Evan Carmichael says the main sign you're on the right path as an entrepreneur is deep love for the work itself. He points to Steve Jobs dropping out of college and Milton Hershey failing repeatedly before building his chocolate empire, arguing that passion and gut instinct matter more than logic.
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Just because things aren't going the way you want them to now doesn't mean that things won't get better in the future, and you have to trust that the dots will align somewhere in your future, even if it doesn't make sense right now for your business. Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. I believe that hungry entrepreneurs deserve help, and today I'm answering a question from one of my readers, Pedro. He responded to my newsletter. In one of my newsletters, I posted a quote that said, "Don't confuse your path with your destination. Just because it's stormy now doesn't mean you aren't headed for sunshine." And Pedro wrote back to say, "What are the signs that mean we're headed for sunshine? How do I know?" Great question, Pedro. How you know that you're on the right path is you feel it in your heart that you love what you're doing. You love what you're doing and it feels right. And a lot of the best entrepreneurs in the world, the most famous entrepreneurs in the world, when they first started, everything seemed to not make sense. It wasn't the logical thing to do, but they did it because it felt right. When Steve Jobs started Apple, he dropped out of university. He dropped out of university to start hanging out with computer geeks, and people said, Steve, you're crazy. Like, what are you doing? Why are you dropping out of college? And what are you doing hanging out with guys who are trying to build a computer? Nobody needs a personal computer. They're only for big businesses. This is crazy. Go back to school. Go get a job. Could you imagine if Steve Jobs went and did that? He didn't know how things would work out, but he did it because he was trusting his gut and he was following his heart, and it felt right. If you feel like what you're doing is right and you're helping people and it makes you feel good, you have to keep going. Even if you end up having to take a part-time job to survive, or a full-time job and do this on the side, you have to find a way to keep going. If you're passionate about it, if you love doing it, if you get excited by the thought of doing it and you're, you're actually in it and you love it, you have to keep going. If you lose the love, if it stops becoming interesting and exciting for you, then it might just be stormy ahead, okay? The sunshine might not be there because you have to push through. Every entrepreneur has to push through. It's not easy, okay? No entrepreneur has it handed to them. You have to bust through the darkest days, the days when you think that this is never going to work. You have to get up the next day and go work again. And eventually the clouds do clear and you hit your success, but it's not without a lot of hard work. It's not without a lot of suffering, and it will only happen if you absolutely love what you're doing. Another quick story for you is one of Milton Hershey. I love this story. When he started his business, he's from the Hershey Chocolate Company, he borrowed some money from his aunt to start his business, a couple hundred dollars in Philadelphia. And he was making caramels, and he worked 15, 16 hours a day, and he made the caramels overnight and he sold them on the streets during the day. The business failed in Philadelphia, so he moved it to Chicago and New Orleans and New York, and it failed in all 3 cities as well. So we've had 4 failures now. And in New York, he failed when kids on the street came and they robbed him. They took all his money, took all his supplies, and he had to return home to Philadelphia Broke with nothing. Then his family disowns him. They say, Hershey, you're a failure. You're not part of this family. We don't want to know you. So he had to go live with his former employee who took him in so he can get started again. And what did he do? He went back to business and he started making chocolates and eventually built up a huge company that had a massive impact. Hershey. It's a great story if you read it and the impact he had on his community. But he had to go through such crap, more than most people. Would you go through years of failure, years of working 16 hours a day, failing 4 times with your business, having your family disown you? The only thing that gets you through all that is feeling like you're doing the right thing. Feeling like you have to keep going because you love what you're doing, it's having an impact, and you're doing the right thing, even though all logic says go in the other direction. Why are you doing this, Hershey? Why do you keep doing this to yourself? You're never going to make it. This is a bad idea. Why did he keep going? Because he loved it. Because he felt he had to keep going. Because he felt he owed it to himself and to his community to keep doing it. And eventually he hit success. Now, it doesn't have to be that hard for you, but it might be that hard. And unless you love what you're doing to your core, you're going to quit when it gets too hard. If you don't love what you're doing to your core, you will not achieve success with your business. That's how you know if sunny skies are ahead for you, or if it's just a whole storm ahead. Good luck. For those of you watching, you like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. Makes me want to do more for you. And I want to hear what you have to think. Please leave a comment under this video. Let me know what you think. Ask me a question for your business and I'll make a video reply for you. Thank you so much, and I'll see you on the next episode.
