From Passion-Driven to Data-Driven - Unveiling Entrepreneurial Growth with Mark Drager!

Let's say it cost you $1 million.

It's not the money, Mark.

Let's say it took you a year and a half.

I don't want to spend a year and a half on that.

And you can impact an entire next generation to have what you made.

That's a logical way of looking at it.

Yes, you need to be more logical sometimes.

I want to be emotionally connected to the projects that I'm doing.

You may be missing tremendous opportunities for the things that just don't make sense. All of the stuff that you could make, the team you could have, the people you could hire, the culture you can have, the brand that you could have, the downloads or the offers or the things that you do, right? If you didn't worry so much about the data-driven decisions, you don't know if they're not 2 or 3 or 4 degrees separated from a really cool outcome. Because like The Office took a season and a half to find its voice. It just takes time to figure out and crack the nut. So less heart, more head.

Well, no, I—

that's why you suck.

I suck because I'm too passion-driven. Tell Me Why I Suck. We are back with One of my longest friends, Mark Drager, who is a branding expert, and I bring on people who kind of kick my butt and tell me why I suck at different things. And to my discomfort and pain and awkwardness, hopefully you guys learn in the process too. So Mark runs— what do you do, Mark?

I run Sales Loop. We are a branding agency. We help B2B businesses, mostly service-based, 7 and 8-figure businesses sell more.

So Sales Loop is the new company. You've been doing this for Yeah, years or something.

Oh yeah, I started in 2006. I was 23.

Yeah.

And I thought, I know I can quit my job even though my daughter's only a week old and my wife is at home and has no money. I'll quit my job and start my own company because I'll make so much more money. And eventually that happened, but it took 5 years to get there. And you were there for a lot of it.

It's good. It's been a ride. So I bring people on, they tell me why I suck. That's, that's kind of the goal. You, you have an advantage and a unique perspective of being on the journey for so long. You helped me film my first video. You, you've been at the first of a lot of the different things that I've done. So you've seen it kind of happen and unfold. So when I bring people on, you just give a story and explain some of the things, but you know it a lot better than, than maybe I do too, to be honest. You remember more things than I do. So I'm trying to figure out, you know, the next steps. I'm— we're growing, we're having impact, you know, we're doing the YouTube thing as well as training thought leaders and helping some of the biggest names in the industry. But I also don't know what I don't know and just trying to figure out what don't I see. So I thought, let's bring Mark on and he can kick my butt.

Well, it's interesting because, you know, we've— I've known that this recording is going to be for a little while. And I was thinking about, you know, all the ways that you suck. And that's a joke, but you took that way too seriously.

Oh, I'm like, tell me.

Yeah, yeah. Like, you like hit me with it. But, but no, actually I was thinking, I was reflecting on your journey. You know, when, when we met, you were running like a publication and it was very SEO heavy. And then you started to get into video after many years of— because it was 2009, but, but video at YouTube had been a thing for a few years already. And you were, you know, you jumped all into video and you went all in on it. And I've watched you write your first book and your second and your third and your fourth. I've watched you go from saying, you know, I never want to leave my home office and I don't really want to have a team to growing. How many people on your team now?

42.

42. 42 people on your team. And the idea of like, oh, I don't want to go out and speak anywhere. And now you share the stages with you know, Peyton Manning and Brendan Bouchard and just like all of the biggest names you shared the stages with. And I've seen you grow your channel from back in the day where we were looking at numbers every month and you're like, you're like, I remember, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but I remember you going like, there's this guy, Grant Cardone.

Oh yeah.

And our agent, we have the same agent and I'm going to beat him to like 100,000 YouTube subs. Or I remember really early on you being like, hey, this GaryVee guy, I'm going to beat him to a million subs. Just watch. We got, we got the numbers. I know we have the numbers, right? And so I've watched this journey that you've gone through as you've grown. And so I think this will be an interesting episode, mostly because I probably do know you better than anyone else. But I also know that, that I know how good you are at focusing on really specific things. I know when you care about something, you really care about it and you just do not care about anything else. So when sometimes I'm like, oh, what about this? You're like, ah, this is not important to me. What about the, that's not important to me. What about, that's not important to me. So it's like, okay. And then the other thing is when we, when I've come with suggestions sometimes in the past, you're like, that's so small. That's so small. What? No, what's the big thing? What's the big thing that's going to take us to the next level? What's the 10x thing? Okay, so I know—

Is that what you're bringing today?

And so I know you well enough to know that this could go along the lines, your natural way to approach things is like, that's too small, so I'm gonna ignore it. I'm not interested in that right now, so I'm gonna ignore it. I can't measure it for immediate results, so I'm not gonna admit it.

Let's get into ideas here. Let's go. What do we got? Okay.

I'm getting this forward because audience, if Evan starts doing this, help me catch him on it.

Oh my gosh. Okay, great. Now that we had the 5-minute preamble, can we get into what we're doing here, Mark?

So, so what's the thing that's holding you back right now?

I don't know.

You don't know? Okay. What's the vision that you have that you want to grow to?

