A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and other creators explain why constant work and crystal-clear goals matter. Kalam says innovators imagine the outcome before building it. Evan Carmichael argues that defining one specific target, like reaching 1 million YouTube subscribers, gives you a concrete roadmap to execute.
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Rise and shine, it's espresso time! Good morning, Believe Nation, it's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out into the world. So grab your coffee and sip on today's message: Imagine the Outcome. Over to you, APJ Abdul Kalam.
If you want to be discoverers, if you want to be innovators, I am going to give you what type of characteristic you must have. Invention and discoveries have emanated from creative minds that have been constantly working and imagining the outcome. The telephone, he was imagining the outcome. Imagining the outcome in the mind. With the imaging and constant effort, all the forces of the universe work for that inspired mind, thereby leading to invention, discoveries.
The more clear you are about the outcome that you are chasing down, the more likely it is that you're going to actually accomplish your goal. I think a lot of people never accomplish their goals, never get the happiness that they're looking for, because they have a lack of clarity. Clarity, because people want happiness and they want fulfillment and they want success, but they don't know what that looks like. And so if you can't articulate it, if you can't imagine what that would look like, then it's never going to happen. And so the more clarity you can get around it, the more likely it's going to happen. I look at this channel as an example. My goal was to have a million subscribers by the end of 2017, and so I could imagine that, and then I could create a roadmap to make that happen. In terms of how many videos do we need to make, who are the people we're going to be profiling, what am I going to be doing on camera, what are we going to do with our titles and our tags and descriptions and playlists. And you get into all the tactics and the strategies, but it starts with having the vision. So as an example, with my next one, if I'm going to hit 10 million subscribers, that's a totally different outcome that I need to imagine. Because at the rate that I'm going now, we get 40,000 to 50,000 subscribers a month.
It's going to take a long time.
To get to $10 million, right? It's too long. And so imagining that outcome means I need to make more radical changes. If I want to get to that goal, the way I'm doing things currently is not going to be good enough. I need to scale up. I need to drastically improve the quality. I need to have massive changes to my strategy to be able to reach that big goal. And so that clarity pushes me forward. And it's the same for you. If you can understand what the main goal is for your business or your life, or what happiness means and success means, then you can create the plan so that you can go out and achieve it. And it doesn't mean it happens overnight. You know, I didn't hit a million subscribers overnight. I'm not going to hit 10 million subscribers overnight either. I'm not just going to be happy overnight. My schedule won't be perfect overnight. There are some immediate things you could do to have a dramatic improvement towards achieving your goal. And some of the things will take some time to work on. But if you can imagine that outcome, you can then create the plan to help you get there. Clarity is power. Focus is power. If you can imagine the outcome, it's powerful. And I hope you can do it for your business and your life. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, what is one super clear, massively important goal for you right now The more clear you can make it, the better. Leave it in the comments below. I'm really curious to figure out what you guys have planned for yourselves. I also wanna give a quick shout out to Priyanka Nagpal. Thank you so much, Priyanka, for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, doing the interview on your YouTube channel. I really, really appreciate all the support, and I'm so glad that you enjoyed the book. So 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, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso. What for you today is the challenge? Is it the worry of repeating yourself?
Ultimately, it's all the same. Okay, if something is catchy, it reaches the public, right? Something is melodic, They recognize it. But how can you give it in different forms where they don't feel like, oh, it's the same thing for 20 years?
Right.
At the same time, you know, musically explore, even take an even more dangerous path.
For me, I always like a director with a good balance. And what I mean by good balance is enough vision, number one, and then enough freedom for the actors to be able to do their jobs. So I, the style of acting that I choose to take for each role, I love to be the character. I love to become it, not in a method type of way, but in a scene. I like to watch a movie I'm in back and feel like I can't remember doing that stuff. Like watching Star Wars, half of the things Finn does in that film, I can't remember making a decision to do it because it was, there was instinct and there was freedom and there was the ability to be able to be creative. And J.J. is a big advocate of that. I mean, he would— we would start a scene with the dialogue and he would be like, all right, let's just do your version and let's just do a version that you guys feel free with. And that's how Harrison works as well. And improv really makes way for magical moments. And when you have a director that has a good enough balance to understand the technical point of view for at least a good shot, color correction, visual effects, practical effects, but then he has artistic knowledge also. For character arcs, dialogue, and fun. It's always good, so that's what I look for.
So I saw Natalie the Flowassist's video, and she had like a bald head, and I just thought she was so beautiful. And I was also working at a job that I was frustrated with and trying to get Awkward Black Girl off the ground. I tweeted something like, "Man, I wish I had an excuse, like I wish someone would just break up with me so that I could have an excuse to shave my hair off." And then I was like, "Oh, that's a funny plotline." of like a show or something and decided like to tweet that I was gonna, or put on Facebook that I wanted to shave my head bald. And so all my friends responded like, "Oh my gosh, do it. You about to be so ugly. Oh my God, what if you have a weird shaped head?" And I was like, my friends are terrible. But I saw how much attention that was getting and I was like, oh my gosh, I should use this. I should shave my head and then do a trailer for Awkward Black Girl where I I feature my bald head, and that way people who want to see what I look like will also know about this new show that I'm trying to do. And so I did it, and it got like 3,000 views in a day, and I had a bald head, and I had a fresh start, and that bald head changed my life.
Let me give you the one-word secret to happiness. One word.
This is all you need to be happy. It's the most important word ever. If you had to think of Is there one word that's most important to you or that sums you up or that would be kind of like a little beacon? Hey, Believe Nation! If you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.
