Dan Miller: 48 Days to the Work You Love

Author, Speaker, Coach, and President of 48 Days LLC – Dan Miller

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Dan’s book was a HUGE help to me when trying to find work I actually enjoyed. It was an honor to interview him! Learn how he sold millions of dollars worth of his information, and what he suggests to help you find work you love too.

Resources Mentioned in the Podcast:

• Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money by Daniel Lapin
• How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
• The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy

Check out 48days.com and 48days.net.

Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript:

Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jaime Tardy and I am super excited to have the Dan Miller on the show. I usually say a little quick intro but I actually have to tell a quick story because five years ago I had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and thank goodness Dan wrote a book called 48 Days to the Work You Love and it helped me instrumentally in what I'm doing now and I absolutely love my work. So total testimonial for Dan having him on the show. Thank you so much for coming on today, Dan.

DAN MILLER: Well absolutely. My pleasure.

JAIME TARDY: Let's sort of get into it. I have tons of questions for you. I know there's a lot of people listening right now that are in day jobs and that's sort of what your expertise is ? trying to get out of a day job necessarily or finding work that you love, either going into another job that you absolutely love or a career or a business. I think we're really going to talk about business. Give me just some highlights or a story or two of someone that you know that has sort of gone through this process.

DAN MILLER: Sure and you know there's nothing wrong with having a job. I don't want to pretend that everybody ought to be an entrepreneur. For some people, that's a great fit. But when people are going through a transition, I think it's short sighted not to look at the broad array of opportunities including things like being a consultant, a contingency worker, an independent contractor, all those kind of new terms that we're hearing because we are rapidly approaching the time when only 50 percent of the American workforce will be employees. That means there's a whole lot of other opportunities and they are not all going to be Donald Trump, Ted Turner, Oprah people. They are just people that are doing unique things where they may be a graphic designer now they've kind of moved out of it.

I have had the pleasure of working with lots of people over the years but I'll take a graphic designer just as one quick example who was, in fact, working making about $15.00 an hour working for a company. Their major client, well I won't mention the company, but they had one major client and she was working with that company and she wanted to move out on her own. She was 24 years old, a single mom, and she said, "You know, can I do better than this?" I said, well, her name was Veronica, I said, "Veronica, it would be easy to position you where you did a job search and move up from $15 to $20 an hour."

But I said, "I think what you're really asking is there a way to make a real significant change in what I am doing" and I said, "There is. You can still do the work that you're so gifted in doing but we can change the model kind of dramatically." I said, "What if you found five companies that were not large enough to use your skills as a designer full time but they could use you one day a week or two days a month or whatever?" Well that's what she did. She wasn't a real extrovert, outgoing but she just simply identified five or six companies and as it turned out the company she was leaving was signed on as her first client.

She went immediately from $15 an hour to $40 an hour. We effectively tripled her income and gave her more time freedom. What she did then very quickly was realize, at my encouragement, that she should do projects not by the hour. She was so good, so if she had a contract to do a new CD design for a record label and they were going to pay her $3,000, it really didn't matter if it took her 3 hours or 30 hours or 40 hours and she was that good that she very quickly put herself in a six-figure income just moving from a $15 an hour job but just recognizing she could tweak the model a little bit.

JAIME TARDY: Wow. What stopped her from doing that before? How come, when she talked to you, it was done, sold? How come she didn't think of doing that before, do you know?

DAN MILLER: She just didn't understand the path to get there. We all need to have a little bit of knowledge, even if we have the audacity to take the steps and take action, we still need help. That's why the wealth of information we have access to today, through books and on the internet and podcasts and blogs and all that is just amazing, where people can very quickly become an expert in a particular area, if they just put a little bit of focus study into it. I just helped her understand how to do it and gave her the confidence that she could. She was terrified, again as a single mom, but just give her the confidence that she could do it.

JAIME TARDY: That's the thing too; I know a lot of people feel like they are not born with that confidence so oh well, it's too hard for them. Maybe other people can do it but me it's difficult. How do we get that confidence, if we don't have you as a coach?

