How to Get Over Self-Doubt | Why Focusing on Serving Others is the KEY

Focus on who you are serving instead of who you're not. That one sentence is at the core of how I've been able to stay so consistent, to keep making content, to not give up, to not get too discouraged, and to get back up every single time and keep going because I focus on who I am serving instead of who I'm not. I just recently spoke at Brendon Burchard's Influencer Summit, and I shared my graphic of how I've grown over the years on my channel. Every time I show that graph, they always ask me, how did you keep going?

In, in the first 5 years when you had no subscribers, when you had no comments, how did you keep going? And how did you make so many videos? How did you not burn out? How have you made 12,000 videos over 12 years? How, how do you keep doing it?

And I don't think I'm superhuman. I think I had actually more problems than most. I'm shy, I'm introverted, I was afraid of the camera. I felt like only egotistical people put themselves on camera and told their story. I hated my first 350 videos, couldn't watch anything back. I was totally embarrassed by everything I made. And it was 750 videos before I inspired myself, before I finally liked one of my own videos. Like, you know what? I'm starting to get decent at this. That was a good video.

Hey, it's Nina Carmichael. And we made these videos because you're probably the most ambitious person in your circle, but you know you're capable of more and you need that push by surrounding yourself with the best. So today let's learn from one of the best, my husband Evan Carmichael, and learn how to keep going no matter what. Enjoy.

How do you keep going? How does that make any sense? Because I always focus on who I was serving instead of who I wasn't. Most of us just focus on who we're not serving. Think about your growth. Think about if you've made any kind of content. You know, at the beginning you, you get nothing, right? There's no reaction, there's no comments, and then maybe you get one comment. And then maybe you get 5 comments, or maybe you get 10 likes, or maybe you get however many views on your videos, right? You get 100 views on your video. Now that's kind of the standard. Now if you get 20 views again on a video, that, that doesn't feel so good, right? Or if you get 1,000 views on a video, or 10,000 views on a video, or 100,000 views on a video. I remember the first time I got 100,000 views on a video, it's like, wow, I've made it! And then it's easy to feel like, oh, the next video got 10% of that. And you feel like, oh, I suck. It's not working.

Right.

Instead of focusing on that, because that's a losing game, focus on who you are helping and assume that it is serving people. I've always felt, I think, some kind of responsibility or just gratitude that anybody would care about what I had to say. And that you were spending your time with me. I remember my first speaking gig was at the YMCA in Canada, was at the YMCA, and 3 people showed up. You know, 3 people showed up, and I just did my best to give a great experience to those 3 people. And then I kept doing it, and the next time we had 4, and then we had 7, then we had 12, and then we had 15, and then we had 20, and then we outgrew the space. And so then I went to the boardroom of a bank Royal Bank of Canada and took over their boardroom at night for entrepreneurs. These were free events I was putting on just to help entrepreneurs. I had no business model or pitch, just serving. And then we got too big for the Royal Bank, so then we went to Indigo, which was a bookstore. It's like a Barnes Noble of Canada. We had, you know, people coming out, and then more and more and more. Every, every 2 weeks I did it again, and more people came. And at the, at the height, we had the second most number of people to ever show up at the bookstore. Number 1 was Sting when he launched— the musician Sting— when he launched his book, he came in, he did a little concert, and that was the number 1 event in terms of number of people that came out. And the second one was my little entrepreneur speeches. It's crazy. When you focus on who you are serving instead of who you're not, it does a couple of things. Okay. Number 1, it makes you feel so much better about what you're doing. It makes you feel so much better that, that what you're doing matters, right? We all want to feel like what we do matters. And if you're used to 1,000 views on a video and then you get 100 views on the next one, you feel like you don't matter, right? You feel like you're losing your value because it didn't reach as many people. Don't think like that. 100 people saw it. Be thankful and be grateful for the 100 people. It doesn't mean that you stop caring about growth and improvement, right? Somebody asked me about satisfaction and happiness, and I said, I'm always, always happy, but I'm almost never satisfied. I always want to be getting better, to grow, to improve. And it's more a personal thing of I want to put my best effort out there today. This video, I want to be one of my best videos ever. And maybe I accomplish that, maybe I don't, but it's the intent because I'm never satisfied with where I'm at, but I'm happy. I'm happy as a human because by putting out great work and by paying attention to who you are serving, I think that's the key to, to being happy, to being fulfilled, to feeling like what you do matters. So it gives you that by focusing on who you are serving. It gives you that. And number 2, when you focus on the people who you are serving, here's a secret. They take you to the people who you're not serving yet, right? If you love this video, you might share it with somebody. You might come back and watch another video, and maybe you share that video with somebody. When you focus on loving on your community, it's that, it's that double whammy in a positive way of you feel so good that what you do is having a meaningful effect. And when you love on your customers, when you love on your audience, they're going to take you to more people. 'Cause they're gonna feel the love and they're gonna spread it for you. You don't even have to tell them to do it. They'll do it on their own because they get good vibes by being around you, even if it's just virtually. I think it's really critical. People are really struggling with mental health in creation right now, in entrepreneurship right now. It's a giant struggle. And I see a lot of my contemporaries, a lot of people on YouTube giving up after a couple months saying, I need a mental health break, I'm burnt out. And I've made 12,000 videos over 12 years and we're still going. And it's not again that I'm superhuman. It's just a shift. I'm, I'm focusing on who I am serving and who I am helping, not all the things that I suck at and how I'm not growing fast enough because that game never ends, right? It's a never-ending climb. So some years I do better than others and some months I do better than others. And do I want to have bigger numbers? Of course. But it's not the reason why I do what I do. One other little trick that helps a lot is assume that for somebody, at least one person, what you're going to create today is going to be life-changing. Assume that for somebody, at least one person, what you will create today will be life-changing. That if If you're making content and 100 people see your video, and you might think that's a failure because you're used to 1,000 views on your video, that for one of those 100 people, it's a life-changing video. My hope, my intention is that this video today is a life-changing video for somebody. For some of you watching, for most of you watching, maybe it's just another good video. Like, hey, thank you. Good shot of espresso in the morning.

