Evan Carmichael and Luigi Colani argue that entrepreneurs waste energy pleasing others instead of doing their own thing. Akio Morita ignored his family's sake business expectations and founded Sony instead. Carmichael recommends comfort-zone stretches like dancing in public to override the urge to shrink back and build an authentic personal brand.
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Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is: Do your thing!
Over to you, Luigi Killani.
Did it hurt you that especially the German press and also your colleagues Did it get along with you very well?
I don't care a thing. This is part of my success because I did my work in spite of them. They fought me like mad and I told them, come on guys, I do my thing and you'll see where I'm going.
So what do you think?
I love this because I think do your thing to me speaks to like, you know, being who you are and bringing yourself to everything you're doing. It's like putting your own personal signature on something when you're doing your thing. Doing it your way. Be you so much. I like that.
That's her brand.
Yeah.
Yeah, I have a couple thoughts on this. I think one, too many people worry about other people too much, just as a general rule. I think as an entrepreneur, a lot of people are trying to run a business based on what their friends are thinking or their family's thinking, or maybe they want it— they they don't even start being an entrepreneur because their family holds them back. And it's, are you living your life or someone else's version of your life? And at some point you got to decide, hey, this is my life, I'm gonna do what I want to do, and I can't just keep living other people's shadows. Because you're never gonna, you're never gonna be happy, you're never gonna really be happy, you're never gonna accomplish anything great if you're not being you. You're just being somebody else's version of you. I think the hardest scenario is the parent-child relationship, where your parents want you to do something, you don't want to do it. And the story I keep thinking about is Akio Morita, who started Sony. His family was I want to say 11 generations of sake brewers. I might be a little off with the number, but I want to say 11. And he was expected to take over the business being the eldest son, and imagine Japanese culture, very traditional. He was expected to take over. You gotta— this is not just like a one-generation thing. This is our family legacy and history. And he said, no, I don't want to do it. And he started eventually Sony, and Sony's become this insane company. But having the guts to be able to do that and want to live your life instead of what your parents want you to do or anybody else. I think the other component that I would go on for this is not looking too much about what the competitors are up to. I think too many entrepreneurs compare themselves to the competition, and you're so worried what other people are doing that you don't do anything innovative or unique, right? You're not going to have success just by trying to copy somebody else. You can model success and apply it to your business and then use that to be the best version of yourself, but you at some point need to innovate and do something different and not just worry about other people. So when people rip off off my YouTube videos or try to do their own top 10 or their own morning series. People write to me and say, "Hey Evan, this guy is trying to copy you." I don't care. You can't out Evan Evan, right? You can't do it. And so I would rather spend my time going more all in on me than worrying about what this other guy is trying to do to copy me, right? And so the more you do that, the less you care about other people, the more likely you're going to be successful. I do these random tests. I know this video is going a little long, but I'm on a roll. Why not? Yeah. I noticed, it's easy to say, don't care what other people think. It's hard to execute, right? Because I think there's something in human beings where you care, you want approval of other people. You dress up when you go out, right? Why is that? You want approval of other people. So recently I was walking to Toronto Dance Salsa and I have a dance mix on in my ears, right? And I walk through mostly side streets, nobody's on them. And so I'm walking and I'm like, kicking it, hitting the beat. And then I As soon as I get close to TDS, it's on a main street and there's people there. And then as soon as I see them, my instinct is, "Ooh, people here." And I think the thing there is most people just do that instinctively and don't recognize that that's a limiting behavior. Like, why do I care about what these people here on this street corner are seeing, right? And so I then made the conscious effort to then Bring it up again, right?
Rock out!
Right? So then like, I'm just killing it out there on the corner, right? I'm not getting in anybody's face, I'm not trying to be offensive or invade anybody's privacy, but it's a purposeful exercise in stretching my comfort zone so that I'm able to do it more easily the next time and continue to expand what I am and am not comfortable with. Even doing videos in public, like we're in a hotel right now, there's people walking by. I used to be afraid of doing anything even close to this.
Right, we had some people staring at us in the window just a couple seconds ago. —when we just kept going.
Yeah, it's like you don't care anymore, right? Because you've done it. And so practice when you feel like you are not being yourself and you're being judged, and you can recognize that and not just rely on your subconscious behavior to shrink back in. If you can recognize that you're shrinking in, then try to force yourself to come back to being you. And the more you can do that, the more you'll stretch your comfort zone and the more success ultimately I believe that you will have. I love it.
I love your story about dancing on the street. I dance in my car all the time and people stare at me in traffic and I'm dancing in the car and rocking out, singing at the top of my lungs. I don't care. But I love that as a personal exercise to stretch yourself. I love that. It's awesome. So the question of the day today is, what are you gonna do to stretch yourself? What exercise are you gonna do to be more you? I love it.
Leave it in the comments below. We'll join the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe and we'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso.
