48 Days to the Work You Love with Dan Miller

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation! JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire! are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Marketing Made Simple. Today, we'll be breaking down 48 Days to the Work You Love. To drop these value bombs, I brought Dan Miller into EO Fire Studios. Dan is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, 48 Days to the Work You Love. His 48dayseagles.com community is a gathering place for those desiring to activate their dream. in Fire Nation. We'll talk about being selfish. We'll talk about what to do if you want more money.

0:39We'll talk about having extraordinary gifts. That's you, Fire Nation, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Dan and our sponsors. The Gold Digger Podcast, hosted by my good friend, Jenna Kuchar, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger Podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more. A must-listen episode is one of Jenna's recents on everything you need to know about affiliate marketing.

1:10Listen to Gold Digger wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought of giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world, and four-time TEDx speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions. Dan, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Well, you know, I think some people do agree with it at this point, but it's the old idea that to have more, you gotta work more.

1:50Wow, and it just is so counterintuitive. You can work in ways that give you freedom, time-wise and income-wise, and still not be busting your butt 60 hours a week. I love that. It was actually something that you and I were talking about in our pre-interview chat. You know what I mean? I'm essentially the only thing that was on your calendar here today. You've had a lot of time to deep work and to deep think today and tomorrow because you set up a team and a life and a business that allows you to do that in Fire Nation. That's why we're going to be talking today about 48 Days to the Work You Love.

2:27And I want to ask a question about being selfish, because a lot of people think there's some negativity around that word, and it can be in certain circumstances, but you believe that being selfish may increase our ability to serve others well. Tell us more. You know, what you just mentioned is a real key to that. The fact that I have Thursdays and Fridays marked off as deep work, days to just think and create. That may mean reading or just going for a walk on a beach. You know, that could appear selfish to you. I'm not really serving other people. But it's in those times that I deepen my own life in ways that I can serve others much better, much higher level.

3:08So if I'm just give, give, give all the time, I become depleted. It's going to be like just exhale and you're going to turn blue and pass out. But if I take time to breathe in, which on the surface may look like I'm just being selfish with my time and resources. No, I'm growing so I can go deeper with people. Fire Nation, we're going to be talking about so many important things along this line that's going to maybe shift in a big way the way you do things or think about things, or maybe even just a little bit, but that little bit can have a big impact in your life. And one of the topics I want to talk about next is money, because again, Fire Nation, it's a lot easier to do the things you want in life, to have the impact you want in life if you're not stressed about where the next dollar's coming in, if you're not stressed about where the next meal's coming in, if you're not stressed about how the shelter is going to be happening in your life to protect those that you love, to protect yourself, your family.

4:04So let's talk about the fact that you found, Dan, if we want more money, we need to learn to be more generous. Can you share what this means and actually give us an example of how you've seen this work in real life? Yes. Actually, there's a little story that I love to connect with this. It's about a monk who was traveling in the mountains, and he found this really precious stone in the stream. So the next day, he met another traveler who was hungry, and the monk opened his bag to share his food. But the traveler saw that really precious stone in there, and he asked the monk to give it to him. And the monk did without hesitation.

4:39Well, you know, the traveler left, just really happy about his good fortune. He knew that stone was worth a lot of money, would give him security for the rest of his life. But a few days later, he went back looking for the monk. He returned the stone and said, I've been thinking. He said, I know how valuable this stone is, but I give it back to you in the hope that you can give me something much more precious. If you can, give me what you have in you that enabled you to give me this stone. I mean, that's a really cool kind of picture of that, that sometimes we hang on to things really tightly and we think that, Gee, if I can get another 50 cents, I'm going to hang on to that.

5:16Well, no, just being generous with that may open the door to some riches that you didn't expect. I love that. It actually brings me back to a quote that was one of the major inspirations to launch Entrepreneurs on Fire 11 years ago now, Dan, if you can believe that. That's an Albert Einstein quote, which is, try not to become a person of success, but rather a person of value. And when you kind of break it down, like that's what I was trying to do. I was like chasing the 50 cents. I was trying to become successful, doing like jobs that I was never going to love, a lawyer, a corporate finance, commercial real estate.