Here we go.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Or you're having breakfast, or you're doing something else, you're driving in your car on your way to work, and you're, you're listening to me. Awesome, amazing. But I hope that for one person, it's, it's a life-changing video. It's finally going to give you the permission to go off and do the thing that you desperately want to do, that you know is in your heart and has to come out. I, I just feel that, and I've seen it enough over the years of people telling me that my videos have had an impact on them only years later. Yesterday at Brendan Burchard's influencer event that I spoke at, people were commenting and then DMing me on Instagram and sharing stories of, I've been following you since whatever year, and this is the first time they're ever telling me, right? They never left a comment on a video, they never messaged me, they never emailed me, they never tweeted, they never sent anything. It's the first time I've ever seen their name ever, and they've been a hardcore follower for a decade, and I've had a huge impact and I'm part of their daily life, and it's only now, a decade later, that I'm finding out about it, right? There are people who are like that for you too. And we just assume that we don't matter, and we assume because you might get a few less views on a video or post that it's not having an impact and not having a reach, and then you take that personally and feel like you suck. Assume that it's making an impact on somebody. Assume that it's life-changing for somebody, that you are giving hope, encouragement, motivation, permission for somebody else to go and become their best selves. When you tie your self-worth to the results that you're getting, you ultimately are going to lose because you have some days where you don't get results and it's going to defeat you. It's going to lead to stress, it's going to lead to anxiety, it's going to lead to want them to quit. It's going to lead to burnout. The key to fulfillment, the key to momentum, the key to sustained activity, and the key to actually loving the work that you're doing is reminding yourself to focus on the people that you are serving instead of the ones that you aren't.

Rule number 2: Bring value first.

This is the secret to getting ahead in business and in life. Bring value first. You want somebody to notice you? Bring value first. You want somebody to pay You want somebody to buy from you, to hook you up with a partner, to talk about you in a speech on stage, like you want people to do stuff for you, bring value first. Don't go to them asking for help first. Go to them with value first so that they're stumbling all over themselves to try to find a way to help you out too. Bring value first. Most people will never figure this out. Most people will constantly be begging other people, be tweeting at them and DMing them and saying, please help me, please help me, please help. And it feels so, I feel so bad. I feel frustrated and I feel so bad for these people who are just asking for help because you know that they need help, but they're going about it all wrong. By spamming people and begging for help, you're not going to get it. Instead, focus your efforts. Like, you will never get it. You will never get it this way. You're not going to get to your outcome. You're not going to solve this problem by begging people.

You'll get a little bit.

Like, even beggars on the street get a little bit. You'll get a little bit, but you'll never get to where you want to go ever by begging. Instead, flip it and spend your time trying to figure out how you can bring value to other people first so that they can't wait to help you out too. I look at Instagram as an example. I can't tell you how many DMs I get from people who say, Evan, please shout me out. Evan, please talk about my product. Evan, please, please go to my profile and look at my video and then share it to your audience. Like, that's not gonna happen. That's not gonna happen. Why would I do that? I don't even know who you are. Why would I do that? I had to make a story on my IG and save it just so that I can send it to everybody who asked that.

And I get frustrated because I don't want you wasting time.

For all the people who DM spam me, say, Evan, go check, go check this out, Evan, sign up for our service, I DM them and say, John, this is not how you win, man. You are wasting your time. This is not—

I want you to win.

