Episode 86: Evan Carmichael - What It Means To Truly BELIEVE

Legacy of Monsters an Apple Original series. The world is on fire. I decided to do something about it on November 17th. This place, it's not ours. Believe me. The most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything. I promise.

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Legacy of monsters streaming November 17th only on Apple TV. Plus.

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All right, what's going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome to the Build you'd Empire podcast today. We have Evan Carmichael with us today and I'm super pumped up about this. I know that we've been, it's been a while since we first connected, man. So I appreciate you coming on the show today.

Appreciate the love. Casey, man, great to be here.

Absolutely. So one thing, it's crazy because I've been watching your content for a while and seeing all the top 10 rules of success and you've just absolutely crushing it on YouTube. But, but I kinda wanna just first off and kind of just let the people know if they may not know who you are about just what's brought you up to this point in your life. Just in a short sense of just kinda catching people up to speed about what you're currently working on and where your head is today.

So I think people would probably best know me for either my YouTube channel. It's inspiration, motivation for entrepreneurs helping people for themselves. I wanna turn self doubters into self believers. We've got 1.6 million on YouTube or people know me from my books. I've got two books out. One's Finding your One Word. The other is Top 10 Rules to Success. And I want to solve the world's biggest problem and I want to tap into untapped human potential. I think most people are either doing the wrong thing in life and they have no idea what they should be doing, or they found the thing they want to do but they don't have enough belief in themselves to chase it down. So that's the problem. Trying to solve with everything that I put out on a daily basis.

That's amazing, man. I was watching an interview recently and one thing that I love of your content which I want you to touch on today is your standpoint. I remember I listened to something that you interviewed. Someone interviewed you and you sold your company at around 22. Is that correct?

Yeah.

So being an entrepreneur and now putting out all this inspirational motivational content, 1.6 million views on YouTube. Where did this entrepreneur journey start? And at what age did you really pivot to actually start doing things yourself?

So I think I always had something in me. I remember being five years old and doing paintings and, and selling it to my neighbors for 10 cents. And then garage sales and baseball cards and lemonade stands. And like I remember being 12, 13, and every weekend have my parents drive me two and a half hours out of the city to go to a baseball coach show and negotiate with 40 and 50 year olds over $0.05, $0.10. You know, like this guy said, okay, I'll give you a quarter, but it's got gum on the back. Great. Like, I'll scrape off that gum.

I'll take that.

But I didn't think I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Two reasons. One, nobody in my family was an entrepreneur, so I didn't have the Aunt Susan or Uncle Joe who was a role model for me to follow. And two, entrepreneurship wasn't as hot back then. Like I'm, what year is it? I'm 38 right now. And growing up just people weren't entrepreneurs. It wasn't, it wasn't part of the culture. So in my high school yearbook, I said I wanted to be a banker. In 10 years, where you're going to be, I'd be VP at a bank. Now luckily I didn't go down that path and I took a chance on being an entrepreneur. But I think everybody should try. I think everybody, maybe not everybody should be an entrepreneur, but I think you should try. I think most people quit on something before they've even given it a fair shake. And you might be the next greatest entrepreneur, but you're stuck being an accountant because you never took a shot on yourself.

Yeah, that's the truth, man. And something I want to ask you today, which I think will really impact the audience because a lot of people who listen tend to be 18 to 25, just, just getting started on their entrepreneur journey. Or maybe they have a job and they're trying to become an entrepreneur or start creating content. So one thing I want to ask you is when was the pivot to start dominating the content part of, like on social media, Obviously you have 1.6 million on YouTube now, where did that come about in your life? Because obviously I've seen like all of your videos, man. I love them so much and they're so well put together. When was that, like, mindset geared towards content? Before we get back into the story.