5:50But when I read that quote and said, wait a second, what if I just became a person of value? What if I just gave people something of value for free and just gave, gave, gave, gave, gave, which of course was a daily podcast for free, interviewing entrepreneurs that are amazing, like Dan, who's one of my first guests, then that's the thing that changed everything for me. So you can think about these things in a different kind of way, Fire Nation. And now we all know that Dan has extraordinary gifts, but Fire Nation, so many of you listening right now, in fact, all of you listening right now have extraordinary gifts.

6:22It's just a fact of you identifying and uncovering that. But you believe, Dan, that those who have extraordinary gifts can't be expected to live an ordinary life. What do you mean by this? You know, there's a scene from the old movie Little Women where Renaud White Rider is the lead character in that. And she's frustrated with herself because she's rejected the proposal of the next door neighbor, which everybody knows would make perfect sense for her. A little girl from a small town, marry this guy. And she just did. And then she's frustrated. She says, I'll never be normal. And her mother just comforts her by saying, you know, you have such extraordinary gifts.

6:58How could you expect to live an ordinary life? You know, a lot of people try to conform. That's one of the key principles in the old audio from Real Night and Yell, the strangest secret. But the opposite of courage is not weakness, it's conformity. We just try to fit in. And I know it may sound like that's a smart thing to do, but oh my goodness, it doesn't accentuate those unique gifts that each of us have. So those things that make me different than the kids I grew up with, make me different than the kids from my little hometown, are the very things that have opened the doors to live the kind of extraordinary life I get to live today.

7:34And we need to lean into those, not ignore those. Fire Nation, couldn't you just sit back and listen to Dan all day? I know I could, and I know I have in the past, so this is a great podcast. And we have a lot more to talk about when it comes to this topic and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Artificial intelligence has been a hot topic this year. Even if you're not using it, you've likely heard about the many benefits it can provide, like helping you save time, brainstorm ideas, and tackle your to-do list. But how do you put this into practice? If you find yourself spending hours each day on content creation, then I've got a tool that will help you do just that.

8:11Meet HubSpot's new AI-powered Campaign Assistant, a totally free-to-use AI tool tailored for the marketers and business builders who spend hours each day on content creation. Campaign Assistant will transform the way you work by crafting personalized emails, ads, and landing pages with just a few prompts in a matter of minutes. and you can start seeing the benefits fast. Just pick the content type, add key selling points, and let AI take it from there. Campaign Assistant isn't just free, it's also fully integrated with HubSpot's smart CRM so you can publish the AI-generated content directly into your landing pages and emails from your CRM.

8:47So work smarter, not harder. Head to hubspot.com slash campaign-assistant to test drive Campaign Assistant for free. As the host of a daily interview podcast, I know how important storytelling is. So recently I jumped on Masterclass and took a class on storytelling. I'm always looking to improve. And with the holidays upon us, Masterclass is a meaningful gift that can help you and someone special in your life become the best versions of yourselves with classes on everything from leadership to effective communication to cooking. With Masterclass, it's like having your own personal mentors without the massive investment that one-on-one classes from the world's best would be.

9:25With Masterclass, memberships start at just$120 per year for unlimited access to classes with all 180 plus masterclass instructors. Plus there are new classes added every month like Aaron Sorkin's screenwriting class, which is the one I took to learn more about masterful storytelling. Boost your confidence and find practical takeaways you can apply to your life and at work. This holiday season, give one annual membership and get one free at masterclass.com slash fire. Right Right now, you can get two memberships for the price of one at masterclass.com slash fire. Masterclass.com slash fire. Offer terms apply.

10:05Do you have a message inside that you know is meant to be shared with the world? Giving a TEDx talk is one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world, and Thought Leader can help you get there. Thought Leader is a speaker coaching company that has helped over 550 and counting coaches, speakers, entrepreneurs, authors, and experts land TEDx talks. Thought Leader is not affiliated with TED or TEDx, but they're able to get these results because their founder, Taylor Conroy, is a four-time TEDx speaker himself and past EO Fire guest. You might be thinking a TEDx talk sounds great, but where do you start?

10:38Taylor has put together a free training that is going to teach you how to land a TEDx talk in as little as 90 days. Join Taylor to learn exactly what TEDx organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online, and more. visit thought-leader.com slash fire. Join Taylor for his free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs. That's thought-leader.com slash fire. Dan, we're back. And a lot of people associate quitting with just giving up, but you actually believe that we can quit without giving up.

