10 Questions About my Book, YOUR ONE WORD - #EvansBook ep. 74

What is up everybody? Welcome back. It's great to see you, Believe Nation. I'm doing something a little bit different today that I haven't done on previous editions of my Evan's Book Series. My publisher wrote to me with 10 questions that they want to use to help promote the book and get publicity and attention around it. Looking at the questions, I thought, "Hmm, maybe I should make a video about this because you guys could help kind of understand the mindset behind the book, where I'm going with it, why I think it's so important, and I'd much rather speak than write out answers to questions anyway." So today's episode of Evan's Book is going to be answering the 10 questions that came in from my publisher, and I'd love to know what you guys think about it afterwards. Leave a comment below, or as I'm going along. Let's get into the questions. So the first one that came up is, What motivated you to start this movement? One of the things that I discovered about myself and with Believe, my one word, is I hate untapped potential. It drives me nuts when I see somebody who's living way below where they should be, who's playing a smaller game than they should be. It bothers me a lot. It started off with just the people around me, the people in my circle, and it got bigger and bigger and bigger, and to the point now where I want to be able to have a bigger impact on people. I think for all of you who have this skill, who have an ability to, to make a change, to spark a shift, to make the world better in some way, then you owe it to yourself and to others to go and do it. There's nothing worse than somebody who has a ton of skill and potential and they never realize it. And instead of being the Michael Jordan at whatever you could be, right? Everybody has Michael Jordan level talent at something. And instead of being that Michael Jordan in your field, in your particular industry, you're an accountant at Starbucks. And nothing wrong with being an accountant at Starbucks. You know, I love accountants. I love Starbucks. Howard Schultz is the founder of Starbucks. He's on my wall. But it's not what you were supposed to do. You could be doing so much better. And, you know, 95% of the world wakes up and plays small every day. And it bothers me. It just bothers me. And so that was the start of all of this. You know, the mission that I'm on is I want to be able to help a billion entrepreneurs, and that makes me want to do things on a bigger scale, whether it's write the book, whether that's making YouTube videos. I'm not so much into the one-on-one coaching. You know, I don't sell business coaching services. It's not the game I want to play. I want to be able to do something on a much bigger impact. And so what I think about, what I encourage people watching and reading the book is that I want you to know that you could do something so much bigger with the potential that you have inside you. There have been days, and maybe it's every day, when you think about, I know I could be doing more than this. I feel like I'm wasting my time and wasting my talents. And this limited amount of time that we have on this planet to go and do something special I want you to do something that can make you proud, make your kids proud, make your grandkids proud, that the story of you will carry on for generations because of the amazing impact that you had in this life. And most people don't do that. Most people, again, are living small. And so that motivates me. That's why I want this movement to take off. That's why I want you guys to read the book. That's why I feel that it's so important. And that's the love, energy, heart, and passion is flowing through those pages. That really means something to me. That's a good first question. I'm excited. We got 9 more. Let's go through it. Number 2: Your one word is believe. Can you explain how you chose this word? When I was getting started in this process, I didn't even know that there was this one word concept. It wasn't— this book did not exist, right? So I had to stumble and fumble my way through it. You know, I was in the publishing game, right? I had a website. I still have a website. And it just felt like I was in the views game, just trying to get lots of views, just trying to sell advertising. And I felt like I could do something more important. The work wasn't as fulfilling as I felt that it could be, and I was having a hard time explaining what I did and for people to pick up the message. And so I thought the problem was actually a tagline problem. I thought it was, well, I need to say Evan Carmichael and then, you know, helping entrepreneurs or over 20 million entrepreneurs helped and counting. That was one of my taglines before, or, you know, inspiration and motivation for entrepreneurs. And I struggled on what it was that I wanted to be known as. And what I later realized was I was really struggling with who am I actually, not just how I want to present myself to the world, but who am I actually as a human being and how can I flow that through everything that I do. I started thinking about who I was and there was a couple things that happened along my journey. One, I watched the Jobs movie with Ashton Kutcher that was inspiring to me. And then I watched this Jobs clip, which is one of my favorite clips of all time, where he's talking about marketing and he's talking about marketing being about values. It's not so much just about whatever product or service you're selling, not the features or benefits, but the values, the values that you stand for as a company, as people selling through your values. That's what marketing is really all about. And so I got to think, well, what's, what, what's my value? What do I stand for? What do I What do I believe in? And I just started making a list. I made a list of all these different words or sentences that I resonated with. It was just spitballing. It was just like