10 Legendary Rules from Legendary Entrepreneurs

Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. I believe in entrepreneurs, and here are 10 legendary rules from legendary entrepreneurs.

Do everything you can to survive and not to give up. As long as you tried everything you can, then if you fail, you'll sleep okay, and you'll pick yourself up, and you'll learn, you know, when things are better, you'll learn from your mistakes and you'll start again. If, on the other hand, you give up you know, you give up too readily, you'll forever kick yourself. I wish you all the best of your best in your quest, because there's going to be— I'm afraid there's going to be a lot of people who will fail. I think the other important thing is just not to take failure too seriously. It's something that happens to— something like 80% of all small business people fail, either go into Chapter 11 or actually go bankrupt. And that's a lot of people, and some people take that really badly, and they should realize that the important thing is just to learn from it and come back and start again. And an awful lot of You know, really big, you know, multi-millionaires and billionaires who've been through 2 or 3 bankrupt companies in their lives have learned from them and have come back the stronger. You know, don't be embarrassed about your failure as long as you've tried everything you can to avoid it. Don't take it too personally.

And don't let people who you may respect and who you believe know what they're talking about, don't let them tell you it can't be done. Because often they will tell you it can't be done. And it's just because they don't have the courage to try it. Everybody's got will and everybody's got dreams and everybody's got aspirations, but it's only the people that really put in the time that get there. And I think I learned most that despite any setbacks, that if I just keep on grinding, I keep on working, that I usually can outwork people. And then, you know, I also learned that no matter how many times you fail, it really doesn't matter. All it takes is one hit and then everybody can call you an overnight success.

Anytime an obstacle presented itself, I used it to my advantage and made it work. And I never heard the word no. If I heard the word no, it meant maybe. Then I made maybe yes.

And that's why I was curious about the art world and Oprah. That's a world you don't come from. When you go into those situations now and you're mixing it up with these wealthy people, do you find there are times you don't know what to do? You don't know the etiquette? You haven't been raised in that environment? No, because I'm myself in any room I'm in. You never embarrassed yourself? Of course not. You never walked in and said, "Oh, everybody thinks I'm ignorant here. I'm stupid." I don't feel ignorant. Right. I don't. And so when you walk into a boardroom with a bunch of guys in suits who all went to college, you're fine? Yeah, I mean, because they read a bunch of words. I've lived a bunch of life. Well, that's true. Their law degree doesn't intimidate you, in other words. It kind of evens us out, whether they know it or not. I think people that look for great ideas to make money, uh, you know, aren't nearly as successful as those who say, okay, what do I really love to do? What am I excited about? What do I know something about? You know, what's kind of interesting and compelling? I'm going to put the vast majority of my energy, attention, and dollars into building a great product or service and put a smaller amount into shouting about it, marketing it. Because I know if I build a great product or service, my customers will tell each other. You have to mix in some patience with that.

I think too is you gotta make sure that whatever you're doing is a great product or service. The standard is lower for your product or service, but if you're entering anything where there's an existing marketplace against large entrenched competitors, then your product or service needs to be much better than theirs. It can't be a little bit better because then you put yourself in the shoes of the consumer and they say, why would you buy it as a consumer? You're always going to buy the trusted brand unless there's a big difference. So a lot of times, you know, entrepreneur will come up with something which is only slightly better, and it's, it's not— can't just be slightly better, it's got to be a lot better.

Don't necessarily think that you have to have the home run and the huge Apple computer on your first start. I spent a long time in my life with skills just building little devices for fun. For fun is one of the key things, because that drives you to think and think and think and make it better and better and better than you ever would if you're doing it for a company. Build things at first for yourself that you would want. Don't allow anyone— friend, family, acquaintance, teachers, whoever it is— don't allow anyone to tell you that what you are dreaming for yourself and your family is not possible. It is possible. Don't be one of those people 20 years from now are gonna be walking around in a 9-to-5 job miserable and angry and bitter. Thank you guys so much for watching. If you have your own legendary rules that you'd like to share and add value to the community, then leave a comment below. And if you like this video, you wanna see more, subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you soon.

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