Evan Carmichael wrote Your One Word after realizing his own brand centered on "believe." He interviewed entrepreneurs with revenues from $50,000 to $150 million and found none had a formal framework. That gap led him to create the first actionable plan for building a business around a single defining word.
Talk to us, Evan, please, a little bit about, about the book. Your one word, how did that idea come to fruition? Like, was it something you'd been planning all along, or were you just one day like, I'm gonna write a book, let's make this happen?
I never want to write a book. My agent Steve in New York is like, we need a book. You need a book. I need a book to sell you into corporations and all this stuff. Like, I don't want a book, Steve. Look at my YouTube channel. I can open up doors with my— it's not this night. It's not 1950 anymore, right? Like, you don't need a book to open up doors.
Yes, sir.
I mean, he's like, okay, I'm going to pitch you anyway to publishers. Okay, whatever. Pitch me. It doesn't matter. And then through that process, I was figuring out My one word, believe. I started branding my business around believe. My website was about believe. My newsletters were about believe. I was making videos about believe. Everything that was believe related took off way more than anything else. And so, and it's one because it's easy to understand and market, but two is like it was more me. It was, it was, believe is not just a marketing thing. It's authentic for me. It's what I am. And so I was curious to then find other businesses like I'm going to do this crazy thing and build my entire business around one word. It sounds nuts. And then I started finding other businesses that had done it. And from the guy who just built a $50,000 full-time income for himself around one word, to then a business that had half a million dollars, a million dollars, $5 million, and $150 million in revenue. And I went out to interview these people and they all just figured it out. Nobody had a blueprint. There was no plan.
Gotcha.
And so I thought it'd be pretty cool if there was a plan. Like if there's a book that I want to write, that's the book I want to write.
Gotcha.
Not this other stuff that you guys are pitching me. And so I was really reluctant at the start. I didn't want to do it at all. I was just following my agent and didn't want to take calls and didn't want to do— like, we take a call and then give us a proposal. I don't want to do a proposal. I don't even want to do a book. But then when this idea came, I was like, guys, this is it. This is the thing. And they thought— they hated it at the start. They're like, that's a workbook. That's like 5 pages of a worksheet. I'm like, are you kidding me? This is more than a book. This is a series. For a book, they want like 60,000 words. That's how much like a typical book is going to be. I wrote 120,000 words. We cut half the book. We cut an entire book. And they're like, oh, we can use that as volume 2. Like, no, no, no, like that— we're not even keeping that. I'm throwing that away. Like, if I'm writing another book, it'll be something different. It's like, just grind out the work, and I'll throw away more than what most people will even create. And so like, that's the best of the 120,000 words condensed down to 60 or 65 or whatever it is. I just got really excited about being able to teach the concept, and I thought it would actually lend itself better to a book because of the activities and exercises than making YouTube videos. Thank you guys so much for watching. Thank you to the guys from VNR Media for the awesome interview. The full link is in the description below if you wanna check it out. I'd love to know, what did you think? What are your thoughts? Leave them in the comments below. I'm super curious to find out. Finally, I want to give a quick shout out to Dan Call. I hope I pronounced that okay. Dan, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. I really, really, really, really appreciate it, and I hope you're enjoying the read. So 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. I'll see you soon.
