In this episode of "Believe Nation," host Evan Carmichael introduces the theme "Choose Anything" and invites author Neil Strauss to illustrate how picking a single goal and iterating can break inertia. Strauss uses a metaphor of a white sweat stain on a couch to represent indecision, then walks through a chain of small, related goals—acting, radio hosting, voice‑over work—showing how momentum leads to unexpected outcomes. Carmichael expands on this by sharing his own entrepreneurial journey, emphasizing that perfectionist planning stalls progress. He recounts how unplanned ventures (a YouTube channel, a book, a salsa‑dance school) emerged from taking action, and urges listeners to start, adjust, and let market feedback shape their path. The conversation shifts to writing advice: Strauss declares that "nobody cares" about the writer, so the craft must capture attention, using techniques like open loops. The episode ends with a call‑to‑action for viewers to share unexpected opportunities they’ve pursued, a shout‑out to a fan, and a teaser for a forthcoming Neil Strauss top‑10 compilation.
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Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is "Choose Anything." Over to you, Neil Strauss. I wake up every morning with espresso to keep me going.
Choose anything. It doesn't even matter, just choose anything. So here's an example of you— so I wish I could almost draw it, but I'll tell you what, You're like, let's see, what can I use as a— we'll use the back of this couch here. This is you. Are we filming that?
Sure.
I don't even know if it's going to be worthwhile, but we'll say this. Try it. This is you, right? And you're like, I don't know what to do. I'm not sure what to do. And you're just sort of sitting here doing nothing, right? This little white stain, I don't even know what it is. It's Lamar Burton's back sweat. Is that his name? Lamar, yeah. Lamar Burton. I don't know who— it could be anyone's sweat right there. So that's you, that little piece of sweat toiling and trying to decide what to do. Choose frigging anything. Let's just say, oh, I want to be an actor. Just who cares? Maybe you don't. I don't know. Just choose one thing. So you choose one thing, and now you have a goal, right? Just choose a goal. It doesn't matter. Now maybe you're going to start going to auditions. You're going to auditions. And then wait, you got a job, but it's voiceover work. Or maybe it's on radio. You get a little radio gig, right? So now you're like, oh, radio's fun. I'm going to be a radio host. And that's your next goal. And then you get a call to do like voiceover on a cartoon or something. And you're like, OK, I'll be a cartoon voice. And guess what? Now you're actually moving. And maybe you will end up being the voice of whatever, the next Pixar movie or something like that. Eugene Merman is great. He's the voice in Bob's Burgers. Yeah, yeah, exactly, along with— yeah, there's so many good— John Benjamin, is that his name? He was also in Home Movies. He's great. Anyway, but the point is, just choose one thing to move toward, and then just go with the path, and you'll end up somewhere. But if you stand here trying to decide what to do, you'll still be here in a year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years. Just choose something you kind of like and don't hate, and then start moving toward it, and you'll find that the course and path of life will bring you exactly where you're supposed to be. Did that work as a— on the back of the couch?
I think this is so important because too many entrepreneurs spend so much time planning and planning and planning and planning. They won't do anything until they have the perfect plan, and you need to understand that there is no such such thing as a perfect plan. You need to start doing. You need to start taking action. I look at my business today and it's nowhere close to what I thought I was going to do. I never planned on having a popular website. I never wanted to be a YouTuber. I didn't even want to write a book at the start. I never planned on any of these things happening. It wasn't part of my dream plan. I thought I was going to be a speaker, and I showed up and I did my first event and 3 people showed up, and I just loved it so much. On paper, it looked like a terrible idea. You can't get more than 3 people to show up to a free event. How are you ever going to turn this into a money-making business? Quit now. Save yourself a lot of frustration and headache and go do something else. I think it's so important that you start. I never thought I was going to run and own a salsa dance school. I didn't do any dancing growing up and I I came out of a relationship and I wanted to pick up dancing and I walked into a salsa class and I am too tall and I don't speak Spanish and I've never heard the music before and I take huge steps and I'm learning as an adult. All these things against me in the perfect plan. And here I am, fast forward how many years later, I now run maybe the largest salsa dance school in North America. The key is that you start. And that you adjust. You can have a plan. It's not just have zero plan. You can have a plan that you think makes sense and that works. And then go do something about it. Stop just thinking about it. Stop just sitting at home planning more plans. Plans on top of plans on top of plans. Go do something about it. 'Cause some of your assumptions are going to be wrong. Because once you get out into the market, you're gonna discover new things that you couldn't have planned for, prepared for. Because opportunities are gonna come to you, and maybe that's the right one to jump on to help drive you forward. Start and adjust. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, what was something that you didn't see coming? What's an opportunity you jumped on that wasn't part of your plan and that you're doing right now? I'm super curious to find out. Leave in the comments below. I'm gonna join in the discussion. I also wanna give a quick shout out to Frank Orlando from orlandowealth.com. Frank, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. It really, really, really, really means a lot to me. 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. I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going. Hey, Believe Nation, we're working on a special top 10 of Neil Strauss as well, and here's a quick preview of some of the clips that we're going to include. I hope you enjoy.