whatever came into my head, pound it down on the paper and see what happens. And I made this Notepad file and I went through just whatever came to my mind. And believe was actually somewhere in the middle of that list. But at the end of the day, I didn't know, I didn't feel like I had it. I didn't know what I wanted to rally around yet. So I slept on it. The next day I woke up, I looked at my list again, and believe just kind of popped off the page for me. But then I thought it was too big, like it's too big a word. Who am I to be believe? You know, believe is so big and I'm only dealing with entrepreneurs, you know, at least I thought at the moment. And other people have done believe before. People have already done believe campaigns. How am I unique or different? And, you know, what do you guys think? And so I struggled to make it more complicated. You know, I would, okay, believe in yourself or believe in believe in your business or believe in your passion or like I would add all these other things onto it. And at the end of that day, I still didn't feel like I had it. I still didn't feel like I knew what I wanted to do. None of them really popped off. And then I woke up the next day and you know what? I just felt like I just like believe. I just like that one word. I just like that one idea. Then I thought, can I do this crazy thing and build a business and build a life around one word, around believe? That's it. It seems too simple. You know, how can a person be defined by just one word? And I just started doing little experiments. I did my newsletter as a test. I did my YouTube channel as a test, just one video. I like to prove things that they work on a small scale before expanding. And through the book, it guides you through different experiments to test because I don't want you spending— you know, time is one of the things that we have not enough of. It's our most precious asset. So I don't want you off spending time on something and it not working. I don't want you to just take my word for it that it works. I want you to apply it and test it in small ways and see, okay, this actually feels good. Oh, I'm getting some results. Okay, what's the next thing? And then slowly helps you go from the 3 sections of core, campaign, company. You figure out who you are at your core. You start to apply it in a campaign, small test, make sure you're getting some wins before you bring it to a company and start making major, major, major changes and decisions. That's how I came to believe, and I needed to prove to myself that it worked. I needed to prove to myself that this wasn't just some crazy idea, but that I could get results. And everything that I tried around believe instantly did way better, way, way, way better than anything else that I had ever done. And so I decided to do this crazy thing and build my entire business and my life around believe. And because I felt that power, I then thought, well, maybe other people could benefit from this as well. Like, is this just me? Is this something that only fits for me, or could other people use it too? And just the people around me started saying, well, what's happening? Like, look at all this growth. Just you're more confident, you have more passion, you're getting so much better results. What happened? And I was actually a little shy, a little nervous to say, well, you know, I did this thing, you know, this one word idea. And so, well, that's interesting. Explain it to me. Give me some help on it. And then I would help other people find their one words and then see them start to have major improvements and changes in their lives. And I thought, wow, this thing actually like This could be not just for me, this could be for everybody. And then part of the research in the book was building a company around it too. So finding other people who have built entire businesses around their one word, from $50,000 full-time income guy to half a million dollars in revenue to a million dollars to $5 million to $150 million. And I found by talking to these entrepreneurs and traveling across North America talking to these people that they didn't have the plan either. They didn't have the blueprint. The book wasn't written for them either. They just kind of stumbled onto it. And it felt right, just like it felt right for me. And so the goal with the book is to be able to provide all of those stories into one easy to digest and apply blueprint for you to be able to build your life and your business around your One Word. Number 3, how do you help people find their One Word and their Credo? So this is a great question. Some people I find, as soon as you ask the question, they already know. Some people are They just know. That wasn't me. I took a lot of time to try to figure it out. For the people who know, it's great. It's time to move on to the next exercise. For the people who don't, there's a couple things that we look at, and I guide people through a 5-step process to find out what their one word is. Some of the things to think about are making a list of everything that makes you happy, thinking about this is not just a New Year's resolution. This is not just what makes you happy today. It's what's always made you happy. So think about your favorite songs, even songs growing up, your favorite movies, your best friends. What did you love about your parents? What did you love about your favorite teacher? Write all those things down, and then what is the common trait between them? Why do you like this music, and what does that have to do with your favorite teacher at school? There's a common trait between all those things that have connected all your happiness for your entire life, and it's finding out what that is. And so for me, it's believe. My parents, they're on the wall here behind me. My parents always would tell me that I was a Castrilli Carmichael and I could do anything that I wanted. My mom's last name is Castrilli, my dad's last name is Carmichael, my