Breaking Business Barriers | Evan’s 58 Minute Team Strategy

What's up everybody? Welcome to another business Q&A, ready to get our game on, help some entrepreneurs, and hopefully win a game of League of Legends while we do it. I've got my usual co-host J-Rise in-game and in-house, and Rishi Cup as well. What's up, Rishi?

What's up? What's in your cup, Believe Nation?

We're also joined again by Trainer Six. He's back, so we'll see how we do. So what is in the cup, Rishi? What's in your cup today? What do we got going on?

Uh, well, I am drinking currently my coconut coffee again, and it's really good. But the only thing is that, like, you know how you have the last part of your coffee grounds and there's not enough— there's too much for like one cup of coffee, but you know if you don't use it all, the the part that's left over won't be enough for another cup, right? So I have like, I almost have like a double shot espresso coconut. Nice.

All right.

Because it's just so dark.

Rishi's gonna bring the extra caffeinated energy this morning to the stream.

Yeah, so that's my other thing is I have a cup of I have a cup of energy out, that'll be my metaphor.

I love it. Well, I've got my usual drinks plus a pumpkin spice latte courtesy of J-Rise today, so I get to try that out and see what the hype is all about.

Yeah. What are your— any like immediate feedback about that?

What? Of the drink?

Yeah.

Oh, I haven't sampled. You know what, let's do it. The first sampling. Here it is. This is it. I'm excited. I've been smelling it. I smell the pumpkin. Ooh, that's pretty good. It's like, is it nutmeg? What's in there? Yeah.

I like it.

I like it.

A little bit.

I'm feeling it. Feeling the pumpkin spice latte. Good, nice. It's not an all-year thing though, right? This is only fall, fall/winter, right? Okay.

Yeah.

All right, well, we are waiting for a game, and while we do that, let's, uh, oh, let's do a shout out first. Who's on our live stream? Zeno's in the house. Oh nice, Trainer Six is in game in the house. All right, good. You guys are all chatting with each other. I shine in the dark. Rise Online shines in the dark. All right. I love it. I love it. Okay, well, let's hit up our first question. What do we got?

Nice. First question comes from Evan. Oh, okay, nice.

It's a great name.

Evan. Yeah, do you know the meaning of your name? Is there, is there like a meaning? I don't think I know the meaning of the name Evan.

Uh, young warrior nobly born, I believe.

Oh. Yeah. That's amazing. Okay, cool.

At least that's what my parents told me. You know, I haven't gone to validate it anywhere else, but I believe it.

That's great.

Cool.

So Evan asks, "How do I get a patent?" He has an idea for this invention and he's really excited about it. Definitely feels like it's going to change the world. And yeah, I just kind of want to know how to behind that. So yeah, I, I think a great place to start would actually be to check out episode 5 because episode 5, I know we've talked a lot about how episode 5 is kind of like the investment stream. Where we talk a lot about how to get an investor and all the details around that. But we also answer— Evan does a pretty thorough job of explaining the patent process.

I don't know how you remember all this, Rishi. I already forgot all the episodes. Does she write it down?

Yeah, I just keep an archive of everything. Nice.

I love it.

So basically, you know, some of the, some of the like basic stuff that we did talk about, and again, I would go back and listen for more in-depth, but we talked about obviously, you know, you need to have your idea enough designed and ready to actually like be at the stage where you can proceed with the patent. And there are patents that you get for a year. Well, I guess all patents are, Evan, if I'm not mistaken. You, you get a provisional patent for 1 year. And another interesting thing about patents is that there— you have to get a patent in individual countries. So you don't get one patent and it just works everywhere. So, and then we also talked about getting a patent lawyer and some of the value of doing that. So Evan, do you have something to add to that?