DAN MILLER: Well one of the principles I learned early on as a poor little farm kid was that one of the characteristics of highly successful people is they spend time around those who are already performing at the level which they want to perform. That idea is certainly not unique with me. You've heard it a hundred times before but I really understood that and so I started spending time with people who were high achievers. Whether that was in person and that wasn't real common back then but it was primarily through their audio programs, through the books that they wrote but I started identifying with those people who were high achievers and found that it was easier to move into doing the things that they were doing and so that's really the key is how can you find people who are already doing what you want to do.

There are really easy ways to do that. I wrote a blog just recently about how to spend time with people who are rich because I talk about that a lot, you know, if you want to be rich, spend time with people who are. If you want to be poor, spend time with people who are, because it will pretty well show you how to be like the people you hang around. Well, one of the things I mentioned was that I had lunch, as I will today, but I have lunch most days at the Legends Country Club. Now it's the Vanderbilt Golf Course here in Franklin, Tennessee; very prestigious golf club. So I have lunch there. People think my gosh well sure that's easy for you to do, do you know what that involves?

I am not a golfer. I don't play golf at all. I just simply have dining privileges there. People go sure you pay $10,000 a year for that privilege. No, it costs me zero. It costs me nothing to do that. They want people to come into their dining area and help have dining revenue. I eat lunch there. I can get a salad or a sandwich, wonderful food and it's like $7 or $8. It's the same as going to TGI Fridays. But I just simply ask and chosen to do that. Instead of going to Cracker Barrel and listen to the mall employees bitch and moan about the economy, I choose to have lunch where I run into people like Darryl Waltrip and the mayor and celebrities, Vince Gill, Amy Grant, people like that and it costs nothing.

So often people deprive themselves the opportunity for spending time with high achievers when it's so readily available, as you know, you just ask and people tend to be extremely gracious with their time and input, if you just ask.

JAIME TARDY: How did you find that process of going and doing that? If somebody wants to find their local country club, do they have to go and talk to somebody and ask if they can get dining privileges? How does that work?

DAN MILLER: Sure and that's going to be true in a lot of areas where high prestigious country clubs like that do have a dining membership. Sometimes it may cost a little bit. I was blown away that it didn't cost anything but my wife goes there, she takes friends. We just put it on a tab and at the end of the month we pay our little bill. But it's just a simple example about how easy it is to spend time with the right people and if you don't spend time with the right people, you will tend to continue to get the same kind of results you're getting now.

JAIME TARDY: Give me some tips and advice. You're Dan Miller so it's easy for you to go connect with people. For somebody who is just starting and doesn't really and may not even have the confidence to even talk to people, I remember my first networking event I was sort of like ha-ha okay. People at sort of the base level, how can they have, like what advice do you have for them to go and actually meet people that are higher than them?

DAN MILLER: It may take a little practice to become comfortable but there is certainly no obstacles. You can go to your local chamber of commerce meeting. You can get involved in one of the civic organizations like the rotary club, if you want to. In our area here, just south of Nashville, we have so many things going on. There are free business luncheons all the time that you can go to. There are free concerts you can go to. Even if somebody doesn't have a budget to invest, you can go to the library and read books by people who are doing extraordinary things. There is really not much excuse for not putting yourself in a position where you can start thinking like people who are achieving at a higher level.

JAIME TARDY: I love that. It's hard to sort of make that a top priority because we have so many other things in our lives that we assume that's not that big of a deal but really you and so many other people are saying that that's sort of the key; the key to bringing yourself to a higher level is to be with people that are higher than you.

DAN MILLER: Absolutely. I've always been one too to very quickly look for a coach. Any area where I want improvement I look for a coach. I just engaged with a speaking coach, not a speech coach, I have one of those too to help me know how to speak from my diaphragm and how to not go into vocal fry and all that. He's wonderful. He's a delightful guy, but I am talking about a speaking coach because I get a lot of opportunities to speak but I have always been kind of sloppy in that area of my business. So I've just kind of yeah, sure I'll come, we'll work out the details.

I want to be more strategic and intentional about that and so I looked for who I thought was the top speaking coach anywhere and so I just engaged with a gal who does that; enrolled in her program. It's a ten-month program but I am always looking for how can I be better. If I ever get satisfied, which it's a status quo, and Jaime this is not about just putting more dollars in the bank. I just want to be excellent in whatever I happen to do. So if that's being a papa to my granddaughters, I want to be really outstanding as a papa. I don't want to just be casual about it. I just look for ways, how can I be excellent in whatever I choose to do.