middle name is Castrilli. So I was a Castrilli Carmichael and I could do anything that I wanted. And that's believe, right? That's what believe is all about. I love the underdog stories. My favorite movie is Seabiscuit. It's about this horse and jockey and owner that everybody thought, you know, would never work. There are all these guys who are down on their luck and not having success, and then they come together and they're this huge underdog that goes on to win. And I love those kind of stories. You know, the people that I respect most and like dealing with most are the ones who push people to be better, that believe in them when they're down. And so all of these things that came across my life, the common theme was believe. So that's one way to look at it. You can look at it as the negative. What are some of the negative things in your life that have been constant as well? What do you hate? Some people find this a lot easier. Instead of going to the positive, go to the negative. What do you hate in the world? What do you hate? Like, I hate being around these kind of people. Can you access that emotion easily? What are those kinds of people that you absolutely can't stand being around? And then the opposite is going to be your one word, right? Like, that's your anti-word. The opposite is going to be what you do like and what you do stand for. So it's a couple of the ways that the book guides you through that process to try to figure out what it is that you actually stand for. And then what happens is a really interesting thing, because once you realize what you do stand for, and especially the first part of this book can apply to everybody. You don't have to be an entrepreneur, you don't have to be in business. It's just self-awareness and understanding, because when you find that one word, when you find out what really, really, really matters to you, you're going to find that there are some areas in your life that are incongruent with that one word, that are out of alignment, where you're acting small, where you are not taking the steps that you should and you feel bad about it, but you're afraid of something. You're afraid of judgment. You're afraid of failure, whatever it is. You're afraid of something. And so you're playing small. You're playing small. And then you discover— you actually realize you're playing small. And instead of just ignoring it like you usually do every day, you just ignore it and maybe complain about it. You realize that you have to take some action on it. It's very liberating in that you realize that, listen, I have control, I can do this, I can change my life around this area because I haven't been living to my potential here. But it's also scary in that some of those changes might be painful. And that's where you see so much growth in people who go through this exercise after they really figure out who they are. And this is something that we teach. Most people are not equipped. Most people don't have the tools. Most people haven't been told how to do this. They don't teach this in schools and universities. And so it's just such a powerful experience to guide people through. And I'm so grateful for having found it. In terms of the credo, the credo is the second part after you find your one word. When you look at my word of believe, believe has a connotation. It has an understanding that most people will associate with. And I think for most people, you think believe as being self-confident. Believe in yourself. And that's definitely part of it. But what you need to do is once you identify what your one word is, then break it down into 3 different components that change it from just the word believe to #believe. I'm labeling it now. This is what believe means to me. And very often you'll have the common definition, but there'll also be some other things that make up your one word that aren't as obvious. They're obvious to you, but they're not obvious to everybody else. And that's how you can say, I'm not just about this one word, the common definition. That's what people feel like finding your one word. I'm not just one word. I'm multiple words. How can you just put me in that box of one word? You get to create your own box. You're not just limited by the standard definition of that box by other people. So belief for me is, yes, believe in yourself, the self-confidence, but also believe in what you're doing. It's super important to me. Having passion for the work that you're involved in day to day is important. So believe in what you're doing and also believe that it's going to work out. To have the conviction to follow through, to persist every day, keep going, that even if you don't know how it's going to work out, believe that it will work out. And so for me, #Believe breaks down into self-confidence, passion, and conviction. It's really important for you to then identify for yourself after you find your one word, what are the three things that make that up, and then look at your life and look at your business and look at what you're doing every day. How much of what you're doing is in alignment? Are you around people that make you feel those things? Are you teaching others in your life around those things? You know, if you have a team, are you guiding your team along those things and making them feel more believe or family or justice or integrity or whatever your one word is? You should be a planet with a gravitational pull for that one word, where everything around you now has to start to get better, where you are a missionary for that cause. I'm a missionary for belief. If you are around me, on my team, watching my channel, reading the books, the more time you spend around me, the more you are going to believe in yourself, in others, and the things that you're working on. It's just going to happen. And I want that same thing for you. Whatever is most important for you, I want you to be a beacon of light and then spread that to others. And it starts with