50 Days of Genius ft. Dr. Will Moreland @DrWillSpeaks

What's going on everybody? It is your man, Dr. Will, America's number one leadership life trainer, and you are joining me for 50 Days of Genius. This is my gift to you to provide you with 50 of my amazing friends, their inspiration and motivational stories of how they're succeeding in life. Several years ago, I wrote the book Genius Potential, and in this book I talk about the concept of the everyday genius. And who is the everyday genius? The everyday genius is the person that has tapped into their uniqueness, they constantly are developing their uniqueness, and they're sharing it with the world. Now when I say sharing it with the world, I don't mean these people are per se traveling over to Europe and Asia and places like that. Many of my guests are doing that, But what I'm talking about is they have decided to make an impact right where they are, right in their world, they've decided to make an impact. And my guest today is making a huge impact, a huge splash. He is the renowned Evan Carmichael. How are you, my friend? Welcome to 50 Days of Genius.

Good, my man, what's going on?

Man, I'm just so honored to have you here with us today. Let me first say before we get in here, man, When I moved, I lived in Europe for 15 years before I moved here to Phoenix, Arizona, and when I moved back and I was building my platform, EvanCarmichael.com was and still is one of the platforms that I use to get my message out. So I want to thank you, man, for setting up that platform for all of us to use, man. I constantly add articles on there, and the way you promote entrepreneurs and the way you push us and the way you motivate us, man, you're a huge part of what I'm doing today and the success I have today. So let me say thank you on the onset, my man.

I love it, man. I gotta bring you with me everywhere. You know, you could do those intros anytime, man.

Awesome, awesome. So Evan, the 50 Days of Genius is all about people who have tapped into their uniqueness and they're impacting the world. And like I said earlier, not so much that you're traveling global, but you are, but people are people just that are passionate, and you are very passionate about helping entrepreneurs succeed. How did that come about?

It came about because I sucked as an entrepreneur. I had my first company, yeah, I was 19, and you know, up until that point, I knew whatever I tried, wherever I applied myself, I would get results, you know, in school, in sports, whatever. If I put in the work, I'd get the results. And I had a company when I was 19, And man, I never worked so hard at anything. I was, you know, I don't know what the language, I can't, I'll watch my language on your show here, but you know, I was working hard, man, every single day and just, I wasn't getting results. Like it was insanely frustrating and was just, it took a huge toll on my self-confidence, my self-worth, you know, I felt like a total failure. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs go through that, every entrepreneur goes through that, and nobody talks about it. Nobody talks about how hard it is to be an entrepreneur. You just see the guys doing well and you think, man, I'm gonna be like that guy. And then you start and you realize just, you really think something's wrong with you because you're not getting the results. And so once I went through that battle and figured it out, I wanted to share with others so that they didn't have to go through the same thing that I did.

And so what I'm curious about, because a lot of people, if they don't play the piano, if they don't sing, if they're not an artist per se, they overlook their genius. How did you find out that just encouraging people, like you have a great gift of encouragement, like you live and breathe encouragement, how did you tap into that to know that you can monetize that part of your genius?

There's a lot in there. Uh, one, you are an artist, man. I'm an artist. I'm not— I can't play a lick of piano, you know. I play a little piano, but you know, I'm not— you don't want to hear me sing. Uh, but I'm an artist, and I apply my art every day in what I do. And, and for everybody, you know, watching this show, you know, Dr. Will's an artist. All of you are artists. Just got to tap into what you want to create and be amazing at. For me, believe came from my parents. You know, it's on the wall, it's on my back, it's on everything I do. When I was growing up, I wasn't the best at school. You know, my sisters were all getting straight A's and I'm getting, you know, C's. And I had to have my conversation every report card time with my parents. And they'd sit me down and instead of just giving me a hard time, they'd always tell me that I'm a Castrulli Carmichael, my mom's last name is Castrulli. And I could do anything, and they made me believe in myself, and that's kind of the origin story for me, and I believe in people, I believe in others, I want people to bust through their limiting beliefs, I want people to do amazing things with their life, I don't want people to live, you know, for the evenings, weekends, I want people to feel fulfilled, I want to do something that they are excited about. The lens through which I can do that is entrepreneurship because I have experience there, If it wasn't, if I didn't know how to be an entrepreneur, I'd be believing in people doing something else. But that's what fires me up, man. Human potential. I mean, I know we're on the same wavelength. I know this is what your show, you know, the 50 Days of Genius, your genius potential, it's all about the same concepts. We're aligned there, man. But I hate seeing potential just wasting away in people. And that's 95% of America, man. People wake up and they drive to a job that they hate and just can't wait for quit in time to come. And that sucks, man, because life is so much more beautiful than that.