You know, I have a standard answer, but, but no, the no bullshit answer. No, no. The standard is not BS either, but it's like, if I had a specific thing that I knew, knew, knew for sure, that's what I would be doing. Right? Like if I had a, I know the bigger picture version, but the tactical, like micro, what's the mini thing? I don't know. Right? So. If you look at what's holding me back, well, lack of belief in myself to do the next big thing. What is the next big thing?

No, not the next big thing though. Like, I know that you have master, like, lifetime goal. I know that you always want to be swimming. I know that you always want to be pursuing that. But I also know that you have, you know, like, what you're working on right now in that 3 to 5 year vision that you probably, like, I don't know, do you, do you, do you have this like, oh man, I am working, it's 3 to 5 years away, but this is what I want and this is what I'm working towards.

But I also don't think in 5-year like chunks like that. The big vision is I wanna solve the world's biggest problem, right? People don't believe in themselves enough.

Great.

So how do I do that? Well, currently, and then I'm open, like say, hey, the stuff you're doing currently sucks and you shouldn't be doing it at all. Perfect. Great. What should I be doing instead? Currently, I think the way to address it for the world is content at scale. And so YouTube primary and then split to the other platforms after that. But content, positive, optimistic, hopeful, believe content. At scale, I think is the best way that I've got to solve the problem. And so that's what we're doing. But we could do it better. We'd have new shows. We'd have like, that's a big idea. And then inside there's lots of little ideas of show concepts and what we could be doing.

Let's look at the content. So the content at scale, it's not necessarily entertaining. It's not necessarily super specific and educational. It's motivational. It's inspirational. Like, like how do you classify it?

Not entertaining. Yeah, I don't think people would say entertaining. I wouldn't even say motivational necessarily, but the goal is I would love for somebody to come and watch the videos and at the end of each video believe in themselves more to go and do whatever the thing is that they want to do. To inspire them to play a bigger game and feel like I can do this today. Because that's what it does for me.

So how's that not motivational or inspirational?

When I think of the motivational genre, I think of the motivational speeches and the running videos and the workout videos and like somebody yelling at you and that kind of stuff. And that's a super successful genre. We've maybe done a couple videos along that ilk of, you know, Les Brown speeches or something, but it's not really the main focus of what we do. For me, it's sometimes the right idea said in the right way can spark a change. And so I'm trying to capture those moments in ways that hit me that then I can share with the audience as well. And sometimes it pops and does really well. Sometimes like I love it and it didn't do so well. If you imagine waking up every day and you're going to go for a walk and you're going to pop on an Evan Carmichael video, I want you to go from feeling like today was just whatever, another day to like, I'm ready to go get it today. So if that's motivational, Cool. I think the approach that we do it is much more through ideas or way of thinking as opposed to just somebody yelling at you to go do something. So maybe the approach is slightly different, but if you want to call it motivational in that sense, then, then cool.

And so when you think about the magic, you know, formula, the feeling, the vibe that makes an Evan Carmichael video not one of those other channels where people are taking, you know, clips of movies or music or other people's speeches and compiling these, these, you know, 3 hours of motivation that will yell at you or some of the other channels that exist out there. When you think about that thing that makes your thing yours, have you ever defined that or is it just a feeling that you have?

It still comes down to a feeling, but we've put maybe some guardrails around it or guidance for our team to also help find, because I'm not finding all of the clips. We're launching 2 videos a day on the English side and more on the other channels. So I'm not looking at every single video and picking every single clip. So it's guardrails. So it has to be positive. You know, it's not, it'd be a lot easier to grow if we were doing negative content. Trump is a blank and whoever and reacting to news and all this kind of stuff, right? Just not interesting. And I've played with, do I be the positive voice inside of those platforms and it's a struggle, you know, if that is the thing or not. If you ask me if I could grow, you know, 100 times bigger and not do that, I'd much rather not do that. So it's about the sharing of ideas and processes and methods that then make you want to go do something bigger. And so I try to have the team pick content too that they get inspired by. Like when you watch this, if you learn something, but not just the tactics of like how to set up a Facebook ad or something like that's educational. Tactical how-to. We don't do a ton of that kind of stuff. It's maybe leaning into the reasons why you need to get up and go do something today. But again, just sometimes, I guess it's more of a feeling with guardrails. I guess the best way I can explain it, when I watch a clip and I don't like it, I'll let team know. It's like, I didn't like this because of blank. We're not making major mistakes where it was just a super negative clip or something like that. But they don't always hit the mark. And so I'm giving direct feedback.

But every clip that you pull has to have a point, right? Like it has to land a point. It can't just be a whole lot of feeling without having that key learning, that key takeaway or land the point.