DM spamming people is not how you're going to win. Find a way to bring value first. That's how you win. That's how I respond to spammers on Instagram, because I badly want you guys to win, and you just don't know, and you think that that's a path, and it seems like an easy path. Great, yes, it'd be awesome if Evan or somebody gave me a shout out and watched my thing and promoted it, but that's not how the process worked. Now on the flip side, there's a lot of people in my audience who I know, who have given so much, who are commenting on every video, who are commenting on all of my live stuff, who are on my Instagram feed, who are on my Twitter feed, who are constantly engaged and constantly trying to help other people out. There are a lot of people who I've never met face to face but are such amazing contributors to Believe Nation, and for those people, I would do almost anything for them. Within, within a reasonable scope, I would, I would do almost anything for them because I love them, because of how much they've contributed to me. They don't even have to ask. If I saw them launching something, say, hey, can I, can I help? Can I be a part of it? Can I be a testimonial for you? How can I help you? Because you've given me so much, because you've contributed so much. I want that to be you. I want that to be you. Find the people who you're trying to get in touch with. Find the people who if they noticed you, if you got on their radar, if they talked about you, would make a huge difference for your company. And then figure out ways to bring value to them. And don't go ask them, say, hey, I want to bring value to you. That's not it. It's your job to figure out.

It's your job to figure out how you can bring value.

A lot of people come and say, hey Evan, I want to work for you for free. I'll work for you for free for 12 months and you can mentor me and you don't have to pay me. For a year. That's not bringing value. Understand, if you're coming to somebody who's had success, it's still not value. You working for free is not enough because it's taking up the thing that I value most, which is time. So you going to whoever you look up to, if they're at a certain level, you go to Oprah and say, Oprah, hey, can I work for you for free? You're not going to get a response back because that's not enough value. You have to really figure out What they want, what they're looking for, what they're trying to do, and figure out an angle that you can help them with. One of the best ways to do this are around when somebody's launching something. If somebody's launching a new book, a new product, a new service, a new shoe, like they're launching something, they're in launch mode, they're out, they're doing interviews, they're trying to get their name out, they're trying to build awareness for that thing. That's when you want to go and help them. They're trying to distribute this new video that they've launched and they're so pumped for this new book book that they have that they're so pumped for, like, help them. Help them distribute it. Help them get interviews. Get on their radar. Give reviews. Go to their trade show and help, you know, set up the booth, you know, and help talk to people. Like, help them in launch mode because that's when they're most vulnerable. That's when they need the most help, and they're asking people, but they don't know who you are yet. That's your chance to make a really good impression. Help them when they're in launch mode. And so pay really close attention to what they're launching and get in there and be a assistance. The second thing is pay attention to where they're spending a lot of their time. So I would go to every social media channel that they're on, these people you want to get in touch with, and see where they actually themselves engaging with people. Where are they themselves responding to comments? Where are they themselves posting content? Because they, they might be posting something on LinkedIn, but if they're not actually watching the comment feed, then your comments are getting lost. But if you see that they're engaging on Instagram, They go to Instagram and leave comments there. You want to be where they are. So use those two strategies to bring insane value to these people, and then that's how you win. Because I want you spending your time on the things that will actually move the needle for you so that you're not wasting your time every single day begging people and wondering why you're not having success. You're not having success. You're not getting attention from these people because you are not bringing them enough value. Figure that out and then you win.

Win. Good luck.

Also, to make sure you're actually taking action after watching this video, I've designed a special free worksheet just for this video. The worksheet will highlight all the lessons learned in this video, as well as pull out our 3 favorite learnings and quotes that will inspire you to actually do something. The worksheet will also give you space to write down what your key takeaways are and your specific plan of action to make sure you're getting results. If you want the worksheet designed specifically for this video, absolutely for free, there's a link in the description below. Go click on it and start building the momentum in your life and your business. I'll see you there.

Rule number 3: Find your genius.

I like to say that everybody has Michael Jordan-level talent at something.

I believe it.

I think, I think you have Michael Jordan-level talent at something. I think you're a genius, a legit bonafide genius. You should be out there changing the world.

I believe it.

I think you have that talent. I think you have that capabilities. Most people don't. Most people, one, they don't believe in themselves enough to actually go off and chase it. And most people, two, don't go off and explore to find the thing that they have genius at, that they could be Michael Jordan at, Warren Buffett at. And instead, you try to photocopy somebody else's life. You try to be the next somebody. No, you're a genius. Let's go. Let's chase it down. That's why I'm on my mission. I want to solve the world's biggest problem: untapped human potential. I think everybody is that genius, and they either don't know what the thing is that they should be doing, or they don't believe in themselves hard enough to go and chase it down. So let's work through those two things. Whatever camp you fall into, there's going to be advice that will help you. One, you don't know what you're a genius at.

