CLARITY is power - #EvansBook ep. 30

Clarity is power. Hey guys, welcome to another book edition. I'm a little bit sick today. Been sick for the past week. Coughing, fever, headache. Probably really shouldn't be outside today, but gotta write my book, gotta make my videos. You guys have always been there for me, and so I feel like I gotta keep providing some great content for you. So I apologize if today's video is not as clear clear as I'd like it to be, but I want to talk about clarity. And I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs aren't clear enough when they're working with suppliers, when they're bringing on a team. What we really want is for people to do things a lot of times our way. We're frustrated that the people we bring on, the people we work with, don't do it our way, don't have the same standards, don't follow our processes, and then the end result isn't something that we are in love with. And that may be in part from having the wrong people. That's fine. But it also may be from your lack of clarity, from not providing clear enough instructions on how you want something done. And I faced this issue a number of times in my business. I look at the YouTube channel as an example. I hired Ivan to come on board and help me with all the research, finding the top 10 quotes, the video clips, the espresso video clips. That's all Ivan putting together, the research. And when I first hired him, I gave him some general instructions and I said, hey, find things that inspire you. Let that be determining factor. If it inspires you, it's good. I want you to come away feeling something strong. And I found that that was a good start, but it wasn't quite enough. I wasn't clear enough. And I ended up doing a lot of editing of his work. And it still saved me a ton of time in terms of me having to go and do it all myself. But I was removing a lot of the stuff that he added. I was editing my own things, putting in new clips, and still spending a lot of time. And so to provide more clarity, we now have a weekly meeting. Every Friday we meet and go through one of his top 10 series together. Like basically what I would do on my own, and I explain to him, here's why I like this, here's why I don't like this. What I'm putting in, what I'm taking out, what the order of the clips are, sometimes why I make extra cuts or why I extend clips to give him broader awareness, knowledge, context to create something that is amazing for my channel. And, you know, what he likes is maybe not, you know, great for my channel. Could be great for his channel if you want to start one, but I'm trying to help him have more clarity so he feels like he's doing a better job. How this relates to my book: Section 3 in my book is all about interviews. Section 1 and Section 2 are me, my my thoughts, my examples, my theories, and the practical execution of it. Section 3, I wanted to expand it to show how other companies are doing it too. Everybody from a guy who's making $50,000 and has a full-time income to companies making hundreds of millions of dollars and kind of everywhere in between. So no matter what size business you have, there's at least one company— hard to breathe— there's one company that you can look to as an example. And doing those interviews was fun, but each interview lasted 4 to 5 hours, and just the thought of sitting there and transcribing those interviews and putting them into content to me felt like an insane amount of time and wasn't necessarily my best skill set either. So I brought someone on board to help me with the copywriting, and I've always had a hard time finding someone who can write in my voice. I've never been able to find someone who can write as me. I end up just editing and rewriting it. And so anything that you see kind of written form, it's me, it's me writing it. And so maybe I'll get to that point of being able to find someone, but, uh, it could be my lack of clarity. Food for thought. Anyway, so in terms of, uh, of the book, the person I brought on board did a great job of transcribing and putting the, the great content together, but when I went in and read it, it just didn't flow with the rest of the book. I think she was putting in a lot of her style, and I gave some overview of what to do, some general directions and guidelines, but not enough. It wasn't clear enough. And so the third section of the book had some great content, but it didn't flow with the rest. It didn't seem like it was coming from me. It wasn't part of the rhythm of the book. And so not that it was wrong, it just, you know, I want to feel proud about the stuff that I put out. I think you should too. You need to have high standards, and it may be so high that nobody else cares. Maybe I could put it out as it was and you guys would love it anyway. But I want to love what I do with the videos, with the book, with the projects I'm working on. I want to look at it and be proud of what I made, be able to show my son and my grandkids at some point— not grandkids yet, but you know what I'm talking about— to be proud of what I'm making. And so again, what helped here was more clarity. So we hopped on a number of calls together and said, here's exactly what I'm trying to do. Here's how I want to open every page. Here's how I want to close every page. I want to have it broken down in the following way. And once I gave that clarity, she was able to rock and roll. She was able to pound out more pages. I'm making very minimal edits and changes, and I think it saves everybody