00:00 Chris Grainger
Welcome to the lion within us, a podcast, serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders they’re predestined to be. I’m your host, Chris Grainger. Let’s jump in. All right guys. You know, we’re gonna start every episode with scripture, so let’s just jump right in third, John too. Okay. So third John.

Remember where that’s at? Go to your spiritual kickoff if you missed it. Cuz I unpacked third John two and including where to find it is at the back of your Bible. It’s two back from revelation. Okay. So go there beloved. I pray that in all respects, you may prosper and be in good health just as your soul prospers.

So guys, this is gonna be a fun episode right here today. Cuz who I have with me is none other than Mr. Dan Miller. I’m gonna tell you what Dan he’s the author of a New York times bestselling book, 48 days to the work you love. He has over 140,000 people subscribe to his newsletter. this is unreal, right?

His 48 days podcast ranks in the top 1% of all podcasts, his 48 days eagles.com. Community is viewed as an example around the world for those seeking to find or create the work they love guys. Here’s I want to let you know, I’m a member of that community. One of our, our previous guests, Jeff Long, he’s a member of that community.

One another Mike McGreevey. He’s a member of that community. Dan does phenomenal things and the stuff he’s putting together is unreal. You know, he’s been married to his, his wife, Joanne for over 54 years. So they have three grown children, 17 grandchildren, and they live in their little version of paradise, Andre, Florida.

So I’ll tell you what, Dan, he’s just the most genuine man you’ll wanna meet. When I met with him. I was, first of all, I was a little bit starstruck. Hey, I’m actually talking to you. I mean, he’s, he’s coached people all over the world. Just phenomenal, phenomenal businessman. And, but how, just to the heart, he was, he was so genuine.

How can I help you? How can I serve you? Hey, how can and Hey, let’s schedule the schedule. This podcast, let’s get this done because this may help your, your listeners. And guys, we’re gonna be talking about something that that’s important in my heart, but it may be important to you guys as well, ministry to modernization.

Now. So many guys think that from a ministry standpoint, if you’re doing ministry work, you gotta do it for free. No there’s opportunities and ministry doesn’t necessarily always mean mission work. There’s different ways. There’s different ways, and Dan’s gonna open our eyes. He’s gonna give us some insight.

He’s gonna really see, gonna peel back some, some layers of the onion that’s gonna help us grow. And our want to be the Christian leaders predestined to be. So I’m not gonna holding back from me any longer guys. I think you’re really gonna enjoy this one. Let’s get into it.

Dan. Welcome to the line within us. How you doing today, sir? Hey,

02:52 Dan Miller
I’m doing excellent. You know, as every day is just another wonderful day.

02:56 Chris Grainger
It is. It’s a beautiful day here. We’re we’re recording in July. I’m excited to have you. I, I still can’t believe that we’re talking. So our listeners. Maybe just start us off Dan, share our listeners a little bit.

Your story, because I know when I heard it, it just, it blew me away. And I’d for you. Take this time to with,

03:15 Dan Miller
I’ll give you a real quick version here. I grew up as a poor farm kid. My dad was BI vocational pastored, a little tiny church of about 40 people, but eked, outta living as a farmer, just to keep food on the table, just doing what was responsible doing what was right.

There was no discussions in our home about doing things you enjoyed, you did what was right. And what was responsible. That was it. And don’t expect much here because we’re gonna get our rewards someday in glory, but not here. Right? So I grew up with that kind of home and very quickly, uh, determined. I think I had too much time out in a field, Chris to think and dream and imagine.

And I just imagined things that were beyond what I was seeing, there, things that were beyond the life that seemed to be kind of destined for me. Mm-hmm . And when I was about 13 years old, I got ahold of the little audio recording, the strangest secret, my old night and Gale, and I talked about, we become what we think about now.

That’s not a new concept. I mean, we see that in the Bible as a man think it in his heart’s. So is he, but it somehow just really resonated with me. And I thought, would it be possible for me as a poor Ohio farm kid to change the trajectory of my life by just. Controlling what I think about mm-hmm and became a foundational principle for me then, and continues to be so today.

And I started dreaming, imagining things that were beyond what we had there, and doors just seemed to keep opening for me. So I went to college as a socially acceptable way to escape the farm. Really not because I had career plans as a result of college, I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I’ve always just seen opportunities to generate income.

And I followed that on and on and on, but went to college, got married, went back to more, got more degrees, but, uh, have always been an entrepreneur. And then when I was in my mid forties, we started teaching a Sunday school class, my wife and I did at our church on career transitions. I said, sure, I’ll be happy to do that.

I always had worked with people mm-hmm at my master’s degree in clinical psychology at that point. And I was always used to working with people, kinda helping ’em find career direction. And that little class just exploded. And I thought I’d have the kids who were deciding what to major in, in college, in there, or maybe somebody 23 years old, you know, who is already outta school.

Mm-hmm and realized it wasn’t as easy as they thought they didn’t have the white picket fence Mercedes in the driveway. Like they thought. And they’re thinking what, you know, I did have a few of those people show up, but what surprised me was I also had doctors and attorneys and dentists and pastors and engineers and accountants.

And I’m like, what are you guys doing here? And the response was, you know why I’m doing okay. Everybody sees me is doing okay. And I am, but I don’t think this is it. I think there’s something more. I think I may be living out mom and dad’s dreams, not my own. And it was in that space that I saw an opportunity to really help transformation, to help those people who had enough life experience to be able to ask the right questions and then to figure out how has God uniquely gifted me.

And then what would that look like? Not just on Sunday, but what’d that look like on Monday morning? Mm-hmm if I really integrated that into the work that I did and was determined to have work that was purposeful, meaningful, and profitable, mm-hmm, , that’s the space I’ve been in. You know, I’ve written some books along the way, like 48 days to the work.