11:16Can you expound upon that thought? That story was kind of prompted by me trying to raise bees. I decided that we were living out in the country at the time, and I was, I'm going to be a bee raiser. So I engaged a lady to teach me how to do that. We were going to share the honey that was produced. And after two years, I just said, you know, I can't do this. Disease came in. There were so many things that seemed to just be challenges. This is just something I'm not going to do. So in that sense, I gave up. But what that did was freed up that time that seemed to be so emotionally draining and unproductive that I could then invest in something else.

11:54Well, a lot of times, you know, I'd see things in life like that where, is this really worth the time and effort that I'm putting into it? So in that particular situation, I'm giving up, but it doesn't negate the fact that I'm moving to a bigger dream. There's always something bigger that I'm moving toward. It's just, is this activity productive in helping me move toward that? And if not, you better believe it. I'm going to give up. I mean, there are things in my business that I don't do. I'm horrible at managing the finances. I don't want to do that, but I got a lady who excels at that. She loves that.

12:27She's wonderful at that. Hey, I'm going to let her do that. So it's a matter of finding, what is my zone of genius? What are the two or three things that I do really well and spend my time there and bring people alongside whose gifts compliment mine, where they're better in those areas than I am, stay with what I do and stick pretty tight to that. All we have is time, Fire Nation. That's all we have. All we have is time. And it is ticking, ticking, ticking. And I love the quote, when you say yes to one thing, you are saying no to everything else you could have otherwise been doing during that time, during that energy expended bandwidth that you've given out.

13:06So think about that the next time you say yes, because you're actually saying no to a lot, a lot of potential. And hey, and maybe it's the right yes, but maybe it's not. So think about it. And very few of my listeners, myself included, have a PhD. But you believe we can be wise without a PhD, which I'm really excited to hear. So tell us more about that. You know, there's a funny story behind that because I actually did my doctoral work in Oxford. So, you know, very prestigious. I completed all the work. And then they said, okay, now we need your dissertation. And I sat down with these four old guys, scholarly guys.

13:43and I said, okay, as I understand it, I can spend a year and a half, two years, you know, working on this dissertation, be written in a scholarly form. So it's not something anybody will pick up and read at all. It's not like designed like that. It's just so you four guys can read it. And then if you approve, you give me a piece of paper, I can hang on the wall. Or maybe I could take that same period of time and write something that people would want to read that could encourage them and maybe make me a little money in the process. That's exactly when I wrote 48 Days to the Work You Love. I did not do my doctoral dissertation.

14:16I don't have that PhD. I wrote a book instead that has inspired some people and made me a few million bucks along the way. But being wise connotes more than just having a degree. When I look at even in the Bible, and we talk about Solomon being the wisest man who ever lived, when I look at what it really says, he didn't ask God for wisdom. He said, God, you've given me all these responsibilities. please give me an understanding heart. I thought, oh my gosh, if that's a source of wisdom, I want that. So I lean into things that increase my ability to have an understanding heart, not necessarily another piece of paper to hang in the wall.

14:53Fire Nation, great story shared by Dan. Reminds me actually of Tim Ferriss back in the day was talking about how he had put aside like a couple hundred thousand dollars to go to graduate school, to go like a business school, to get his MBA. But then he was looking at it, he was like, that's multiple years, huge investment. and then I'm going to come out and then I got to start looking, you know, for ways to pay back, you know, the, some of the debt I might've accrued, you know, this above and beyond the couple hundred thousand dollars and then start getting a job. It's like, what if I actually took that money and invested in some other companies that I actually believe in right now that I'm seeing in San Francisco that have a lot of promise and he took that and made little investments in Uber and Twitter and others and guess what?

15:31I think those investments have done just a okay. So a lot of ways to skin a cat for sure. And that being said, a lot of my listeners want to be rich. And you have advice that's to look for more than just money. Can you share an example of this? Yeah. And I share this speaking as a very rich man. Now, at first glance, that probably sounds really egotistical, but here's what I'm talking about. Rich means more than money. When we look even in the book, Think and Grow Rich, the old classic by Napoleon Hill. Now, when he talks about being rich, and a lot of people reject that book because they think, oh, it's just greedy.