Doesn't have to be spelled out all the time. And this might be a difference between me and other people is that the ability to see something and feel something else, like to get a learning from it where it's not laid out. Yeah. Some of the people we profile are very good at specifically laying out how to do X, do this, do this, do this. Others, you have to read between the lines and say, that's cool how they responded to that. I don't know if I would have responded the same way they responded, even though what they said wasn't necessarily great. So there's been a bunch of those clips that I've included. I maybe I could add commentary. You know, I haven't done a lot of that, but You know, I think Howard Schultz gets up on stage from Starbucks and the shareholder was upset that they supported, I think it was gay marriage or something or something like that for their team or the first company to give health benefits to everybody, part-time workers or something. And one of the shareholders stood up and said like, Howard, like we're a coffee company. Why are you making political stances, like, just sell coffee, dude. Don't worry about this stuff. And he stood up on stage and he said, well, we see the world through the lens of our employees and we're going to support them. And so if you don't like what we're doing, feel free to sell your share in Starbucks and go buy something else. It's like the CEO of a, like, when do you see a CEO of a public company do that? Right? I saw that. That's why he's on my wall at home. That one speech, because I was expecting some boring corporate answer like, sorry, we'll look into it or yada, like corporate speak and nothing happens, right? I mean, you've dealt with tons of these people. It was like, no, like he tells the CEO of a public company tells you sell the shares of my company, go buy something else if you don't like what we're doing. Who says that? Nobody says that. And so like, I like that. So we included that as a clip, but it's not for what he said. It's not for the point that he made is that he was standing up for something, right? So it's like how he said it. That, that's what struck me. And so some of the clips are like that.

Do you ever feel, I mean, you've established, you've created this, this format, this formula, you know, the top 10 clips, the top 50 clips, these mashups of different speakers of different people. And that's not all you do, but that's a big—

That's half.

That's a big part of it.

Half the content going up is like famous people, clips, interviews, and half is me solo or mashups of me or interviews or podcasts or whatever. Like this is going to go up.

Haven't you done all there is to do in this space?

No, because there's always new content. Yeah. There's always new people. There's always new ways of saying things. And I need it. Like, I need it. So I'm still making it.

But go back to episode 200.

Yeah. Yeah. But I've already seen that. Even if it's the same person, but they're seeing it in a different way.

So are you making this for you or are you making this for your audience?

Both.

Are you making it for you or your audience?

Both.

Who's more important?

Well, I make it for me and my audience likes it. Now the Evan content, I'm not making for me. No. People are saying, we need, we want Evan. Like, what do you do? And so like I could do a better job on.

But if you were making this for your audience and not yourself, would you do anything differently?

Possibly. Like, so what's the goal? What does it mean to make it for the audience? If the goal was I want to just hit You've talked about growth, right?

You've talked about your big massive thing.

If I wanted to solve the world's biggest problem, the people don't believe in themselves, I'm going to focus just on my audience and don't bring in myself. I don't even know if I know how to do that. I don't even know if I want to do that.

Could that be something that's holding you back? Possibly, because at a certain point, a lot of companies scale out to this level of like, let's call it professionalism, right? But, you know, you're owner-operated, you're passionate, and you're going to hit a point where you have to start doing stuff en masse. And now this is the downfall of a lot of organizations. And maybe you're so successful because you're staying so true to yourself, but your desire or your need to make sure that you're making it for you and the audience will scale you to a certain point. But at a certain point, I have to imagine that would hold you back because there's so many more strategic things you could do if you removed yourself from it, from having this to be so personal?

Possibly. I mean, the thing popping in my head is I don't know that I would— So what's the scenario? Something that the audience wants, but I don't want it.

No, no, no, no. It's not that you don't want it. You're just not making it for you. You're making it for them.

I'm making it for them, but not for me. Yes. So I'm trying to think of an example. This was a video that I think the audience would really like, but I'm apathetic to, like whatever.

You're just indifferent. Whatever. It's a piece of content that goes out because you know it'll serve your audience, you know it'll serve your mission, you know it'll make you money. What's wrong with that?

I think what's wrong with that is, if that's how I ran it, I would stop.

So is this for you or is this for your audience then?

Well, both.

If you're consistently doing something that you're just apathetic about and the only reason is for your customers, but, but not you, but maybe it's getting the growth you want on the mission that you want, the success you want, maybe the spillovers, more audience, more pull. For the stuff that you do love. I mean, we all, as we scale—

What do you mean the stuff that I do love?

Well, I'm not saying that you don't make the stuff that's for you and for the audience.

So use the growth to then fund videos that I do want to make?

Do you need to fund anything? Like, aren't you making already enough money?

I don't know what I would do. Right.

I remember a year ago you were at a mastermind group, maybe a year and a half ago, and someone said, let's imagine that you have $100 million, right? Do you remember this question?

No, but go for it. Let's see if my answer is consistent.

Let's imagine you have $100 million and you have to spend it. Like, what would you do?

I have no idea. What did I say then? No idea?

Well, you were like, at the time you were like, oh, I'd probably do this and I'd probably do this. And they were all like the next few steps, but they weren't the 10x steps, right? They weren't the like, let's reimagine everything. Let's go crazy. Let's do things.

May not always land well, but I don't think the problem is usually lack of money for almost anybody. You can get money if you have a good enough idea.

But are you willing to spend the money?

On what? I don't have the idea. What am I doing? What am I spending money on?

That has to come from you.

Well, but I don't know. I'm not sitting here thinking, oh my God, I wish that I could have my own Walt Disney World and call it Believe Land and have rides and theme So part of our strengths are our weaknesses, our weaknesses are our strengths. Okay.