You love to kind of give people those guidelines, how to do that. But that’s, that’s what I do. Continue to have the pleasure of doing that today to work with people and finding who am I, how has God gifted me? What am I here for? And how can I BR blend that all together in meaningful work and play mm-hmm

06:55 Chris Grainger
mm-hmm

So it all started in that class at your, at the church all career transitions? Yes. Yes. Okay. Now that, that class, I’m just curious, just for my. Just, just take us back there. Is that a, was that a one day class or was this a multiple week type event? I mean, how, how was the structure of

07:14 Dan Miller
that? It was just an ongoing Sunday school class.

So it was in between sermons, you know, sub typical Sunday morning, early service, then Sunday school class, and then late service. And a couple things happened really quickly for one. Um, my wife and I never got to go to church cuz we were used to go into the second service. But in teaching that class, we’d have, you know, people standing at the back of the room, the end of the class with individual questions, gee, and then that’s spilled over into the week, you know, can I get together with you Dan or wow.

Then it was, I’ve got a son-in-law who’s been without work for two months. He needs to hear what you just taught us. What do you have that I can give him mm-hmm and I didn’t have anything. And being the son of a pastor, I never, never in my wildest dreams expected what I was doing in church as ministry to be part of my income generation.

Yeah. But the needs were so great. And when it got to be where I was spending 20, 30 hours a week outside of Sunday school class, working with people, my wife suggested, you know, you’re spending a whole lot of time doing this. If you’re gonna spend that much time, it seems it ought to have something to do with our own provision, opened the door into that, to have things that were available, resources, both my own coaching and resources that people could take with them.

And that really opened the floodgate and this just never stopped. And

08:36 Chris Grainger
that, and that was kinda where I was hoping you would go. Cause I’m try. I know there’s guys listening that, you know, they, they, they want to do the work, but you know, they, they’re not sure how to take that next step, you know, and, and to get it going.

So for you was the coaching, the, the, the natural place to get started is that where, where you kind of point people to it

08:55 Dan Miller
very much was. I mean, that was mm-hmm in essence, the low hanging fruit mm-hmm to develop, well, here, here’s what happened. Coaching was what people wanted my individual time. And that’s what I thought that I had a value that I could offer them.

Mm-hmm incidentally, we moved that Sunday school class from a Sunday school class because it was just unwieldy trying to squeeze it in between sermons. We moved it to a Monday night, two hours on interrupted in a separate building on the church campus, but in a separate building from the sanctuary. And I did that for eight years.

That really is where my business was, had the foundation and where it grew. But then in that period of time, people were asking for content. and I finally just because the request put together, just my rough Sunday school notes and a three ring binder had a little cassette in there at the time. And people started buying that.

And so I said, well, you know, might as well make it available to more people than just the ones coming to the class as well. So we started experimenting in the early days of online marketing on the internet. Yeah. I went to a workshop that mark Victor Hanson was doing. In Los Angeles, mark Victor Hanson being coauthor chicken soup for the soul.

I thought, well, this guy knows how to sell things that have value to people. I had to go listen to him and I tapped my buddy Dave Ramsey on his shoulder that was in the early days for Dave as well. And I said, Hey, let’s go to this thing. So we did, we took our wives, Sharon and Joanne went with us. We sat there, listened to this gracious, generous gentleman, talk about how he sold his books and other materials.

And I came back and in the next 30 months, Chris, I sold over 2 million worth of that little three ring binder that I was selling. And it was just amazing how that took off, just using some simple online marketing principles. And we were given, you know, people real hope and encouragement, offering them a money back guarantee.

If you don’t get the work you love in 48 days, we’ll give you your money back. We tried to really be generous in the same way that I was serving people in the Sunday school class. We just extended it beyond that. And people continued to buy and buy and buy. And then in order to leverage my time, whereas coaching is the low hanging fruit, but with coaching, there’s only so many hours in the day.

So many days in the week scale started having products available and then a workshop, then a seminar and then live events. And then, you know, we’ve gone to online communities, masterminds, just other ways to connect people and allow them to experience that core message in a variety of ways. And in the process it’s produced, you know, very profitable business and given me the kinda life that Joanne and I get to enjoy today,

11:38 Chris Grainger
what an amazing story.

I mean, I, I think so many guys too, you know, there’s, there’s this, there’s this thought process, man, around, you know, if it’s ministry I’m supposed to be doing it for free. Oh my. So. How do you get ’em

11:50 Dan Miller
past that? Oh, my, that was, that was a difficult, difficult transition for me. Okay. I was raised, my, my grandparents were Amish or buggy Amish.

Mm-hmm no palming, no electricity. And my parents were conservative Mennonite. So we were very, very legalistic, very conservative. But of course, my dad, as a pastor was not paid. You would never think of being paid for your ministry. You figure out something else to do. Feed your family, but certainly not that.

So that was my background. That was my heritage. So when I was confronted with this and I still had a lot of those same roots of belief where this is my ministry, I, it would be horrible to charge for this. I really struggled with that. Just theologically. How could I possibly charge for what I was doing there?

And I got a lot of good counsel, good coaching in that transition, but that was not an easy step for me at all, but here’s what happened. And I suspected that when I went from just being the nice guy at church, he was available for all the coaching that you could possibly want to charging for that I’d be seen as some, you know, greedy capitalist who was no longer honoring God in his service gift.

It was exactly the opposite. It was like the floodgate opened when I did that, because then, I mean, think about it. If you’re an attorney, you know, making $400,000 a year, you don’t put a lot of value on just some nice kid at church. Who’s willing to talk to you. But if somebody positions themselves as a professional coach and has fees connected with their services, there’s it elevates the credibility.

It elevates mm-hmm, the value of that. It also increases the likelihood that the person will implement what they’re being told, what they’re being encouraged to do. So it’s in as much as it almost seems counterintuitive. Now, if people have skin in a game. They take it more seriously. They show up. Yes. My wife was astounded because she was setting appointments for me back in those days when I was making that transition.

And I still had a lot of people who I was just seeing for free because they were parts of that class. And then, yeah, but she was all, we were also getting a lot of contact moving that class from Sunday school class to Monday night meant that a lot of people from the community came. So we would have those down desk, chiropractors and attorneys, you know, sitting in the back of the room on Monday night and then they’d call on Tuesday morning.