So I think for me, I love dabbling in things, I love testing things, I love trying things. Until I find that two things happen. One, I end up loving the thing that I'm doing. And two, I find a way to make money doing it. When I figure out both of those things, then I push hard, hard. I push insanely hard. Because I know I have a window where I need to focus before that window closes on me. So it actually started with my website where I just sold my business. I had some money, I didn't know what I want to do next, and I joined the venture capital company to help company raise money for their business. And I just started making content on my website as a way to funnel leads to my venture capital business. And people started asking me, hey, can I contribute content? I'm a marketer. Can I write a market article? Great. Sure. Why not? The only business model was bring people in to the venture capital business. Then I found out about Google AdSense and I put a couple banner ads on my, on my channel, on my website, and I don't know, I made like three bucks or something. And then one day I decided, what if I, like, what if I just played around with the ads? Like, what if I tried to optimize them a little bit more and then I turned the three bucks into like 30 bucks a day or something? Like 30 bucks a day, you know, like if I pushed hard on this, like I could probably make more. And then it turns to 100 bucks a day, and then it turns to 300 bucks a day, and it's like, this is, this is a business. And so then I went all in and got like, I got, I don't know, 5,000 people writing for the website. We had hundreds of thousands of articles, had just crazy content. And I realized I can't do all of this myself. Like, if I'm the only one creating content, it's going to be a limit of how much I can create. But if I involve thousands of other people, then I could build a whole business around it. So that's why I always look like, do I love doing it and can I make money? And as soon as I find those two things, I push insanely hard. So on YouTube, it was just a dabble. At the beginning, I was experimenting, I was having fun, just trying some stuff. And then when I realized Okay. I like making these videos, and I'm starting to make some money doing it.

Yep.

It's go time. Let's push hard. So four and a half years ago, I had 7,000 subscribers. Wow. And now we're at 1.6 something million.

Yeah.

And I did that by making three videos every day for four and a half years. Wow.

That's insane.

Now I'm picking up my IG game. We went from 6,000 at the beginning of the year to November 66,000, something like that. And I'm posting six times a day on IG. I go live four times a week, at least on IG. I do stores three to eight times a day on IG. Right. Like, I find an opportunity and then I push insanely hard. Like, if I'm you and I'm doing podcasting, man, like every day, at least a podcast. At least one. And just get insanely great at that thing and don't step off the gas because you have a limited window. Like I have a limited window with YouTube that maybe it's another year, maybe it's another five years, I don't know. But it's limited. And I need to push everything I've got through that window before the window shuts down on me, because that's what most people miss. And then the window closes on them. The window closes on you. And then you think, wow, that other person made so much money off of my idea. No, they didn't. Right. Like that. You need to go off and do it. It's not their fault. You're the dumb one. Like, you didn't act.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Go through that window full force. Right. So as soon as I find those two things, what I love and what I can make money at, then I push as hard as I possibly can to milk everything out of it.

That's amazing. That's amazing. So one thing, just hearing just about scaling that content of 5,000 writers and all that sort of stuff, that obviously goes into team building, Right? So for me, we're this whole company here. Build your empire, and we're kind of starting to develop this team. One thing I want to ask you is, when it comes to scaling a company and kind of developing culture within a company, how do you build leadership within an organization?

So it starts with you figuring out what the most important core value is. And that's a personal thing. So what's your one word? For me, it's believe whatever it is. For you, everybody on your team has to either love that or it's almost what they're about. So when I lead, so I'm about believe, you know, I need people who love believe. It may not be your one word, but it's better be. Better be close to it. Because if you're something against, if you don't, like, believe, like, we're not going to work well together. If you don't believe in entrepreneurs, this is not the home for you. Right. You could be the greatest, most talented video editor of all time. But if you don't like entrepreneurship and don't like the believe message, like, you're not going to be happy. And neither will I, like, go somewhere else. It's awesome for everybody. So I lead heavy with the mission and what we're trying to accomplish and what we're all about. And that attracts the right people and the people who see that and say, that's the stupidest thing of all time. Awesome. Like, go somewhere else where you're going to be happy and I'll be happy doing my thing too. So that's a start. Second part is this is a little trickier for people to get. You need to want for you as a leader, you need to want your people to win more than you want them to win with you. You need to want them to win as humans more than you want them to win with you. And that's how you catch their heart and soul, not just their mind. And so I try to be the chief goal officer for everybody on my team. Like, what do you want out of life? What do you want out of life? And then how can I help you get there? And maybe that means you're with me for 20 years or maybe it's three months and then I'll kick you out. Like, you need to go off and do that thing. So I see me is running parallel paths with the people that I come. Even this, this is a parallel path. For the 25 minutes we're on this show, we're running a parallel path. And I want it to mean something. And then, you know, maybe, maybe we co host a show and I see you every day for the rest of my life, or maybe I never see you ever again. Right? Like, who knows? But we're running this parallel path. And if I understand what it is that you want, the worst thing you can do is tell me what your goals are. Because then I'm fighting and I'm thinking I'm dreaming. How can, how can Casey go off and accomplish that thing? Ye. And so if you take on that mindset as a, as a leader from just what can you guys do for me to, like, I want you to win as humans, and we're running a parallel path together. And if it doesn't make sense anymore, I'm going to kick you out because you need to go off and go be a baker. I'm going to go off and do that thing.

