In this motivational monologue, Evan Carmichael argues that the quickest way to achieve any goal is to "model success"—to study and emulate people who have already accomplished what you aim to do. He spotlights A.P. Giannini, the founder of Bank of America, as a prime example of a visionary who supported "the little guy" by lending to hardworking immigrants and entrepreneurs based on trust rather than collateral. Giannini famously backed a young Walt Disney when other bankers rejected his idea of feature-length cartoons, providing the capital that launched Disney’s first film and eventually an empire. Carmichael uses this story to illustrate how learning from past successes provides concrete strategies, motivation, and guidance. He urges listeners to seek out historical or contemporary figures who have solved similar challenges, extract their tactics, and apply them to their own businesses, emphasizing that modeling success is the fastest path to achievement.
Chapters
The fastest way to accomplish any goal is to model success. Find someone who's already done what you're trying to do and put their strategies to work for you. Success leaves clues if you have the eye to follow it. If you don't, you're going to spend countless hours, time, dollars, energy, resources going down the wrong path and on a path that doesn't serve you. My favorite famous entrepreneur is a man who died 30 years before I was born. His name was A.P. Giannini, and he was the founder of Bank of America. And when people hear this, they say, "Bank of America? Really? You like a banker? Of all the options you could pick from, you chose a banker?" And for me, it's different because he was a banker of the little guy. He believed in the little guy, and that's something that really resonated with me. And what I'm trying to do with my business. He liked helping hardworking immigrants and he liked helping entrepreneurs when nobody else would believe in them. He got into banking as he was on the board of a bank and he said, "Bankers typically only support businesses and rich people. Why don't we support the little guys?" And they said no. So he opened up his own bank across the street from the bank that he was at, literally across the street. And he supported the entrepreneurs and the hardworking immigrants, and he lent money to people based on a handshake, a signature, and a look on their face. Really? A look on their face and a handshake? What kind of banker, even today, what kind of banker would do that? It's crazy. But that's what he did, and he gained a cult-like status amongst entrepreneurs and immigrants. When a young man named Walt Disney got laughed out of every banker's office because he wanted to turn cartoons into full feature-length films. They thought he was crazy, so he went to go see A.P. Giannini, and A.P. gave him the money he needed to launch his first movie and later on go on and build an empire. And that's the kind of stuff that he did. And reading those stories and learning from his strategies and his success not only gives me specific ideas of what I can do, but also gives me the motivation to keep going. And that's the power of modeling success. So whatever goal you have Whatever challenge you're facing right now, somebody has already done it. They've already accomplished it. They've already solved it, and they may have died decades ago like my idol did. You just have to find them, and following their success will not only give you specific ideas and strategies on what you can do to overcome your challenge, but also give you the motivation and guidance to keep going and doing it. Model success is the fastest way to accomplish any goal that you have, and I hope that you'll apply it to your business as soon as possible. Good luck.
