How do you motivate yourself and your team? Ask Evan

Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. Today I'm answering a question from one of my forum readers named Justin who wrote in asking, "Please share your suggestions regarding motivation and how do you personally keep yourself and your employees motivated?" So thanks for the question, Justin. A really big problem that a lot of entrepreneurs face, I think every entrepreneur goes through periods where they think about giving up, they think it's not a good idea to keep going, and you gotta go through those dark days. It's one of those dirty secrets of entrepreneurs that we don't really talk about a lot. We're always saying all the good things about our business and all the momentum that we've built, but we don't really talk about how depressing it can be and how we think about quitting and giving up. And I think, again, I think every entrepreneur goes through that at least once and often multiple times. You're thinking about just going and get a job and just leaving what you're doing behind because it's too much work and frustration. In terms of what keeps me motivated, what really helped in the beginning was how I first started helping entrepreneurs was I was doing worksheets— or workshops, sorry. So I would go and do presentations, entrepreneurs would come and listen to me, and I found it was a lot of work, but I really enjoyed it. And I kind of psyched myself out sometimes where Before going, I think, "Ah, do I really want to do this? You know, it takes a lot of time." But then I'd always get a big high afterwards, and so I try to remind myself of all the positive things that came out of it. And I think the two things that can help you when you're looking at staying motivated, the first is make sure you think about the future life that you're trying to create for yourself. So why did you start your business, right? There's a reason why you started it up. It's probably to make a little bit of money, but also hopefully to help people. And improve their lives, right? If it's just to make money, you're probably not going to be successful. You want to do something that is going to enrich the lives of other people as well. And so whenever I feel down, I try to remind myself of that future life that I'm trying to create. And that was especially when I was first getting started. And sometimes I find it hard to get out of bed and get going and do your work. You know, when you have a boss, you have to get into work and you have to go and do your job or you might get fired. But when you're your own boss, it can be a lot harder to get that motivation. So trying to, you know, just remember every morning that I'm trying to build this life for myself and I'm trying to help other people, and that should kind of give me a little bit of extra motivation. Also trying to get frustrated with the current situation. So if you're angry that you can't pay your bills or you can't afford, you know, whatever product or service you're trying to go out and buy, that can get you frustrated and give you the motivation to get going and actually, you know, take action. The other thing that I found really helpful for me, and this is what keeps me going now, is feedback from customers. So again, hopefully you're building a business that is helping people, providing a really value-add product or service that improves the lives of other people. And if you're doing that, you should be getting positive feedback from your customers. And for me, this is what keeps me going every day. I wake up, you know, if I open up my computer, I see some notes from email or social media, And people writing in saying how much they love the videos or my newsletter or my worksheets and how it's impacted their lives and it's, you know, changed their perspective and given them new motivation. That keeps me going. And, you know, when you guys leave comments on the YouTube videos, I want to make more YouTube videos. And same thing with the worksheets and the newsletter. And so I get that on a daily basis coming in from all of you guys. So thank you. That keeps me wanting to wake up and do more for you. And so you may not have immediate feedback yet if you're just getting started, but try to think of some of the people you've helped. Maybe you make a PowerPoint presentation that you watch in the morning, or you just print off some of the quotes and have it close to your desk about some of the people you've helped and how you've impacted their lives. And at least for me, I found that really motivating to want to go out and do more. You know, one of the greatest joys I think that you can get in life is helping other people. And when you do it, you get a natural rush, a high. That you want to go and do again. And so the more you can remind yourself of that by having some visual cues, you know, quotes or pictures from people who you have helped, the more easy it is to go out and want to do it again and stay motivated. But it is tough, and so don't get discouraged if sometimes you feel down about your business and your life. You know, it happens, it's very common, but try to make sure you do something every day to grow your business and move it forward. In terms of motivating employees, What I found really helpful is two things. One, trying to tie them into the bigger picture of what they're doing. So we have a mission at EvanCarmichael.com. We want to help, you know, a billion entrepreneurs, and there's multiple people on my team and they all have a role in helping me do that, but they don't always see how their role ties into the bigger picture. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs face that challenge with their team is the staff members They do their job, they could be great team members, but the more you can show them how their specific task ties into the bigger picture of helping people, the easier it is for them to stay motivated. Often it's easy for the people who are on the front lines, so the people who are dealing with the customers and they're seeing the positive feedback that's coming back. For them, that's easier because they're getting a lot of positive momentum there. But for the guys on the backend, you know, like your programmers, or the guys creating the product, or your engineers, who don't see the final result and they don't see the reaction of the customers, it's helpful to help tie them into how what they're doing is helping people. And so the more you can do that, the easier it is to get them motivated to keep going and grow themselves. The other thing that I find really helpful, at least for my team, is I get most of the positive stuff in the business and my team deals with most of the crap in the business. I think as entrepreneurs we, you know, try to do the things that we like doing and give off the stuff that we don't. And what I mean by that is all the support issues, all the emails that come in, people asking questions or people having problems, that doesn't usually come to me. It goes to my team and they'll help them solve it. And they do a great job of doing that. Where the emails usually come to me are the ones from you guys who are watching the videos, saying how, you know, how great it's been, how it's impacted your life. So I usually get all the positive emails. And so what I try to do is share those with the team. So they're not just getting all the bad emails or the support emails or the question emails, but also the emails from you guys saying how much we've had an impact on your lives and your businesses. And I find doing that on a regular basis, so I do it monthly, I collect stats on what we're doing and I'll send everybody on my team an overall email of how we did for the past month, how we're doing to accomplish our major goals, and then also some of the, we call them wow emails, but emails that have come in from you guys who have said how much we've had a positive impact. And that gives them a better sense of how they tie into the bigger picture, as well as how we're helping people and the positive things that we're doing. So it makes them feel good about themselves and want to keep going. So hopefully that helped. A good question. I know it's a big challenge for entrepreneurs, but you know, don't get discouraged. Do something every day to make your business go forward, and eventually all those little steps will turn into big steps that you look back and you'll be amazed at what you can do. So thank you for the question. For those of you watching, if you like the video, You know what keeps me motivated is when you leave comments and thumbs up, so I really appreciate those. And if you have a question about your own business or about this video, feel free to leave it in the comments below. I always read those, and your questions are what become these new videos, so feel free to leave one below. Thank you, and I'll see you on the next episode.