In this 10‑minute motivational video, Evan Carmichael opens with the theme “Dare to Fail,” using an Aaron Sorkin excerpt to illustrate how conventional expectations are constantly reshaped. Carmichael argues that embracing failure does not require grand, risky gambles; instead, he advocates starting with the smallest possible experiment—no money, no connections, just a phone—to test an idea. He walks through a concrete example of launching a YouTube channel, showing how incremental attempts turn “failures” into feedback that fuels skill‑building and confidence. Throughout the montage, clips from Hans Zimmer, Brian Tracy, and Barack Obama reinforce the message that failure is a necessary feedback loop, a privacy‑protected space for experimentation, and a catalyst for growth. The video repeatedly stresses that the only true failure is quitting, urging viewers to define failure as a learning step, take the first tiny action toward any goal, and keep iterating until success emerges.
Chapters
Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is "Dare to Fail." Over to you, Aaron Sorkin. I wake up every morning. Espresso keeps me going. I wake up every morning.
You'll meet a lot of people who, to put it simply, don't know what they're talking about. In 1970, CBS executive famously said that there were 4 things we would never ever see on television. A divorced person, a Jewish person, a person living in New York City, and a man with a mustache. By 1980, every show on television was about a divorced Jew who lives in New York City and goes on a blind date with Tom Selleck. Develop your own compass and trust it. Take risks. Dare to fail. Remember, the first person through the wall always gets hurt. You're gonna fall down, but the world doesn't care how many times you fall down as long as it's one fewer than the number of times you get back up.
So failure is one of the most common themes that I come across on the channel. And if you look at one side, the people who are so afraid to fail, and then on the second side, the people who, who are successful have failed so many times. Any successful person that you look up to, anybody in any field, got there by failing and failing and failing and failing. They've had a few successes and way more failures. There's a couple things around failure that I want to address thanks to this video. The first is the message of this video is "Dare to fail." I don't think you have to be that daring to fail. I don't think you have to go out and do some huge, big thing and, you know, mortgage your house and go all in on this idea that has to work and it's this massive project. That's one option. I think you can fail way smaller, and I think you should. I think as soon as you get an idea that you want to try something, that you owe it to yourself to go out and try and fail as small as possible, just to see. Like, you want to start a YouTube channel, maybe that's one of your goals or aspirations. I want to start a YouTube channel. Great. What's involved in starting a YouTube channel? And suddenly you're going to say, well, I need a camera, and I need lighting, and I need a microphone, and I need to do research, and I need, I need to learn editing skills, or I need to hire an editor. And you start adding up all of these things, and all they're doing is putting roadblocks in front of you that prevent you from doing anything. And instead of going big with it, I'd say go small. Just start. Because so many people will start it, will try it, like you spent all this money buying all the gear, doing all this stuff, and then you do a couple and you don't like it. How many things have you gone and tried and you didn't enjoy it? Or maybe you enjoyed it once, but it's not going to be the thing that you want to do for the rest of your life, or at least the next couple years. And that happens to so many people. I'm gonna invest all this money into all this gear to make great videos, and then you make 2 and you stop because it's not what you wanna do and you're stuck with all this gear. And so when you have this idea of something that you wanna do, just start. Start with no money, with no connections, with no resources, just start. If you wanna start a YouTube channel, then you know that you have a phone to do it. And if you don't have a phone, then one of your friends has a phone and you can borrow from them and make your first video. The video quality is good enough, the audio quality is good enough, you can go outside and get some decent light and you are good. Make that video and start. And if it works and you love it and you just, you want to eat it up, you want to do more, great! Make another one and make another one and make another one. You can make a business case around it, amazing! Buy a proper camera, hire an editor, get lighting, get a microphone, work your way up. Or you do the first one and you hate it and you realize you never I want to do it again. Perfect. Get the knowledge because otherwise you have all these dreams that just sit in your head. I wish I could do this. I wish I could do this. All these things just sit up as wishes that never result in anything. Go out and do and fail on a small scale. It does not have to be some big, bold, daring dream or goal. And even if it is, chunk it down to what I can do today to get started on that. Whatever huge, big dream, ambitious goal you have, amazing, I love it. What's the