In this short interview, Evan Carmichael explains why he chose not to sell his business, arguing that the willingness to turn down a lucrative offer is a litmus test for genuine passion. He likens building a company to a marriage, emphasizing that love for the work, not the prospect of a quick exit, should drive founders. Carmichael contends that pouring care into a product and its processes naturally creates greater long‑term value than building solely to flip. He urges early‑stage entrepreneurs to reject the prevailing “build‑to‑sell” mindset, instead creating businesses they could not imagine giving up, which will ultimately deliver deeper fulfillment, impact, and financial reward. The segment ends with a call for viewers to share whether they are in a business they would not sell, and a promotional shout‑out for his book.
Good morning, Believe Nation. Today's message is create a business you won't sell. Over to you, Evan Carmichael.
So I'm asked one question most often: why didn't you sell your business? It doesn't even make money. It's a fad. You could be on a boat right now. Everybody loves boats. What is wrong with you? And I'm now convinced that the fastest way to figure out if you're doing something that is truly important to you is to find someone who will offer you a bunch of money to part with it. See, the best thing is that no matter whether or not you sell, you will learn something very valuable about yourself. If you sell, you will know immediately that it wasn't the right dream anyways. And if you don't sell, you're probably on to something. Maybe you have the beginning of something meaningful.
There's a lot of books out there. There's a lot of thought leaders out there talking about how to sell a business, how to build a company to flip it or to sell it. And that is something that I just fundamentally am not in agreement with. I think the work that you're doing should be something that you really absolutely believe in and where you spend your time should be about trying to make a meaningful impact. And not just trying to build something up to sell it to somebody else. And so, for those of you who are of that mindset, you're probably not going to enjoy this video. But I approach it like a relationship. You couldn't offer me enough money to want to leave my wife to go do something else. You couldn't offer me enough money to want to sell my business to go do something else. If you paid me X millions of dollars to sell it to you and then I could never help entrepreneurs again, you know, I wouldn't take that deal because I love what I do. I think at the core is you have to find the thing that you love doing. Stop looking for businesses just to make you money, but that you can get lost in, that become a piece of you. Now, if you grow and evolve and your business doesn't grow and evolve with you, and that means you stop loving it and you need to sell it, fine. But the intent going in is I want this to last forever. 'Cause you make different decisions, because you care more, because you value the work that you're doing and the process of building something. And by doing that, you create a company that inherently becomes much more valuable. That's the funny thing, that by pouring the love into it and really caring about the product and the service and the processes, you create something that's much more valuable than if you were building something just to try to flip it and sell it to somebody else. So if you're at the early stages of your business, you're trying to grow it to the next step, I would highly encourage you to buck those trends of building a business to sell it and instead think about what is something that I can build that is truly, deeply, meaningfully amazing and valuable to me and the world and I could not imagine giving up, that I would do this even if I wasn't getting paid to do it because I love the work so much. You find that and that's where you're going to find your ultimate paycheck, your ultimate value, your ultimate contribution, your ultimate success, ultimate happiness. And so the question today is, are you in a business now that you would not sell? I'm curious to find out. Leave in the comments below. I'm going to join in the discussion. Finally, I want to give a quick shout out to Coach Valestin. Thank you so much for the love and in buying a copy of my book and for hailing me a cab in New York City when I couldn't get one myself. I appreciate the love. For those of you watching, you want a chance at a shout out in a future video, make sure to pick up a copy of the book. And email in your receipt so we keep track. Thank you guys so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, or whatever your one word is, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso.
