In this motivational YouTube segment, host Evan Carmichael (the "Believe Nation" espresso host) delivers a concise business lesson centered on the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people. The video opens with a quote from Bill Gates, who emphasizes that his most successful decisions stem from choosing trustworthy partners—Paul Allen and Steve Ballmer—who share his vision while offering complementary skills and honest feedback. Evan expands on this theme, arguing that ambitious entrepreneurs must build teams, not just hire order‑takers. He distinguishes between assigning tasks and delegating projects, warning that task‑only delegation creates bottlenecks and limits growth. He acknowledges that early founders often lack formal training in people management, leading to common pitfalls such as over‑reliance on a single hire and fear after a first‑hire failure. Evan encourages a resilient hiring mindset: expect early mis‑fits, keep hiring, and treat each hire as a learning opportunity. The segment also features insights from Francis Ford Coppola, who advises against working in a vacuum and stresses the need for trusted, brutally honest feedback, and from Gordon Ramsay, who likens a great chef’s success to surrounding oneself with smarter, like‑minded talent. Additional commentary urges listeners to intentionally seek diverse perspectives that challenge assumptions. The video concludes with a call‑to‑action for viewers to identify the next role they need to fill, a shout‑out to a fan, and a teaser about a “one‑word” secret to happiness.
Chapters
Rise and shine, it's espresso time! Good morning, Believe Nation, it's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out into the world. So grab your coffee and sip on today's message: pick good people. Over to you, Bill Gates.
In my case, I'd say my best business decisions really have to do with picking people. Deciding to go into partnership with Paul Allen is probably at the top of the list. And then subsequently hiring a friend, Steve Ballmer. And having somebody who you totally trust who's totally committed, who shares your vision and yet has a little bit different set of skills and also acts as a check on you. You know, some of the ideas you come up with, you run by them because you know they're going to say, "Hey, wait a minute. Have you thought about this and that?" And just, you know, the benefit of sparking off of somebody who's got that kind of brilliance, it's not only made it fun, but it's really led to a lot of success. So picking a partner is is crucial.
If you want to accomplish something big with your business, then you need to have a team. You just have to. Look at any of the people that you look up to. Who are your entrepreneurial heroes? Who has done what you want to do? These are the people you want to emulate and be on the same level as. Nobody did it alone. They didn't do it by themselves. They may be the face, but there's a lot of people underneath them. And so if you want to be able to take that ambition of yours and turn it into something big, it has to be with a team. It's also really important that as you grow, You're not just hiring order takers, not just hiring people to do tasks, but you're hiring people to do projects. The difference is, look at this business, Toronto Dance House, as an example. For me to be able to tell somebody on the team, "I want to add an extra 1,000 students next semester to this business. Go do that." That's a project. Versus telling them exactly what they need to do, which is a task. If all you are doing is giving tasks instead of giving projects, then you will always be the bottleneck because everybody's always coming to you for advice and to make the final decision. What you want is people who get what you want to do, who understand the mission, who will push you and come up with new ideas because they're experts at what they do and they can take the projects and run with it. That's how you have ultimate success. Now at the beginning it's hard. Very few companies, whoever their first employee was, is still with the business. And it's not because that was a terrible employee, it's mostly because the entrepreneurs suck at managing. You can't just bring somebody on and say, "Great, here's all my problems, you take care of it now." You know, that's a real person you got to deal with. You have to train them, you have to support them, you have to manage them, you have to love them, you have to care about their growth. All of those things matter, and most people at the beginning really suck at that because we don't go to school for that. We're not trained in that. Where do you learn how to be a great boss? Doesn't happen in our education system. And so you have to develop those skills. And here's the thing that holds a lot of people back. They hire somebody, the first hire doesn't work out, and then what you do is you go back to just playing small. Like, okay, I can't hire someone, it's not going to work out, so I'm just going to do it myself. And that can work. And you can forever be a small business with just yourself doing all the work, and it'll be high-quality output, but you'll never be able to do anything really big because your time is limited. You only have a certain amount of hours every single day. Don't let that first failure, that first hire not working out, prevent you from continuing the process, from hiring again. Just like chances are whoever you first dated It's probably not the person you married. Sometimes it works out and it's great, but most of the time it's not. And so just because you kiss somebody and that relationship didn't work out, it doesn't mean you throw in the towel and say, I'm never gonna get married. It's never gonna work out. I'm just gonna live by myself my entire life. It's not how we think, but for some reason in entrepreneurship, people take that approach. Because the first hire didn't work out, now they're never gonna hire anybody again. And so getting over that hurdle Expect the first hire not to work out, even though you're going to do your best and every time you're going to learn. Then look to make sure you're hiring people to do projects and not just tasks so they can really push you and drive the mission of the business forward. And it all starts with that mindset of just understanding that if you have big ambition, you want to make a mark on your industry, you want to achieve big goals, you can't do it alone. You need great people around you. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, who is the next person that you need to bring on board your team? Not their name, but the position. What's the skill that you need to have on your business that if they were there, it's gonna help catapult your business forward? I'd love to hear from you, I'm really curious. Leave it down in the comments below. I also wanna give a quick shout out to Brandon Slater. Brandon, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, doing the interview on your YouTube channel, and all the love and support around the book. I really, really appreciate it, man, and I'm so glad you enjoyed 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 espresso.
Very, very, very important: do not work in a vacuum. Do not work in a vacuum, right? You may be either filmmaker and doing something on your own, but you have to surround yourself with trusted people. You have to, you know, you get so immersed in your work.
You will.
Everybody does. You get so immersed in your work, I guarantee you, you will, you will not be able to see the forest from the trees. Frankly, you'll be studying the pine needles and worrying about them, and you need someone to help you back up and take a look at the forest and see where things are working or not working. and you need to surround yourself with people whose judgment you trust and they can be brutally honest with you. And you have to be able to look— showing as an artist, showing unfinished work to people is really difficult, is really hard. It always is hard, it always will be hard, it never gets any easier, but you have to do it.
You all know that there are so many details involved in what we do and so many individuals involved in what what we do. So a great chef is really supported by so many others. So I think what makes a great chef is surrounding yourself with those of like-mindedness, with a common vision, common goals, and in many ways are much smarter than you are. Remember that. Always work with people that are much smarter than you are. The only way to really get better is to play with those who can teach you and be better. What I've tried to do in my entire career is surround myself with talented people.
Observe your environment. At work, at school, at home. I'm asking you to look at the people around you purposefully and intentionally. Invite people into your life who don't look like you, don't think like you, don't act like you, don't come from where you come from. And you might find that they will challenge your assumptions and make you grow as a person. You might get powerful new insights from these individuals.
Let me give you the one word secret to happiness. One word.
This is all you need to be happy.
The most important word ever.
If you had to think of one word that's most important to you or that sums you up or that would be kind of like a little beacon.
Hey, Believe Nation. If you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.