you believing it yourself and then the people around you, and then slowly it expands and expands and expands. And so finding the credo is that next step. And then we can work on building a campaign around it, building a company around it. But the core section is so super important because most people don't have the self-awareness to know what they actually really stand for. And you look at most companies, yeah, okay, a company has a list of 15 core values. Here's what we stand for. Hurrah! All right. Great. Go talk to anybody in that company and ask them if they know what the core values are. Ask the CEO if he knows what those core values are. I bet you almost nobody will be able to do it. And so if you can't even say what the, what the 15 or 10 or whatever core values are of your business, then how are you— you're supposed to use this as a, as it's the lens through which you see the world, right? This is how you see the world through this core. It's how you make the important decisions in your life and business through these core values. If you don't remember what they are, then you're not making important decisions. You're not using them, you're not leveraging them. And so finding the one thing, that one word that breaks down into three makes it just so much, so much, so much easier for people to remember. Number, where are we? Four. What's the biggest problem facing entrepreneurs today? How can your book help fix it? I think the biggest problem facing entrepreneurs honestly is so many people get into it for the wrong reasons. I think so many people get into being an entrepreneur because they're trying to make money, because they're just trying to make a quick buck, because they, they pulled up a copy of a magazine that showed them the 10 hottest businesses to start this year. And so they go off and do that. And if your goal is just for the money, you're never going to make it. You're just not. You look at the most successful entrepreneurs, you look at, you look at Jobs and Winfrey and Gates and all these people who started great businesses, or whoever you most respect and look up to. You You look at why they started their business, it was never just to make money. They wanted to have an impact. They wanted to change the way that things were done in the industry. You look at Steve Jobs, who was a multimillionaire in his 20s. He could have retired. He could have gone on and done anything else that he wanted. He had all the money that he needed for the rest of his life in his 20s. And what did he do? He kept working at Apple until the day he died. He was working at Apple with a stint where he was forced to to leave in the middle, but like till the day he died, working at Apple and not making money his top priority. And what happened? Apple became the most successful, the most valuable company in the world at the time under his leadership. And you see it over and over and over and over again where if you make a decision just for the money, you're going to quit because entrepreneurship is hard. It's one of the hardest things you're ever going to do in your life. As soon as it gets tough, you're going to quit. You're going to go find something else because this is— why put up with all the crap and all the pain and all the suffering if you're not getting the reward? Where the reward is in the work, not the outcome. The real reward is in doing the work. I write the book because I want to write the book. Yes, I want the goal of having you guys read it, but I like the process. I make these videos because I want to make the videos. Yes, I want to hit millions of subscribers. Great, that's a goal. But if I— if that's my only goal, to have a million subscribers, you know, my, my attitude and mindset shifts. The actions I take shift. Where even if I never hit a million subscribers, I'm going to keep doing this because I love doing it until the day that I stop love doing it. And then I'll go find something else to do. And that is what successful entrepreneurs have in common. They love the work. They love their craft. They would do it even if they weren't getting paid for it. And then they add so much value that they end up getting paid a lot of money for it. So money is important. I'm not saying, I'm not saying money's not important. I'm saying don't chase the money. It's just don't chase only the money. And that's why too many people get into business. I'm only looking to make a buck and it's not working, so I quit and do something else. In terms of how this book— the second part of that question was how can your book help fix it? I think the self-awareness helps fix it. I think understanding who you are as a person, what you really stand for, what means the most to you, what you value most, will help you pick the right opportunities. If you are all about honesty, if that's what your thing is, then there's a lot of businesses that, you know, you don't want to be involved in. And the way that you set up and run your business will be very different than a lot of other companies. You know, you don't want to play in that gray zone. You definitely don't want to play in, you know, the negative territory. So having that self-awareness will help you make better decisions. And not just in business, but in life, where if you've doubted yourself, you haven't had confidence, you don't know if you should take this path or this path. A lot of it comes down to you not having enough self-awareness, you not knowing who you are, what you stand for, because figuring that out— this again is the lens through which you see the world and make all the important decisions. It's one of the most important exercises you'll ever do in your life. And so it makes every business decision that you make easier, more effective, stronger, more true to you, more impactful, and more likely to have an impact on your customers, your partners, your suppliers, and media as well. So once you figure that out, what your mission is, what you