In this motivational talk, Evan Carmichael addresses the common question entrepreneurs ask: “How do I find my passion?” He argues that passion—not the pursuit of money—is the essential driver behind lasting business success. Carmichael shares a personal story about a poorly attended YMCA speaking event that, despite only three attendees, reinforced his belief that helping others felt right and sparked his ongoing mission to support entrepreneurs. Recognizing that early‑stage signals and market data can be misleading, he created the ZUGA guide—a series of worksheets designed to help individuals identify their true passions, combine them into a viable business idea, and ensure long‑term commitment. The guide also includes bonus insights from well‑known entrepreneurs such as Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump, and Tony Robbins, illustrating how they turned passion into thriving enterprises. Carmichael emphasizes that without genuine passion, any other business rule or strategy will fall short, urging viewers to invest in the passion‑finding exercise as the most critical step toward building a business they can be proud of.
Chapters
One of the most common questions that I get asked by entrepreneurs or wannabe entrepreneurs is, "How do I find my passion?" People want to find their passion and build a business around it. And you may be working at a company that you hate, you may have some dead-end job, or you may have a career but you figure out, "You know what? This isn't for me. I want to launch my own business." First of all, congratulations, because if you are asking yourself 'How do I find my passion?' You are already on the right path. Too many people start a business just trying to make money, and if that's your only goal, you just jump at whatever the first thing is to make money, you're not going to make it. Those businesses fail. If you look at successful businesses, successful entrepreneurs, pick any successful famous entrepreneur that you want, look at their story, look at why they got started. Money was never the number one reason. They end up making a lot of money, but it's because they're extremely passionate about what they're doing and they turn their passion into a successful business. So if that's the question you're asking, you are on the right path. Let me share my story with you. I never thought I would be out helping entrepreneurs. When I sold my first business, I was asked to speak at the YMCA to help inspire other young entrepreneurs. And I said, "Sure, why not? I'd love to share my story. I almost failed. I was making $300 a month. I was broke." below the poverty line. I'd love to help out and give back. And so we put on this presentation, and I spent a couple weeks preparing it and promoting it, and they were promoting it, and I put all my best stuff into it. You know, I was really excited to deliver this thing. And I remember the day of, it comes, and we've done all this work, and I'm walking to the door, my heart is beating, you know, boom boom boom boom boom boom. I'm getting excited, I'm sweating a little bit, and get up the elevator, get to my room, this big room Ready to go, I open the door and my heart, I swear, stops because only 3 people showed up to this event. 3 people! It was a free event! I was promoting it, they were promoting it, the YMCA, I spent all this time working on it and I felt like such a failure. I felt like, wow, this is almost a waste of my time. And I got there and I said, you know what, the show must go on. These 3 people spent their time to come out and see me, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my presentation. And it was amazing. And those 3 people left with their lives being changed. I realized that I really helped those people out, helped them on their path. And it felt so good that I realized I had to find a way to keep doing this. I had to keep going, I had to keep helping entrepreneurs, even though every logical piece of data that I had said this is stupid, man. If you can't get people to show up for a free event, how are you ever going to make money out of this? This isn't a business idea. You should go do something else that makes money. But it felt right. It felt like this was something that I love to do, and I had to find a way. I had to find a way to keep going. And it's turned out pretty successfully. When you're first starting off, a lot of times the signals won't be there for you. The, the logical market research data won't always be there for you. And so how do you find your passion? I've created a ZUGA guide to help you find your passion, and what it is is a worksheet, a series of worksheets that guide you through the process to help you figure out how do you find out what you're passionate about, how do you turn that into a business idea, how can you bring more of yourself and combine your various passions into one one amazing business, and how can you make sure that you're going to stick with this idea, that you're not just going to start something off and let it die a couple months later because that wasn't really your true passion. How do you do all that? That's what this worksheet, this guide is here to help you do. On top of sharing my story, on top of all the exercises that you go through, I'm also going to give you bonus advice from famous entrepreneurs and how they found their passion. People like Martha Stewart, people like Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump, Anthony Robbins, how they got started, how they found their passion and turned it into a successful company. Guys, this is the most important exercise that you're going to do with your business. Every other business rule, principle, strategy will not help you, will not save you unless you're doing a business that you are passionate about. It's the ultimate question to start off with. So if you're in that spot right now where you're not sure what your passion is, you're not sure what business to start, you just know that you need to get out of whatever situation you're in right now, You need to get out of that job, you need to get out of that career, you need to start something on your own. If you're in that spot and you know you want to build something that you can be proud of, then this guide will be one of the best investments that you ever make in your life. I honestly, deeply, profoundly believe that. So I hope you check it out. If you have any questions, let me know. Follow your passion and continue to believe.