frustration because she's frustrated that, you know, I'm rejecting the pages, I'm saying it's not good enough, I'm making edits and changes, and I made specific changes without kind of giving the guidelines. If you're working with a team of people and you have a specific result in mind and you have specific criteria and you have high standards, you know, when they're not delivering to the standards and capabilities that you're looking for, one, it may be that you have the wrong people in place, but two, you want to make sure that you've given every opportunity to them to provide clarity, provide training, provide mentorship, because if you can be more clear, you're more likely to get the result that you want. Let me get to your questions. Okay, first up is Amir: You mentioned this is your first book, but did you not write your Zuga series? Yeah, the Zuga series, I guess, was officially my first written series, but it was never put into a book format. Those are all worksheets that are sold individually or as a package. This is my first real book, and it's with the publisher, it's with Penguin Random House, so that's why I call it my first book. Francis, very inspiring advice. There are many ideas that I've researched and taken action on, yet many people in my environment do not have the same interest. Do you have any advice on how to network with other entrepreneurs around the area? I have many ideas that I know will make money after exhausting hours of research, but do not know anyone with the same interest, desires to learn more. So I think with this, you just got Explore. You gotta explore, get involved in communities. Some of them may be online communities, doesn't have to be in your local area. They could be, I guess depending on the business kind though that you're trying to launch. I think too many people settle. They settle for good. You find someone who kind of has the same interests and then you get your hopes up, you get all excited, and then, you know, like, I'm gonna make it work with this person, and then it's not the right person. If you settle, then you're never gonna find great. Good is the enemy of great. I think I talked about that in last week's episode. So just get involved in things, you know, whatever target market you're trying to get into. There are meetup groups, there are communities, there are associations. Get involved, go out. There's going to be a lot of people who won't fit your criteria, and that's okay. Just keep moving. Don't settle. Keep searching, keep exploring. Get involved in every offline and online community that you can be involved in, that you can think of, until you find the right people. And when you find that person, then you go all in and, and make it happen. So stop settling. Rajiv: Sir, I think ideas are like a bubble. It increases with a lot of air, then suddenly due to environment and circumstances it bursts. How does it survive is a big question. Can only believe works. I'm not fully understanding the question there. You know, ideas grow and then suddenly due to environment and circumstances it bursts. You know, I do agree that environment does hold a lot of people back. The people around you, you know, just look at your daily environment, your routines, your habits. I think the first thing is just recognition and awareness that your environment holds you are. I think until you recognize that there is a problem, you're not going to fix it. People who have addictions or people who are in bad relationships, it's only when you realize that this is a problem, that's when you start to change it. And so I challenge you to look at your environment and see what are the problems. Is it the people you're hanging out with? Is it your morning routine? Is it the music you listen to? Is it your actual physical environment? What is it that is holding you back? And then start making changes. Once you identify the problem, it's easy to make the changes. I wouldn't blame circumstances because that's an excuse. It's easy to blame circumstances. You look at any successful entrepreneur, you look at the most successful people who have built insane companies, most of them started with nothing. They started with nothing. So it's not blaming the circumstances and saying, oh, you know, I can't be successful because of whatever, you know, my parents weren't successful, or I don't speak English well, or I wasn't born in America, or I don't have the right education, whatever. As long as you tell yourself that story, then that's always going to be your story and you're never going to be successful. Circumstances are not the main issue, but your environment and the story you tell yourself are. So work on that. And the good news is that's totally within your control. You can change the story you tell yourself. You can change the environment that's around you to create one that is more nurturing and supportive of your big ideas, to help them grow and keep growing and not burst like a balloon. Antoine wrote in What about the process of writing a book? When do you know you've researched enough for a specific topic and actually start writing? That's a cool point. I think for me, the products that I create, the videos I create, the books I create, the t-shirts that I create, everything I create is based on me scratching my own itch. Like, I'm genuinely curious about this stuff. I want to create something that I'm proud of and makes me come alive, and it's ready when I feel like it's ready. You know, it's a gut feel kind of thing. A lot of the