Right. So, so the very strengths that allowed you to build the 40-person team, the systems that you've built, the analytics that you have, like, like everything you've built has been the thing that has allowed you to build what you've built. But, but it will keep you from building what could be next. Like the fact you don't have a 3 to 5 year, like, man, I really want to do this. Like, I, like, I really want to take this business to here. Or the fact that you're like, hey, here's $100 million. What would you do next? And you're like, I don't know, it's not a lack of money. You have massive vision and you have these really focused weekly, quarterly, whatever it might be, like the next steps.

Yeah, but like, okay, so.

But if it's not money that's motivating you.

But the way that I, like I get an idea and then I just start going at it too, right? So I don't have 3 to 5 year goals because as soon as I get something that is a 3 to 5 year goal, I just start attacking it. So in in Movie Makers or the Mastermind or my software company Brandlytics that we're getting ready to launch. It's like, oh yeah, I'm going to build this. So we're going to start building it right now. It's not like I need to get these things done and then I'm going to launch this new idea.

Brandlytics is a perfect example. We started working on that 3 years ago, right? We developed the logo, we developed the, the, the, the name and, and early versions of like, let's figure out how to start a mastermind group and whatnot. And you took it to market really quick. I think within like 6 weeks you took it to market.

What, Brandlytics? Yeah. Okay. Did I?

Yeah, because it was a coaching—

Oh, coaching thing. Yeah.

No, the software started at the same time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You didn't wait around for anything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

And it became a coaching thing. And then from there it became this thing and then from there it became this thing and it grew.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But when you started Brandlytics, you didn't even realize it was a 3 to 5 year vision because I don't think you thought it was going to take you 3 to 5 years to build out and implement. Right.

I don't think of end timelines either for things like my YouTube channel's on a 3 to 5 year vision. Like I'm gonna do this forever and until I don't. So I'm gonna build Brandlytics forever until I'm done with it. And then I'm not, right? That could happen. So that's where you said, you know, would you make content for your audience, but not for you? I think I'd probably just quit at that point. Like I think I would just move on to something. I have to love the process of what I'm doing.

But see, this is why it's so hard to tell you why you suck. This is why I spent a few minutes early on giving the audience a little bit of background about what I anticipated you would do.

I didn't give any of the answers that you said I was going to give, though.

But you are, though, because you're saying— you're saying I could do that. I just don't want to, Mark. So are you where you want to be? Are you satisfied?

Are you happy?

Are you like— are you— if you— if you, you know, you started— you started on this journey when you were, what, 26 or something because you exited a software company. And 22. Yeah, 22. And you were at— and you were, you were speaking at the YMCA.

Yeah, 22.

And 3 people showed up, right?

Yeah, yeah.

That was your first speaking engagement in Canada.

Yeah.

And then it became evancarmichael.com where you had 4,000 authors and like 600,000 articles on your site.

I don't remember the numbers, but it was, it was decent.

And then that became your YouTube channel.

Yep.

And now it's become speaking. It's become, you know, the consultancy you do. It's become— and it will continue and you're just going to keep going. But if you think about from 22 to— let's— okay, you're going to live to 100 and you're going to work until the day you die because you love this stuff and it fires you up and feeds you. Are you on pace?

Are you behind?

Are you ahead? Like, are you satisfied?

I don't think on that— in those terms of like, where am I? Ahead of, behind on year 100. Am I satisfied? You know, it's my Canadian boy answer. It's like yes and no, right? Like super grateful for everything I've got, where I'm at.

Okay, let's move that out of the way.

Yeah. But it's also real and no, like I want to build and grow and do more, like not just do the same thing.

Okay, build and grow and do more. Do you know or you won't know until you feel it and hit it?

No, I don't know. If I knew, I would do it. Like, I don't have a problem with starting, right? We'll start and we'll, we'll like cancel everything and we're going to go and do this thing, right? No, that's easy. It's the, well, what's missing? And I get ideas myself, but I also like, I pluck them from the environments, right? So like Arthur here is filming us today and I'm asking him, hey Arthur, like, you know, we're doing this setup, but if you have any other ideas for what we should do, like how else should I What else should I do with my brand? And he might pitch me some ideas and I don't like them. Okay, cool. But maybe there's one that sticks, right? If you look at the companies that I started with Bo and Jeremy and Zach and Drew, if I look at Bo's, for example, he, Bo, you know, you work with Bo. He books guests on people's shows. That started because I was on a show with Brad Lee and Brad said, man, he's like, do you have somebody who can book?

And you're like, I've got a bow.

And I have people who help me. It's like, man, if you could turn that into a business, like I would hire you to do this or to hire him. Like, can I hire, I want somebody to just book me guests 'cause I'm having a hard time booking guests. So this is early days of Brad Lee.

I believe that how personally attached you are to your business is your greatest strength and your greatest weakness.

Sure.

Because if you wanted to really impact people at scale, and en masse, there would be things that your company would do that you would scale up past yourself?

Yes.

