FASTEST Way to Connect at Business Events | Ashton Kutcher

In this vlog, entrepreneur Evan Carmichael documents his final day at the Sage Summit in Chicago, where he is slated to present alongside Ashton Kutcher. He opens by describing his pre‑event routine—extra sleep, a massive backpack, and a focus on making his presentation impactful. He details the on‑stage session titled “14 ways to create a steady stream of new clients,” the audience interaction, and his disappointment at missing the meet‑and‑greet due to timing. After the session, Evan and his crew (Jeremy, Kathleen, Samantha) grab lunch, during which Kathleen introduces her brand Gorgeous One, a fashion‑accessory line aimed at boosting confidence and inner strength. The vlog then follows Evan’s travel back to Toronto, chronicling multiple flight delays, airport food runs, and his coping tactics (McDonald’s, Starbucks, Advil). Throughout, he reflects on his introverted need to decompress, the importance of one‑on‑one networking, and promises to reconnect with contacts like John (a real‑estate investor) and his partner Nina. The video blends behind‑the‑scenes event logistics, spontaneous networking moments, and personal reflections on how to efficiently connect with people at business events.
Chapters
Last day here in Chicago. I'm excited. I'm excited. Nina's gonna love this. Nina's gonna love this. All right, good morning. Last day here in Chicago. Slept in a little more than usual. Needed to sleep, gotta do my presentation soon. I should be able to still hit the presentation on time with Ashton Kutcher. I don't think I can do the meet and greet at the end though, because I have to do my presentation shortly after. I need to set up. You know, I get obsessed with my presentations. I pour a lot of love into them. I want to make sure that it has an impact. The week is catching up with me. Um, so yeah, elevator. Maybe I'm gonna grab a freshie smoothie for breakfast. That was actually pretty good yesterday. And then head to the convention center. I also packed everything up so I don't have to come back to the hotel, so I'm carrying this insanely huge backpack. Mostly because there is a little bit of time after my presentation, but it means I wouldn't be able to talk to people, and one of my favorite parts of doing these presentations and coming out to events is talking to people and helping them one-on-one. In the first session, I had an hour and 15-minute wait. People wanted to talk to me, and I feel bad that I can't talk to them. So somebody's come here and paid money to to learn how to grow their business and they want to talk to me. I want to see if I can make at least as much time as possible. So yeah, carrying my whole life with me and I'm going to head straight from the convention center, stay as long as I can talking to people and then get home. Nina's happy. She doesn't want to sleep alone anymore, so tonight we'll be in the same bed. The troublemakers are on board.
Yo!
We're here at Summit.
We had a fourth member join our gang for a little bit. Samantha, who was convinced that I was Jeremy's cameraman. I told her, it's the other way around, friend. I was like, I'm his manager. I'm pretty sure you are.
I think you kind of became Jeremy's cameraman.
Okay, that's it, we're cutting him out. We're cutting him out.
I don't know how he did it.
We're cutting him out.
It's his charming British accent. He literally can get anything with that accent. I mean anything, it's ridiculous.
Let's go watch the bachelor.
Day 3, Sage Summit. Last day of the summit. Jeremy and Evan in the background were getting all meta with cameras and shit. I'm Snapchatting.
They're clapping us up.
Oh, hang on, I gotta Snapchat.
Oh, they're doing a wave, they're doing a wave! They're doing a wave! Here it is! It's all for us! It's all for us! Woo! Alright, session is over. Can't go to the meet and greet this time because I gotta go do my presentation. So heading out to set up. I'm excited. I'm excited. Here we are. This is my group. 14 ways to create a steady stream of new clients.
Time to set up.
Getting ready to speak. He's tweeting something else, not about my speech, something anything else, but it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. I gotta show some love to Evan, so— The audience is coming, it's starting to fill up. That's gonna be me on stage. This one is not recorded like the first one, so you didn't come, you missed out. Sage Summit, come next year. Alright, so we just finished a session, couldn't record it. You guys have fun?
Yes!