JAIME TARDY: I love that. That's, I think, a missing piece that most people don't have. They go I want more money, I want this, I want that but you made a conscious choice to be excellent at what you do in many ways and that's just going to pull you forward over and over and over again to really be what you want to be, that person that you want to be and it's great to be able to hear that you don't know everything. You hired a speech coach too even though you've done speeches all over the place I'm sure, but it's really great for us to go oh you're still trying to figure things out and learning more and stuff like that too. Huge.

DAN MILLER: I have a blog coast. I have a podcast coach. I have coaches for any area of my life where I want excellence. Here's a funny thing ? last year, I mean I love to read. I am a voracious reader so last year I read 64 books. I read any new business book that comes out, I get it. You know the book that probably had more profound impact on me than anything? Wheat Belly.

JAIME TARDY: Wheat Belly?

DAN MILLER: It talks about how our grains have been genetically modified so it doesn't really have the nutritional value. I changed some things I was doing in my diet. It was like rebooting my computer. It was amazing. It wasn't how can I make more money. No, it was how can I be functioning at a higher level. How can I be feeling better, thinking better? How can I be a better husband, daddy? Those are things that are just as important to me as how can I do something else in business.

JAIME TARDY: A real holistic approach. I do the exact same thing. I got rid of sugar and flour completely. Changed my life. Changed my life. I thought I was just exhausted or something was wrong with me. No. It's amazing, like you said, but having that excellence in every piece of life instead of just being I want to be the best business person ever, it's really having that over everything. I love that. Thank you so much.

Tell me about, like if somebody is going through this process, because I know you have, I mean 48 Days, let me just say I loved the title of the book because, to me, figuring out what your passion is, what you love, whatever it is, that business idea, for the business people, is intangible. It's not like I can actually go in three days I am going to figure this out but having a time limit in 48 days was huge for me. Start walking me through, what's step one, step two, step three, for someone that really wants to change their life in this way?

DAN MILLER: Great question. Here's the deal - 85 percent of the process comes from looking inward. That almost seems counterintuitive to the way we approach things today. We want to know, what's the latest technology? What's the hottest business trend? Who is hiring? Where can I just jump on a train and get ahead? Those are formulas for what can be short-term satisfaction and long-term frustration. So looking inward. That's really the essence of 48 Days to the Work You Love is what's unique about you.

What is it that you do really well? What are your personality traits? How do you relate to other people? What kind of environments are you most comfortable in? Then I talk about what are your values, dreams and passions? What are those things that just keep showing up? What is it that puts you in the zone? What is it that makes your heart sing? However you want to term that, we ought to recognize those times when it just seems like The A Team, I love it when a plan comes together. We ought to be able to recognize those times and it's in doing that and that's very much an introspective process.

Then we start to see those patterns emerge. Then the 15 percent is okay now what can I do daily that embraces what I now know about myself? Most people get the cart before the horse there. They just look to where the opportunities are and they put themselves in positions that are not a good fit. That's the beauty about the workplace we're in today. There's so many opportunities. It can be the most unique individualized thing that would not make sense for anybody else on the face of the earth, but if it fits you, you can rock and roll and knock it out of the park.

JAIME TARDY: Let's talk about because you're talking about passions and strengths and I think there's a little bit of a difference too. I've gone through and I've listened to, I don't know if you've ever heard of Cal Newport, he wrote a couple books and he talks about how it's not necessarily, there's the myth of the passion. Like if you love chocolate, you need to start baking chocolate and if you love this, you need to start doing this and it doesn't necessarily tell people that there needs to be a market for what you want also. How can we not just go after our passion and blindly hope that someone will pay for us, how do we really figure that out?

DAN MILLER: You've touched on a real important point where I do believe in recognizing your passion but even there, you know, I run into 50 year olds who say gee I don't know what my passion is, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Well passion is not something that comes to you full blown. It's something we develop. There ought to be seeds of an idea where we recognize it's when I am doing this that I really come alive. But passion is something that's developed.