And so the fact that you're so intimately involved with so many aspects of your company, it just keeps you from scaling. It keeps you from hitting that number that you want to hit.

I think the heart and soul is what I wouldn't give up. Like, I give up a lot of stuff. I don't do most of the stuff in my company. So like almost all, like I wouldn't be here talking to you if I was solo trying to run my business. Right. So most of the things I don't do in my company, but, but the ideation still comes from you. Uh, no, I love collaborating. Right. Like, give me an idea, Arthur, give me an idea. Right. Like team, give me an idea. What can we do? How do we make this better? You know, AI, give me an idea. We're, we're working on, but, but But you still have to like it. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't have to come up with everything and I don't have to do anything. But yes, like the heart and soul, I think I would have a hard time giving up. And if you said that, that it, well, I know I'd have a hard time giving up thanks to this conversation. And if you said, well, you have to give that up in order to hit your goal, I don't know if I want to hit my goal. Like to help people believe in themselves, but be apathetic about the content that I'm, or the path that I'm doing it. I don't know that I could stay on.

So the ends don't justify the means.

No, I have to like the process.

And you have to be a part of it.

No, I don't have to be a part of it.

Unless you have to push the buttons.

No, no, I don't. I mean, lots of things happen without me.

But at a certain point, everybody who scales past themselves finds themselves, and I've heard this from 8-figure, 9-figure entrepreneurs, they have to live with certain things that they know are not at their standards, as uncomfortable as that might be, or not the way they would do it?

Yeah, all the time. Things are not at my standards for sure. Like I'll walk into anybody's department and be like, dude, what are we doing here?

Because I can understand not going negative because you want to be positive. Yeah, but let's imagine because it's a really simple thing to do. I don't want to go negative. I don't want to be negative even though it'll grow me. I'll go positive. But that same decision you're probably making on a lot of micro decisions throughout the day where you're just like, it's not my taste. That's not my style. I don't happen to like that. I don't want that. I don't like that. And if there are experts who have a vision or a filter or an expertise that you do not have because you haven't surrounded yourself with that leadership where they are responsible for making those decisions, everything will always be filtered through your own personal taste. And you'll never give room for people to do things that are outside your area of expertise, if you know what I mean. Now, I know you overcome this through partnerships.

No, but skillset-wise, I, I, I'm totally open. Like, I don't know the cameras and the lights and the microphone and the gear and like, if this is the right mic or not or whatever. You want to sit closer together or further away? Like, I don't care about—

Yeah, I came in and I was like, can we sit closer? And they're like, no.

Well, because we have another one after this. But it's like, it's not my— I don't care. I don't like, you know, Christina, my video editor, is saying, can you make sure that the white balance is on? And we have separate audio tracks. And so I tell Arthur, Arthur, can we make sure the white balance is on? And I don't know what any of this stuff means or care. I want this conversation to go well. I want the conversation I've had in this chair with other people to go well. But a lot of the technical expertise I'm not attached to. If YouTube was winning off of 3-minute videos instead of hour-long videos, cool, let's go make 3-minute videos. So like the heart, it's the heart and soul that has to be intact. Almost everything else doesn't matter. Show me that it wins.

Have you found people who can lead and champion that heart and soul without you?

Pretty close on some areas. So I think the closest to would be Ivan, who, shout out to Ivan, is watching this now, who is basically the final filter on video. I don't see a lot of the videos before they go live. Actually, most videos I would say I don't see until they go live. Any set video, I'm not seeing before it goes live. Anything that we're working on is a new, brand new thing. I'm, I probably have hands on, but brand new, if you're doing a top 10 video, I'm probably not seeing it before it goes live. That's because of Ivan. Ivan and I every week for a year looked at videos and he made, he researched and found them. And I told them, I like this, I don't like this, I like this, I don't like this, I like this, I don't like this. And of all the people in the business that I love collaborating but like that role is the one that has to be the most Evan. And so now he's trained two people under him on doing the same thing. So now they have to do it. They're being trained by him and then he filters it out and teaches them. And then there's still some clips that like, why did we include this? But I'll see it afterwards. Be like, guys, number 6 was enough.

Yeah, never do that again.

Like I never learn anything. But it's not that, it's not that often that it's happening. So Ivan is great. Nina has also become really great. So Nina runs a lot of the team, a lot of the stuff that's basically outside of YouTube and the software. Nina's doing everything else. And so does this clip get posted to Instagram or not?

I don't know.

I don't see it. I don't see before it goes live most of the time. I mean, I might hear something and I'll message teams like, guys, include this clip from here to here because I loved it. And that's why, and it goes up. And they usually do slightly better to a lot better than what we're picking, but not like smashing. So Nina and Ivan are the two who protect me from me and do a lot of the heart and soul stuff. It could be better. We could have more. Ideally, like every new person that comes on, they're learning and they're training and they're getting it to. Nicola, who does our intros on our videos, same thing. I was like meeting him every week, looking at his intros like, yes, this, no, this, the, and some of it, if he had a technical reason like, no, but this, doing it this way increases the retention on the video and has a better input. Okay. Like prove it. Show me. And then I don't think I've ever, apart from things like, like when would I say no to the experts or to the data? When it's clearly gonna work, but I don't wanna do it. Like when would I say no? It's things like that. Like it's negative. I don't wanna do that. But apart from that, it's not really shutting down experts. I'll shut down a lot of ideas, but I'm open to ideas, right? It just has to be the right idea at the right time when the right, you know, like the whole Brad Lee thing led to me working with Beau. And we pitched Brad as our first client. He said he's not interested.