things in the book I have put in because I've experienced I've experienced them and they've rapidly helped me grow businesses. I had to then go out and research other companies that have done it as well. I had these things that I've had an intuition about and had to see, hey, does this work for other people? And that's what led to Section 3 and all the interviews and their case studies and examples. And so for me, when is a product done? It's when you're proud of it. It's when you want to release it. Whether that's a book, whether that's software, whether that's a new car, whether that's whatever it is that you're working on, I would keep tinkering, keep working away until I had something that I was proud of. And ready to release. That being said, it's never done. Like, it's never done. And I think that holds a lot of people back because they want it to be perfect. It's never going to be perfect. You can have something that you're proud of that makes you come alive that's not perfect. Because I'm sure when I write the book and release it, already there's sections that I want to add that I don't have the time to add that might be part of a new book or I might talk about in the video series or something. When you're excited about something and you're proud of it and you feel like this adds value, you release it, but don't wait for it to be perfect. Next up, Dawn. I'm a soon-to-be divorced mother of 4. Besides my religious type videos, your videos really keep me motivated to be the best I can be. You're very much one of the virtual mentors for me. So awesome, life-changing. Dawn, really appreciate that. You know, I'm really sick today, and it's because of people like you and the comments that I get that makes me keep going. It makes me love what I do. So I really appreciate that. I'm glad that I could be a small part of your journey, and I want you to know that you're a part of my journey too. So I appreciate it. Rishi Cup TV. I love this channel. Helps give you confidence to go for the crazy ideas. I posted a crazy idea on my channel today, and this video gave me a little bit of confidence. If the video completely fails, oh well, at least I can continue to say I went for it and tried. I think that's the important thing. You want to make sure that you give your ideas a try. You don't have to be so attached to an idea that if it doesn't work out, then, you know, your personal ego is at stake and your personal self-confidence, and you feel like a failure. Just because your idea didn't work, it doesn't mean that you are a failure. And I think the worst thing is just having these ideas and not doing anything with them. I was having a chat yesterday with the guy I brought on to run the salsa business with me, and I've tested a new crazy idea out in front of the studio that he didn't like, and he says it's too crazy and he doesn't understand how it ties into what we're doing. And that's cool, and, you know, I'm totally willing to have that idea fail. It may fail, it may suck, it may be the worst thing that I've ever come up with, but I had the idea and I need to give it a shot. That's what you need to do, you know, you have to be willing to try Big things and be willing to fail at it, even if it's not— even if you're not investing a lot. Like, I don't say you have to go out and take out a loan and go all in and put your, your house and your family on the line. But do a small start and try and see what happens. See if it makes you come alive. See if you start getting some results. Because the worst thing is having an ambition, a dream, a big idea, and then just sitting on it because you're afraid that it's gonna fail or you're afraid of what people are gonna think about you. Next up, Tamara: Thank you for answering my question, Evan. Great advice. Do your 120,000 words include the surprise chapter 6? Yeah, so the book is about 120,000 words right now. That's all in. It's gonna go through some major editing. I still have to— that's basically what I'm doing right now, was editing. If we end up taking some words out, then I don't know what I'm gonna do with it. It might be free content on the website. It may be videos that I create. It may be content for another book. But yeah, the 120 is everything in, including the surprise end of chapter 6. And then last up, I know a number of you guys commented about the video freezing last week's video. I apologize for that. We've been having a lot of struggles struggle with the YouTube channel recently with videos freezing for some reason. I don't know what, what's happening and why that's a problem. I know Christina is, uh, really frustrated by it. We've had to upload and re-upload a number of videos because for whatever reason it froze. We haven't fully understood why it's happening. This one kind of slipped through, so I apologize for that, and we'll try to do a better job next time. If you guys have any resources, tips, ideas on why that might be happening, I'm all ears too, and I'm sure Christina would love the advice too. So that's it. I am out of breath. My arms are tired, I'm feeling sick physically, but I'm feeling nourished in my soul. And so thank you for spending your time today with me. If you have a question or comment about providing clarity, which was the topic of today's session, or you have a question about your book, my book, the book writing process, leave it in the comments below and I will make a video reply for you on next week's video. Thank you guys for watching. Continue to believe And I'll see you soon.