In this Famous Friday episode, Evan Carmichael delivers a motivational success story about television producer Mark Burnett, illustrating the principle “Jump In.” Carmichael outlines Burnett’s journey from a working‑class upbringing in London, through service as a British Army paratrooper, to immigrating to the United States where he took a series of low‑skill jobs—nanny, chauffeur, insurance salesman, and t‑shirt vendor—each time seizing the opportunity and learning on the job. He then created the adventure‑race TV show Eco‑Challenge, which led to the breakthrough series Survivor and later hits such as The Apprentice and Shark Tank, earning Burnett over 100 Emmy nominations and a net worth of $450 million. Carmichael emphasizes that when you lack a clear path, the smartest move is to “jump in” on opportunities, experiment, and iterate, rather than following a conventional, linear career. The video ends with a call to subscribe, a newsletter plug, and a testimonial from Jason J. Ros Fonseca of RiseOnline.
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Welcome to another Famous Friday. I believe that whatever goal, whatever challenge you have in front of yourself, somebody has already accomplished it. And the best way to go out and achieve that goal for yourself is to model their success and apply it to your business. So today's lesson is from Mark Burnett, the king of reality TV, and his lesson is jump in. Now this is actually a special request. This is the first time we've done a special request on the channel. It came from one of my YouTube viewers. Love you guys. Delozz180 who wrote in to say, "Good stuff, don't ever stop the success stories, I love them. Do you have anything on Mark Burnett?" I don't have anything on Mark Burnett yet, but it's a great story. I've read his book. I think you should watch the channel because something soon might be coming on Mark Burnett. So Delozz180, this is for you. Now Mark Burnett was born in London. He grew up as the son of factory workers at the Ford plant. His parents worked at the Ford Motor Plant making cars, and when he was young and growing up, he didn't know what he wanted to do. He didn't know where his path would lie. He just felt like he had to jump in on opportunities and see where it took him. And so at 17, he joined the British Army, and he joined as a parachute jumper. And instead of just jumping into opportunities, he was jumping out of planes. And like most young people, you know, he didn't know what he wanted to do yet, so he was just exploring. He discovered that, you know what, the army wasn't the life for him, and at 22 he decided, "I'm going to leave the UK. I want to go to America. I don't know what I'm going to do there. I have nothing lined up, but I'm going to jump in on this opportunity. I'm following my passion. I'm following my flow. It feels like the right thing to do. I'm jumping in and I'm going to America." Well, the only opportunity he could land was being a nanny and a chauffeur. So he was a nanny for these two boys in California. Can you imagine? You just come from, from being in the military, you're a paratrooper, you're jumping out of airplanes, you go to America, and now you're a nanny earning $250 a week. But it didn't matter for him because he jumped into the opportunity and he was going to find a way to make it work. He knew that that wasn't going to be a long-term thing, but by going to America, he would find out what his true calling would be. From there, he got hired by the father of the two boys after proving himself to be reliable and trustworthy. The father of those two boys worked at an insurance company and brought him on board, and Mark now was in the insurance business. He jumped in. He said yes. He had no idea what about insurance, but he jumped in and learned about it. From there, he discovered an opportunity to sell t-shirts on Venice Beach, and he rented a small section of fence at Venice Beach to sell t-shirts for $18 a shirt. And he said, yes, I'm in. He jumped in and he started doing that. And he found out he can make more money selling t-shirts than selling insurance. So that became his full-time thing. And then his life really changed dramatically when he decided to enter an adventure race in France, where he was racing through the mountains and through all of these crazy back-breaking exercises that he had to go through in order to win the race. And he loved it so much, reminded him of his paratrooper days, that he said, "I gotta bring this to America." He bought the TV rights for it and brought it to the States and called it "Eagle Challenge." And that was his first foray into television production. And so here's this guy who has had no experience in TV, right? He didn't go to school for it. He didn't mentor under somebody. He didn't have a job for 10 years learning it. He just said, "I'm jumping in. I'm gonna learn this thing. I have my passion. I'm gonna figure it out. I'm gonna make it a success." He bought the rights having never done anything in TV before and turned it into a success. Now, Eco Challenge became a cult hit. I believe it was on Discovery Network and this— they had his fan base. It led him to create his next opportunity, which was Survivor, and that really blew him up, right? He went from Survivor, he created The Apprentice, he created Shark Tank, some of my favorite shows. He's now been nominated for over 100 Emmys and he's just still he's still getting started, right? He's still young, he's still got a huge runway in front of him. This is a really important lesson for you guys watching, because if you don't know what your next step should be, right? If you don't know what your passion is, you don't know what your end goal is yet, you're still trying to figure it out, that's okay. That's a lot of people. And your best option is to jump in. Get in there, try it out, learn. If you like it, keep doing it and get better at it. If you don't, switch and jump to something else. And it's scary, and it's hard, and it pushes you because you don't know what you're going to be doing every day, and that uncertainty is troubling, and it's not the smart thing to do. But look at what is the smart thing, right? What do most people do with their lives, right? They go to school, they graduate, they get a job, they stay in that industry for 40 years, and then they retire. And they hate their job, they hate going to work, they're living for the evenings and weekends. That's the smart thing to do. That doesn't sound so smart to me. The best thing to do is follow your flow, follow what you're passionate about. Jump in on something. You're excited about it? Jump in and try it out. See if it works. See if you love it. If you do, keep going, go deeper. And if you don't, go to something else. And eventually, I promise you, you'll find something that you love, that makes you complete, that makes you feel like you're a success, that makes you feel like you're contributing back, just like Mark Burnett did. He went from Army to jumping to the US to jumping into being a nanny and a chauffeur making $250 a week to jumping to insurance to jumping to selling t-shirts to jumping to adventure races to then jumping into TV production, and he found his home there. And he ended up writing a book, which is an awesome book, I recommend it, called— what else?— Jump In. So believe in yourself. Take a chance on yourself. And if you see an opportunity that makes you come alive, jump in on it. Believe. Thanks for the request. I hope you liked that video. For those of you watching, you want to see more just like it, you can subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much, guys. I'll see you soon. If you want more believe energy running through your veins, sign up for the newsletter below. It's free. You're going to love it. Hi, I'm Jason J. Ros Fonseca of RiseOnline.com, and I want to say Evan Carmichael's newsletter is consistent, fun, inspiring, and it's the only newsletter I prioritize and look forward to. Period.