You know, that's amazing because you're probably one of the few people that I find that can rival with my belief in that, that everybody can be genius, everybody has that genius. And when I look at you, I'm like, I don't know anybody, too many other people who just breathe motivation and breathe this belief like you do, because I honestly believe that. You know, my t-shirts are kind of the same way. Live genius because average is no fun, right? So when you, when you are going around the world and you're sharing this message, what is the reception? Are people starting to get it? Are they starting to believe in themselves?

Huh, yeah, absolutely. I think there's a mix of people. I think there's some people who are ready to hear the message. I think there are people who've been beat down for so long, and, and, you know, they have this inkling that, man, I am just I'm meant for more than what I'm doing right now. Like, this is, this is not the best version of me that I'm living right now. And those people are ready to hear the message and they scoop it. And, you know, and I'm sure you've seen a lot of people who've read your book and watch your show and listen to you regularly, like the people who are ready to hear the message, man, they can transform their lives in a second and they just need some, some little push, some little guidance, motivation. And that's our jobs, man. That's what we got to do and provide. And that's how we make the world a better place. That's our genius. That's what we're tapping into. I think there are others who aren't quite ready to hear the message yet. You know, they're in an environment that sucks. They've been told their whole life that they don't have any talent. They don't have any genius. They don't believe in themselves. That's a lot of people, man. There's a lot of people who don't have parents who are as supportive as mine were, who who didn't have a boss that tried to make them better, who have friends who aren't doing anything exciting in their lives, and so they hold themselves back. And they don't have anybody in their lives who believe that they can be more than what they are now. And in fact, a lot of the people in their lives just tear them down. And they get a new idea for what they want to do, like, I want to tap into my genius, I want to go and do this great thing, and then their friends say, you can't do that. You know, you didn't go to school for that, you don't have the money to do that, you don't have the skills to do that. And so like they've heard that message so many times and now they tell themselves that same message in their ear that they need a little more time to be able to hear the message and change their environment to get to the place where they can actually take some action.

So let me ask you this, how did you get to the point where even for your website, you named it Evan Carmichael. Now, I know what Evan Carmichael means today in our space, but when you were just getting started, before the Forbes article, before Inc., you know, named you one of the top 100, how did you know that just naming your website Evan Carmichael was going to be enough? How did you get over that hesitation of like, are people really gonna respond, or am I this big guy with this ego, I'm gonna name it Evan Carmichael?

Yeah, I didn't, you know, I wish I had it all planned out, And it's worked out nicely for me, but I didn't. You know, the honest truth is I sold my company when I was 22, my first company, and I got asked to do a bunch of speaking around the world, you know, young entrepreneur success story kind of thing. And I put up the website just as a home for me to say where I was speaking, like, hey, I'm going to be in Mexico, or hey, I'm going to be in Asia, whatever it is. That's why it's a personal site. It was just Evan the Speaker. And then I started adding content, my own stories, like Okay, famous entrepreneur. I love modeling success. I love famous entrepreneur stories. I love tapping into their wisdom. And so I started sharing that on the site. And then people started writing to me and say, hey, can I contribute to the site? You know, I'm a business coach, or I'm a marketing expert, or I'm a PR consultant. I'd like to add content to your website. And I said, sure, why not? You know, it's lots of value add. And it just kind of spiraled. And then I thought I made a big mistake. Like, I named it after myself. I wish I called it entrepreneurresources.com or smallbusinesstips.com or something. And then only later I realized, you know what, actually it was a huge win that I didn't go that route, that I put it off my name because my company is a constant reflection of who I am. And I think it's so easy for entrepreneurs to get boxed into doing the same thing over and over and over again, and that even if they've had success with it, that success becomes an anchor that prevents them from going forward and doing something else. And your business needs to constantly reflect who you are. And so I'm super grateful that that worked out, but I didn't have a big plan for it when I started, and then I thought I made the biggest mistake ever by putting off my name, and now I'm super grateful for it. So I wish I could say I had it all planned out and it was all, you know, part of my master plan, but I had no idea, man, no idea.

So let's talk about that, because just like you, I read a lot of the personal development books, and I read a lot of the great stories, the Walt Disneys, And a lot of people didn't have a plan. Their plan was just to do. How powerful is action? How powerful is just not overthinking it and doing, believing? How powerful is that?

