In this episode of Evan Carmichael’s Entspresso series, host Evan opens with his “Believe Nation” mantra and frames the episode around the theme of not worrying about what others say. He introduces former NFL quarterback Brett Favre (Speaker B) who shares his personal philosophy that criticism—whether positive or negative—doesn’t affect him; his character and self‑respect are what matter. Evan expands on this by explaining why entrepreneurs inevitably attract criticism when they deviate from family, cultural, or societal expectations, and he recounts his own experience of receiving harsh feedback on his first “Believe” video. He emphasizes the need to internalize one’s own vision, ignore naysayers, and keep pushing forward despite fear or jealousy from others. The conversation then includes brief contributions from a third speaker (Speaker C) echoing the same sentiment, a reflective excerpt from the Dalai Lama on Buddhist indifference to praise and criticism, and media mogul Ted Turner who cites the high failure rate of new ventures but stresses that ignoring naysayers can lead to breakthrough successes. Throughout, Evan repeatedly asks viewers to share their own painful feedback in the comments, gives a shout‑out to a fan who bought his book, and ends with a motivational sign‑off encouraging belief in one’s “one word.”
Chapters
Good morning, Believe Nation! My name is Evan Carmichael, my one word is believe, and I believe that entrepreneurs are going to solve all of the world's major problems. So to help you on your journey today, we're going to learn about how to not worry about what other people say. Over to you, Britt Favre.
You know, for me, my career has been awesome. There's probably decisions I wish I would have made differently, and as I look to the future, there probably will be the same thing, you know, in all phases of life. And I really, I don't worry about what people say, good or bad. We would all love good things to be said about us. It sure is nice to pick up the paper or turn on the news and good things are said about you. And that's not always the case, so I really don't pay attention to it. I really feel like that my character speaks for itself. The way I played the game, the way I carried myself, it's not always been perfect, but I'm very proud of what I have done on and off the field. And that's ultimately, that is the most important thing, is how we feel about ourselves.
It's important to understand that the minute that you start to do something different, the minute that you start to try to stand up from the crowd and go do your own thing, That's the minute that you start to get criticized by other people. If you don't do the thing that your family wants you to do, if you don't do the thing that your friends want you to do or your culture wants you to do, as soon as you start to lay your own path and say, "This is the direction that I want to go in," and be different, that's when you start to open yourself up to criticism. Because people are, one, afraid that you're off doing this thing that's different and it's not normal and is unsafe, and so we're gonna tear down that person. People are gonna be jealous of you, saying, "Well, I wish I could go and do that, but I'm too afraid to go do that myself, so I'm just gonna stay in my corner and just throw tomatoes at that person." People also out of love will criticize you because they think that your path should be the normal, safe one instead of going off and doing that scary thing. And so as entrepreneurs, it's something that we all will come up against because by the very nature of what we do, We're off doing different things. We're off trying to create a new world. We're off trying to invent something different. We want to change the way things are done. And whenever you stand out, you are going to get criticism. And so at the start, I think it's one, understanding that, recognizing that, trying to put yourself in that person's shoes and say, listen, you know, this person who's criticizing me just doesn't get it, instead of taking it personally. Because what happens to a lot of people when they get that criticism is they shut down. They can't handle it. They're not used to it. And so they shrink. So they have this bold goal, this bold mission of where they want to go, and then as soon as somebody attacks them, they shrink back down and say, "Oh, maybe I shouldn't do that. Maybe I shouldn't go for that." And so you cancel your own dream because of other people's expectations on you. I remember when I made my first Believe video. I showed it to somebody who I respected in the film industry, and he didn't like it. He said it was too long and nobody would ever watch it and that I should cut it down. And he told me that I didn't understand how the internet worked. And I looked at the video again, and this is a guy who understood the industry. It's not some outsider who doesn't really understand anything, just people throwing their opinions at you. He understood the industry. And I looked at the video again, and you know what? I just loved it. I loved the video, and even if it was a complete flop, I still had to put it out because it meant something to me. Now luckily the video did well. The video had 100,000 views in the first month, it's sitting at over 2 million views now. The video was the— became the best video that I had on my channel at the time. But not everything is going to work out. Some things are going to fail, some things you're gonna flop on. You're not gonna have great results at the beginning of anything because you're learning a new skill. But what's important to understand is you need to make a decision at some point in your life that you're gonna live your version of your life instead of somebody else's version of your life, because everybody else has a plan for what you should do. And until you decide to break free and run with your own plan and deal with the criticism that will come alongside it, then you're never going to go off and accomplish the big things that you have in your head. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, what was some harsh feedback that you got on your business idea or in your personal life that hurt you for a while, and maybe by spreading it here, you can release it, release it from your system so that it no longer bothers you. Leave it down in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. I also wanna give a quick shout out to Alfred Gonzalez. Alfred, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. It really, really, really means a lot to me, man, 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, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of Enespresso.
You don't pay a lot of attention to reviews and those kind of things?
Well, you know, you're always affected by opinion, but the more opinions there are of you, the the less I look at them because I just can't live my life based upon what other people think about me. So I can't concern myself too much with what other people think. You know, it's just not healthy. I don't think I could continue to do what I do if I was constantly worrying about what somebody thought about it.
If the rest of the people really feel me as a politician, a furthermore bad politician, then I feel sad. Or cunning, cunning liar politician, then of course no problem, no problem. Some say something good person, some say bad person, that doesn't matter. So long my own motivation or thinking is honest, sincere, that's important. That's simple Buddhist monks. Actually, you see, Buddha, you see, taught Don't care for others saying. If one say too much praise, then at that time should think, oh, I also have the critics. Then one say, is it a lot of criticism, then you should think, oh, some people praising me. So it doesn't matter. Too much, so pay much attention, these things are silly.
You know, how did you ignore all those naysayers and continue to sort of blaze the trail?
95% of all new ventures fail. So, if you just bet against all new ventures, the odds are 90% that you're going to be right 90% of the time. But you're going to miss that 1 out of 10 or 1 out of 20 chances to really hit a home run. And I wasn't worried about the naysayers saying it wasn't going to work. I just laughed about it because I knew it was.
And you worked very hard at it as well.
I wasn't going to let it fail. And even if you read my book, it's right there. I wasn't going to let it fail. And I'm not going to let humanity fail to get rid of nuclear weapons and handle this energy thing. I'm going to keep fighting until we start getting it right.