stand for, your one word, then the book guides you through how to apply that to a campaign. I want you to get sales from it, right? I want you to make money from your one word, right? I want you to be able to hire people, build a team, have an impact. You know, get a bigger house, go on that vacation, buy the cars that you want, right? I want you to be able to do that. And so it starts with having a campaign. And again, like I talked about before, I want this to work for you. I want to— I have to prove it to you that this works. You have to prove it to yourself. You shouldn't just blindly follow anybody. Prove that it works. This is a small test to prove that it works, that you're getting some results. And then from there, it'll help you build out the rest of your campaign and build out a company. From hiring a team, from raising capital, from, you know, building a culture, from how to fire people, how to onboard people. All of that stuff matters. And so the book guides you through the process. But again, every step along the way, you're proving to yourself that it's working, having an impact, that it feels good, and you get results. Next, what is an example of a great workplace culture? This is an interesting thing because I look at Which was the book? It was Built to Last. Was it Built to Last? Yes, Built to Last by Jim Collins, who looked at companies that were built to last, that lasted forever, that have been around for 100+ years. And he looked at what were some of the factors behind it. And one of the most important things was having, having the culture. And so if you have Walt Disney on that list, which they were, and I think it was Philip Morris, one of the cigarette companies were on that list as well. These two companies obviously have very different cultures, right? You know, Disney wants to make kids really happy. Tobacco company wants to, you know, maybe sell cigarettes to kids. Very different cultures, but they work for them. And so that's what I found consistently as well in dealing with the companies I interviewed in the book, from the people who— the $50,000 full-time income guy was just himself, but he then partners up with suppliers and contractors who come on board. He's all about awesome. Roberto Blake is the $50,000 Entrepreneur, is all about awesome. So he wants to create awesome work. You have to want to create awesome work in Roberto's eyes. So if you are a supplier to him, if you are a contractor with him, if you're a partner with him, you have to be focused on creating an awesome product, an awesome experience. If that's not part of what you're all about, then you're not going to work out well together. Toronto Dance Salsa is the next business we look at that has half a million dollars in sales. And has a team of 10 instructors or so and then 40 or 50 helpers as well who are part of it. They're all about family. So it's about not judging others. It's about being welcoming, being opening, you know. So it's not, it's not just about teaching somebody how to do a dance move, but making them feel like they're home. And so you recruit teachers and instructors and assistants and volunteers who all believe in the same thing. And as a result, you get students who all believe in the same thing as well. And the thing is, for all of these cultures, You look at my, my business is all about Believe, right? And we have 16 people on the team right now as of this recording. Some people look at Believe and say, that's stupid. Believe is so stupid. Like, I don't care about Believe. I just want to be a programmer. That's really a stupid message. Amazing. Don't apply. I don't want to work with you. You don't want to work with me. We would just be fighting the whole time. And I think this is where a lot of people make bad decisions in hiring. And as if you're an employee and looking at taking on a job, they just look at the paper. You just look at, oh, do they have the skills, right? I'm trying to hire a programmer. Okay, great. Do they have the programming skills? Yes. Perfect. Okay, let's give them a programming test, see if they can solve these problems. They did it. Perfect. Great. Hire them on board. Meanwhile, they don't believe in the mission. They don't have the same values that I have, right? You can't just marry somebody without understanding who they are, without going on dates. right? And talking about important life things that you believe in to your core. If you love honesty and they are dishonest, who cares if they can produce great code? It's not going to create an amazing culture. So it doesn't matter what your one word is. There's no judgment. There's no judgment that you have the right one word or the wrong one word. You know, yours doesn't have to be believe for it to be a good one word. You got to find the thing that is right for you. There's no perfect business. There's just the perfect business that is for you. And so the best cultures are the ones where the, the founder truly believes in that mission, in that one word and what they're all about, and then articulates it to attract a team that believe in the same thing. And if everybody is on the same page, if everybody shares the same values, then you need to make sure you've got that plus the skills. And that's a great culture because most of the conflicts that happen really are just about different values. In relationships, in businesses, the big conflicts that happen are about different values. Somebody values speed and somebody values doing it right. I don't care if it has, you know, a couple mistakes. We need to get it out by this day. No, you know, it has to be perfect. And those two people will constantly fight because they have different values. They have a different belief system. And so you need to make sure that you know what your belief system is through your one word, and then bring on a team of people who believe in the same thing. And again, it doesn't matter what the one word is, as long as it's