Evan Carmichael tells Paul, torn between school, work, and starting a business, to follow his passion instead of playing it safe. The conventional path of education then stable job often leads to lifelong regret. Evan's sister turned down a risky UN assignment, but he argues the real mistake is letting fear decide your future.
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If you're struggling to decide whether you should stay in school, go get a job, or start your own business, I'm gonna help answer that question for you today on this video. Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. I believe in entrepreneurs, and I recently got a question from one of my subscribers— love you guys— Paul, who wrote in to say, "Hi, I'm Paul. Right now I have faced some problems that myself couldn't solve. Can you please help me solve it? My problem is that I'm very unclear and vague of the future. I do not know if I should focus myself on school now to try getting into Stanford or go get a job, lease an office and work with my classmates. I'm obsessed with starting the business but do not know how to take the first step right. Can you please help me? Give me a clear path of which direction I should really take. Please help me with this step. Thank you. Commit. Paul. Paul, this is a fantastic question and one, I want you to know that you're not alone. Everybody goes through this multiple times in their life. You are not the only one in the world going through this right now. With all big decisions, my advice always is to follow your heart and not your head. Follow what feels right, follow your passion, even if it doesn't make any sense at all, because that's gonna be the path that will lead you to success and a happier life. See, a lot of people will tell you to do the safe thing, do the smart thing. Most people will go to school and then get a job and then stay in that career forever and ever and ever, and they end up hating their lives. As years go on, you start hating what you're doing more and more and more, and you're living for the evenings and weekends. And the scary thing is, that's most people. That is most people in the world. Most people are not living their dreams because they did the safe thing and they listened to their head, the logical thing to do, instead of their heart, which was the passionate thing to do. And the scary thing is, quite often, the people that you take advice from, the people who you're asking help from, are those very same people who are too afraid to ever risk anything and bet on themselves. They took that safe path, and so what's their advice going to be? To take the same path for you as well. Where if you look at the top people in any field— entrepreneurs, artists, executives— you look at the top people in any field, the people at the top of the top, they're passionate about what they did. They are passionate continually about what they're doing, and they're exploring new things even if it doesn't make any logical sense because they're listening to their heart and not their head. So I can't tell you what to do. I can't tell you go to Stanford. I can't tell you start a job. I can't tell you go and start this entrepreneurial venture. From your email, from the question, it sounds like when you said I'm obsessed with starting the business, you want to follow that obsession, right? That's where I'm thinking you should be, but it's got to be coming from your heart. If you love Stanford and that's been your dream, that's where you want to go, then go to Stanford. Not everybody is supposed to be an entrepreneur, but if you love being an entrepreneur, that's what you want to learn about, even if there's nobody in your family who's been an entrepreneur, even if you have no resources or connections or ideas yet, you will learn. When you are excited about something, that's when you really learn and pick it up. And I don't want you to live in regret. I don't want you to look back on your life when you're 70, 80, 90 years old and you did the safe thing and you say to yourself, I really wish when I was 20 years old, or however old you are, that I bet on myself. I really wish that I had taken that chance. Because now you've lived that entire life and you always are going to be wondering, "What if?" I want to share a bit of a personal story to help bring this home. My sister works for the United Nations and she had an opportunity to go to a really dangerous part of the world. And my parents were telling me, "Hey Evan, you know, She listens to you. Tell her not to go. This is really silly. It's stupid. She could get killed. It's really dangerous there. She shouldn't go. And I get that as parents, you know, myself being a father, you are always worried about your children. And as a brother, I want my sister to be safe. You know, I want her to do things where she doesn't have a risk of dying, right? I don't face that risk in my profession, but she does in hers. And when she asked me for advice, I had to shut off all my brotherly instincts. I had to shut off the desire for her to be safe, the desire for her to, you know, not get killed, the desire for me to want to see her every Christmas, because I don't want her to have to live in regret. I don't want her to live the rest of her life wondering what if. And so I told her the same thing that I'm telling you guys: big decisions you make with the heart and not the head. I told her to trust her gut, I told her to follow her passion and do what she felt was right. Now, she ended up not taking that job, and I'm so, so, so, so relieved. But she did it for her. She did it for the right reasons, not because other people told her to do it. And so that's the key. Whether you're thinking about school, job, starting a business, or any other big decision in your life, always listen to your heart, not your head. And don't listen to other people who are too afraid to chase their dreams and take their advice and live their version of your life instead of your version of your own life. Believe. For those of you watching, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you decided to start your business or how you decided to go from taking on a school or taking on a job or taking on a company. Leave it in the comments below. I'm looking forward to getting involved in that discussion. And if you like this video and you want to see more, don't forget to subscribe to the channel and the newsletter. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you soon.