I do believe in encouraging people to follow that passion and develop it. However, there are a couple other components. There's really three legs to the stool so to speak and Jim Collins talks about this some in an addendum that he did to Good to Great. But three legs to the stool and I'll kind of use my words here. One is your passion, yes. Follow that. What is your talent? So if your passion is to be the next Taylor Swift, but it sounds horrible when you open your mouth to sing, you may not have the talent to go along with that. Be realistic about that.

But then a lot of people have those too, especially the Gen Y group, they know what their passion is, they know what their talent is, they are going to change the world, do something noble, make the world a better place, make a difference and all that. But they have no economic model and that's the third leg of the stool. What's your economic model? If you want to help people who are in disadvantaged parts of the world, that's wonderful. It's a noble thing to do. How are you going to make that work? Frankly, I worked with a lot of people who think well I'll just start a nonprofit and then I'll just ask rich people to give me money. That's a horrible model. That's an old broken model. Don't do that.

If it can't stand on its own through some kind of social entrepreneurship or some kind of ethical capitalism, then it probably doesn't make sense. Don't think just because you want to do something worthwhile that other people ought to give you money. No, you ought to be able to make money with your idea no matter how noble, humanitarian, godly, ministerial it is.

JAIME TARDY: I love that. Usually it's like yeah, you just start a nonprofit but then you see companies like Tom's Shoes who are doing amazing things.

DAN MILLER: There you go.

JAIME TARDY: And making money, making profit and that's not bad. I think that's the way things are going definitely anyway. Tell me a little bit about, because I know you talk to people that don't necessarily want a million dollars or anything like that. A lot of the people actually listening probably don't necessarily care, that's why it's called the Eventual Millionaire. What we care about first and foremost is that we're doing something that's important and that we enjoy and that matters instead of selling our soul for a million dollars anywhere else.

But you're talking about, there's so much potential out there for lots of revenue, for creating a business that makes really good money. Should the people that are in that moment right now just look for maybe trying to do, like you said, graphic design and getting out on their own or should we be big grandiose ideas trying to change the world and make $100 million company? Should we start small or should we just go for it?

DAN MILLER: Wow. This is a very individualized path, as you've said. There's not a one size fits all. I think if you are clear on what your goals are, that there are ways to accomplish that. If somebody has really big goals, even financially, you can do that. Here's an example. We know that 95 percent, you told me that you are going to be writing a book. We know that 95 percent of authors never make more than $40,000 a year. Now is that discouraging? Not to me. It's like wow, how difficult can it be to put yourself in that 5 percent? What if I put myself in the top 2 percent? What would that take?

I've always looked for creative ways to use my affinity for writing. Here's really the key to what you're asking I think. If I really wanted just to make a million dollars, it would be ridiculous for me to say gee I want to be an author because statistically the odds are so much against me. But if that's what my passion is that I really want to write, if I have a message that I can't contain, which is what makes great writing, then I want to do that and make a million dollars. I just want to put myself in that 5 percent and keep going and it's really not that difficult to do.

Here's another example. I am known as a coach. That's really kind of the core of what I do is coaching people to higher levels of excellence. I'm always doing things to kind of set the bar for coaches to tell them hey you can do this, watch me. You know, one of those things, watch me. Well, on November 12, I woke up at about 3:30 in the morning when I often get creative ideas and I thought, you know what, I've got a window of opportunity in between travel and here. Joanne and I had been traveling because of the release of my latest book and we were going to be leaving again December 15.

I said I have 30 days here. I want to do something unique just as an example to other coaches. We've got about 350 48 Days coaches out there so I am always saying and coaches they go gee nobody is going to pay for coaching right now, in this economy they are just paying for the essentials. They are not going to pay for coaching when they need to keep the lights on and it's right here before Christmas. Obviously nobody is going to pay for coaching then. It's just a personal luxury.

So November 12 I got up early in the morning and I sketched out, I am going to do Living the Dream in 2013. I came up with a little alliteration there ? Living the Dream in 2013 ? I said I am going to work with people and help them crystallize what are your goals for 2013. How can you accomplish that? Two, two-hour sessions each; so two hours, two hours, I'm only going to work with 13 people and it's $2,013. How corny is that? I just made it what the year was. No rhyme or reason; I put that out, just one little note out and in less than 24 hours those 13 slots were taken.