When can I get in to see Dan, she would book them and she would see that, you know, 99% of our no-shows 90% of people who didn’t implement 90% of the people who were in the same place six months from now that they were today, were the people that I was seeing for free. Mm. That wasn’t true of the people who were paying people who were paying expected to be guided, directed, given a plan and implemented.

otherwise it would be poor stewardship on their part to have invested the money mm-hmm , but it really was eye opening for me to see that. And it’s given me an opportunity to really work with lots of people since then, who want to be in ministry, but struggle with this same issue. Mm-hmm you can be in ministry.

I mean, I it’s, it’s interesting. I mean, I certainly my business today is just an ordinary more profit business. Mm-hmm people refer to it all the time. Dan, thank you so much for your ministry, Dan, your ministry has changed my life, Dan, you know, your ministry is just blessing a lot of that’s how they refer to it.

If you’re doing kingdom work in your business in your job, people will see it as such, no matter how it’s categorized legally in terms of tax structure. I never had any desire to start a nonprofit because of the workouts. I was no, it’s just a legitimate business. And people pay for the books, the courses, the events, the masterminds, the opportunity to engage with the material, even though it’s exactly the same thing I was teaching in that Sunday school class.

15:58 Chris Grainger
Isn’t that awesome though, that once you, you know, put, ultimately you put value on your time and how the people responded and then how God blessed that, you know, once, once you, once you put the value on your time, and I don’t think we do that enough,

16:12 Dan Miller
you know, we don’t, and, and people think it’s an either or, you know, either you really serve just from an open hand, you just serve or you charge, and then you are tempted, you know, with being greedy and self-serving and materialistic.

See, that was the kind of theology I grew up in. I mean, we were extremely poor and frankly, pretty proud of it. Because that’s a sign that you’re really serving God to have nothing. Mm-hmm to just be poor. Now, one of, one of the things that, that I use and you’re watching on video, you can see behind me here in my shelf, there’s a silver Golet, that’s very significant.

Every member of my mastermind has that it’s really core principle for our mastermind. And that is that we serve best from a full cup. It comes from okay, a Jewish ceremony called the, have the law, which is the evening of the Sabbath whereby the, the dad, the father in the family has this go. It’s the only time where God is on top of a saucer Jewish ceremony.

Mm-hmm but he pours wine into the Golet. He pours until it’s full and continues pouring symbol. What it means is we’re gonna go into the marketplace. We’re gonna do what we do with such excellence that we fill our cup. We fill the needs that our family has, and we do more than that. And from that abundance, we can give generously, that’s a very different principle than what I see a lot of Christians trying to live out, thinking that they’re most godly and having nothing.

It’s hard to be a big force for change. It’s hard to give generously. It’s hard to change things dramatically when you have nothing, when your cup is empty. So that full cup is a principle that I live by and certainly encourage other people to understand the principle behind that.

18:06 Chris Grainger
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Now, Dan, on that from a abundant standpoint, there is a book I read and, and I think I read it from part, part of following Dave and stuff. He and is thou shall prosper. And I think that that came what you just went through. That whole ceremony was a part of that book. And I cannot remember to author, but rabbi

19:15 Dan Miller
Daniel Lapin

19:17 Chris Grainger
that Daniel Lapin.

That’s right. That’s

19:19 Dan Miller
exactly, exactly where that came from.

19:21 Chris Grainger
Okay. Yeah. So I’m on the right. I’m on

19:23 Dan Miller
the right path then that’s exactly where it came from. Rabbi Daniel Lapin and thou shell prosper. It’s the most profound book on biblical principles I’ve ever, or finances that I’ve ever read. Yeah.

19:35 Chris Grainger
Cause you’re right though.

So many times we think from a ministry standpoint, we never think about our cup. We’re always thinking about other cuts, but if we can get our cup full and the blessing overflows, then we can do the kingdom work that’s right. And really make an impact.

19:48 Dan Miller
That’s right. Yeah. My wife and I just, just recently made the largest gift that we’ve ever made in our lives.

I mean, we, would’ve never dreamed of being able to do that when we were young, but because of the principles that I just described, um, we were able to make a large gift to a counseling center. That’s building a new campus and we, we sponsored part of that campus. But, uh, just as, as part of our legacy, because it’s a place of hope and healing for people mm-hmm that we really believe in, but what an honor to be able to participate in that.

And provide a right a path for others. Absolutely.

20:30 Chris Grainger
I, I kinda wanna go back to, to that Sunday school class. I know, I feel like I’m beating that one to death, but this is an important part that guys don’t, don’t miss it too many guys. Think you just wanna put something together, you build it and you put it out and people should buy it versus you.

You did the quote unquote market research, you know, directly with the people to find out what the need was. And then you built something to that and maybe just share some more wisdom on how that process worked, because I think that’s, we, we get that way too. And I’ve, I’ve been guilty of that myself of building stuff.

Oh, I think it’s gonna be great. Nobody buy, right. Nobody

21:05 Dan Miller
POS right. You know, it’s funny because as I describe my business, I didn’t sit down and map out a business. It really evolved around me. It mm-hmm it showed up unexpectedly and I’m a salesperson I can do. Okay. You know, no matter when I was doing fine back then, but.

When this showed up and surprised me by its appearance. Here’s something that, where there’s such a great need. People are willing to engage. People are willing to invest in the process. The opportunity’s right there. I can’t ignore that. I need to pay attention to that. And it really was other people, including my wife who helped point it out and make me see that.

But when I did, then one of the things that I’ve used as a business principal all these years is if a, if three people ask me the same question, I develop a resource for ’em. So it’s not a matter of me just sitting down, like you say, just creating something and then pushing it on people. No, everything that I’ve ever developed has been in response to people’s inquiries.

How can I do this? What should I do in this situation? So the books that I’ve written and we have a really robust. Product suite. We, we just introduced a, a product two weeks ago that I had a lot of fun with because I happen to enjoy cars. Uh, always have always tinkered, always love, just flipping cars and driving nice cars.

