Evan Carmichael shares George Lucas's story of how diverse interests in cars, art, and photography led to filmmaking, then argues that passion and hustle matter more than expertise. Carmichael rose from worst to best performer at his agency by making multiple videos daily, proving that "ignorance on fire" beats "experience on ice."
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Good morning, Believe Nation. Today's message is: Follow your passion.
Over to you, George Lucas.
I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going.
Everything I did, I was following something I really cared about, something I loved, something I was passionate about. And I kept following that passion, whether it was cars, whether it was anthropology, whether it was art, photography. And eventually it led me to my huge passion, my real passion, which was making movies, which combined all of those things. And I realized that had I gone on to get my degree in anthropology, I would have probably made anthropological movies in New Guinea or someplace, and eventually been on National Geographic and you know, the History Channel and been then making features, and I'd have done Star Wars just the same. If I'd have gone to Art Center and become an illustrator, I would have probably started doing animation and doing animated films and making animated things, and then ultimately I would have gone on and been right where I was. So no matter which route I took, because I cared about all of them, they all led to the same place. Had I done what my father had wished me to do, which is to go into these office equipment business with him, which I knew I wasn't gonna do, I knew I hated that, my life would have been unpleasant. And so I think it's very important not to do what your peers think you should do, not do what your parents think you should do, or your teachers, but to do what you inside, or even your culture thinks, but do what's inside you.
So what do you think?
Yeah, I think you should follow your passion. That's what I've done in my life, and it's changed my entire life. Yeah, I mean, I mean, this is something that I know you believe in strongly, you know, to do the things you really love and make a difference in the world with your passions.
For those of you who've been fans of the channel, this is an easy message for me, right? It's a constant theme through all the videos that I'm doing. If you want to do something great, it has to be something that you can be great at and you have a great love for. It's not so much what you what your knowledge set is right now or what you're good at yet right now, but if you have a desire to learn something and you want to get better, it's insane the progress that you can make and how quickly you can get really, really, really good. And so I guess just maybe taking it a little bit deeper, I'd encourage you to not hold yourself back because you feel like you don't have the experience necessary to be successful. A lot of people think, "Oh, I really, really, really, really want to write a book," or, "I really, really, really, really want I want to be a consultant or whatever it is, but I've never done that before. And the fact that you've never done that before holds you back from doing something that you really want to learn. And there's a famous expression, how does it go? It's like ignorance on fire is better than experience on ice. It's something like that. It's not quite that, but it's close. It's just showing you that there's a lot of smart people, a lot of people have a lot of experience, but they don't have the hustle, they don't have the drive, they don't have the passion, the excitement anymore for what they're doing. And so you can easily overtake them, right? I've told this story channel before, but I did that at my agency where I went from being the worst to being the best practice example in a couple of months. But people had way more experience because I put in the hustle, because I was making multiple videos a day when they were doing one a week, if that. And so if you have the passion for something, don't let anything else hold you back, because you can learn any skill that you need to be successful. You can't learn passion. You gotta love that thing that you do that makes you come alive. And the second you stop loving something have the confidence and courage to jump to something else that you are excited about and makes you come alive.
I love that because I do think a lot of people don't even question sometimes what they think they love. They think they're good at this or they think they really want to start a business, but really, if they really thought about it, is it really what your passion is? Is it really what makes you come alive, as you just put it? You know, really question, question yourself on what really makes you come alive and really makes you passionate about it, because that's really what's going to drive success.
So the question of the day today is: tell us what your passion is.
Write it down because words make it real.
Leave in the comments below. We're gonna join the discussion. I like it. Thank you guys for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, and we'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso. I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going.