Now if you do the math on that, you know, that's $26,000 and that money was in my bank within three days. All those transactions were finished and I'm now finished working with the people and most of those people were saying, "Gee, what else can I do with you?" You know, "Can I continue with you? Can I come to some of your events?" I love to do things like that. Now again, we know that most coaches never make more than $40,000 a year. If you want to make $150,000, why won't you do that? If you want to be strategic about it, you can do that.

Again, if you're content making $40,000 and you want to just do that, I have no problem with that. If you want to serve people who are marginalized and disadvantage and there's really no money serving them directly, I have no problem with that at all. But it's the people who say, "Gee I want more" but they'd never create a plan to do that, that I am saying just be more intentional. Create a plan of action.

JAIME TARDY: So tell me this because I know people are probably thinking well that makes sense because you have a huge list and you have people that follow you and love you and that makes it easy; what really separates you, besides that list, what separates you from those people that aren't doing that?

DAN MILLER: You know, people look at me and I am sure it's easy to think well gee I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. My dad was a famous attorney or something, which obviously isn't true at all. I was born into poverty. Remember when we had one cow that we milked by hand literally; started with that. My parents were always poor. But what I've done, what people know about me has all happened in the last ten years.

JAIME TARDY: Really?

DAN MILLER: I've spent a lot of time where I didn't have significant income. We traveled a lot. When my kids were small we did all kinds of fun things. It wasn't that I just woke up and said, "Gee I've got to be a millionaire." No, not at all. But as I had become focused on what it is that I do, money just shows up unexpectedly. It's just there. It's not a matter of some conniving, manipulating new scheme. It's just like open your hand and it's there. Now one of the things that you kind of alluded to that is critically important is yes I have spent a lot of time creating relationships, building trust and rapport, but also I have this formula where 95 percent of what I do is free to anybody.

So there are lots and lots of people who tell me they've benefitted from things that I've done where they've never paid a penny. That's totally fine. I love hearing those stories from people who went to the library and read one of my books and changed their life. I mean I love to hear those so I am not trying to connive for every penny I can get, but the more I do things that really do serve other people and give them hope encouragement inspiration, the more money just seems to keep knocking.

JAIME TARDY: But that's also like the quintessential beautiful model because everyone goes I can help people and make money and just help more people and make money. Tell us about your model, if you don't mind, getting into sort of what you do and how it works for you.

DAN MILLER: I am an author, speaker, coach. Those are the three kind of primary things that people know about me. But in doing those, you recognize that I am using intellectual capital. This is one of those things that it's almost golly if people understood this it would be illegal. I spoke at a restaurant association recently and these guys are sitting out there trying to figure out how to net 4 or 5 percent of the bottom line. I'm thinking oh my gosh that would scare me to death.

We do things like you need to create an audio CD it costs you 37 cents and you sell it for $11, that's a 97 percent profit. Most of what I do we have no cost to it at all. So I speak, coach, write, there's no cost of production at all. I mean it's obscene the profitability available, when you are dealing in intellectual capital. I love that opportunity. Again it's not a secret, it's there so if you have something that lends itself to that. I use intellectual capital but I leverage that dramatically.

I use in my business a Ben diagram. It's three circles that overlap and in the center there's one section where all three overlap. That's my writing. But in my financial model, I don't even calculate in money that I received in advances and royalties. Now that may seem wow, why when you knew you were a writer. Yes, that comes. I considered advances and royalties just gravy. It's just peanuts. It's a small percentage of my total income. When it comes it's like whoopee do! When I get a royalty check in the mail my wife and I have fun, hold it up to the light and guess and well what's this one going to be because there's no rhyme or reason to it. It just is what it is.

But, that's not my business. My business is selling products ourselves that includes my own books. We're very aggressive about selling my own products. We have live events where we allow people to come here to my converted barn outside of Franklin, Tennessee and we have live events. They pay a lot of money to come to those. I speak. Yes I do charge for speaking. We have affiliate relationships with some of the most wonderful people in our audience to people where they can get resources and help them with that they are doing. That produces revenue. We have other coaches that we've trained and as we refer people inquiries to them, we get referral fees.