I don't remember what I said in episode 5 about patents, so I would— Oh, what happened? Oh, JRise left the game. It's okay, I'm inviting him. Oh, okay, he's gonna set up a new game. I got you. Accept, okay, good. Yeah, the importance of a provisional patent is that It allows you to test things for a year to see if you can commercialize it. You have to pay every year for patent in every country to keep it alive. So you have to pay, you know, legal fees unless you partner up with a lawyer to create the patent, but then to maintain the patent, you have to pay annual fees in every country. So the provisional patent system was designed so that it allows you to see if you can commercialize it, if you can make money from it, Oh nice. Before you go out and commit to spending tons of money every year in every country, uh, on maintaining it. Um, so it's definitely worth starting with the provisional patent. You can, you could potentially do it yourself, but you really need to know what you're doing. Uh, you really need to do your homework and figure it out. Otherwise, work with a professional. The reason being The patent is so important because, you know, it protects your intellectual property. You have this idea, you have this invention, you have this creation, you know, whatever it is that you've made, you have intellectual property around it, and the patent protects it in case somebody else wants to, you know, copy you. It's a big deal when you're getting potentially acquired or getting potential investment. They want to see, right, that you have a patent. And the thing that you want to think about, why a patent is so important, is when you're looking at getting acquired, if somebody's going to buy you out, part of the reason why they're buying you is for that patent because they can't do it without you, right? They want to accomplish a goal and the only way to do it is by using your intellectual property. Understand that what they're going to want to do is find every possible reason why they don't need you. Like, why would they go out and pay you millions of dollars instead of just doing it themselves? So they're going to try to work around the patent. So if the patent has any kind of loophole in it, if the patent isn't done perfectly and there's some way around it, then they're going to find it and they're not going to pay you. Because why would they do it? Why would they want to pay you lots of money when they could do it themselves? So that's why it's important to have a really good patent, because if you miss something, then, you know, you're not going to get your big payday at the end when you try to sell it. So yeah, that plus everything Rishi said and everything in episode 5.

Yes. Cool. Good luck on that idea, Evan.

Thank you. Thank you. Oh, that other Evan. Alright, I have something in my throat this morning here. What? I have something in my throat, I'm clearing my throat a lot, I don't know what's going on.

Oh gosh.

It's okay.

Moving on, what's next? Alright, we got a question from Herman. Actually, I'm sorry, this is Herman Studios, and his name is Scott. And Scott asks, he says he loves your video. He personally also wants to make videos for a living, and he has 2 questions that are kind of interesting. His first one is, how long does it take to make money posting interesting videos? And then the second question is, how many How many videos will it take to get to the place where you can make a living? So interesting. All right. I think it's an interesting question only because, you know, it shows that he likes to think in terms of like numbers. And so it's an interesting approach to think about how do you measure success in a numeric way, but obviously, you know, I'd love to hear— I'm looking forward to hearing Evan Carmichael, what you have to say, because I know you actually have your numbers. Like, I don't know how many videos— like, I have to really work hard to keep up with, like, that aspect of my channel, so I can't tell you right now how many videos I've made. But yeah, like, the money-making part happens as fast or slow as the value that you are contributing. So one— and again, I don't know if you are just wanting to be on YouTube, or are you wanting to do videos that can also be utilized for other aspects of your business? That will obviously affect how you can make money. But just speaking in terms of YouTube, since you love what Evan Carmichael is doing, I am sure some YouTube channels make money way faster than others, because they know the value that they want to provide. They have a better, they get to the value part quicker than other people do. And so they are going to make money quicker. And I think another thing just around the YouTube model, You would never expect to make a lot of money quick if you are just relying on YouTube to be what pays you, because the ad revenue that you get from being a YouTube partner is just basically— you will be waiting a long time. So having some— having a strategy that is beyond just depending on YouTube ad revenue to pay you is smart if you do want to get there quicker. That's it.

All right, I'm curious for the people watching the livestream how the sound is too. I just did a YouTube livestream and it was getting crackly sound notifications from, from the people, so let me know what— how the sound is for you guys. So we are in game, about to start I guess. We got— I'm jungle Teemo, J-Rize is mid as who, Viktor? And Trainer6 is top Yasuo, so this should be a fun matchup.

Oh cool.

What was the— this— what was the name again? This person's name?

Scott.

