you so far doing monologues.

Jarmar Dupas: That’s it. I think what really helped a lot, and I learned from The Showrunner course, was getting into New and Noteworthy. We jumped off to get a good start, got into New and Noteworthy, and got a good boost from that. I guess it just resonates with people. I’m just pretty much just telling my story, talking about money as it relates to real life, that a lot of the financial gurus don’t dig into. Either they’ve made it and forgot what it’s like to still be going through a journey in life or maybe had some other situation.

So I m just telling my story, and it’s helping people apparently. It’s been a lot of fun.

Jerod Morris: Very nice. Well, the podcast is obviously an important part of what you’re doing. We’re going to talk in this episode about your journey as a digital entrepreneur. I’m sure that we’ll be touching more on the podcast and how it fits in. But I want to begin with the question that I always ask our guests to begin these episodes.

That is this. I’ve always believed that the number one benefit of digital entrepreneurship is freedom — the freedom to choose your projects, the freedom to chart your course, and ultimately, the freedom to change your life and your family’s life for the better. For you, what is the biggest benefit that you have derived from being a digital entrepreneur?

What Jamar Sees As the Biggest Benefit of Digital Entrepreneurship

Jarmar Dupas: Man, that’s not fair, Jerod. You already took the answer.

Jerod Morris: You’re allowed to agree with it and expand on it. That’s totally fair game.

Jarmar Dupas: I definitely do agree with it. I guess if I had to add onto it, one of the biggest benefits of being a digital entrepreneur — and it’s fun because you get to see what’s coming down the pipe — we’re turning into a digital world. The world is digital.

If you’re going to be an entrepreneur in this day and age, what other type of entrepreneur would you want to be other than a digital entrepreneur? At least, definitely from a marketing and customer outreach perspective, being digital is almost vital these days. Definitely the freedom, but also being able to see into the future and be prepared for what’s to come.

Jerod Morris: That’s a great answer. One of the reasons why I structure the question that way is because I know most people will say freedom, so I like to get that one out of the way. But everybody always has a unique perspective after that. Yours is one we haven’t heard before, so that’s a great one.

Jarmar Dupas: Awesome.

Jerod Morris: Let’s go back. Let’s get into your story a little bit. Take me back before you became a digital entrepreneur. What were you doing, and what was missing that lead you to want to make a change?

The Moment That Got Jarmar’s Ears ‘Buzzing,’ Which Got Him Interested in Entrepreneurship

Jarmar Dupas: Oh, man, what was I doing? I’ve done a lot of things. I think like a lot of entrepreneurs I meet today, I’m just all over the place. There’s so many things that I want to be doing. I started off, I was born at a young age. There was college, and I wanted to be a doctor, believe it or not. I wanted to go to medical school. I was pre-med in undergrad, and then halfway through that decided I didn’t want to do that because it wasn’t what I thought it was. I wanted to make money. I wanted to travel the world.

I met a guy one day who said he made like $40,000 a month. I was like, “You’re lying. Nobody pays anybody $40,000 a month.” I’ve never heard of such amounts of money. Growing up, we were taught if you could be a doctor, lawyer, even the post office worker, or something like that, then you’ve got it made. When I first heard of that, the gentleman who told me said, “You’re right. Nobody’s going to pay you that much. You have to earn that much.” That’s when I first got my wind of what entrepreneurship is.

It’s funny because I’d never even really heard it that way or even thought that I could be an entrepreneur. It was always grow up, go to school, and get a job. I didn’t even think of me or anybody around me being a business person. That’s kind of when my ears started buzzing. I got my foot wet, and the whole network marketing MLM-type of direct sales type of businesses. I did okay with that. That wasn’t really my cup of tea. Then I started a bartending business.

Jerod Morris: Really?

Jarmar Dupas: Yeah. I started a bartending business. I was doing private parties, which was something else that kind of just fell in my lap. I had no idea that people actually hired people to come to their house and stuff like that to do parties, to bartend and mix drinks.

Jerod Morris: Had you been a bartender before, during that, or was this something that you trained specially to do because you had this business idea?

Jarmar Dupas: Well, I went to a bartending school because I needed money. I went to bartending school. One of the instructors that was there, he asked me one day if I wanted to do a private party. I was like, “Sure, why not?” That grew onto something else. One day I couldn’t make it. I asked a bartender friend that I knew if she could make it for me, go to the party for me, and I charged a flat rate per hour plus tips.

I told her, “I’ll just pay you all my money.” She said, “No, I’ll just keep the tips. You can keep what they pay you.” That was my first taste of making money without having to actually be there, actually doing work for the money. I was like, “I like this.”