true to you, and it's true to the people that you hire and bring on board. That makes for a great culture. Number 6, do you think anyone can be an entrepreneur? That's an interesting question. I think everybody has it in them. I think everybody has an idea of what they want to do that could be bigger. I think everybody's had an idea of, of a product or service that they want to start. I think more than being an entrepreneur, though, I think everybody could have more potential because people may not have the risk tolerance to be an entrepreneur. You know, they may not have the, uh, the fortitude to handle the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur. And so I think that's where people may fall down. I think that's what holds people a lot back from being an entrepreneur. I think everybody has these ideas for what they could do. I don't know if everybody could be an entrepreneur, but I think Almost everybody could be playing bigger. You know, you can be playing bigger. You know that what you're doing right now is not the best of you. You're not giving it everything. You have limiting beliefs. You're holding yourself back in a lot of areas in your life, some consciously, some unconsciously. You could play bigger. And most people don't have somebody to push them to do it. Most people don't have the self-awareness to do it. Most people don't know why they're playing small. And that's what the book helps expose. When you know what you stand for and then you compare that to what you're actually living in your life, you realize there's a lot of stuff that I'm not doing right, that I'm not doing as I should do, that I'm not doing that is in accordance with who I truly am. And so that leads you to play small. It leads you to live in fear. And so instead of going off and doing that big thing, whether it's being an entrepreneur or just switching careers or studying something else or being with a different person, right? It has so many ramifications on your entire life. I think everybody could be playing a bigger game. I think everybody has potential that is untapped, and that's what I'm trying to unlock with this book. Next, who is one person you hope reads this book? You. I hope you read this book. I hope you've been watching this or listening to this or hearing this, you heard something in there that makes you feel like Yeah, he's talking to me. That you're not playing big enough, that you could be doing a lot more with your life, that you're not satisfied with the, the people in your life, what you've accomplished, what you think you could do. I hope you read this book. I hope you read it. I hope you think about it. I hope you apply the lessons. And I hope you write to me. I hope you write to me and tell me what you think. If you have questions, let me know. But I hope you apply it. I hope you have the courage to apply it because a lot of this, what it's going to do is shine a light. I like them. I've got like the sun on me here, shining a light on me as I'm saying it. It's going to shine a light on a lot of the things in your life that you're not doing well at and that you know, but you may not be admitting to yourself. And it's going to give you the steps on what to do to get through it. But are you going to have the courage to go out and actually do it? And so I really encourage you not to just read another book because you've read 1,000 books and maybe you've highlighted the books, but I want you to actually take some action on the book. Follow the exercises. Just trust that it works. And let me show you some results because you don't get results by just reading. You could be the smartest person in the room, but you're not going to get anywhere until you actually take some action. You'll see people who are way less smart than you, who have way fewer resources than you, who, you know, shouldn't be the ones making it, but they do because they did something about it. Just having the idea for a great product or service isn't enough. Just having the idea to want to change something in your life isn't enough. You got to actually take some steps. And so I hope you read it. And more than that, I hope you apply some of the lessons and then let me know how it's going. Number 8: Do you think established companies can learn from your book? What's one example you would like to read your book? What's, what's an example of one you'd like to read your book? It's interesting, when I first thought of this concept, my, my thinking is so geared towards entrepreneurs, to the individual person, that I never even thought getting into this business I would do anything with corporations. I thought they wouldn't want to have me come in and speak at their events because I would tell their people to go be entrepreneurs and stop working at this company. So I never thought I would have a corporate message, but But it's surprising how effective the message is in companies as well. As I said earlier on in this interview, every big company— we're talking about corporations now— every established company has that list of their core values. You could pull up any company, go to their website, right? They've been around for a little bit, have a sizable list of employees. They all have their core values written down there and nobody follows them. Nobody follows them. You know, you show up on day one, you get this huge employee handbook of all the things that you believe in and the processes and procedures. Blah, blah, blah. Nobody reads it. Nobody really remembers it. The idea behind having a core value is that you use it to make the important decisions in your life. If it's an easy decision to make, then you don't have to worry about it because it's an easy— you're just going to logically take action on it. But it's when it's a hard decision, it's when the decision doesn't really necessarily even make sense financially because the devil comes carrying a bag of cash. So here's a decision that you got to make an important