I have seven distinct areas of revenue generation outside of what I get as an author in advances and royalties. It's just creating a model. It's not just writing a book and then go sit in a lawn chair by the mailbox and wait on those checks to come in from the publisher. That's a frustrating process for anybody. As an author, I do what 95 percent of authors don't do and in that 5 percent, I found ways to make a really cool business where I leverage the same intellectual capital that has made me popular as a writer.

JAIME TARDY: I love that too and especially when I started talking to people about my book, they are like you need to have a sales funnel because the book isn't any money at all. I was like good to know. Thanks for letting me know. That's what you are saying too and what I love that usually we assume authors, speakers and coaches are trading time for money. They are doing the hourly thing where they are going and doing stuff but you don't do that model anymore at all.

DAN MILLER: No, wow. That's a critical point too. If you understand the distinction between linear and residual income, now I work with physicians, attorneys, dentists, pastors like that, people who are at high income levels but they don't understand residual income so they work and they get paid in the same model as a kid who asks you if you want fries with that. It's the same model. They just put in their time and get paid for it. But to help them understand the power of residual income, what I do is create systems. All I want to do is figure out what can I do once and get paid 10,000 times.

Most of the things that I do have little to do with me personally. There are those couple days a month where I have to show up someplace but most things just take place 168 hours a week just around the clock. Next week we're going on a cruise. We have a bunch of people coming with us because we just said hey if you want to come we'll make it kind of a theme on how to find your creativity so we'll have a lot of fun but that means I am not going to be in the office.

When we come back, we have indefinite plans to stay in Florida. We're just going to see how long we want to stay there. It really doesn't matter because what I do I can continue to do even from there. A couple hours a day and I'm golden so it gives us dramatic flexibility. Yes, most of my business creates residual ongoing income and has very little to do with my day-to-day activities.

JAIME TARDY: That's what a lot of people want. They want the freedom to be able to make the choices and go where they want and the time freedom too. Someone that's stuck in a 9 to 5 job, especially one that they don't like, this sounds like absolutely amazing. You're going to Florida for long periods of time and you can still work and have fun and enjoy what you want. So it does exist number one to tell everybody, it totally does exist. How long did it take you? That's the one thing that we see. Oh of course you're a success. Of course you can do that. How long, I know you said you started 10 years ago, but how long did it really take before you started seeing some of the results of your hard work?

DAN MILLER: I had been creating relationships for a long time. I had been teaching a Sunday school class that had grown dramatically. People would come from other churches and other states to come to the class and I recognized there is a hungry group out there. I was talking about these inevitable career transitions that we go through. That kind of launched what I was doing. But when I started doing that, people were asking me for material and I did not have anything. I never had envisioned myself as an author/writer, but because people kept insisting I want my cousin to hear what you just talked about or I have a son in law who lost his job two months ago, what can I give him that would give him the principles you just talked about?

I finally put together, just in a real rough format, my loose notes that I was using in Sunday school. I put those in a three-ring binder. We put a couple, back then it was a couple cassettes in there. This is like the early 2000, this was 2001/2002 so again not that long ago. But then making that available and I did understand what was available on the internet so we made it available there. I sold over $2 million worth of that little three-ring binder with a couple cassettes in it. I had never talked to a publisher, never had any intention even at that point of being an author, but at that point, then I had publishers knocking on my door. We want to take your material and put it in a traditional trade book.

That happened only in 2005. So we're talking eight years ago that that book was published. I had a lot of success with that. It was selected, having been published in 2005 originally, it was updated in 2010, but it was selected as the book of the month by the Washington Post just in October. So I have had a lot of success with that. But again, what that did is just simply open doors for other things.

In August 2000, I started doing a little newsletter, just free, again I had no intention to monetize it, just free, but I started with 67 email names that I had and I said if you like it great pass it on to your friends. If you don't want to get it, just let me know and I will take you off that list. But I have over 130,000 people sign up for that little newsletter and that was back before we had blogs and podcasts. Those things have added big numbers since then but I have never been that conniving about I want to do this because I make money.

I just found ways to really encourage people. I really hopefully do have a servants heart still. I do a lot of things for free, but I can do a lot of things for free and continue to do that and just have those little things though that give people real resources when they want to take advantage of them and it still creates extraordinary income.