And, and people ask me, you know, how I can do that. And I finally put together just a, a presentation on, on how to drive cars for free drive, any car you want for free. What has to do with understanding the market and understanding that cars, if it’s the right category of car, it hits what we call bottom cash value.

So as opposed to most cars, you buy it. And it’s just a straight line depreciation down into the junkyard, exotic cars, luxury cars. Don’t do that. There are classes of luxury cars that at about seven to eight years, typically, if they have only about 30,000 miles on ’em, they hit a bottom cash value and can, at that point actually increase the curb comes back up.

I’ve had a lot of cars like that, really, where I buy a car, we drive it, have fun with it. And a year later I sell for more money than I paid for it. So that’s the issue. But my point is because people are asking me about that. We now have a little, a course on car hacking and we have tons of people who are buying that.

And I made it inexpensive, just our, our normal $48. But what that means is there was something that people were asking me about. So I spent a couple hours, right. Sat down and just put together the principles about how to do that. Created a little video course on that. And now we’ve got something that makes money while I sleep.

It’s just serving people well, given ’em what they were asking for. That’s how I developed. New content. That’s how I develop groups. That’s how I develop masterminds, whatever it is it’s because people were asking for it. And I just follow that path. That’s worked extremely well for me. I don’t do a lot of just thinking up something and then hoping that people are gonna want it once it’s here.

I’m very simple in the model that I’ve used in business. That’s worked extremely well for me.

24:14 Chris Grainger
That is that’s. That’s beautiful. I, and I need to, uh, take that course. That’s interesting. You, you, you have, we, we talk about wealth a lot on the line within us, and we talk about debt and trying to get, you know, we wanna get that out of our lives and, but the whole car hacking we have not talked about.

So that is very interesting. Wow.

24:31 Dan Miller
Well, one, as you know, one of the biggest expenses that people have is a car payment. It’s typical mortgage and a car payment, but I’ve, I I’ve had a whole lot of cars, a whole lot of really nice cars. I’ve never had a car payment in my life. I mean, that’s just an easy principle when you’re doing.

The way that I approach it, because in essence, I don’t really have real money in a car. If I buy it, increase the money I had initially, it doesn’t take too long until it’s like going to, to the casino you put in $20, you hit a good role. You get $40 back, you put the 20 back in your pocket, then you just play playing with house money.

I’m, I’m just playing with house money in the cars that I drive. Cause it’s money that was created from the cars themselves. That’s, that’s a big issue that can be a big game changer for people in how they, you see that as a, just a dead expense. Now, if you’re, you are driving an hour to work every day, you know, five days a week, I mean that that’s gonna be different.

I mean, I don’t use cars like that, having my own business. I mean, I have a, um, I have a, I drive a black Corvette right now. Well, I don’t put 3000 miles a year on it. What that means is that cars going up in value every single day that I have it just without.

25:49 Chris Grainger
Right. Well, you, you, you got our interest, so I’m gonna try to go, I I’m gonna go get the link to this course.

We’re gonna put it into show notes for listeners out there and, and hopefully you’ll get a bump outta that course. Cause I’m saying what that’s, that’s amazing. I love that story. Oh, very good. Very well. So, so Dan I’m, I’m curious too, you, you have the whole 48 days community and, and I really want to take a chance for you because we have a lot of guys listening and, and, and maybe they have, they want to be that entrepreneur and, and they’re trying to figure out how you can, can do more monetization outta the stuff that they love.

Maybe just unpack that a little bit. The 48 days community, what you try to, how you try to serve others and, and the value you bring there, because I’ve got a lot of value out of it. They, they hear me talk all the time. I’d rather hear them hear it from you, uh, directly. Well,

26:34 Dan Miller
thanks. Sure. I’ll tell you a little bit about the community.

Then I wanna tell you little bit about the back story. Cause again, it speaks to God’s preparation and God’s Providence, but we have an online community where people come together, people who who know there’s something more, they may have an idea that’s been kind of dormant. Mm-hmm they wanna really bring it to life put like on it.

And so it’s $48 a month. So it’s a low commitment, but people come together and then they share ideas and resources. And what happens is because we give people the community many times, there’s a question asked and before I get a chance to even see it, there’s 10 people who have responded to it. Whose wisdom in that area surpasses my own.

So it’s not just, gee, everybody wants to know what Dan knows. Not at all. It’s a community where people show their leadership, show their expertise. We now have seven different deans in that community where people have shown their leadership in certain areas. So Dean of coaching, Dean of podcasting, Dean of mindset, people like that, we have deans in there who then run their own programs under that umbrella, or people can participate as being members.

And so it just, it function, it takes on a life of its own. It’s really in many ways a like it functions like a healthy church should function where it’s not just the guy at the top, but as people have taken on positions of responsibility and leadership, encourage each other, support each other. And that’s how it works.

Now me do give you a little bit of the backstory on that. Okay. So years ago, We had property in, well, actually just two years ago, we had a property in Tennessee, but in that property in Tennessee, we had our house. Then we were able to purchase the property that adjoined ours, and it had this beautiful old barn on it.

So I thought, wow, it’d be fun to do something creative with that barn. So we did a light modification on the barn and created an event center where we could have 60 people at a time come in. So we would have events there, right? Uh, seven events during the course of the year, we had coaching with excellence.

Innovate, how to take an idea and really develop it, then write to the bank. W R I T E how to take your writing. Because again, people were asking me, how did you, as a Christian with your writing, you know, get New York times best selling books, you know, how have you sold the books? And so when multiple people ask me that instead of just giving them a quick overview, I said, why don’t we have an event where people could come?

And I just spent two days just telling them exactly what I did to get my writing. Mm-hmm out there like I’ve been able to do so we were doing those events there. Mm-hmm after doing that for 12 years, the county that we lived in, in Franklin, Tennessee showed up one day, says you can’t have live events on this property.