answer on. Do you take the cash? Do you take the logical way out or do you do what's right? And how do you know what's right? Your values tell you what's right. And what's right for me is maybe not what's right for you. And that's totally cool. But most companies don't live their values, period. They couldn't even name their values. If you can't name your values, how are you going to live your values? And so I think that's one of the biggest exercises that the big companies need to go through, starting from the top, the CEO. What does he or she stand for? What's the most important thing for this person? And hopefully there's alignment somewhere down the path, right? When you look at a new CEO comes into a company, they often replace their management team, they often replace the VPs and the people under them. Why is that? It's not just because you want to hire your friends. It's because, you know, these people share the same values. You got to be working on the same page. And so this is a tricky thing for a company because somebody comes in, the CEO comes in or existing CEO, great, reads the book, picks it up and says, you know what? That's right. We're not living our values. We don't even know what our 10 values are. You know, you do a survey of all your employees and nobody comes back being able to name them. That's a problem. So, okay, great. We're going to start living up to our one word. What's our one word? I'm going to start with me. Mine is this. Great. Here's what it's all about. Our company now stands for this. The tough part is how many other people in your company feel the same way? And if you guys have been fighting at all, if people aren't getting along, if the projects aren't moving forward as you want them to, it's because you have a clash of values. And the hard part is this is the harder— it's harder the bigger your company gets. You're going to have more and more and more and more people who are not aligned with what the CEO stands for. That's a problem. Most CEOs would just ignore it because it's too big a deal. It's too painful. Can you imagine if you had to let go of 30% of your team because they didn't fit the values of what you stand for and find replacements for those people in a short amount of time? It's crazy. It's suicide. But if the company really wants to grow, if the CEO is really visionary, the CEO really wants to do something special, then that's what has to get done. So I'm excited to see how this is applied in the corporate setting. And I understand that there's processes and things can take time and it may not be an instant decision, but I would love to see big companies stand for something powerful, meaningful, important to them, and then actually live it. I think about CVS Health, and CVS decided that health was a part of what they did, and they changed their name to CVS Health. And then they looked at what they were selling in their stores, and they were selling cigarettes. And they thought, you know what, if we are about health, how can we sell cigarettes? That decision is incongruent with who we are and what we believe in. And so they made a decision to cut all cigarette sales from their stores, costing them $2 billion in revenue. You don't just make up $2 billion in revenue. That's going to cost their company. That's going to hurt their share price. It's going to cost their employees. It's going to cost them a lot of money. But it's the right thing to do for them because they're about health. And so that's how your one word helps you. It helps you make the tough decisions. When the devil comes with a bag of cash. So CVS is about health. That's what they did. And their story is shared in the book. The guy behind me, Howard Schultz, started Starbucks. His word is love. There's a story in the book too about Howard Schultz and love. One of my favorite stories about Howard Schultz, he wanted to build the company that his father couldn't work for. His father, he grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, lower class. His dad was a blue-collar worker who hurt himself one day on the job and there was no workers' compensation. And so he had to go for weeks without an income. And it was insanely hard on the family. And he vowed to create a business that his dad would be proud to work for. And so I really clearly remember this one video of Howard Schultz talking at a ShareLoser meeting when Starbucks was one of the first companies, maybe the first of the big companies, to stand up and support gay marriage. And to say that we recognize and think that it's important. And he took a lot of heat for that. He took a lot of heat. And there's one video of him in a shareholders meeting, and a shareholder stands up and says, hey, this is, you know, it's great supporting gay marriage, you know, awesome. But Howard, this is going to hurt our stock price. You're CEO. You're responsible for us as shareholders to give us a return on our investment. So don't take a controversial stance, please, because we want to protect the value that we've invested into your company. And Howard stands up and he says, "You know what? The lens through which we made this decision was not a financial one. It was the right thing to do." It's powerful. And that decision is made easier because he knows that he's about love. And if you're about love, your one word is love, how do you say that gay marriage is not right? How do you not stand with your team behind it? So even if it doesn't make logical sense, short-term financially, it's the right thing to do. And the right thing pays off because the people on his team who also stand for love, love him even more for taking the stance. The customers who come in love that he's taking a stance and they want to buy more and they want to tell their friends. And I'm telling this story to you guys and I'm telling stories in the book. Where the worst thing you can do is just be vanilla, be boring, be safe, be corporate. And so I really hope that a lot of corporations pick this up, and I'm super excited to see who actually runs with it. Do you think people can use your book in their personal lives in addition to their professional? 