Yeah, I think you need to create to create. I think too many people try to find an opportunity and they're just chasing dollars and it never comes. You know, like, you could pick up Inc. magazine and find the 100 hottest ideas to start this year, and try to do all of them and you'll fail at all of them and you just end up losing money. Where you want to create, you want to be in the business that even if you weren't making money, you would do it because it makes you come alive, it fuels you up. I throw away way more work than I ever even release. I spent half a day working on a campaign for one of my clients, Sage, that I know they would never use. It's just, it's too bold, it's too big, They're too conservative, they would never jump on this thing. But I had to do it. Like, it just, it was something creative that I had to get out. I had to express my art. And I sent it to them and they're like, oh cool, thank you. I don't, like, I'm not attached to the result. I want to create amazing stuff and I release it. And thankfully a lot of the videos that I make people do enjoy. But I think people get way too much attached to the outcome and not the process. Where you have to enjoy the process. If you don't enjoy the process, you'll never get to the outcome. And so you create to create. Like, I'm coming on this show talking to you, I don't care what the result, like, I wanna spread entrepreneurship, I'm gonna have a good time talking to Dr. Will, we're gonna talk genius and potential and entrepreneurship, and, you know, whether that explodes or not, it doesn't matter 'cause I'm enjoying, like, this. I hope you guys watching can feel my excitement and passion and love, and if you don't bring that to what you're doing, then there's no way you're ever gonna be great. There's no way you're ever gonna really tap into your genius and doing something that, you know, generations later they're still talking about you.

Yeah, that's amazing because I think the same way, right? I said, you know what, the 50 Days Yes, I'm gonna talk to 50 incredible people, whether anybody shows up or not, I'm gonna take something away. Like, I'm here with Evan Carmichael, right? And so whether anybody else showed up or not, me and Evan are kicking it, right, before he goes to New York. So let me ask you this, man, 'cause we do have a lot of entrepreneurs on here, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs miss the opportunity and they don't really understand the power of what we're doing right now in terms of this internet thing. Like, you're in Toronto, I'm in Phoenix, Arizona, we're using this Blab, I'm streaming it live on Facebook, you've literally went global because of your website. How powerful is the internet for businesses today?

Ah, I mean, I think it's the game. It's possible to have a local business without internet, but man, there's so much more power to tap into. I think what holds a lot of people back is they're too— they're perfectionists. You know, they want it to be perfect. I'm not going to launch my YouTube channel until I get all the gear and I can afford the right camera and the tripod and the lighting and all that stuff. Meanwhile, you know, you're sitting wherever you are, I'm sitting here, I've just got a webcam and a microphone and we're kicking it, you know. I did interviews with Michael Gerber and collabs with Brian Tracy and, you know, doing projects just sitting here. Fortune 500 CEOs, just sitting here. It doesn't matter about the gear, Just start. Like, just start. Your first thing that you make is gonna suck anyway, so don't get so attached to it. The most important thing is that you're just better than you were yesterday. Like, every day doing something new, and the next day you're better than you were the last day.

And so, as I said when we started off, man, I know that you're very passionate about entrepreneurs. You do anything you can to motivate us, inspire us, to get us to the next level. If you could, if you could pick out 3 of your, your go-to moves right now for entrepreneurs, what are entrepreneurs in this space thinking about right now? How can they change the game?

Uh, I think one is doing something that, that you're passionate about, doing something that makes you come alive. I think most people are just kind of walking dead. Uh, everybody has an idea, but they don't do anything about it. So that's one, it doesn't have to be some big thing, just start. Like, you won't know how it ends up. It never ends up as you think it's gonna end up, but the most common, the common thing that everybody has is that they started. And so you need to start. Find the thing you're excited about, and as soon as, if you lose interest, cool, move on and do something else. So follow your passion. Number 2, model success. Find people who have done it before and look at how they got started. That's what saved my company at the start. I looked at how successful entrepreneurs got started, made their first sale. You know, I don't care how successful billionaires now make an extra billion. I wanna know like zero to a million. Like, how do I do that? That's what I was really excited by. And so looking at people in your industry who've had success can be super helpful, as well as people outside your industry. Maybe you look up to, you know, Oprah Winfrey. Maybe you look up to Bill Gates. Maybe you look up to Steve Jobs or Walt Disney or any of these guys. And they may not have anything to do with your industry, But looking at something that Walt Disney did might inspire your inner genius to come out and take some action. And so modeling success, I find, is super helpful once you know what it is that you want to do. And then the third thing I would say is create an environment for greatness. It's really hard to do great things when you have a crappy environment, you know, when you have people around you who don't support you. Think about the movies that you watch, the books you read, the websites you visit, you know, like people on this Blab watching now, They're investing their time to try to get better, right? Where other people are just reading the tabloids or complaining to their friends about something, right? Like, the time that you spend is important. The routine that you have when you first start your day is important. The habits you have, the people you surround yourself with, the media that you consume, it all— like, what's on your wall? Like, this is here for a reason. This statue is kind of out of the picture, is there for a reason. Like, I'm wearing these clothes for— I feel like Batman when I put on my Believe shirt, man. Like, you gotta feel inspired by the environment around you, because you cannot do great things unless you have greatness around you, man.