first small step that you can do to take action towards it? The other thing about failure that I need to address is people see it as some final thing. That because you failed, because the first thing didn't work out, then that's it. Where failure is not a bad thing. Failure is just feedback on how not to do something. Failure just means that you can get up and do something better the next time. If I go back on my YouTube channel and I look at my first video, it wasn't very good, right? It's not something that I am insanely proud of apart from having the courage, I guess, to go out and do it. But that's not something I watch over and over again and like, "Man, look at this amazing video." The video was not very good, but it also wasn't a failure. Just because it didn't get 100,000 or a million views, it wasn't a failure. It was the best effort that I could have done at that point. And then I made another video, and another video, and another video, and, you know, 3,600 videos later, it's getting better. And hopefully tomorrow's video is better than today's, and tomorrow's Evan is more impactful than today's, and it's an ongoing process of growth. The only failure is if I stopped. The only failure is if you quit. If there's something that you really wanna do and you try it the first time and you suck at it, first expect to suck, 'cause it's the first time you're doing anything. You're not gonna be great at it from the start. But it's only a real failure is if you have this dream and your first attempt doesn't work and then you stop. That's failure. Otherwise, it was just an attempt. And tomorrow you try again, and the next day you try again, and every day you get a little bit better and a little bit closer to your goal. That's how success works. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, how do you define failure? What does it mean to you? I'm curious. Leave in the comments. I'm going to join the discussion. I also want to give a quick shout out to Adam Russ. Adam, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. It really, really, really means a lot to me, and I hope you enjoy the read. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso. I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going. Hey, Believe Nation, if you want a little bit more inspiration and motivation around failure, here are some bonus clips that I hope will help.
After finishing my adventures on Dark Knight, I decided we need to go into a completely different direction. When I think of the notes for the tune, I try to think of what's the sonic world we're going to pour this tune into, and that's what we're doing. Bassist, can you make your accents a bit more fierce? We're experimenting. Mighty big.
Sounds awesome.
Awesome. That's what you're supposed to do. You're not supposed to stand still. You don't really want to be observed at your greatest failures, and you have to invite failure if you want to go and experiment, and if you want to try to do something original, you have to have a certain amount of privacy to have the courage to fail.
I listened to the people who were successful in selling that product. I would learn new things from different ones, new approaches, and that's very— you must be a constant student A lot of people are afraid to try anything new because they are afraid that they will be embarrassed until they get good at it. Well, one of my favorite sayings is, you know, the most important thing you can do is to understand that anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.
What do you mean by that?
Until you can learn to do it well. My first few sales calls were pathetic. But I knew it was worth doing, so I kept after it, you know. My first few speeches were a disaster, but I believed that I could develop into that, so I kept at it until I could do it effectively. And all skills are exactly the same way. No running back that sets the records ever set a record the first time he picked up a football. And you can go right down the line with that. So if it's worth doing and you believe in it, go ahead and fail. And the more times you fail, the closer you're getting to success, because you should be learning on every every simple thing that you do.
What has been the best advice you received from your teacher or professor?
Oh, I've gotten a lot of great advice from teachers, mentors, professors throughout the year. So first of all, you gotta be open to taking some risks and not being afraid to fail. Failure is the key to success. So when you get to college, you gotta raise your hand. You have to be engaged. Don't be the kid thinking, "Oh, I shouldn't be here, and maybe I'm not smart enough, and maybe—" You know, no. You are You are more than capable of going to college, being successful, and going on and doing whatever you want in life. I sit here because I am you all. There is no difference between me and you. Working-class kid, growing up on the South Side of Chicago, growing up with doubts and fears just like all of you all do. I know exactly how you all are feeling, and kids out there who are thinking, "Maybe I'm not ready. Maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I can't afford it." But what teachers and mentors have told me is that, You can and you must. So get in there and be bold with your intelligence. Raise your hand, get support when you need it, and know that we all got here because somebody helped us.