100%. We've talked about some of these concepts already, but your one word becomes the lens through which you see the world. And when I did the test audience for this book, I sent it to half entrepreneurs and half non-entrepreneurs, and everybody loved it, especially the first section. I think the first section of CORE applies to everybody. The second section of Campaign and Company applied to a more— I don't think just entrepreneurial sense, but more corporate professional world. If you're at a job, it can apply to, you know, helping your company get better in the Campaign and Company. But that first section on CORE, the first huge chunk of the book is all about you figuring out what you're all about. And you apply that to everything in your life. You apply that to your partner and be able to connect in your marriage better or find the right person for you to marry. You apply it to how you raise your kids. Believe is what I'm all about. So one of the things that I do with my son every time I pick him up from school is we have this little thing, just like my parents did for me, is I I will say, "I'm Evan Carmichael and I can do—" and here he is, 7 years old, he'll go, "Anything!" So, "I'm Evan Carmichael and I can do anything," because I want him to believe. It impacts everything that I do. I believe in you guys. I believe in the people around me. I believe in my son. I believe in my wife. I believe in my parents. I sat down and had a hard conversation with my parents saying that I thought that they could be playing a bigger game. That's rough. Who wants to do that? And they've done a lot by most people's standards. I think they could do more. I think you can do more. And knowing what I'm all about, knowing how important this is to me, gives me the courage and confidence to move forward on that path, to be even bolder in my next move. And so it's going to definitely, absolutely, 100% shine a light on both what you're doing in your personal life in your professional life. I don't, you know, pretend to be a marriage counselor, uh, or a, you know, parenting guru or expert, but it's, it's definitely some of the ways that people look at how they apply their one word. And I can see honestly a lot of spin-offs, like your one word for parenting, your one word for relationships, and partnering up with somebody who has that domain expertise to then apply it and take it further. But You're definitely going to want to apply it. You're definitely going to want to make changes. You can't help it. You're going to see the incongruency. It's going to bother you. You're going to want to do something about it. And so it can apply to both, both lives, 100%. Last question: What's next for the movement? Where do you want to see it go? My mission is to help a billion entrepreneurs. That's what motivates me. I want to do things that can have a big impact. What I want to see is, in terms of the context of this movement, the One Word Movement, I have seen such a tremendous impact on the people that have gone through this exercise. First, myself. Second, to the people that I've personally coached and mentored and helped from my friends and family and, you know, some circles beyond that, entrepreneurs that I have masterminds with, and just seeing how people can consume this and make so many fast changes to their lives and businesses. My goal with this book, with this part of the movement, is I wanted to reach further. I want more people to, to understand it, to embrace it, to apply it, to test it, to see if it works for them. I want people to get real meaningful results. I want people to live up to their potential. I want people to have confidence and a sense of purpose and a sense of direction and feel like they know what they're doing, to know what decisions to make. That's what I hope happens. That's where I want to see it going, whether it's buying the book or the audiobook or the ebook and with the videos attached to all that stuff. Whatever way you consume information best. I want people to pick it up. I want people to do the exercise. I want people to start making positive changes in their lives. And then I want you to start impacting others. I want people to see how much growth that you've had in your life, how much more confident you are, how much more certain you are, how much better decisions you're making, how much happier you are, that people look at you and say, what? What happened? Why are you so happy now? Why do you have so much energy and passion? What's going on? I want you to be a role model for others. I want you to touch their lives after you touch your own too. And I think, I think, uh, the world would be a much better place if everybody was doing things where they could live up to their potential and live through their values. So that's what I'm excited by. I'm super excited. This is the first time it's coming out and I'm just so pumped to see the results and I'm really curious to hear your feedback and hopefully you'll, you'll hit me up with questions and results and I'd love to see your progress along this path because I think it could make a really big impact on your own personal life, on your friends and your community and on your country and on the world. So thank you guys for giving me the chance to answer these questions. It's been a lot of fun. Allowed me to dive deep and answer some things that I don't know that I've gone into before. So hopefully that helped you guys watching. I'd love to know what you think. If you have a question for me, a question about the book, question about the book writing process, leave it down in the comments below and I'll see what I can do in terms of making a reply coming up soon. Thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love, guys. I'll see you soon.