You know who was his first client?

Steven Scoggins.

That's because he'd be getting the contract signed by like 20 minutes to me.

So there is an idea that came up that it landed. I don't know how to, how to dissect what ideas I like or not, or how to, how to, how to, how to—

Do you do quarterly planning?

How to train?

You're planning?

No.

3 to 5 year planning? No. Oh, you don't have a vision of what you're building or where you're going?

No, not how, where I'm going for sure.

But you don't have your next 10 hires in your mind for your like, man, this is what I need to do.

No, dude, if you have a 5-year vision for yourself, you're thinking small. What were you doing 5 years ago?

That doesn't, but the 5-year vision doesn't matter. The 5-year vision is the current direction for what is currently out of reach for me.

My current direction is what I'm currently doing.

Right.

And if I have something better, if like VR was way better, let's go, let's drop YouTube. It's all VR. I'm sorry. I did that with my website, right?

This is so nuanced and it may be too nuanced. Like I don't want to come across as nitpicking, but I'm trying to articulate your, you're like, if this was better, I would do it. If the data says this, I would do it. If the expert says this and I agree with it in this time, at this moment, I would do it.

Okay.

And so there's just— I know that some of your biggest breakthroughs have been through play, right? The Top 10 Rules to Success. Yeah. Was because you were like, I'm going to— I'm going to show Mark Drager.

Yeah, yeah.

Show this guy.

This video, guys, was just because of him.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

It became a huge thing.

So, yeah.

So, and this is—

this is the—

this is the challenge is like, I know that you have room for play.

Yeah.

And I know that your audience loves the play. It's just not—

well, it doesn't always work too. And I don't know. I don't know how much they love it.

It doesn't matter if it works or not.

Yeah, but I'll still do it. Yeah. Yeah. Like the top 10 one worked, but I've tried 20 other things that just went nowhere and just made people laugh.

Yeah, but the Shania Twain dance challenge or whatever, right? These like little things that you do in your business.

But the top 10 thing was a little thing too.

I know. It just became a big thing. When it started.

The, the Mark Drager Easter at the CN Tower, everybody messaged Mark Drager.

That did not pan out when you gave an entire Easter long weekend to get to, to mobilize.

Yeah, but like mobilize.

Believe Nation to text me and say make more content?

I spent an entire Easter weekend pinging, having my Believe Nation ping me. So I'll do that stuff. But it's like, where does the ideation come from? Right? And like, how do I, it comes from me, but it also comes from sparks, from different things. Like Jeremy saying he wanted to walk my dog and mow my lawn and wash my car because he wanted to spend more time with me. Obviously I don't need that, but then 2 months later it leads to me thinking, hey, maybe I could teach him YouTube. Right. Which then leads to it, you know, so those are all business plays. Okay, well, whatever, any, like any idea, it might spark for me, but it could spark from somebody I talk to. It could spark from a video I watch.

Do you never feel like you've, and I asked this kind of earlier, the same question, but do you never feel like you've cracked the code? You know what the analytics is showing you, you know what current retention is showing you, you know what works and doesn't work, and it just forces you to make the same thing over and over and over again?

Yep.

When you try new things, as fun as they may be, as interesting as it might be, the data may come back that it doesn't quote unquote work because you have like really data-driven decisions that you're doing.

Yeah.

And so do you never feel like you're— I mean, I don't feel like because I'm supposed to tell you why you suck, but you may be missing tremendous opportunities for the things that just don't make sense. Maybe there are lots of things you can do for your team, for your culture, for your brand, for your growth, for your audience, for you told me 5-year plans are stupid. You have no idea what you're doing in 5 years. But, but equally, the type of content you're making, the play that you could do, all of the stuff that you could make, the team you could have, the people you could hire, the culture you can have, the brand that you could have, the, the downloads or the offers or the things that you do, right? Like if you, if you didn't worry so much about the data-driven decisions, you don't know if they're not 2 or 3 or 4 degrees separated from a really cool outcome. Do you feel like that holds you back or do you— And again, this might be too nuanced, but do you understand what I'm saying?

No, but I mean, we'll do, I'll do stuff all the time that doesn't work, play out, doesn't work, but it doesn't mean that I automatically quit on it. Like the top 10 worked. The Shania Twain worked. I just didn't want to do it. Right. And lots of others.

This is back to like, but, but like you, if you didn't make stuff just for you, but you made it for your audience, you could have, you could have spun this out.

Yeah, I could have been the dance challenge guy, but I don't wanna be the dance challenge guy.

You don't have to be the dance challenge guy. You could just be part of, part of the brand, part of the vibe, part of the essence.