Scott. Scott, it's a legit question. The answer, the number is always going to disappoint you. It's going to take you way longer than you think it is. And if you focus on that number, you're not going to make it. You know, like, you have to want to make videos. That's it. You have to want to do it regardless of how many it takes, regardless of, you know, everything else going on in your life, regardless if it ever turns into a business or not. You have to want to make it. I mean, What Rishi said is right. You know, you have to be able to provide value. People have to love your videos. People have to want to share it. People have to be moved by it. And often you have to go through the quantity to get to that quality, right? You have to keep doing it, get better, get better, get better. I have almost 4,000 videos that I've recorded now. Most of them are up on the YouTube channel. So it's easy to go in and think, man, you know, I just need that, I need that simple recipe. I need to know like, hey, if I make 100 videos or 5 videos or 3 videos or 25 videos, that's it, that's the mark. But, but it's not. And the challenge is having a set number like that is if, if that becomes your goal, like I need to go out and make 10 videos, then if you don't hit it by 10 videos, then you quit. And that's not the mindset that you want coming in. So the number will always disappoint you. It's gonna take you way longer than you think it's gonna take. Like, whatever your worst-case scenario is, it's gonna be worse than that. And so just prepare yourself for it and do it because you want to do it, and do it because you love it, and do it because you want to explore and see where it takes you. So that's it. Like, if making videos makes you come alive and you want to do this and you want to test it out, then start and see if you like it and see if you want to keep doing more. But don't get so attached. Like, it— I get asked this question a lot in various different ways, but but thinking about like how long it will take me to have success in my business, right? Is it, is it 1 year? Is it 2 years? Well, I don't know. Can you provide value in a year? And in 2 years, do you know what you're doing? You know, can you help people out in that time? And what happens if you get to a year and you're not successful? Is that it? That's the end? You're not going to go out and continue on? You know, some people, it takes them a decade to be successful. Right? I mean, some people just take longer than others. So there's no one path. There's no certain number of videos. And if you're asking the question, my concern is that you're going to give up too soon. Do it because you want to do it. Do it because you love it. And that's it. Good luck. Send us your videos. Let's see what you're doing.

And this is interesting though, just a follow-up. Evan, is there a video that for you actually was in your mind kind of a game changer video? I think I know what you're going to say, but I'm curious.

What do you think I'm going to say? I'm curious.

Your first bully video.

Yeah, okay.

Your first bully video when you were like, okay, this is what I'm doing, and then the little man came and told you don't post that video. And then you did it anyway and it ended up being hugely successful. Was that like kind of the quote-unquote the video where success started or how do you think about it?

Yeah, there's a video that we did actually with J-Rise where it was me watching my old videos. Oh, that was good. And I told a number of stories along the way of my progression as a YouTuber and a lot of different kind of marks of turning points, I guess, for my channel. Um, so that's probably worth watching. I don't remember all the turning points there, but it's probably helpful to witness the journey of, uh, making it on YouTube, I guess. Uh, that— the Believe video was definitely a turning point in terms of popularity. It was my first video to hit a million views. Uh, it was a video that helped me gained confidence in what I was doing, where I told, you know, I told this, told this guy who was in my life that, and it was in the video industry, that I'm doing it anyway. He hated the idea, he thought it was too long, he didn't like the video, but I just went ahead and did it. And that, that, that was the biggest video that I had on my channel up until recently. Steve Jobs, the Steve Jobs top 10 rules video passed him past that video, but it's still in my top— I think it's still top 2. But anyways, yes, that video did have a big impact. I think also a video that means more emotionally to me than success on the channel was— my agent kept wanting me to get more passionate and more emotional and more— I was too practical, just getting down to business. And not getting fired up enough, which is interesting because passion and fire is part of what I do now. So it might sound weird that I wasn't passionate enough, but I didn't commit fully to it, I guess. And there was one video that I made that—

Can I guess?

What?

Can I guess?

Yeah.

Can I guess before you say it? Because this is actually my favorite video.

Okay.

Tears in Malaysia.

Ah, no, it was before that, but that was another good one.

Okay.