That was a good session. I enjoyed it, we had some great questions afterwards. What time is it now? It is 12:54. 12:54, we started at 11, so an hour talk and an hour of talking after the talk. We're gonna go grab some lunch with my new friends and then head back out to Toronto. Okay, we got Garden Station grilled chicken. I don't know about that. Oh, tandoori. We got Indian. What's the blue one? Short rib tacos with kimchi slaw. This is a tough one. They are out of tacos. I didn't really want the tacos anyway, but we had— the Mexican wanted the tacos. Okay, chicken tandoori. Let's see if they still have some. Let's go get some food. Okay, we are done lunch. It is almost 2 o'clock. I wanted to have lunch with the people who were watching the session instead of just hanging out with the VIPs all day long. Those guys are boring. Meet entrepreneurs. This is Kathleen. She's gonna be my ride back to the airport. We had a guy join us who was in the session the other day and wanted to ask some questions. I think we kind of lost the table when we started talking about raising capital, and I felt bad because we kind of descended on this woman who was sitting at the table alone, and we surrounded her and filled the table and started talking entrepreneurship. But anyway, hopefully she enjoyed. Okay, so while we're walking, tell us, tell Believe Nation about your business.
Okay, my business is Gorgeous One, G-H-O-R-J-U-S One, and it's about being confident within yourself, self-esteem and self-confidence, because we all are, we are all about feelings and emotions. Because when we go through adversities, what's the first to go? Your inner, your inner strength. So my Gorgeous One project products will help you build their inner strength and inner beauty.
And so what are the products?
So what I have is a fashion line, a fashion line and accessories. So right now—
Are you wearing some? Where's my gorgeous one accessory?
Well, actually, I have you a white pair.
Okay.
When we get to the car.
Nina's gonna love this. Nina's gonna love this.
I'm a newbie right now.
Getting started.
Newly started.
All right, where can people find you? Where are they going? Well, right now—
Website, Twitter?
My website is gorgeousone.com, but it's coming soon.
Okay, gorgeousone.com. Stay tuned, check it out. We're saying bye.
Bye.
He has to get one more shot in the camera before he goes. Let's do it again. Here, in, in. No, out. There you go, like that. You gotta remember. One more time. In, in. Like that. There you go, that's it. Canadian style. Okay. I love the brothers. Bye, bye. We'll see you soon. Bye, Evan.
Have a nice flight.
Yes, bye. Had a great time. To the airport. Here we go.
Bye.
Thanks, guys. I want you guys to meet John, who was at my presentation, just gave me a million bucks. Okay, the first million is the hardest. Now it's all downhill from here. Thank you so much.
Where are you from?
St. Louis. St. Louis. What's your business? Real estate investor. I'm an author and a trainer. Where can people find you? They can find me at thedealionaire@gmail.com. Thedealionaire@gmail.com. I love it. Secrets of a— here we go— Secrets of a Dealionaire. John Lee. Yes. I love it. Robert Allen wrote my foreword. Good to meet you, man. Thank you so much. Cheers. I'm super excited because we get to jaywalk in Chicago now with the local. We gotta cross this 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 lane? Is this 6 lane? 6 lane street we're gonna jaywalk. I'm feeling it. I love it. Let's do some jaywalking. Break some rules. Okay, so Kathleen is gifting Nina some small— these are what? Leggings. Leggings. They're not for me. They're for Nina. They're very colorful.
Right, and she can wear them during her salsa classes.