I love that. That's amazing, man. So with building a team for you, what's your team size now when it comes to, like, people with the organization that you've built?

So we've got 24 people on the team.

Okay.

All doing various tasks. Some of them are local, some of them overseas, depending on what it is that we need to get done. And I start by doing everything myself. So, like, Instagram was me. People say they don't have time to post on Instagram, guys. I was posting six times a day. Me, myself, Evan Carmichael, just me. And writing the captions and doing lives five times a week and doing stories three to eight times a day. Me to figure it out, to taste it, to see. Like, can I make this into something while still running my business and having 20 people on my team doing other stuff? And then I said, okay, this works. Like, I can make this into something. So then I hired somebody. Now Instagram is still just me and one person, and we're doing still six times a day. Right. Content, videos plus pictures, everything. And that's how I roll. Like, I'm hands on. If we're working together, I'm insanely hands on.

Okay.

Like, I'm into everything. I want to know everything. We're gon make it awesome.

Yeah, Makes sense. Makes sense.

It's gonna be awesome. Like, whatever. Whatever I'm spending time on has to be amazing. It has to be like this podcast for this 25 minutes has to be awesome.

Yep.

Because I'm spending time on it, for sure. That's my mindset. Not from an ego. Like, I rock, but, like, if I'm spending time, it has to be meaningful. Whatever I touch. So if I'm spending time on Instagram, it has to be meaningful. And so I'll do it myself. And then I'll scale a team around it if it starts to make sense. So I do an IG Live morning show. And you've seen that?

Yep.

In the morning, I do a show. I have somebody come in who's in my city. We chat for an hour. And at the beginning of just me, a phone, and. And that was it. And then like a tripod.

Okay?

Me, a phone and a tripod, and I've Got, Listen, I've got 24 people on my team, but I started myself. I love dirty. I love ghetto. I love, like, crappy starts. It's the best thing of all time. I love getting in the mud. So I made the first videos, just me and a phone and the guest. And then people started saying, hey, Evan, you're seven feet away from the camera. We can't hear you properly. Great. I'm going to buy a microphone.

Awesome.

Let's make that happen. And now Danny, my videographer, comes in and films some of the videos for YouTube. And this might be the next big thing that I do. And then we have a team of 10 people in the studio every time doing everything or it fizzles and I never do it again after the next year, I don't know. But you start, you start, you get dirty your hands on. And if it's starting to work and starting to give you an roi, then I invest that back into building a team to explode it forward.

Okay, that's amazing. That's some good advice. And I think a lot of people being young, getting into this content game, like starting dirty is the only route. You know, it's like doing it yourself, trying to create the content and figure out which ways work for you. Like, for example, that's how I got into it now. And now we're trying to develop our team here. So that's. I definitely appreciate that advice and for all the people listening, I'm sure they do as well. Something I do want to touch on because I just. Regarding podcasts and networking, obviously a lot of the YouTube videos that are crazy viral on your page of the top 10 rules to success. And one thing I want to ask you just regarding your journey so far, what would be like, your top three rules to success as someone that has really built an empire per se?