So Tears in Malaysia was— I was— there was a video I made when I was— I went to Malaysia, I was helping some entrepreneurs, and there was this really moving moment that I had in one of my seminars, and then I went up and made a video about it. The lesson I learned there from from my agent was to— when you're in— when you're feeling an emotional state, go out and film. Don't wait until tomorrow. Don't wait until, you know, next week when you're actually filming day, because you'll forget. You know, you could tell a story way better when you are emotional in the moment than afterwards and try to put yourself back there. And so the tears in Malaysia was part of that training where I felt this, I felt this, you know, wave of emotion and then immediately decided I had to go back up to my hotel room and film this because we didn't have it in, we didn't have it on camera anywhere. But the start of that was when I came home from a mastermind group meeting that I had with some local entrepreneurs. And I felt like I was so frustrated with them. I fought with these guys all night. I felt like I was giving them, you know, beautiful strategies for their business and they were holding themselves back. And it was just insanely frustrating for me. And that was the first one that was me trying to be that in-the-moment video. So like, I would normally film on a Wednesday and this is a Thursday night, so it was not going to be until next week when I have the chance to film the video. And I got home at, you know, 11:30 at night or whatever, you know, crashing out, and I said, you know what, I'm upset at these guys, at a night of fighting, and I'm gonna make a video about it right now. And And the video is not, you know, not anything amazing and didn't get tons of views or anything, but it marked more of a turning point in my mindset in that when I am feeling something, I should get on camera and talk about it. And that led to the courage, I guess, to do the Tears in Malaysia one because it just started putting me in— when I am feeling you know, emotional about something, don't just sit there, get on camera and start to film it. So that really marked one of the turning points for me. Now, you know, with that being said, I don't know what kind of videos he wants to do. That's more about me developing myself and my skills as a speaker. You know, if you're not doing those kind of videos, it may not be relevant or helpful. But you'll have— you'll definitely have these moments where you feel like you've made really big growth. You're learning, you know, some of them are gonna be commercially accepted and give you followers, and you'll get a lot of positive feedback on. And some of them will just be ones where you feel like you've grown personally from. But again, you know, you have to make sure that you want to do do it. Otherwise, just like anything else, if you're doing it because you think it's a way to just make money and it looks so easy because all these other YouTubers are doing it, yeah, it's not. You got to do it because you love it, and if you love it, then you just want to do it, and it doesn't matter how many it takes.

Nice.

That's it.

Uh, we had a follow-up question in the chat from Zaino. Uh, you wanted to know the name The very first video you were talking about that you made with Jay, uh, do you remember the name of it? Is there a name that we can—

I want to say it's like Evan, Evan reviews his old videos or something like that. Evan looks over, Evan reviews his old videos. It's something like that. I don't remember that. I don't remember the exact name, but if you search old videos, yeah, old videos. If you can't find it, let us know. Jay is pretty ninja at finding stuff, so after the game, I'm sure he'll be happy to search and let us know.

Yeah, I don't think I've seen that one though. Cool. Alright, how's the game? Good.

4 and 6.

Yep.

Not doing so well so far, but We'll see, we're not throwing yet. We're not throwing.

Okay, next question comes from Mike Contreras.

Mike.

And, mm-hmm, Mike's— actually, this is just talking about big emotion, so he has a little bit of a rant. He doesn't have a question.

Okay, Mike's on a rant. What's up, Mike?

And it's all, it's all out of love, but he just wanted kind of like your thoughts because it really— he saw the espresso video, uh, with the— I think it was the espresso video, but he referenced your, um, video on Fred Smith, founder of FedEx.

Okay.

And in the video, the message that, uh, Fred Smith was talking about when he was starting FedEx and how you know, he relentlessly pursued this passion and he feared— he feared, or he believed more in his idea than he feared loss.

Okay.

So the thing that Mike can't relate to is that he, I guess, not in the video, but he just found out or knows that Fred Smith was inherited, you know, I mean, I don't know if this is true, but it says $4 million in the email, you know, $4 million. And so he's like, can't relate because Fred Smith had a lot of money to basically, you know, you fear losing very differently when you are in the situation where you have a lot of money, whereas he, he's an entrepreneur, he Fred, I mean, Mike wants to be an entrepreneur, but he has family, mortgage to pay, all that. And so he's just feeling like it's not the same. Like, what do I, you know, I think, I think you get it. So, yeah, it's interesting. Like, You know, we can't— we don't choose like the families that we're born into. We can't choose who our parents are. And there's— I've heard really different views on this. In fact, like there was one episode of Shark Tank. I don't know if anybody in the live chat saw this or those who are listening, but it was like the— there were these two entrepreneur basically what they call rich kids because they— their father was a founder of a very famous business. And so they were on Shark Tank asking for money and they had already been given $2 million from their father who was a founder of this famous company. So you heard Barbara kind of like really tear them apart, and she was like, listen, I don't invest in rich kids because they're not hungry. And, and I— she's like, the greatest thing I had, the greatest privilege that I had as an entrepreneur was that I only had $100,000— or I only had $1,000. And it just put a hunger in her to like basically make it happen. And then you heard Robert, the other shark, just kind of say, you know, no, success doesn't depend on who your dad is. And I don't know, I think it's like a little bit of the end, you know? I mean, I think that you definitely, when you don't have certain privileges, it creates a hunger that is absolutely can help you. But also, you know, I don't think that because you have money it means that— I just think at the end of the day we're all capable of being successful and it doesn't have to do with the circumstances that we're in. So I understand the rant, but I also think that because Mike doesn't have rich parents and he does have a mortgage and a family, it could be the very thing that pushes him into success.

