Evan Carmichael answers whether a 31-year-old gay man who just left an arranged marriage can still succeed as an entrepreneur. Ellen DeGeneres, Lady Gaga, and Colonel Sanders all started later or faced major obstacles. The real limit is the stories you believe about yourself, not your age or past.
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I'm gay and 31. Can I still be a success? So I got a great question, a really sad question from one of my YouTube viewers. Love you guys. Vinod, who wrote in to say, dear Evan, I enjoy watching your videos. Now I want to build a business empire. I can't focus because of my personal problems. I'm gay, went through an arranged marriage with a girl, now on the verge of divorce. Finally, I've decided to move on. I'm 31 now. Am I too late to get back on track? Thanks, Vinod. This is a super important question, and again, one that makes me sad because as entrepreneurs, we all have these limiting beliefs. We live in this world and we tell ourselves stories that hold us back from becoming a success, becoming the person that we want to become, achieving the goals that we want to achieve. So here's Vinod telling himself that he's gay, so he can't be successful. Well, what about Calvin Klein? What about Lady Gaga? What about Ellen DeGeneres? He's telling himself that because he's 31 years old, he won't be successful. Well, what about Harland Sanders, who took his last shot at KFC when he was in his 60s? What about Ray Kroc, who launched McDonald's when he was in his 50s and had diabetes and arthritis and kidney failure, and the best years were behind him? Right? These are just stories that you tell yourself, and we all have them. We tell ourselves that we're too young, we're too old, we don't live in a rich country, I don't live in the city, I don't live in, in, you know, whatever state or province. I didn't go to Harvard. I didn't get an education. I didn't even complete high school, and therefore I won't be successful. It happened to me when I was in my first business. I was 19 years old. I was selling to people 3 times my age, and I thought, they're never going to listen to me. I'm 19. I don't know anything. And it wasn't until I busted through that limiting personal belief, I busted through that story I was telling myself, that I started to achieve success. Because as long as you believe that being gay and being 31 as old, that you won't achieve success, then you're right. If you believe that's true, then it's going to be true. And the way to break through, you know, every big growth you're going to have in your life and your business is going to come from busting through a limiting personal belief. If you're here, right, maybe you've grown a little bit, now you're here, you haven't had success, you haven't had momentum, you can't just keep doing the same things. It's going to be from changing something, and typically that comes from breaking one of your limiting personal beliefs. So how do you do it? How do you bust through? It's so important because you've created an environment that tells you that all these things are true. Maybe your marriage didn't work out, right? You're getting divorced, and so that being gay had an impact, obviously, right? And now maybe you tell yourself, I won't be successful in marriage anymore, and maybe that translates to I won't be successful in business anymore. The people you surround yourself with, your friends, potentially your family, the books you read, the, the videos you watch, everything that you have in your environment now is holding you where you are. It's confirming that that story is true and lets you continue to believe it. And as long as you believe it, that's what's going to happen. As long as you believe it, that's what's going to happen. So now you have a great opportunity because that environment you didn't pick. It wasn't consciously designed. Right? You didn't pick your parents. You didn't pick everything that, that is surrounding you right now. You were forced to go into an arranged marriage. Now you get to shift everything. You need to design an environment that supports you and your big goals. You want to build a business empire? Create an environment that supports empire building. So when you go into wherever you're going to work, if you're working at home office, you go into a company office, whatever it is, those stories that you're telling yourself about gay entrepreneurs and being too old. Put up pictures of Ellen and Lady Gaga and Calvin Klein and Harlan Sanders and Ray Kroc. Put them on their walls. Surround yourself with energy that supports your big goal, that busts through those myths and that helps shatter that story that you're telling yourself. Because until you do that, until you create that new environment, that supports you and allows you to become the person that you want to become. Until you create that environment yourself with purpose, you're going to continue to stay where you are. And I feel, I feel the pain and I feel the desire to want to bust through, right? That's why you're asking this question. So take this opportunity now to create an environment that surrounds yourself with inspiring stories, things that make you believe in yourself more, things that build you up, and start to eliminate the things that just keep holding you where you are. When you change your environment, you'll change your life. Believe. For those of you watching, like the video. You can subscribe to the channel, see more just like it. Thank you so much, and I'll see you soon. Don't forget to click here to subscribe to my newsletter to get actionable, inspiring, motivational, believe advice every single week to your inbox.
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