Evan Carmichael talks with Seth MacFarlane about finding passion through childhood clues. Seth drew cartoons obsessively and made his first animated short in seventh grade. Evan's early sign was selling painted pictures and baseball cards. Both stress that beginners suck at first, but persistence and love drive improvement.
Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is do what you love. Over to you, Seth MacFarlane. I wake up every morning with an espresso, give me gold. What were you like as a child?
Um, I was a combination of reclusive and obsessed with what I wanted to do. When I was 2, I was sitting in front of the TV drawing Fred Flintstones and Woody Woodpeckers, and at age 7, I'm running around like a crazy person doing voices. But at the same time, I would try to make animated films and try to figure out exactly how that art form worked.
When did you do your first cartoon? How old were you and what was it?
I was in 7th grade. It was called Space Pirates. It was terrible.
So doing what you love, following your passion, is the most consistent message that comes from the famous entrepreneurs, innovators, artists, musicians that we've had profiled on this channel. Anybody who's at the top of their game says you need to love what you're doing. What I find really interesting about this clip is two things. One, if you don't know what you love doing, if you don't know what your passion is, there may be precursors earlier on in your life to figure it out. So for him, he loved drawing, right? He loved that aspect of his life. For me, I never thought I was going to be an entrepreneur. But I, at 5 years old, sold pictures door-to-door that I had painted with my 3-year-old little sister. Going through school, I sold baseball cards to my friends and went to Florida to get autographs of the baseball players and then brought them back here and sold them at a premium. I joined Junior Achievement and won all kinds of awards and being part of their company program, which is after-school program. And all of this stuff, I had all these entrepreneurial tendencies But I still thought I was going to be an investment banker of some kind or consultant of some kind. That was still what I thought I was going to be because I didn't have as much exposure, right? My environment was safe corporate job. Nobody in my family was an entrepreneur. Nobody around me was an entrepreneur. And so it doesn't surprise me or anybody that I went down that path of entrepreneurship. There were signs there before. I just didn't listen to them. And the people around me, I guess, couldn't point them out for me either. So if you're still struggling to find out what it is that you love doing, there may be some signs you can look to. What did you love doing when you were 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 or whatever it is? There may be some clues there for you. The second thing that I love about it was that he sucked at the start, right? His first thing was terrible. So you can expect to suck at the start of whatever you do. You can love it, you have an inclination to want to do it, you want to go out more and uncover a little bit more about it, but you may suck in the process, right? Don't expect your first thing to be amazing. What's way more important is the passion that you're drawn to it, that you want to go and do it again. When I first started salsa dancing, I sucked. I walked into a class and I was terrible. I actually went to another school as well. I took two classes, two different schools at the same time to try to get better because I sucked so badly at the start. Didn't want to let down the people in my class. So I had extra practice time. You expect to suck, but I loved it and I wanted to go back and do more and get better, right? And with time and with practice and with patience, my skills improved. And so just because you're not good at something, if you feel drawn to it, go out and try it. And if you like it, do it again and do it again and do it again. Don't put so much pressure that this has to be the thing that you love, because if I did that, I would never have completed salsa. I would have never kept going on. 'Cause on paper it looks terrible that I'm tall, I take big steps, I don't know Spanish, I'm learning as an adult. You know, all of these things are potentially holding me back compared to people who've been dancing for a lot longer, but I was able to quickly pass them because I love doing it. And that's what's really important. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, were there signs earlier in your life that this is what you're supposed to be doing. I'm curious what those signs may or may not have been. Leave it down in the comments below. I'm going to join in the discussion. I also want to give a quick shout out to Tristan Becknell. Tristan, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. It really, really, really means a lot to me. So thank you guys for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to belief in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot Ivan Espresso. I wake up every morning. Espresso, keep me going.