I love it. I don't remember that, Mike. I don't remember that video, but Fred Smith was still a hustler. You know, we don't have people on the channel who are just inherited wealth and just take it easy and aren't pushing and grinding. I mean, that's not an inspiring message for me, and so I don't put it on my channel. I think for the most part, the people who are the wealthiest in the world, if you look at the people who are there that are not from inherited wealth, they are entrepreneurs. They're grinders. They made it themselves. If anything, usually the second generation, they run the business into the ground. But what also shocks me is that you're not willing to listen and learn from somebody who's accomplished more just because they've had some success, right? Just because they started with more. Most people will start— most of the entrepreneurs are starting with less than what you already have right now.

Mm-hmm.

Most of them already do. Like, they have less than what you already have right now. You look at Oprah, right, who started with very little money, had to wear potato sacks to school because she didn't have anything, you know, had all these advantages that are against her that most people may have. You already have more than most people, and if you only want to learn from people who have less than you or in your same situation, it's fine. It can work because it's still a lot. Most of the success stories that we profile are people who have come from absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. And they're the first, you know, in their family to go on and actually have any kind of success. But it's also limiting in that just because somebody comes from a family of wealth and they go on and do something much, much bigger that you don't— you don't feel like you can relate to them, that's, that's a big misstep on you.

Mm-hmm.

You know, if you can only learn from people who look like you, then you're gonna have a hard time. You want to be able to learn from any kind of success, and that's the point of the channel. That's what we do. Now, I mean, again, luckily most of the people that we cover are less successful than you probably already. But it's just like people who feel like they can't learn from, you know, they can't learn from an entrepreneur of color because they're racist, right? Or they can't learn from Kanye West because he does stupid stuff too sometimes, right? Like, mm-hmm, you could learn a lot from people. You know, you don't feel like you can't learn from Donald Trump because he might be too outrageous for you. You can learn a lot from Trump. You can learn a lot from Clinton. Even if you hate them as an individual, you can learn from their success, right? Just like in our gratitude call earlier this morning, Zayna was talking about how he's grateful for his mom even though their relationship is a little rocky right now, right? Nobody's gonna be that perfect person. And so you should be able to, you should start training yourself to be able to learn learn from anybody who's had success. So that's it, that's my message.

Yep, that's definitely one of my favorite of your messages. I think that was all of his questions. Yeah, great. Next question comes from Selon. And still on. Still on, yep.

Okay, still on, okay.

Oh, and by the way, the name of the video that we were referencing earlier is called Yikes. Yeah, we found it. I think Jay got it for us, or I think he did, I don't know. It says, yikes, Evan looks over "Looks over his old videos." OK. So, "Yikes! Evan looks over his old videos." That's going to be fun to watch. I've never seen that one.

When was that? I guess you don't have it in front of you. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah.

I think we did it before the channel started really blowing up too, so I don't know. Maybe time to do another one at some point.

Yeah, I love the reaction videos. Maybe you should start doing more reactions. Evan reacts to his old YouTube videos. That would be super fun.

That's what that is.

I know. Maybe you should do like— maybe you should test that out.

Do it again.

Reaction videos. Yeah.

All right, maybe.

All right, maybe. Okay, uh, so Salam is our next question. He says, congratulations for your wonderful job. I'm a medical student also interested in computer technology. What is your advice for me? All right, uh, feeling the love, Salam, for Evan's channel. And you're a medical student, and you are currently a medical student interested in computer technology. The main thing that came to mind, since it's such a general question, is to Altucher. What's his first name?

Is to Altucher. I love it. It's become a verb now. His last name has become a verb. James Altucher.

Okay, alterature. This is your thing. You got to alterature here. Okay, so I watched this great interview with Evan and James about every day, what does he do, write down 10 ideas?

Yeah, he writes every morning. He writes down ideas. He wanted to become an idea factory.

Yeah, and I like this because it sounds like you don't know what you want to do, but you do know that you have this, you know, you have an interest in medical field as well as computer technology. And I'm sure that if you get into a discipline of starting to write down your ideas every single day, it might be a way that you can start tapping into the business that you want to create. Because I bet that there's a way that you can tie those two together that could be very valuable for people. So yeah, my just kind of like easy what to do right now would be, why don't you watch that video with Evan Carmichael and James Altucher, and then try to implement some of that in your life. And I think it might come with some value for how to get started.