That’s a codes violation. I’m like, what are you talking about? We’re out in a country. You know, there’s no neighbors close by. I’ve been doing this. We’ve been very open about it. I’m not hiding. No, you can’t do that here. And became a very, very sticky situation and it’s closed us down. So that was. Five years ago at this 0.5 years ago, that took a big chunk.

We were, people were paying a thousand dollars each to come to those events. We’d have 60 people there at an event. We did that seven times a year. You can do the math on that. It was a significant chunk of income yeah. For our little business. And we are no longer able to do that. So I thought, well, what could we do?

What could we do to allow people to continue to share ideas and resources, to encourage each other, to come together, to kinda link arms and maybe even over a period of time, rather than just two days together. And we explored the idea of an online community. So we started that. We started that in 2000, actually 2017.

We started that. Okay. Which is now the 40 days Eagles where people were there. Well, guess what happened a couple years later? All of a sudden, here we come along with COVID. The people who had planned live events were forced to close them down. They were in a panic. We were set and pretty, because we had initiated two years prior this online community, it fit beautifully and was fueled by what happened with COVID by people, looking for community, looking for places where they could connect with others who would share ideas and resources and encourage ’em.

We were positioned beautifully. And by that time, incidentally, we had enough members at paying the $48 a month that it superseded the money we were making from those live events. And instead of being something that required a lot of intense work, it just rolls on its own. It it’s very easy to maintain because the people are so gracious and generous in how they serve each other.

And we were setting beautifully and continued to grow in that area. But, you know, it’s one of those things that when the county showed up, I mean, it seemed like a, a disaster, you know, how in the world can we have that taken away from us, but at those times, you know, I’ve learned. Rather than just panic and just take a deep breath and say, what does this make possible?

I learned, really learned that from Michael hyat’s wife, Gail, what does this make possible? And so just to see it in that vein, okay, we’re gonna look at the possibilities rather than looking at the loss of what happened. We’re gonna anticipate the future. What could we do differently? That’s not being done.

That’s served me well again and again and again, and certainly in that transition. So now we have this beautiful online community and a lot of things have happened that have been unfortunate for businesses and certainly for people having live events and we’ve not only coasted through, but we’ve grown exponentially in that period of time.

32:20 Chris Grainger
That is amazing. But I mean, just that outlook of, of, of what, what does this make possible? What a great way to, to, uh, to view it. Cuz when the trials come in life and they hit us, you know, we, we, sometimes we just get in the fetal position or woe was me and then, you know, we just get anger and rage. You turned it into where’s the opportunity at, right?

And that’s, that’s the big, that’s a big, that’s a big mind, mind

32:44 Dan Miller
shift. It is. And you know, it, it’s, it’s very similar to working with people individually, as I’ve had the pleasure of doing now for many years. But you know, when somebody loses their job or business fails, the first response is, oh my goodness.

You know, we gotta, we aren’t gonna go on vacation this year. We’re gonna have to pull our kids outta Christian school. We’re gonna have to turn back in the cars we’ve got, they think immediately less, you know, we’re gonna be forced to have less. And yet what happens is it’s not uncommon at all. 18 months later, I talked to that person.

They say, you know what? That was the best thing that ever happened to me, cuz it forced me to look at things that I wasn’t too blind to see prior to that. But under that pressure of the unexpected change, I saw things that I hadn’t seen before and now I’m living. More fulfilled. I’m making more money than I ever made.

You know, we have more blessings to share with other people, all those things, but it it’s, it’s, it’s interesting how our initial response always is. This is a bad thing and not uncommon and unexpected, but if we really just take that breath, what does this make possible? We start to see possibilities that we may not have recognized that were available to us all the time.

33:56 Chris Grainger
I love it. Hey, let’s take a quick break. We’ll be right back. Guys.

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So Dan, one thing that you’ve mentioned a couple times, and I was trying to take notes as you went there was, I think you said it was eight years. You did that Sunday school class, and then it was 12 years on that onsite events that you were, you were hosting. But what I take away from that is none of this stuff was overnight.

And I think so many guys in particular, men were not patient. We , that’s a fruit that we don’t have in our lives. Patience is not one of ’em. We want to have that success immediate. So what, what do you, what, what advice were you have to that guy who’s out there? Who, who wants to do ministry and modernization, but he wants to, to see that modernization happen quick.

Right? We want it to happen now versus the putting in the, putting in the rep. So just, just curious for your, your taking advice on that. Oh

35:44 Dan Miller
my goodness. Yeah. I, I have seen the longer perspective and sometimes I, I cringe at telling people those timeframes that I went through because I don’t want people to expect that it’s gonna take eight years or 12 years to have success.

And I think we’ve got, you know, technology tools today that we didn’t have a few years ago that make things quicker. Mm-hmm as possibilities. But I do think that sometimes we try to force it so much so that we kind of question the validity of what we’re doing. We have to recognize that this is not something you can cram down people’s throats.

Now you can do fancy, you know, marketing these days to get it out there to a lot of people. But so much of it comes down to relationships, nurturing relationships. If you want to have a business that grows, you have to build relationships that doesn’t happen overnight. You can’t go to one conference or one chamber of commerce meeting and come away with 30 closed friends.

It just has to happen over time. I have a list of people on my 3:00 AM list and I encourage people to do that. Your, your guys, your listeners, 3:00 AM west, who could you call at 3:00 AM? Who you have such a relationship with that if you really were stuck, let’s say that you needed $10,000. But the person would not only pray for you, but would actually respond to the needs you had without a whole lot of question.

How many people do you have on that list? Now, what I encourage people mm-hmm is to have on that list as many people as you are years of age. So if you’re 40 years old, you gotta have 40 people on that list. If you’re 55, it encourages it to keep building on that list. I mentioned earlier that, you know, Dave Rams and I went to a seminar, Dave and I have been friends for a very long time.

Uh, you know, almost well almost 35 years. This point, Dave is the number one person on that list of mine. Now there’s a lot of other people on there. We’ve had a relationship. For a lot of years, grew together through tough times. So it wasn’t all, you know, just people that you connect with when you’re at your pinnacle of success.