That's powerful. Now, now let's talk about the flip side of this, right? Let's talk about— me and you, we're both positive individuals, but let's talk about how hard and how sucky it is to be an entrepreneur and how hard it is to build a business. A lot of people don't talk about that. They talk about the roses, but they don't talk about the thorns. How hard is it to build a business?

Yeah, man, I'll talk about thorns all day long, man. It's the hardest thing you're ever going to do in your life. It's insanely difficult. I mean, we don't get— it's difficult because one, we don't go to school for this, right? Like, I went to school, I went to university, I went to the best university in Canada. You know, they don't teach you how to be an entrepreneur. And unless you have some kind of entrepreneurial background, like your parents are entrepreneurs or somebody in your family. I didn't have that. You know, my dad worked for the government until he retired. You know, like, I didn't have any entrepreneurial people around me, so I thought I wanted to be a banker when I graduated high school. And so it's going to be insanely hard because all we see are the positive. You see the Zuckerbergs from Facebook and all these guys making a lot of money, having a big impact, and then you try and you start and you think it's going to be easy. And it's not, and, and it's devastating, and you realize that you're way out of your league, and you feel like, you know, you're trying to add value, and it's not for lack of hustle. Like, you're hustling, you're putting in the work, and you're still not seeing results. And that's where the passion is important, because that's the only thing that gets you through. Because, because any logical, sane, uh, person would quit because it's just too difficult. But you only keep going because you love the process of what you're doing. I will keep doing this even if I never get paid because I love it so much. And most people don't love their thing enough and they're just trying to chase an opportunity. Like, you want to start a YouTube channel to be a celebrity and get famous? Like, it's not going to happen. You gotta love making YouTube videos. You gotta love the product that you're selling and manufacturing. There's a story and a reason behind it. And that's— if that's not emotional enough for you, then there's no way you're going to stick it out. As soon as it gets hard, that's it, you're done, you're gonna go do something else.

Man, you're giving us so much stuff, and I wanna talk about this because a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs ask me this, or this becomes a holding back. Talk about your team. A lot of times when we see people like you, we're thinking like you have this big 100-member team and you're downtown Toronto in this big executive office. Talk to us about your team and how you built out your Evan Carmichael team.

Sure, you know, when I started my first business, there was 3 partners. That's it, we had nobody on our team. It was the 3 of us just grinding every day. I was making $300 a month, man. Like, you can't afford a team making $300 a month, man. I couldn't afford to feed myself, let alone feed anybody else. Now my team is, what, 16 people? After I sold my business, the first company I started, EvanCarmichael.com, I actually negotiated free downtown rent. King Yonge is the epicenter of downtown Toronto, all the financial buildings, and I got free location there by partnering up with an angel and venture capitalist firm there. And I agreed to help them out, and they gave me mentorship and a place to work. And the first person I hired in my company You know, he did an hour a day of work. Most people think you gotta hire somebody full-time. You know, they go, "I gotta free up $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 to hire somebody full-time to help me." That's not how it works, man. Hire somebody for an hour a day to do work for you, and that freed up more than an hour of my time per day to do work, 'cause he was better at that job than I was. For you to have success, for you to really tap into your genius and realize it and make it something special, then you have to spend as much time on your genius as possible. Right? If you are a genius at doing something but you're spending 99% of your time doing all this other crap, then you're never going to really get to where you need to go. And so you need to start eliminating, automating, delegating some of that other stuff away to spend as much time as possible on your genius. And so that was the first guy I hired. 1 hour a day, he did database work for me, and then that freed up more of my time to focus on my genius, and then I could go out and hire more and hire more and hire more.

Man, that's amazing. So now, for you, what's the next thing for Evan Carmichael? What are you working on? I know you're traveling the world, getting ready to hop on a plane to New York and spread more of your message about Believe. What's the overall, what's the big goal for, what's pushing you right now? What's motivating you?