So I always lead with believe. Like, whether you believe you can or you can't, you're right. You have to believe that what you're doing is important. You have to believe that you have the ability to do it. That even if you don't know how to do it yet, that you will figure it out. That if you only see darkness around you, light is there at the end of the tunnel. You will find your way through, especially as an entrepreneur, because you're doing this thing that's never been done before and you definitely haven't done it before. You're talking about building an empire. Empire builders have to have a belief that they'll figure it out and make it happen. If you have great ideas and you're genius, but you don't believe in yourself. You're going to be stuck being a janitor. And so belief is the cornerstone of everything for me. Number two, I would say you have to do work that you love. If you look at the most successful people of all time, look at whoever your hero is, they didn't do it just trying to make money. They did it because they loved it. Now, money is not number thousand on the list either. Some people say money is everything and they're wrong. And some people say money is the root of all evil and they're wrong too. Money is super important. It's just not number one. There has to be something about money for you and building your empire, but money's there at number 2, 3, or 4. Like if you have money at number 200 on your list, you're not going to make any money. It's just not number one. So you have to be doing work that you love, like the process. If you want to do a podcast, you better like talking, you better like doing interviews. If you don't like doing interviews, like don't launch a podcast, you're going to get destroyed. Right? But a lot of people will do it because it's the hot marketing opportunity for next year. And so they dive into it. You're going to lose. So you have to enjoy the work, the actual process, not just the results. And then three, I would say is just start. Like successful people start. They start and they fail. And they tweak and they try and they start. There's probably tons of people in your audience who want to start a podcast. And for the past 18 months they've been thinking about starting a podcast and they're worried about, well, what microphone do I get? And what's the name of my show going to be? And where's my studio? Start, Start. Take your phone and start. Record your first episode today. It's gonna suck. Amazing. Better next week. Like start. Successful people start. They get into the mud, it's dirty, it's ghetto. And they start.

Yeah, I love that. I literally started my podcast with Apple headphones, the same ones that you're wearing. Literally, you know, so that's the thing. So I know you have like five minutes now. So regarding just I always like to say building an empire. That's what we're doing here at Villager Empire and having these world class events just through your journey so far. I always like to go back to the point of just back to when you were 18 to 20, obviously. I'm 18 right now. A lot of the audience is younger. If you would, if you were to go back and kind of put yourself in your shoes in this day and age with social media and it being 2018 with all these different opportunities, what would you do differently along your journey if you were 18 year old today?

So if I was an 18 year old today, I would be doing what I'm doing. Like I would be doing YouTube videos and I would be doing Instagram content. I think YouTube is the best long term way to build a brand. I think Instagram is the fastest way to build a brand.

Got it.

So I think the thing with YouTube is if you make a video, like if you're gonna put this up on YouTube in five years, people will still find this content. The content that I made five years ago is still getting views on my channel. It ends up being millions of views that I get from content I've made years ago. Yeah, Instagram, nobody's looking back past a day ago, right? Like you're not looking back on somebody's post from a year ago.

That's the truth.

And so you're on your. It's Insta, right? So you're on this treadmill where you have to always be, always be, always be, always be creating. But it's a faster way to grow. And so I would start with Instagram right now. I would be finding out what is the thing that I love, that I need, that I feel is missing in the world. I make videos because I wanted to learn from Elon Musk and Steve Jobs and these people. But to sit there and watch four hours of an Elon Musk press conference to get like 20 minutes of gold that I can apply. One, because Elon Musk is not a great speaker and two, because people ask him questions that I don't care about. Like I don't care about Tesla's stock price. It doesn't help me as an entrepreneur. And so people are just asking questions that aren't relevant. So I felt there was a missing, like a link. I wanted that condensed down, so I went out and did it. What's missing? What do you want to learn? How do you want to. How do you want to. What's the message you're going to put out there? So, like, you want to help people build empires. Amazing what sucks about the content out there. And then you start being the solution for people. Amazing. I would start that on Instagram right now. I would try to start making some money from doing it on Instagram as I Build my own brand name up and then as soon as I could afford the time and the effort, jump to YouTube to start making long form content so I can start building a really long term play and not just be on the Instagram treadmill.

Got it.

I'm doing it opposite. I'm going from YouTube to Insta and it's so easy. Holy cow. Like a YouTuber. Going to Instagram is the easiest thing in the world. Yeah, Jumping from we're doing three videos that are 20 minutes a day to then jump to Instagram and do pictures. It's so easy, it's ridiculous. Like people are complaining. Yeah, doing the other jump is hard. Going from Insta to YouTube is a lot harder. But it's worth it if you want to build a long term brand for yourself.