Now, people who you’ve really walked through life with, but if you have the relationships, yes, then your success can multiply really quickly. I have a new book coming out where’s called titled and understanding heart. Okay. When that comes out, I have no book launch planned at all. I don’t have any big release date.

I’m not gonna try to hit, you know, any kind of list that authors sometimes do. I’m doing everything backward from what it you traditionally seen done, but you know what I’m gonna do as soon as I get that, I’m gonna send it out in a gift box to 300 people. That’s my marketing plan. Okay. Now that’s it. So what does that mean?

That means if those people who know me. And love me if they think it has value, what are they gonna do? They’re gonna share it with people that recommend that is such a different thing than, you know, spending 30 grand on Facebook ads to blast it out there to people that may have never heard of me and try to somehow manipulate and con them into buying a book that they know nothing about.

It’s just, it just doesn’t fit me at all now because of what I just described. Obviously I’ve been building those relationships over a period of time, over a long period of time. Right. And again, it doesn’t mean that it takes you 30 years to build a list that’s meaningful, but start no matter where you are, make that a priority.

That’s the power. That’s the value of my business today. It’s not fancy technology in place. It’s not all kinds of systems, you know, that surprise people when they show up. No, it’s the relationships that I have. That’s what allows me to be a very right lean entrepreneurial business, and yet have a lot of influence out there because I’m connected to a lot of people who also have influence and have audiences.

I can borrow the influence of other people instantaneously without any question. Mm-hmm I can just open my hand. The relationships are already there. If I want to get on podcast, if I wanna let people promote something. And then of course the reverse is true as well. My goodness, I just had, um, just had somebody send me a copy of his new book and I immediately ordered 35 copies paid for him.

I didn’t ask him, gee, give him to me because, uh, no, I paid for him cause I wanna support him. And then I sent them to people that I know can really benefit from that book. But that’s what people do who are successful in business. It’s, you’re not in a silo, even if you’re an entrepreneur, even if you’re a solopreneur, you know, you never, you never successful alone.

It always comes as a result of right. Connections you have with other people,

40:44 Chris Grainger
the relationships are so key. I mean, it’s so key. I mean, and, and the way that you also, you, you send it to those 300 people. Cause you’ve developed that trust over the years. And we, we talked about, I think we had an episode, it was early in the line within us.

And we talked about building your lines then, and that’s the 3:00 AM guys. And so who that you were talking about? You know, who the, the 3:00 AM guys, you know, who are they in your life now? The challenge you have about having one for every year of your life. That’s that hit me hard. Okay. I need to get that list shirt up a little bit more.

but that’s a great tip though. I mean, that’s really great, cuz you want to have those types of men in your life and or relationships in your life. Rather, that’s gonna be able to help you in those moments, but also at the same time, you always need to have a generous, uh, heart and a giving heart. Cause that’s what I told people.

When I was talking to you, I said, what, what threw me off about the first time we met Dan was just how generous you were. You know, we’re, we’re a small podcast. We’re getting started we’re in our first year, but you, you, I felt like you treated me like you were talking to Dave. Oh, you know, I, I felt that and, and I think that comes across and that is why people resonate with you because it is because that generosity and, and, and the, the vulnerability, just your, your genuineness.

Well, I

41:58 Dan Miller
appreciate that. I take that. I take that seriously as a compliment. And also as a responsibility, you know, I see people who. Try to build reputation, try to build relationships. And then mm-hmm, instant destroy that destroy their character, integrity reputation, I think. Oh my goodness. How, how can you recapture what it took years to establish?

How can you recapture that? And it breaks my heart. When I see that it’s down, my 3:00 AM list. I currently have 101 people in there and I’m not a hundred, one years old yet, but I’m doing right, right. Give myself a little head start for, for where I’m. But I just, um, yeah, I just take very seriously. I mean, people don’t get added on there frequently, but right.

I see that a relationship has developed and to that extent, then they’re certainly added on there. Yes. And those people, I don’t announce that to those people. There are people on there who right. Have no idea they’re on my 3:00 AM west, but I am very confident that they deserve a place on there. Um, because we do have that kind of relationship.

43:01 Chris Grainger
I love it. Great, great advice. Now I, I am an engineer. So I’m, I got one more question here that that’s, that I’d like to get your, your take on. Cause I, I, I think, I think processes, but so picture of ven diagram and cuz I got your book right here, you know, and it says to the work and life you have. So a lot of guys, they had this circle of work, they had this circle of life and it’s somewhere, maybe a little sliver to circles connect mm-hmm

But you from, from, from the things that I’ve learned and study from you, the, the circles really almost layer top each other because if you’re doing the work that you love, I mean, it all kind of comes together. So what advice, if, if you’re the guy who who’s listening right now, who is on his way to work and he’s miserable and, and he’s trying to figure out how do we, how do we actually bring these, these, these two pieces together to have a work and a life that you love?

What are you telling them? If

43:55 Dan Miller
you really look inward first, which is my encouragement too often, we look outside when it comes to. Career business or income generation. Gee, I know somebody who’s killing it, you know, on Amazon with what they’re doing or this guy’s narrow on escaping business. I’m gonna try to do the same.

You know, we have to be careful about those external situations. 85% of the process of having a confidence of proper direction comes from looking inward first. What has God already told you about yourself? What are your skills and abilities? Mm-hmm what are your personality tendencies? How do you relate to other people?

What kind of environments you’re most energized by? What are your ongoing recurring values, dreams, and passions from those, you can get a core focus, then you have 15% left. Then that is how can you blend those in work that you’re doing on Monday morning? If you do that, the work is gonna feel a lot different.

And just, you know, take trudging off to the salt mines with your lunch box. It’s not gonna feel like that at all. So as an example, right? So this Friday, this coming Friday, I’m doing what I call food for thought with Dan. Okay. These are luncheons where people put in an application and I select 12 people at a time to come and have lunch with me here, where I live in Osby, Florida.