The question again was he's got two different interests and he just wanted some general advice.

Yeah, he just, it sounds like, you know, he has interest in these two areas. He's a medical student and he likes computer technology, kind of just doesn't know what to do next is what I'm guessing.

Got it. So yeah, I'd be looking at how can I combine those things. Like, what's a great way that you can combine them that other people aren't really paying attention to yet? What were the two again?

It was engineering Meh, he's a medical student and he's also into computer technology.

Right, okay, so medical student, computer technology, I'd be looking at one, are you actually passionate about both or are you only a medical student because, you know, your parents told you to be that and they feel like that's the right path for you but you're not actually that interested in it? If you are interested in both then, then there's a huge market, a huge opportunity for you to create. you know, better programs for the medical community. Or if you're just doing it to make your parents happy, then maybe you should try to figure out how you can get your side hustle on to think about how you can make it in the computer business. Really, you know, your, your success— and I guess general advice for students, you know, your success is going to come by figuring out what is really unique to you. And let me buy some stuff here. Really what's unique to you, and that's, that's gonna come through experimentation and exploration. And honestly, your, your highest value to the world is gonna be not fitting into some box. You're gonna have to create your own thing. That other people have not done before. That's what you need to figure out. What is that? And whether that's a mix of computers and medical school or something totally different, you have to go out and explore and see what fits. But the genius is going to be in that "and." The genius is going to be in not just doing doing the same thing that everybody else is doing or not doing it because somebody else wants you to do it. And so figuring out what that is for you and having the courage to go out and explore and try things until you do find that thing that just sets you on fire.

Nice. Yeah, we got a lot of people in the chat saying, "Yeah, great combination, Mad Fientist and All The B's, lots of great things." in that combination. Jerry, and from also Soul Forged 2530, has an idea of like programming apps. So what— I mean, so many things you could do. But yeah, I agree, Evan, your wisdom there is absolutely true.

I mean, I think about my, my first company was bioinformatics. That's, that's biotech software. Now, I didn't— I'm not a coder, but my partners, that was their passion. They were medical researchers in a lab, and they were also software fanatics, and they thought, hey, how can we apply our two passions and combine them? And that's the company that they created, and that, that brought them a lot more happiness and a lot more success than just staying in the lab doing research experiments. So you've got to find that. That's, that's like all of us should be doing that. You're gonna be, you're gonna find success by being you and finding out what is unique and different about you that nobody else can replicate. And it's gonna be by combining multiple interests that only you have, and you see connections and things that other people don't see. Where if you don't combine your various love and passion, it's just going to be— you'll be a second-rate— I don't want to just say entrepreneur, but like you live a second-rate life. You won't be doing the things that you really could be doing because you're too busy focusing on other things that you can't be the the greatest in the world at. So our team is hurting hard here, but that's it. That's what I have. And it's never too late too. Like, this isn't only for students, right? It's never too late to figure out what your end is.

Never too late.

Never too late.

I love it. All right, next question comes from Ofek, and Ofek wants to be an A-list rapper.

All right. Nice.

Yeah, and he wants to make a positive difference in the world via education, so he kind of has a dual desire. He doesn't specifically mention where he lives, but his concern is that where he lives, there are no rappers, basically, or at least not anyone who understands what he wants to do. And so he thinks that you'd be a great person because he knows, you know, you are just a passionate hustler. He didn't use those words, but He really wants to hear from you specifically about like, what do you think he should do? He wants to be that A-list rapper, and but he's in a, he's in a place that he feels is not great for that. Okay, all right. Um, so I actually see this a little differently because the person that came to mind was Björk. And how, yeah, like her greatest strength was the fact that she lived in Iceland. Or I'm not going to say her greatest strength, but one of the greatest things about Björk was that she was from Iceland. And Iceland, it can't get any different in terms of like the places in the world where people feel they should go to be in the music industry, you know. But she didn't run after, "Oh, okay, I'm gonna go to New York," or, "I'm gonna go to all," you know, all the places that you think you're supposed to be at for whatever it is that you feel you want to do. She actually owned and embraced her Iceland roots, and, and it's what made her different. It's what made her special, and I think it's part of what got her success. So I would start not thinking of the fact that you're from a place that doesn't have people around you who get you. I would start seeing that as your asset and not as a liability. And just in terms of the education piece, I don't know where you're from, where you live, but I do know that like at least in America, the— there is actually a lot of opportunity for artists to influence, like at least in liberal arts universities and things, there's like a lot. They embrace, you know, artists and constantly want artists to come in as educators to the student body because, you know, they appreciate that sort of thing. So I think you've got a lot of really— I see all of the things that you want to do, like I see you being set up really well, and I don't see it as like you are, you know, you're not any less capable of being successful because of where you are.