JAIME TARDY: I love that. The one thing though that you said that I need to highlight is you made $2 million off of this three-ring binder. Tell me a little bit more about that. I know we're running a little over but I need to know.

DAN MILLER: I mean those are real numbers. With that, I put it in a three-ring binder. Now having material in a three-ring binder gives it the perception of being like an instructional manual. It would have been very easy to take all the content in there and put it in a little $8 book, perfect bound $8 book. But having it in a three-ring binder, having two CDs in there, paper printed on only one side, here's what I do in my live seminars, I use this illustration ? I take that and I drop it on the floor. It makes a big noise. It's that thump factor. The louder the noise when it hits the floor, the more you can charge for it.

Inasmuch as there wasn't all that much information in there, because of the way it was packaged, I showed it on the internet at $49 but internet special $39. Well that's what we showed, $39. We have about $6 in that but I sold between 50,000 and 60,000 of those before I talked to a publisher. Again those aren't big numbers, that's not like millions. It's not a New York Times bestseller but because I just took action on a very simple idea before I had opportunities with publishers or anybody like that, I still sold 50,000 to 60,000 of those and we're talking $2 million.

JAIME TARDY: How did you sell 50,000 to 60,000? Was it just promoting? That's the $50 million question or the $2 million question.

DAN MILLER: Jaime, I did so little. I keep learning now things about affiliate links and co-adventures and all. I didn't know any of that. I really just made it available. But one thing that was very advantageous for me, I recognize that, was the name. Now the name 48 Days to the Work You Love on that, my material originally was called Career Transitions. Then I called it Career Life Transitions 101 to make it sound more like an academic course. Then it was Find the Job You Love in 30 Days. I realized some people didn't really want a J-O-B so I changed that very strategically to work. So work opened the door to other things.

Well 30 days is kind of a generic term. A week, a month, a year, doesn't really get our attention it's so common. This was back when 48 Hours was becoming popular as a TV show and I thought I bet I can get some branding recognition if I used 48. So I just arbitrarily, there's no science involved. I just arbitrarily said I am going to make it 48 meaning that's a reasonable time to take action because I saw people who said, "Gee my job sucks. I hate the life I've got." We create a plan for them and two years later they hadn't done anything and I thought you got to be kidding me, this is ridiculous.

So I knew there had to be a timeline. This is enough time to assess where you are, get the advice and opinion of other people, choose the best one and act. If you don't act, if you're in the still place on day 41, I'll still love you, I'll still be your friend but hey I am moving on. I am moving on to somebody who is going to take action. But when I changed that to 48 days it was like somebody poured gasoline on my business. People were saying, "You mean I really can change my life in 48 days?" and I said, "Yes you can, if you create a plan and act on it."

JAIME TARDY: That's exactly what I said earlier in this interview too. Man, that's really great to know that that made a big difference that, that small, small thing could really make a huge difference in your business.

DAN MILLER: It did.

JAIME TARDY: And imagine if you didn't change it what would have happened. Hmm. I have two more questions for you; I know we need to wrap up but somebody emailed me and was like you need to ask Dan this when he comes on the show. Because you, like you said, you've read 64 books last year. They want your best book recommendations. You're the man that apparently knows all of this. Give me three of your top best books besides Wheat Belly, because we already heard about that one that would be really good for my audience.

DAN MILLER: Okay, sure. No problem. I've got lots of books that I absolutely love. One would be Thou Shall Prosper written by a Jewish Rabbi, Rabbi Daniel Lapin. But the understanding of money, so many people have warped ideas about money and they really at some level think it's evil, especially people who have been raised in religious traditions often thing money is evil. We need to get our thinking straight because if we think it's evil, it's not going to come our way. If we think it's a magnificent tool to bless our families and others, it will come to us in abundance. So that would certainly be one.

Another one is going to be and this is an old one, Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People. If you simply understand good relationship skills, it can explode your opportunities. You can't be an SOB or a jerk in today's environment, even on the internet, Jaime, you know how transparent the internet it. My goodness; I buy cars. I'm a car guy. I love to buy cars so I buy cars on eBay all the time. I love it. People say, "Oh my gosh, you bought a car without ever seeing it?" Yes because I trust how it's being represented.