There’s no cost to them other than getting here. I’m not selling anything. I’m not promoting anything. It’s just to get together and have lunch, because I believe so much in nurturing new relationships with people that I maybe have not yet formed a deep relationship. So I do that. So I’m gonna have lunch, you know, I’ll have on shorts and a shirt because it’s warm here.

And we go to our beautiful clubhouse and sit around and have a conversation. I have a couple real key questions that I ask of these people, but it’s very informal. We go around and answer that and we. Now you tell me, am I working or am I playing? I mean, it’s hard to tell, am I working? Yeah. Does it have some kind of a tangent benefit?

My business, I’m sure that it does. I’ve seen that happen before. I have no agenda for what that looks like. I’m benefiting now from relationships that were established 10, 15 years ago. And I’m sure some of these will turn out to be the same thing, but I don’t go in there with some kind of strategy. I’m gonna turn these people into paying customers.

I don’t at all because I just trust the process. Would I do that with just, you know, friends of mine from the community or friends from church? Sure. So it’s very much the same kind of thing that I would just do with a group of friends. Anyway, I do a lot of things like that, where it’s it’s, there’s not a real hard distinction between.

Business and just things that I enjoy my personal life, as a matter of fact, that this luncheon, because it’s right here, my wife is gonna join us and my daughter, Hey, come on down. We’ll just have fun together. Yeah. Yeah. So there’s a lot of things like that that I have built in not, not everybody has a business like mine, but I think no matter what you’re doing, I mean, if you have a landscaping business, you can develop relationships with their customers.

Like they’ve never experienced before with the people who take care, mm-hmm of their lawn and flowers. You know, if you’re a roofing company, you know, you can do the same thing. You can be known in your community or how you’re involved like that. I have a friend who has physical therapy centers. He has over 400 physical therapy centers around the country.

He lives here. Wonderful. Wonderful gracious Christian gentlemen, and the things that he’s able to do through those centers. Sure. Is that his business? Sure, sure. Does he make a lot of money? Sure. But the way that he treats people individually is just unlike what they’re gonna expect in other places. I think everybody has the opportunity to do to that.

I don’t think it matters what it is you’re doing. Yeah. If it really is a good fit for you, it’s also an opportunity to build relationships and to live out ministry, to be an example of stewardship, all those things we expect to do as godly men to be done in that business.

48:06 Chris Grainger
Absolutely love it. Love it. Dan, let’s take our last break and I have a, uh, the, the final round for you.

Okay. All right.

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And we always wrap up the line within us with what we call feeding time. Okay. So this is where we’re, we’re going qu it’s quickfire lightning round, but I’d love to get your insight just so we, we’re not talking about what we’ve been talking about. This is more about just you personally and, uh, love just to, if you’re willing to play, we’ll jump right in.

All right. I’m game. All right. All right. So what’s your favorite thing about God?

49:14 Dan Miller
Wow. Uh, the first thing came to mind was his compassion, compassion. See, that’s, that’s kind of a switch for me because when I was young, We feared God, he was somebody with a big stick. Yeah. And, you know, fire breathing out of his mouth.

Yeah. Yeah. So that’s, that’s a learned trait of God is his compassion.

49:35 Chris Grainger
What about the least favorite thing? Oh,

49:41 Dan Miller
and the least favorite thing are things that I think we’ve artificially superimposed on God mm-hmm mm-hmm I, I can’t address anything that I think is a true characteristic of God. That’s not admirable. That’s right.

49:54 Chris Grainger
that’s right. How about something? What’s something that you’re, that you’re struggling with right now that you’re working on?

Um,

50:02 Dan Miller
I have multiple projects that are underway and I continue to struggle with enough time. I enjoy working, but it’s not just a matter of, I don’t see the value in just saying I’m gonna, you know, go away for three weeks, just close the doors and work. A hundred hours a week to finish a book manuscript.

Mm-hmm that impedes the process for me. Right? The only way I can write where it has value is to be living life as I’m writing to believe in life that I think is commendable to believe in a life that I’m talking about. So I can’t violate that in what I do, but that’s a struggle, you know, like I I’ve got two book manuscripts right now.

I’ve got a one book that’s being printed in China as we speak. And two book manuscripts, I’m working on. Sure. I’d like to have them finished by the end of the year. But realistically I haven’t given myself hard deadlines because I’m not sure it’ll happen. Sure. But it’s that how to use time effective way.

But I have so many things that I want to accomplish that it’s, it’s hard to ever be content with. What’s being turned out. it’s tough. It’s

51:07 Chris Grainger
tough. So, so speaking of that time, what did you spend too much time doing over the last year?

51:15 Dan Miller
I was deal over the last year. I was actually dealing with the county in Franklin on that piece of property to resolve the codes issues.

It was really emotionally draining to work with the bureaucrats, the attorneys mm-hmm the construction engineers and all that had to be done. I felt like it was, uh, a poor stewardship of time, but there was an end goal insight that I thought I could accomplish it defied everybody what everybody said could be done, but I thought I could accomplish it.

Mm-hmm . And so I leaned into it, even though it was, it was frustrating. Right. But I did accomplish that. It CA it was resolved beautifully. I was rewarded in a big way financially because of working that through, we then sold the property, but, uh, it was not a process that I enjoyed going through it. It was a me to an end.

52:07 Chris Grainger
Understood. So, two, a couple more questions. What are you most afraid of?

52:12 Dan Miller
What I’m most afraid of? Wow. That’s a kind of a novel idea because I’m not fearful. I’ve not had just last week. I had a company send me a product. I won’t mention the name, but it’s one of these brain energizers that they send out and I took it and it actually had a adverse effect on me because it made me lightheaded and dizzy, whereas it’s supposed to, but it, what it’s intended, I worked with my doctor who nutritionist to unpacked the ingredients.

He said were wonderful, but the ingredients were intended to reduce stress and anxiety. I don’t have stress and anxiety. So the effect on me was not a positive one, which is really interesting because I don’t, I’m not fearful. I’m not worried about who’s in the white house. I’m not worried about what the economy is doing.