Stop making excuses.

Yeah, that's it.

Like, you don't need to be from a certain city to make it as a rapper. You don't need to be of a certain demographic. Like, how did Eminem become, you know, the greatest rapper in the world? This white guy that People said, you know, white guys can't rap, and here he is making it as the best rapper in the world. How did, you know, if we're looking at race, you got Tiger Woods. The best rapper in the world is white and the best golfer in the world is black, you know, and like two traditionally, you know, really segregated fields. Uh, it's— that is not the reason why you're not successful. Stop blaming your city. Sing better. Pour more into your craft. You have the thing called the internet that Eminem didn't have, and he still managed to overcome. If you can make sick rhymes, put them online. Is your stuff so good that when I listen to it, I'm like, damn, who's that guy? I want to go listen to his records, right? I want to go check out his YouTube channel or see what he's up to. It's not happening yet. You need to get better, and you won't get better until you accept the responsibility for it. That's the thing, right? Like, as long as you continue to blame your location and all this other stuff, as long as that's your story, then then you won't force yourself to get better. Where the reason why you are where you are is because you are not good enough yet and you need to get better. So practice. Put all that energy that you're spending complaining about your city and pour that back into your hustle and use that as motivation to drive and make better rhymes. That's what you need to do.

Feeling it.

That's what you need to do. And I'm excited, man. I want to hear some tunes. Let's see what you got.

Yeah. Um, gosh, you were saying something and I wanted to just add to it. Darn it, what did you say? Um, darn it. Oh well, I just, uh, yep, I agree on all of that. Oh, okay.

Here it is.

No, this is just— this is really cool and something that, that will also just add to your point is like there's a rising— oh, shout out to J-Rise— there's a rising movement in the Native American community for hip-hop. And I just love that because like would not think in the Native American community that you would see that, right? But Here they are totally like owning it, and they're doing it their way. They're like representing the reservation culture, at least from the videos that I've seen that have been really cool. So like they're owning their heritage in the context of their rap, hip-hop thing, and it's cool. So I just like embrace wherever you're from and use it to your advantage.

You have to be the first to be different and unique too. I think about— there's a great clip with 50 Cent and if you haven't watched the 50 Cent video, you should because he's got a lot of good wisdom to share. But it's a great video with 50 Cent where he's talking about people sending him demos demo tapes. And there are these guys sending him demo tapes and they sound just like Lil Wayne. And he's like, "Man, yeah, you sound just like Lil Wayne. That's great job, man. That's like a spot-on copy of Lil Wayne. Like, if I heard this, I would have thought it was Lil Wayne himself." But he's like, "I don't want another Lil Wayne. We have Lil Wayne already." Nice. So your whole thing is just being a Lil Wayne copycat. You know, that's not what people want. People want to see what you can bring. So you got to figure out what that is. And it's so much easier to try to be someone else instead of doing the hard work of discovering who you are. But that's where the magic is. So get out there, do it, man. How many rappers came from Toronto, man? Like, Toronto was on the scene. Was Toronto the rap haven of the world?

Mm-hmm.

You know, and now who's the best rapper in the world?

Drake.

Right, Drake. And is it— was he out complaining and feeling sorry for himself that he wasn't making it because he wasn't from America?

Mm-hmm.

Stop making excuses. Pour your love and your craft.

It's what made him innovate a completely new genre of rap, so that's the whole cool thing about it. It's like when you're from a different place, it sets you up for innovation way more. That's it. Um, you have a video on— I— you mentioned, um, the top 10. Do you have an Eminem top 10?

Yeah, I love it. Eminem Top 10 is great. And so Eminem, another great story, I've told this before, but he did a crank call of LL Cool J. Uh, LL Cool J was one of his mentors.

Oh, right.