16:11It's a way to take advantage of other people. No. He talks about being rich as having a positive mental attitude, sound physical health, harmony in human relations, freedom from fear, hope of future achievements. It goes on with a whole list of things like that. I tell people that I'm a familiar. That means I am so rich in my family, my children, my grandchildren. children, I'm a familiar. Those are the areas where I want to be rich. Now, is having finances so you aren't strained part of that? Well, sure. But it's a very holistic balance picture that leads to that, not just to focus on money. Money is a byproduct of living a rich life.

16:51If you want to be a millionaire, think like millionaires do. You don't start thinking like a millionaire after you have a lot of money. It works the other way around. So if you think like a millionaire, if you think what it really means to be rich and start living in that way, and then the finances will show up in unexpected ways. Dan, talk to us about An Understanding Heart. I sent you a copy of my latest book, An Understanding Heart, and it's so counterintuitive. And I chuckle when I even think about it because I did everything that publishers tell you not to do. It's got a soft, imitated leather cover.

17:26It's real soft when you fold it, hold it in your hands. It's gorgeous. It's got color all the way through. It's 406 pages. It's got a satin bookmark. It's got a little eagle up in the left-hand corner when you first open it up. And as you go through the book, that little eagle flies across the pages all the way over to the right. It comes in a hard box that is designed and it has quotations around the edges. All those things, publishes a no, no, no, no, no. Well, I just did it anyway. It's a passion project. I love the interactions that it's allowed. And I love being able to give those away to people whose friendships I crave.

18:08It's a conversation piece, but it's been a marvelous process and just a way to express myself, again, in a way that a lot of, if anybody would look at it from a business standpoint and say, no, don't do that. But there are benefits to doing something well that go beyond, again, just the money that it attains. Fire Nation, you can see why Dan and I have been such good friends for such a long time, because he sees things in a little different way. Like back in 2016, when I was launching the Freedom Journal, everybody said, hey, you're doing it all wrong. It's way too expensive per unit. I wanted it to be a big, big journal.

18:48I wanted it to be faux leather, gold embossed. I wanted there to be gold trim on the pages, a satin bookmark. I wanted it to just be this gorgeous, gorgeous thing that people could be proud of. And I just ignored them. And I went ahead and I did it. And it did$453 ,000 in sales in just 33 days, became the sixth most funded published campaign of all time on Kickstarter because I did it a little bit different because it wasn't just a quote unquote profit money grab. It was, I wanted to create something that people would enjoy and would be special to them. They could pass down to their children's and children's children.

19:21And that's what Dan's created with an understanding heart. I mean, when I was holding that thing in my hand, I'm like, yes, he gets it. And I've known that he's gotten it for decades. I mean, he's gotten it a lot longer than I've gotten it too. And he just continues to impress. So Dan, where can Fire Nation go to learn more about an understanding heart? You know, it's not even available on Amazon because the numbers don't work. It's funny. I have publishers who are knocking on my door asking if they can buy the book from me so they can put it into distribution. Talk about a reversal all the way around, but it's at anunderstandingheart.com.

19:59We got our own website designed for that to tell people more about it. And I love just sharing that with people in ways that will inspire and encourage them. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with DM and JLD today, so keep up that heat. For links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Dan in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. And by the way, if you've loved what you've heard today, I've done a number of episodes with Dan. And when you search Dan Miller in the search bar, all those episodes will pop up.

20:34Go on a little Dan Miller binge. you won't regret it everyone's a gem dan final words for fire nation go you know it's never too late to have a new beginning i hear from people who are 27 who think they majored in the wrong thing in college or people at 56 who got downsized and now thinking they're having to start over no you just you build on where you are in life but how exciting it is to have a new beginning So that's my word for people. It's never too late to have a new beginning. Dan, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

21:14Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Dan for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation. Successful entrepreneurs are great at three things, productivity, discipline, and focus. That's why I created the Mastery Journal so that you can master those three things, productivity, discipline, and focus, in 100 days. and we're talking step-by-step. So visit themasteryjournal.com and I'll catch you there or on the flip side. The Gold Digger Podcast, hosted by my good friend, Jenna Kuchar, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

21:46The Gold Digger Podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more. A must-listen episode is one of Jenna's recents on everything you need to know about affiliate marketing. Listen to Gold Digger wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought of giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.