If I go right here in Nashville and go up and down a street and I buy a car from some dealer, he may have shafted six people last week. I don't have any way to know that. That's not true on the internet. The internet is really transparent. So if you're a jerk, people are going to know about it really quickly and it's going to kill anything you are trying to do. If you are really warm, encouraging, accepting, honest, have integrity, it's amazing how that can go viral and work to your advantage. Let's see, you said three books.

JAIME TARDY: I like I stumped you!

DAN MILLER: Another one would be Darren Hardy's book The Compound Effect. Darren is publisher of Success Magazine, which is an absolute must magazine for anybody who wants excellence in their lives. But his book The Compound Effect talks about this long-term effect of doing little things right. Success doesn't happen overnight but if you do little things right over a period of time, it starts to gain momentum that you can't stop.

JAIME TARDY: Thank you so much and I have heard that that book is amazing too and I totally need to get it so I am writing that down also. I really appreciate that. I always ask the same last question. It's what's one action that listeners can take this week to help move them forward towards their goal of a million?

DAN MILLER: Absolutely have clear goals. I talk to so many people who have fuzzy goals. Even though it sounds good, I want to make more money, I want to have a better job, I want to be a better daddy, I want to be a better wife/mommy. Those things sound good but there's no way to really sink your teeth into it so be specific. What does that mean? If you want to have a better job, what are your action steps over the next 48 days? What are you going to do specifically?

If you want to lose weight, what are you going to do? Just have very specific clear goals and it's not a matter of just setting goals. I've just kind of been on a kick about this recently. A lot of people set goals. It reminds me of a book written a few years ago. It was Five Frogs on a Log. The joke is three decided to jump off, how many were left? Well there were really five. Deciding and doing are two different things. A lot of people set goals but they don't achieve them. The reward is not in setting goals, that's a starting point. The real reward is in achieving them. So have clear plans for how you are going to achieve your goals.

JAIME TARDY: I love that. Yes, action is where it's at because otherwise, like you said, you don't go anywhere and then you look back and go hmm what happened.

DAN MILLER: Nothing.

JAIME TARDY: Exactly, right? Tell us where we can find more about you online. You have an awesome podcast. You have tons of books. Where can we find more about you, Dan?

DAN MILLER: Well thanks. 48Days.com; we've got a lot of resources there, ways to get connected. Other people you can connect to there. But then we've got this amazing community ? 48Days.net ? where we've got a whole lot of people who are taking action on their dreams and they are linking arms to help each other. When I was first approached about having a social networking site I said, "No, I don't care about what you had for breakfast and people shouldn't care what I had." And they said, "No, we can make this where it really is business people, big thinkers, high achievers, where they link arms and help each other."

I said, "Okay we'll do it for 90 days and then I'll make a decision if we go forward." Well it really blew my mind what happened in 90 days to see how people were so willing to help each other and share resources. So 48Days.net is this amazing community that I just stand back with my mouth open. I don't do much there but it's people who are making a difference and helping each other do the same.

JAIME TARDY: Your community is amazing too. You mentioned me on your podcast and I've had a wealth of emails from them saying the greatest stories. They are just the nicest people ever. If anyone needs to get a network of people, start there. I mean that's a great resource to be able to find people that can help you out too. So thank you for everything, Dan. I truly, truly appreciate it. Next time I am down there I'll have to take you out to lunch at that country club.

DAN MILLER: Yes!

JAIME TARDY: I really, really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you so much.

DAN MILLER: Well it has been my pleasure. I hope that our time has given some inspirations and triggered some new thoughts for your viewers.

JAIME TARDY: Definitely. I am sure it has. Thank you so much and have an amazing day, Dan.

DAN MILLER: You as well. Bye-bye.

Just to note, you can download the top ten tips from these millionaire interviews on the blog.

Thanks for listening. You can find out more great information like this on EventualMillionaire.com.

Tags: 48 Days, Dan Miller, Mentor, Mentoring, millionaire interview, Personal Finance/Wealth, Wealth Building

Categories: All, Best Life, Business, Business Model, Entrepreneurship, Featured Millionaire Interview, Giving, Goals, Marketing, Millionaire Interviews, Relationships, Resources

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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