Yeah, and he did this video where LL was on a radio station, and so he called in and he said he was like John from Miami or something and said, let me rap for you. And he started rapping LL songs, and then he said, you know, you guess the song and I'm gonna rap it. Let's play a game. And Eminem is notorious for his crank calls. And they said, dude, you're pretty good, like you should really consider going out and getting a deal because you're, you're really good. This John from Miami. And the thing there is that the talent is obvious, right? Like, they don't know it's Eminem. He comes on later and he starts doing his "Lose Yourself" rap, so then, ah, you're like, you know, they realize he just got punked by Eminem. But the people who are listening to him and LL were saying that he was really good and that he should really consider going out and getting a deal, right? Like, is your stuff so good that when people listen to it, they want to do work with you? They want to check out more of what you're all about, right? Is your stuff that good? Are you Eminem-level talent? Because I guarantee you Eminem, no matter where he was from, would still rise up. And so stop blaming your city and start blaming your hustle and your talent level and get better.

Love it. Cool. Um, this game is— oh, you're doing good, you changed it up.

Yeah, we're getting there, we're getting there. We're winning. We haven't won yet though, we could still, it's still, we could still throw this. So focus.

In the chat we've got Zaino kind of coming down on Drake right now, but it's all good.

What's wrong with Drake?

We're all subject— art is subjective, right? We all have our favorite rappers. I guess Dino has a different rapper that he thinks is the best rapper.

Okay, well, look at album sales. But whatever if he's the best or not, he made it, and you can learn from him. And he didn't let his city or his country hold him back.

That's right. Okay, and next question is coming from— oh, I'm gonna say this, let me see this, I say this right— Leda Kali. Leda Kali says, good day, Evan.

Good day.

I came across your site via Google. Obviously, I would also like to start my own business, but like all entrepreneurs, I don't have the experience and capital. I have a huge fear of failing, but I also can't shake the idea that it might be— that it might be hugely successful. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just too late to tackle a huge project like this. I'm 36. I'm based in South Africa and I don't know if it's possible for me to follow your guidelines. Can you give me some advice on my concerns? It would help me so much. Cool. So, yeah, Leda Khalid, thanks for the question. I think, you know, what kind of struck me about what what she said is when she said, I have a huge fear of failing, but ultimately I can't shake the idea that it might be hugely successful. I think what about that is really powerful is like when you can't shake an idea, I think that is a clue. To being really on to something. So I don't know, I've just heard of people who've like, it's almost like they didn't want to go after their dream because of all the fear, but they couldn't help it because it was like, what is that Tyler Perry says? When your dream dreams for you. Like there are times when you feel like you can't do it. But your dream dreams for you. And it speaks to like when there are certain things that like, it's almost like purpose. It's like you can't shake it. It doesn't matter how old you are, doesn't matter how little money you have, doesn't matter none of it, but it's just like your dream dreams for you and you have to do it. So that's my quick feedback. Just start, do it. You can do it.

I love it. Well, we won. So we're back on a winning streak. I went, uh, 6 kills and 2 deaths, and Jay was 4 kills and 1 death. And how was Trainer6? 19 kills and 10 deaths. He was, he was on fire. So we won. I love it. Um, to answer the question, there are people again who have, who've started way later than you. Like, age is not the factor. And how long are you gonna let this fear hold you back? Are you willing to let yourself go until you're lying on your deathbed still with this thing left in you saying, 'I wish that I had gone out and done it'? Just find a small way to get started without having to spend a lot of money. Put your energy and hustle into it and just get started in a small step every single day to move a little bit closer to that goal. At least to know, like, even if it doesn't work out, failure is worse than the regret of not knowing. So go out and try.

Mm-hmm.

Go out and try. Find whatever smallest way it is to get yourself going and let that, let that fear of regret trump your fear of short-term failure. That's what I did. Like, anytime I was really afraid to do something, I would just imagine myself, you know, 80, 90, 100 years old, 200 years old, looking back on my life, and would I regret this? And that fear of regret was greater than the fear of whatever I was in in the moment. And that pushed me through. And it doesn't mean you don't feel the fear, you know, you will be afraid. It's okay. Just minimize it by doing a small step and then another small step and another small step. And there's tons of people who started way later than you. Age is not the factor. Just go out and do it.

Yes.

All right, well, we got a win. Oh, sorry, you got something else?

No, GG, I was just going to say.

Oh, GG, yes. Yes, we got our win. We're going to close with a message from Rishi of the day. What do we got?

Okay. Just a couple of things to you, Evan, and to the people in the chat and Believe Nation for being here today and just being a a great place to learn so much.

I love it. Well, thank you guys for another fun week. We're gonna take a 2-day hiatus. Enjoy your weekend, and we'll see you Monday again. Thank you guys for watching. Continue to believe, or whatever your one word is. I will see you soon.