Jerod Morris: Yeah, no doubt.

Jarmar Dupas: That kind of grew from there. Then I had some guy come and bought my business from me after that. I was doing Super Bowls. I even did a party for Puff Daddy. It was a bunch of crazy stuff.

Jerod Morris: Oh really? Wow, we might have to do another episode and just talk about stories from your bartending experience.

Jarmar Dupas: Yeah, it’d have to be a late-night edition for that.

Jerod Morris: I bet.

Jarmar Dupas: Can’t let my wife to listen to that. I sold that business. I blew all that money. I started consulting for other people who owned bars, and I was running bars. Then I got into commercial real estate. I’ve done so many different things.

How Being a Digital Entrepreneur Has Been Conducive to Creating Jarmar’s Desired Lifestyle

Jarmar Dupas: To make a long story longer, what brought me out of that was I wanted to get married. I was like, “Okay, this life is not conducive for being married.” I had to find another way.

I remember that time. I actually saw Copyblogger. I was actually on their emails list. I didn’t really pay much attention to it until years later. Now, I’m all over you guys’ stuff. Everything, Rainmaker Digital, I’m all in on. I’ve always wanted to have freedom. I’ve always wanted to be able to live on my own, do my own thing.

That’s what attracted me to a lot of things I’ve ever done, was how does it fit around my own lifestyle? I knew if I wanted to have an awesome marriage and have an awesome lifestyle. Being in the bar business probably wasn’t going to be conducive for that. I had to get out of that.

Jerod Morris: That led you to where you are now?

Jarmar Dupas: Yeah, so I’m actually a firefighter. I work ,unlike most of the people that you have, I actually still have a job. That fell in my lap as well, too, but it was also part of the design. As a firefighter, we don’t work every day of the week. We batch our hours, so to speak. We work 24 hours at a time or 48 hours or whatever, depending on what city you’re in.

That was attractive to me because I can get these hours out of the way and have several days off to pursue my entrepreneurial goals. I could still make some money, and I can manage some money that was steady, so to speak, that could fund my entrepreneurial dreams. That was the thought process behind that.

Jerod Morris: That’s why I love this story because you’re right. A lot of the people that we’ve had on The Digital Entrepreneur are people who have gotten to the point where they’re doing it full time. But for so many people, those stories have a part in them where people are working, and they have a side hustle. The goal, of course, is to make the side hustle the full-time job.

But most people have to go through that transition and manage priorities, manage time, manage money, juggle all the things like you’re doing right now. This will be a great perspective.

Jarmar Dupas: Absolutely.

Jerod Morris: Tell me about the milestone or the moment in your career as a digital entrepreneur, with the work you’ve done online, that you are the most proud of.

The Simplicity of Jarmar’s Proudest Moment and What You Can Learn From It

Jarmar Dupas: To be honest with you, it’s just starting. It’s the biggest milestone because it’s the biggest fear, I should say. Not even really fear because I don’t believe in fear, but more of a doubt. I don’t think people really fear. I think they have too much doubt. Doubt, of course, leads to fear. Doubt is just a lack of information.

I think one of the things that The Showrunner course helped me do, and even podcasts — not just this one, but all types of podcasts — and seeing examples of other people doing things, it gave me enough information to drive out doubt. I was like, “Look, if this person can do it, I can do it.” Even in those times of doubt, I said, “I got to get started.” Even my show today is not where I dream for it to be, but just getting started was I think the biggest milestone for me that got this thing moving.

Jerod Morris: I’m glad you said that. In all the work that we’ve done helping people with podcasts, and it’s the same thing with starting a business or any kind of online pursuit or side hustle pursuit, that fear of starting can just be so pervasive and can stop people in their tracks.

I’m glad that you highlighted that as something that you’re proud of. It’s something easy to overlook. “Oh I started, who cares?” No, that is the biggest hurdle for so many people. I’m so glad that you mentioned that. Kudos to you for starting. That’s awesome.

Jarmar Dupas: Thank you. But let me say this, though, I got into your course about this time last year. I didn’t start till March.

Jerod Morris: Hey, that’s okay.

Jarmar Dupas: But I started.

Jerod Morris: Exactly.

Jarmar Dupas: For anybody who’s out there who is beating themselves up about it, it’ll happen. Just keep getting that information in, and just do it. Just do it.

Jerod Morris: Absolutely. Let’s take a quick break. When we come back, I’m going to ask Jarmar about his most humbling moment as a digital entrepreneur. We’ll be right back.

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