I don't wanna build a dance challenge vibe channel, whatever.

It's not that.

No, but like, it's just, but that's the kind of thing. It's like, it could work.

Lots of things could work, but, but the spark of brilliance that you find so exciting.

Yeah.

Is what makes you so awesome. And if you're not interested in it, you never let it play out.

Yeah, if I'm not interested, I don't let it play out. I have to like the process.

Right.

Yeah. And so that might be.

So there could be an opportunity to let these things that so capture your attention and so interest you and so spark your audience and people that, yeah, maybe it's not going to be forever, but certainly can play out past the one thing because it happened to catch your attention that afternoon.

Well, nothing is forever though too, right? Like any serious stuff, if the data doesn't come back as it's working.

Or I don't like it.

Like the top 10, I would just keep doing. Like I just, I love it. The top 10 actually was underperforming. So we started, what was the top 50 right now?

Or not even anymore.

I mean, you've moved away from that structure.

Yeah.

Because the best videos on our channel were not actually the top 10.

Yeah.

So I don't know how many years ago we pivoted and started a new channel. So the top 10 channel is where all the top 10 stuff is going. Yeah, I'm doing that because I love the top 10. Then we take the best ones and put it to the main channel. So like we work strategy around the heart, but if the heart's not there or fades, like what's the key to my longevity is that I still love the thing that I'm doing. 10,000 videos later and 14 years later, whatever.

I suppose what's shaping kind of my, I guess, approach to this conversation is I've had this realization that unless if you're a professional athlete, or a very, very like famous actor, celebrity, singer, or what have you. Unless, unless if you're that type of person, an entrepreneur is the only role that I'm aware of, the only person I'm aware of that has the freedom and ability to hire the people around them to balance out all of your weaknesses. Right.

Okay.

Like most people can't do that, but we can do that.

Okay.

And so you are really gifted at this thing and you have sitting these empty seats around you of other leaders who could balance out and take Evan Carmichael Inc., can take like the office of the CEO, the office of the founder, and make it so much more well-rounded by surrounding yourself with all of these leaders and then just, just go like, I have a deficiency here, but think about how much stronger a company would be if I had this. I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give you programming. I'm going to give you this. I'm going to give you brand. I'm going to give you all of these things and I'm going to let you run this department and I'm going to let you lead these things. But you've never done that.

We've done that. Of course we've done that.

How have you done that?

Evan runs the YouTube channel. Right.

But he's not inventing new content.

Yeah, he is. He's coming up with new ideas. He doesn't come up with all the new ideas.

He comes up with new ideas. He creates pilots. He runs them. He launches them. He reports back. What's working and not working?

Yeah, we do a monthly meeting where we look at everything that's worked and not worked in the past 2 months. We look at the series. We have our winning series and we have a test series every week that mostly he's coming up with ideas for, but it's collaboration.

And how long do you let those run out before you determine if they're working or not? Usually at least 3 episodes because Parks and Rec, TV show, admittedly, took a season to find its voice. The Office took a season and a half to find its voice. There's so many different pieces of like more creative type stuff where it just takes time to figure out and crack the nut.

So like 3 is the starting point. And then from there we look at how hard is this to make? And can we, is there enough to turn this into something? Like, is this something like a top 10? We were actually struggling when we only were doing entrepreneurs, but then if we expanded the list to athletes and musicians and whatever. Like, oh, okay, well, this is doable. Top 10 was only once a week, then it became twice a week and then became every day. Because like, is this something that can scale or not? So is the idea something that can scale or not? We think it is. We don't launch an idea if we don't think it can scale. I mean, if we had a one-off, sure, we do lots of crazy one-offs. But how much do we think we can scale? And like, assuming the data flops, right? Then, okay, did we love it though? Like, can we tweak something? Can we change it? Do we still love the idea? Was it just that The first minute sucked. Yeah. Like the ideas that we love more, we'll play more with. Yeah. Trying to figure out.

So I think your greatest opportunity for growth, if that's what you want, you have this big vision, but I don't, I don't hear you saying like, I really want growth, but your biggest opportunity for growth, I believe after watching you for all these years is to look at all the different ways is to really turn your YouTube channel into more of a media empire, right? And so there's audio form, there's written form, there's article forms, there's short form. There's all of this stuff that you have.

Short form we take very seriously.

I don't mean short form video, sorry. I mean like taking pieces of content and then splitting it out into these X threads or whatever Twitter wants to be called now. And like, just like, like, look, like moving away from solely video. Taking the different assets, taking the different learning, patching, packaging it up to meet all of these different people in all of these different areas, but really putting, putting like leaders in charge of each of these things, moving yourself out of an owner-operator to more of, of a CEO. And, and that's not what you have to do because you've told me like, I don't have to do this thing. I like what I'm doing and I don't want to do these things. So Yeah. It's the opportunity, but all of the opportunities in front of you are the ones that you just have no interest in pursuing.

Yeah, I mean, those are actually not that difficult to do. Like to take, to really, if I really want to blow up on Twitter or LinkedIn or whatever, I'm already making the long-form content on YouTube.