Number one rule of writing is this: nobody cares. Nobody cares about you. They don't care about your thoughts. They don't care about your ideas. They don't care about what you have to say, what you did yesterday, or anything. They do not give a shit. And from there, can you make them care? Everything I write, I assume that nobody cares, that they have no interest. And if I start from that perspective, and if I can draw you in, through the writing, that's where the story begins. So just assume, start by assuming nobody cares, and how can you draw them into your story or your point? Number 2 then, one way to draw them in is something called open loops. Who here knows what an open loop is?
Cool.
Has anyone seen the new Doctor Strange movie? Has anyone seen that? Cool, a couple of you saw it, so is it good? Okay, by the way, that's an open loop. An open loop was, I asked you what an open loop was, and then rather than explaining it, I went on to another subject and talked about Doctor Strange or something. An open loop is if I can start with something that captures your attention, and 98% of you didn't know what an open loop is, you're probably curious about it by now because I've been talking for 2 minutes and still haven't explained it yet, right? An open loop is at the top, can I tell you something that you're interested in, you want to know the answer to, and wait till the end. How many times have we just stayed through a really shitty movie just because we want to know what happens at the end, right? You know, it can be the worst movie ever, but I want to know how that happened, right? So one is to use the idea of open loops. And it's true in relationships. You meet somebody you have a lot in common with, you start telling all these stories, you want it to continue. So an open loop is a great way to create intrigue, 'cause we're creatures who love storytelling, right? Early, early, storytelling is part of our DNA. So creating open loops at the top of a post or in a book is really powerful. 4 things when someone gives you feedback or criticism, however it's intended, whether ill or positive. And so one is not to take it in, but to kind of catch it. I think of it like a catcher's mitt. If you tell me something, you come across this way, I'll grab it and then I'll look at it and I'll think, okay, is it true? If it's true, cool, I'll put it in and learn from it. If I think it's not true, cool, I'll throw it away. No harm, no foul. I'm not gonna dwell on it, right? And I think everybody needs this in this world 'cause we're all on, most of us are on social media and we're all getting like, you know, all our thoughts are getting picked apart, you know, all the time. So we really need this more than ever. Then the third one is you get it and it's a maybe. Well, I'm not sure. You said this about me. I'm not sure. You know, what do you guys think? You know, what do you think? I'll ask my friends and I'll ask other people and get some feedback. And if it's true, well, cool, maybe I'll learn from it. If everyone's like, this is total nonsense, ignore that dude, I throw it out. But then there's a fourth one, and this is where the real growth is. Do you know what the fourth one is? I don't. The fourth one is you get it, you throw it out. I'm talking to you, and then maybe later I'm talking to You know, you, I get it. And I'm like, nah, that's not true, I throw it out. And then later I'm talking to someone else, I get it, it's the third time it's come back to me and I've thrown it out, I'm like, wait, maybe I gotta take this thing a little more seriously. And it becomes a maybe, and then it becomes a yes. And that's when the big real thing is, because you kept ignoring this thing that was in your face. So the best feedback, like where you really grow, is you keep getting the same feedback, you keep dismissing it, at some point you say, wait, maybe they have something. So one way I do this is, I get together a group of people and we sit together once a week and talk about stuff going on in our lives. I find group therapy really powerful because if it's just one-on-one, I can just say I disagree with you. But when 4 or 5 people are saying, "Hey dude, no, you're really coming off like that," or, "You're really having this problem in your relationship and maybe need to look at it," and 5 people are saying it, like, it's pretty hard to dismiss them. We treat ourselves horribly. We talk to ourselves in ways that we would never ever allow a stranger to talk to us, right? If somebody here walked up to you and said, "You're not interesting, you've got nothing good to say, you're not enough, you know, you're not attractive," you'd be like, "Fuck you, let's fight." Right? So, why do we allow ourselves to talk to ourselves that way? Right? So if there's sort of a message I can give you guys today that's going to sort of to help you get over approach anxiety is start treating yourself the way you want that person you're approaching to treat you. Right? If she said this, she's not going to say anything half as mean as the shit you're telling yourself. You know? So you got nothing to fear anymore, right? Because you've already given yourself the worst of it. If I could give you like one thing this whole weekend, it'd be to stop talking to yourself this way. So every emotion has its corresponding Action. You may feel a fear of rejection, right? But where is that coming from? If you were— like you were saying earlier, if you're giving someone more worth and value and higher status than yourself and you're less than them, what is that saying? That's shame. Shame about who you are. Shame that you're not worthy to talk to this person. Shame that this person somehow is going to have some power over you or going to hurt you, that you're not enough, that you're not good enough, that you're not attractive enough, that you're not rich enough, that you're not socially comfortable enough, that you're too awkward, whatever it is, that shame about who you are. And what happens, right? Your shame when you walked in turns to joy. So the overall idea is if you can approach from a place of joy, if you go out from a place of joy instead of a place of shame, you will have no approach anxiety. That's what we call, what I call, what they call back in the Dan Gainey days being in state. You know, being in state is just what really, just having joy is. The overall thing is if you walk out and you're like, "Okay, alright, there are all these people and they're going to approve of me and if they approve of me I'm going to feel good about myself, but if they don't approve of me I'm going to feel shit about myself and I'm going to go out and put my self-esteem in the hands of every stranger I talk to," you're just setting yourself up for trouble. You know, you can push past it using a lot of the stuff we might talk about, but you're starting off with a giant, giant handicap.