I’m not worried about inflation rates or the housing bubble. Um, I really don’t have any fears. I I’m about. Fear free as anybody. I know. I can’t think of anything that I fear. Oh, well I love

53:16 Chris Grainger
it. I love it. That’s that’s the goal for me right there. so two last two questions. What’s a new habit that you want to create this year.

53:24 Dan Miller
I just, this week started a spin class. Really good for me. I love to walk and I do work out on fitness machines three times a week. Yeah. All spin is awesome. Well, I’ve got this little thing around my midsection that I don’t like . And in working with my fitness coach, she said the best thing for that is a spin class, high cardio workout.

So I just started that and I’m gonna continue that and, and plan to continue it indefinitely. Not just till I, you know, reduce a few pounds, which I’m sure I can do, but beyond that,

54:02 Chris Grainger
well, get spin. Enjoy it. Get you some clicking on those clickin shoes too, because they make all the difference in the world in a spin class.

I was

54:10 Dan Miller
told that, yes, I used to have the bicycle shoes, but I, I don’t currently because I, I ride a different kind of bike, but I may have to, may have to get those again. All right. It,

54:20 Chris Grainger
it it’ll change your spin class dramatically. So it, I, I won’t go to one without that. I been a while since I’ve been to a spin class, but it’s, I love them.

I, I do a bike every day here, so, ah, so yeah. Awesome. So the LA last question for you, Dan, what’s the one thing you hope that the guys out there listening remember from our

54:39 Dan Miller
conversation? Wow. Yeah, that’s pretty easy for me and it’s this because I work with people in so many different situations, but it’s this it’s never too late to have a new.

So many people, I mean, I talked to 27 year olds who say, gee, you know, I went to law school and now I realized it’s not a good fit for me. And they imply that now they’re stuck. They’re just gonna coast in the grave. And I’m like, you gotta be kidding me. You aren’t old enough to ask the right questions yet.

Don’t worry about it. Go on to something else. And then, you know, I talked to somebody who, uh, well, just this last week, talked to somebody who’s 58 years old and, uh, was just let go from their position a long time position with the company. He thought he, oh, he is not old enough to retire, but he is like, wow, you know, what’s next?

You know, how could I ever do something significant this, eh, 58 go into your second career, whatever. Yeah. Take your things out. If you really take a fresh look, how God has gifted you and figure out what that could look in terms of work, that’s meaningful, purposeful, and profitable. You can go into the most productive two decades of your life.

I

55:41 Chris Grainger
love it. Love it. Well, Dan, where, where do you want people to go? You know, we’ll, we’ll sync up everything, but if you wanna share where, where you like people to go connect with you, learn from you. Uh, just, you just wanna give you a chance to hear, to share that.

55:54 Dan Miller
Um, well I appreciate that. Well, 48 days is our brand that came out of that Sunday school material early on, because I got frustrated, uh, working with people where we’d map out a plan or change that they said they wanted.

And then I’d see ’em a year later and they hadn’t done anything. And I thought, well, that’s nuts. You know what? Well, I’m wait until pay off the student loan debt. I’m waiting until my kids get outta high school. There’s always something you’re waiting on. And I decided there need to be a timeframe in which people could go through it.

And I wanted something unusual, not just thirty, sixty, ninety, a hundred eighty, just common numbers, 48. Right. And it has worked magic for me, but so that’s our brand 48 days go there. It’s easy to find. There’s lots of resources. People can find my podcast or resources. Some of the things that we’ve talked about here, the Eagles community, just go to 48 days.com.

56:40 Chris Grainger
Absolutely. Well, Dan we’ll, we’ll make sure all that stuff is synced up for you listeners out there. Is there anything else you’d like to share

56:45 Dan Miller
today? Well, I think we’ve covered a lot of territory, Chris, the conversation I,

I,

56:50 Chris Grainger
this was an absolute thrill. Dan, thank you so much for joining line within us.

56:54 Dan Miller
Absolutely. My pleasure. I hope we’ve, um, stimulated some thinking out there, wad away some cobwebs and given some people some inspiration to get in the game. There you go.

57:02 Chris Grainger
Absolutely. Thank you, sir.

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All right guys, I told you, I warned you. This was gonna be a great conversation. And I’ll tell you what, Dan Miller, unbelievable. So much wisdom, so much insight, so much discernment. We just, I, I I’m on a high right now from talking to this, to, to Dan and, and, and from learning from him to 48 days, community guys, ministry to modernization, don’t put yourself in a box there’s opportunities.

There’s opportunities for you to grow people like Dan is how we learn. It’s how we grow those through relationships. I’m just going back to my notes here, relationships, those values, dreams, and passions. If you’re stuck, if you feel stuck, you’re not, there are opportunities in front of you lean into. Never too late to have a new beginning.

So it’s just wonderful insight from Dan. And to question this week again, are you doing the work that you were called to do? Cause if you’re not and, and you feel like God’s pulling at you go to ’em in prayer, go connect with wise brothers out there that can help guide you. Go connect with people like Dan in communities like that and learn, this is how you, this is how you grow.

This is how you figure this out. Build the relationships, you know, Jesus, all about the relationships. Love God, love others, right? Build the relationships and then get out there and serve the kingdom. So guys, I pray this conversation serves you. Well, I pray that you go back, listen to it again. This is one you really need to share out with your buddies.

Go ahead, text it out to ’em send ’em an email. Whatever’s whatever makes it easy for you. Now give us a rating review guys. You know, that makes a big difference. I encourage you maybe consider being a donor for us. Jump on. Maybe we wanna be a, a monthly donor to support the line within us. The things we’re trying to do to train the things we’re trying to build, to serve you, go to the line within.us.

Join the lions den. That’s free. Jump on that. Check out the Bible study, check out the 10 scriptures to fight like the lion nine habits. Every man needs. There, there are resources out there, guys that we’re building to serve you. Well, cuz we know that you’re in a battle, but you’re not in a battle alone. So guys, thank you again for so much for taking the time to listen to the line with Dennis, I pray that you have a great week.

Come back on Friday for the fun Friday and get out there and unleash the lion within.