That's a challenge, Nina. It's a challenge. You gotta wear this salsa class— if it fits. I think— you think it'll fit? 'Cause Nina's pretty small. Yeah. Alright, we'll give it a shot. We'll give it a shot. If not, I might have to try it. That's scary. I've never worn leggings in my life, but if I were to wear leggings, this would be what I would wear. With a blue shirt. With a blue shirt. Cool, okay, we're gonna hop in the car and head to the airport. Okay, so Chicago traffic is crazy, but we had a good ride, good talk, fun times. I'm now here at the airport and I'm gonna check in, hopefully catch my flight and get something to eat. I'm getting hungry. Made it through, got lots of time. Gotta check with Nina. It's been a while since I checked in, so just want to say hi, see how she's doing, get something to eat. Let's see what there's here. We got a McDonald's. Other stuff. I don't know, I got a big headache, so I gotta— I'm gonna decompress. It's gonna be a lot of decompressing later on today and tonight, maybe tomorrow. I go crazy and then I need to wind down, being the introvert that I am. So I'm close to my gate, and, uh, yeah, fly home. Hope Nina's okay. Look at this list of all the flights that are canceled or delayed. It's crazy. But the only ones that are on time is Toronto. Feeling super grateful. I'm gonna get get some food. We're standing outside Mickey D's and hopefully board in 45 minutes. So I got my Big Mac combo, a little beer, and I just was notified that I forgot my plug in my connection at, at Sage Summer because I was too busy chatting with people and I left it there. So they're so helpful, they're gonna overnight it to me so I have it tomorrow at my place. Otherwise I'm gonna be able to use my laptop because I don't have power I love the guys at Sage Summit. So awesome. Amanda, huge shout out. You're the best. Too good to be true. We are delayed. Thunderstorms. Looks like it's going to be at least an hour and a half, but the flight that's supposed to come in hasn't even left yet, so it may come later. We shall see. I have to go message Nina. She's not going to be happy. Hopefully it comes in. Ah, traveling. Crashing hard. I got a huge headache, probably because of the weather. I was talking to Nina on Facebook, but I had to shut the computer because I felt super nauseous. So I'm on the hunt for some Advil. And if I can't find that, I'll get a Starbucks Frappuccino. Sugar and caffeine, get me through. Get me through. There is a big line outside of Starbucks, but I have some time to kill. Closed my eyes for a bit, and I think the combination of that plus the frappuccino plus probably the biggest factor, the weather getting better, feeling better. I think it's almost gone. Super excited. And it looks like the plane is, uh, close.
I hope, I hope.
And, uh, we can get on. I can go home and see Nina. So the latest update is we're We're not gonna get out until 8:15. Well, the plane is supposed to be here at 8:15, so I don't know when we're actually gonna get on. We were initially supposed to leave at 5:30, and it's basically 3 hours late. We'll see, we'll see. I'm feeling better. That makes a huge difference. The pilot is now waiting with us in line, and I feel like that's a good sign. I feel like it means we're about to go. He doesn't look too happy. Nobody's really happy, but I feel like it's a good sign. Hunger again. Back at McDonald's. Gotta get something for the flight. I'm hungry. We've been here for hours. So this time, buttermilk crispy chicken. Looks interesting. Never had that. Must be an American thing. So I'm gonna give it a shot. So they delayed again. We're supposed to get on at 9 o'clock. So what? I got here at 3-something. Supposed to take off at 5:30. And now it's not leaving until 9. But the good news is the crispy chicken— no, the buttermilk chicken, pretty solid. If it was in Toronto and I ate at McDonald's, I would probably get it more often. So, feeling good. Feeling good. They switched our gate again, so now everybody is moving to B3. Big collective groan when, uh— Tell them how long the delay's been. It's a long delay, right? How long are these delays? Man, I've been coming out of Atlanta 1:50. I was supposed to leave. I didn't get here till 8 o'clock. Now we're going to B3. There's at least a mile on the other end of the whole corridor. We gotta walk. People are pissed. People are pissed. Finally boarding. We got here at 3:30, 10 o'clock we're finally leaving. Doesn't matter, so excited going home. I messaged Nina, you gonna pick me up? I landed in Toronto, so excited. We got on the plane and then sat there for another 45 minutes because they messed up somebody's seat. They gave somebody an extra ticket who wasn't supposed to be on, and so we just sat there. Then when we landed in Toronto, the flight crew wasn't ready for us. So we sat a couple feet away from the tarmac? Not tarmac. The bridge? Because they weren't ready for us. So I don't even know what time it is. Let me see. It's late. I was supposed to get in at 8-something and it is 1 in the morning.
Wow.
Nina, I feel bad for her. She's got to wake up early tomorrow. But good news is I get to see Nina, so we'll go find her. Okay, I ran. I ran through customs. First one off the plane, ran through customs. 1 AM. I feel bad for Nina. Let's go find her. Let's go find her. Let's go find her. There she is. There she is right up front. It's Nina. Look, it's Nina. It's Nina. Hello. Hello. What do you want to say?
I missed you.
I missed you. We got to get Nina home and to bed. She has to wake up early. That's okay. You have to work early tomorrow. Actually, I do too, but I feel bad for you. Thank you for joining. Continue to believe, or whatever your one word is, and we'll see you soon.
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