I love it. Well, last question before I let you go, Evan. Just regarding not just content itself, but just fulfillment and passion and like you say, belief in yourself, which is for everyone listening from a daily habit perspective, like, what's something that you make sure you get done every day, no matter what?

The thing that sets me up for my day is I need to share a message. And so for anybody who follows me on Instagram, you'll see a morning quick message. And so what I'll do is I'll think about what happened yesterday. So like tomorrow I'm going to think of what happened today. Maybe I think about Casey and then I'll come up with a message. Something like something really positive, something I was inspired or like I want to kick Casey's ass or like whatever.

Yeah, right.

Then that'll be my morning. And what that does is that that sets me up. And so in the five minutes of thinking about what I want to say and then recording it and sharing it, that sets me up to go off and have a great day and be fired up. Because I don't think most people wake up. At least I don't fired up. Like, yes, like I'm ready to destroy today I wake up and I'm tired, man. I got sleepies in my eyes and like lines on my face from the bedsheets, you know, but that sets me up. So figuring out what works for you. I think the good news for you and your audience is you have already had moments in your life where you felt fired up. Nobody's never felt fired up. So like, what happened to generate that? Maybe it's listening to a podcast. Like if listening to Casey gets you fired up, great. Like how many episodes do you have, Casey? This is like 8585 episodes. Right. Like start your day with Casey.

Yeah, right.

Like, if that gets you fired up, if that's what gets you feeling. I want to go build my empire. Put them on every morning, right? Maybe for somebody, it's hugging your dog in the sun for 20 minutes. Awesome. Like, whatever the thing is that gets you feeling fired up, you've already felt it before. Now do it with intention. Put that into your morning routine so that you're not happen to be stumbling on YouTube when you see a video and then you get fired up. Like, no, this is what inspires me. I'm going to start my day with that every day. So for me, it's thinking about an entrepreneur and then sharing a message. But that may not be like, it doesn't matter what I do. Figure it out what gets you fired up and then chart your start. Put that into your morning routine every single day.

I love it. Well, Evan, I just want to thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the show. So what's the best place for people to connect with you? Is it Instagram now YouTube? What's the best place where people can personally reach out to you? Or if they have any questions or maybe they love this podcast. What's the best place?

So first off, if you've loved this podcast, show Casey some love. Go give it a, you know, give it a review. Give us some five stars. Share it to your audience. Doing a lot of work here, right? Make him happy. Second, if this is episode 80, 86. What is 86 or 85?

It's 86.

86. I want to come back to be episode 186 as the guest.

Got it. I got you.

Well, I'm excited for that. Okay. For people to reach out to me. I think if you want to buy the books, Amazon's the easiest spot. The YouTube channel. What video should they start with Casey on? The YouTube channel.

I personally love the five lesson. The five lessons in life people learn too late. That one.

Okay.

That one's super.

That's good. Okay. Especially good for a young audience.

Yeah, for sure.

So check out that video. Maybe Case will put in the show notes or something.

Will do.

The five lessons people learn too late. And then for Me Personally, Instagram, DMs and Twitter is probably, if you want like a personal response is probably. I'm starting to get a little crazy where I can't get back to everybody.

Totally.

Just kind of luck of the draw. But that's probably the easiest place to reach me.

Amazing. Well, Evan, I'll definitely be reaching out to you for number 186. I have it written down, so feel free to. You'll be getting that message shortly, my man. But I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show. I know that you're super busy and I know that my audience will definitely appreciate you coming on the show as well. And I'll make sure to put his Instagram, YouTube a link to that one video as well. And other than that, Evan, I definitely appreciate you coming on the show.

Appreciate it. Casey, man, love your energy.

Yep. Thanks so much, Evan. I'll talk to you soon.

Cheers.

Yep. Bye. Bye.

Monarch Legacy of Monsters An Apple Original Series the world is on fire. I decided to do something about it on November 17th. This place, it's not ours. Believe me, the most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything. I promise. Monarch Legacy of monsters streaming November 17th only on Apple TV. Plus.