My big goal is to help a billion entrepreneurs. That's my mission, so I'm shooting on The shorter-term goals is I want to hit 1 million subscribers on my YouTube channel, and I'm writing a book, and that's coming out December 6th. Beyond that, I don't know, man. Like, when I want to do something, I do it. I just start. I don't have like, here's where I'm going to be in 5 years, you know, that kind of thinking bothers me. Like, if I have a 5-year goal, like, why can't I do that in 3 months? Why does that have to take 5 years to hit that? And so, you know, and that happens across my life. Like, I thought, you know what, I want to build a house. I'm going to build a custom house. You know, it's on my list, one of the things to do. And as soon as that thought entered my head, now I'm looking for a house, I'm looking for land, and, you know, I found the plot and I dug up, you know, the excavation. I built the house within a year of thinking of me wanting to buy a house and build one. So where am I gonna be in 5 years? I have no idea, man. Somewhere awesome. I'm gonna keep doing shit that makes me come alive. I mean, maybe that's just my personality, but I don't have long-term things. Something gets in my head and it's an itch. If you don't wanna take action on it right away, then maybe it's not that important to you. Like, maybe you need a more inspiring goal that makes you come alive. At least that's how I see it.

Gotcha, man. Now, here's probably gonna be the toughest question of the day. You have a whole website of motivation and inspiration, and you've interviewed over thousands of entrepreneurs, and you talk to all the movers and shakers. But if you had to narrow it down to like the 3 top people that like your go-to team, like what, your starting 5, who would be your starting 5 of motivation? Like when Evan needs to really get pumped up, who does he listen to in his iPod? Who's your starting 5?

That's a great question. I feel like I go to different people for different things. So, right, on my 5, I probably have to go to leadership. Hmm, leadership, that's an interesting one. Look, I'll give you my top 5, and I like them for different reasons. I'll go with Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Kanye West, Richard Branson, and my parents. Those are my top 5.

Okay, so I have to ask you this. Kanye, what do you get from Kanye, my man?

Kanye is unafraid. Kanye, Kanye first of all says a lot of, a lot of crazy things, a lot of things I don't agree with, a lot of his actions I may not agree with, but he is not afraid. He is not afraid to express himself. And if you look at how he's jumped, like, people don't give Kanye a lot of credit. The dude has won more Grammy Awards than anybody for his age in the history of music ever. Right? And now he's like, you know, music, I'll still do some of that, but I want to be a fashion designer. Right? And he started off just being the beats guy. And nobody, like, people keep thinking that he can only do this. They put him inside his box. No, man. That's not my box, I'm jumping, I'm gonna do something else. And so a lot of the guys, like Steve Jobs too, you may not look to as a guy as, like he could be a real dick to a lot of people. And so what I wanna do is I wanna pull different things from different people to be the best version of myself. I don't wanna be the next Kanye, the next Steve Jobs, the next anybody. I wanna be the best Evan Carmichael And to do that, I'm going to pull a piece from Kanye and pull a piece of Grant and pull a piece of Jobs. And the people who feel like they can't learn from somebody, even if they don't have a— they may hate that person, you can still learn from them. You know, a lot of people hate on Trump, and Trump says a lot of just ridiculous things, but you could learn a lot from him too. You know, the way that he presents big ideas, like, you can know what his ideas are even if you don't agree with them. And so— I'm not afraid to learn from and model controversial people. I'm just pulling a piece from them, not everything.

Dig it, man. I dig it, man. Man, this has been a fascinating 30 minutes, man. I appreciate you being here. I know you got to catch a flight to New York. I'm not going to hold you up, man. But quickly, you really don't have to say it, but everybody just knows it's evancarmichael.com. You can find out more about Evan there. And I strongly suggest that everybody follow Evan. Everybody go to his platform. Platforms, be a part of his platforms. Like I said at the beginning, his platform was one of the major platforms that I used to get my message about Living Genius out, and it's been a tremendous, a tremendous blessing for me. So Evan, thank you for carving out some time, man, to be with us, man. I really appreciate you.

Thanks, man, and I appreciate you, man, spreading the love, adding energy and fire to the entrepreneur community, encouraging people to follow their genius. And if everybody did that, the world would be a pretty special place.

It sure would, man. Hey everybody, thank you guys so much for joining me today. Remember, tomorrow, same time, our guest will be the phenomenal Forbes Riley. They call her the $2 billion lady. She is the promoter of the SpinGen, so she'll be with us tomorrow. I'm excited to have her, just like I was excited to have Evan and all the other special guests here on the 50 Days of Genius. So Check us out tomorrow. We'll be back for 50 Days of Genius. Signing off, guys. Talk to you tomorrow.