Because you want to hit that massive goal, which is why I keep hearing that like you're more interested in working towards the goal as long as it's making the stuff that you want to make the way you want to make it.

Yeah, I guess it's aggressively going and finding the right person. You know, like we could train somebody up or you hire somebody to go off and do it.

You don't have to because you have the brand, you have the potential, and you have the resources to go out there and find these amazing people who've done this before.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So finding somebody as opposed to—

But you can go and steal someone from Condé Nast, right? Which is the parent company of like all of these massive online publications. See, now you're smiling a little bit because you're like, what? Why the hell would I do that? Take Condé Nast to do social media.

But yes, no, buy here. You could take— it's committing the time and energy to go find the person. So is that the play? So that's a play. Other social media content's a play. You know, branding and selling hoodies and merch and certain fashion line is a play. There's lots of plays. It's like the right one at the right time. I guess that's the challenge, right? It's like—

But the real unlock is doing it even if you personally hate the word apathetic because that's not what it is. It's just not being attached to it. You're not making it for you and the audience. There are times to just make things for your customers and your audience and not always for you. And that's okay. It will move you closer towards your goal. And if your goal is to make more money, which it's not, it will move you closer to your goal. If you want to have more impact, you can have more impact if you didn't have to check all of those boxes all the time.

I think in the short term, yes, but in the long term, I would just quit on it.

So then you wouldn't have to quit on it because you wouldn't be doing it.

I wouldn't be doing it. I mean, it's still part of what I'm doing. Like, I don't want to go and look at something that we're making and not feel proud of what we're making.

Indifferent, which was your word, apathetic, is not a lack of pride. It's it's an emotional detachment, let's say.

Like, should we be in schools? Sure. Yeah, we should be in schools. We should have educational content. Who's teaching entrepreneurs in schools? Cool. Would I partner with somebody to get into schools? Yeah. Like, I'm not going to take it to schools. It's like, I have no interest in taking it to schools and in working out the behemoth of like figuring out the education system to get like zero interest.

But there's someone out there who has the right partner. What I do is the right education background. Yeah. Who would love to do this and impact people.

I would still, so would I partner with that person? Yes. Do I invest my energy now to go find that person? Is that the best use of my time versus like other things? It's not interesting enough. But if I had the right person, I would do it. But I would still want to like the content that we're putting in the schools. Like obviously listen to—

Yes. Like the content you're putting into schools.

Yeah.

Is this the cost benefit? Is this the best use of my time? That cost-benefit thinking, that data-driven decision-making, that like, it has to fix these boxes, we'll always discount these things that I said—

It's not even data though. It's not data at all. It's heart. Like that might be the biggest data play of all.

Yes.

I just don't feel called to it.

But you want to impact.

I know. Logically.

How many people do you want to impact?

Logically it makes sense. Yeah.

The whole world.

Logically it makes sense. Yeah. I just don't feel called to it.

So less heart, more head.

Well, no, I was—

That's why you suck.

I suck 'cause I'm, I'm too passion-driven.

How much would it cost to do this school thing? Like, let's, let's say like if you had to hire the great people and build a team, like, no, but 500K?

I don't know, but it's not the money cost, it's the time cost. 'Cause, 'cause even if they're gonna do it, I have to meet them and I have to, I wanna be proud of what we're putting into the, the school. So I'm gonna have to look at the content, not every single decision on there, but I'm gonna be involved in the thing.

Let's say it costs you $1 million.

It's not the money, Mark.

Let's say it took you a year and a half.

I don't wanna spend a year and a half.

And you can impact an entire next generation to have what you do.

That's a logical way of looking at it.

Yes, you need to be more logical sometimes.

I, from, from, I want to be emotionally connected to the projects that I'm doing. Okay, well, there you go. That could be why I suck. Or I could just not have the right person around me who can pull out the emotional ideas or find the right ones that I will be emotionally connected to. I mean, that's what I'm, I'm pinging ideas off of everyone. Like, hey, how about you got an idea for me? You got an idea for me? You got an idea for me?

Who's got an idea? I got an idea.

Like, yeah, Jitakshi's here from India. She, she's a year into being in Canada and she sent me an email and I connected with her. It's like, hey, come to the, I don't know what we can do together, but come, come to my restaurant for 3 days and like see what you get to know what I do and see if there's something that we can work on together. Right. So she's learning and pitching different ideas and we haven't like hit the one and maybe she's frustrated like, hey, come up with an idea. Well, you're in the same boat as Mark now trying to, but, but that's, I do get ideas not just from me. And like, that is the right hire. That is the person that I need the most is the person who can understand marketing opportunities, but also my heart and what I'm missing and like, give me the right idea to be able to go off and do it consistently.

Well, there you go.

That's my hire. Now, how do I find that person? That's another episode. Thank you, Mark. To see my last Tell Me Why I Suck episode with Devin Bendison, the NBA mindset coach, check the video right there next to me. Me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe. I'll see you there.

So that's the mind. The mind is like a GPS.

It's a computer.

It's someone wakes up, has a cup of coffee, they break the cup of coffee, and they usually say, I'm gonna have a bad day.