Amazing.

What's the path? You explore, you test, you try. People settle way too early in life. You You settle. How do you know if you like sushi or not until you taste it? You don't. You should be trying everything. I think everybody should try to be an entrepreneur. Everybody should try to have a YouTube channel. Everybody should try to have a podcast. Everybody should try to be an accountant. Like, you should try. You should pick up everything just to get a sense. Say yes to everything once. Adopt that mindset mentality. We get locked in to career paths way too soon.

Why?

Because that's what our parents did? Because that's what we went to school for?

Why?

You're gonna now live You're gonna live the rest of your life doing something because you've only tried 5 different things and now you're gonna pick? Like, that's a recipe for disaster. That's why 95% of America wakes up and drives to the job that they hate. You have to try. You have to say yes. And don't tie your self-worth to the results. You will suck at the beginning. Whatever you first start doing, you will suck. It will not work out. My first YouTube videos sucked. Sucked. Go back. Watch it so you can see how bad I was. When I first started my videos, I sucked. I was awkward, I was nervous, I was introverted. It took me 350 videos until I wasn't completely embarrassed by myself. 350 videos. And so the acid test needs to be, do you like the process? Do you want to go back and do it again? You may not have been good at it, but do you want to go off and do it again? So like when you go on a first date—

Nina's here.

Hello, Nina. Hello, Nina.

We love you. Her new nails.

Nina got her new nails.

When you go on a date, when I went on my first date with Nina, the acid test is do I want to go on a second date? Not am I going to marry this person. Just do you want to go back and do it again? Don't put so much pressure that this has to be the thing that works out and is the rest of your life. You won't know. You won't know at first glance. So you need to say yes to a whole bunch of things. When you don't know what you want to do in life, you need to say yes to almost everything as long as it falls within your personal values, ethics, you're not harming yourself. Most things you should go off and try. I think you should try. I don't think you've tried enough. If you don't know what you want to do in life, you have not tried enough. I'm going to put my phone down on here because my arm is getting tired. You have not tried enough.

You have not tried enough and you need to try more.

Next step, if you found the thing, if you found the thing, you know what you want to do, you know what you have potential greatness at, you need to believe in that greatness.

You need to believe in that greatness. You need to chase it down. And it's hard because maybe nobody in your family has ever done that before, right? Maybe nobody in your family has experienced any kind of background in this before, right?

Nobody's done it, so it's hard. But you have to, because otherwise you will live the rest of your life in regret, knowing that you could have done more, you could have been great at something, but you stuck to this crappy job that you hate because it was a safe thing to do. You will hate your entire life if you do not fix this this problem. Why am I going so hardcore on YouTube right now? Why am I pushing hard on Instagram too right now? Why do 3 videos a day? Why do 6 posts a day on Instagram? Why? Why? Because I have a window. Because there's a window on your opportunity. Because my window is now. Because this is a magic moment for me with, with my skills and my interests and my talents and my passions right now in the world of entrepreneurship, in the world of YouTube and Instagram, how it's all coming together. It all fits perfectly for where I'm at right now. And so I have to push hard. You put the blinders on. You put the blinders on and stop looking for other opportunities. It's right in front of you. You know the thing you have to go off and do. Go be great at it. And maybe you have to develop the skills. I had to develop the skills. I am not naturally gifted at this. Go back and watch my old videos. It took me a long time to get good at speaking in front of the camera, speaking in front of an audience, not being afraid, not being always so introverted. It took me a long time to get out of that. But you have to. This is the only way that you win. You want to win, you want to be happy, you want to win the game of life, you want to have a big impact, you want to win as an entrepreneur— this is the only path. You can't just copy somebody else. You can model, you can learn, but you have to figure out what is your circle of competence. You have to figure it out, and then you— when you find it, you have to go all in.

That's it.

Those are your only options. Otherwise you lose, and you'll always know you're capable of more, but you're too afraid to go chase it So one, if you have no idea what you're great at, you have no idea what you want to do, you're not going to think your way through this. You won't figure it out sitting on the couch or watching this video. You're going to get it by going off and doing it. You get an idea, you try it. Idea, try it.

Idea, try it.

Just say yes.

Expect to fail at everything and just think, do I want to go back and do that again? And if the answer is yes, then you go back and you keep going back and you keep going back, and suddenly you found your passion. And if you found the thing that you know you want to do, you found the thing that you know you have genius in, then you You have to believe in yourself and you have to pound on your craft and you have to do that thing every single day to develop the talent, to develop your skill, to be amazing at that thing because that is what you were born to do. You're a genius. You have Warren Buffett talent. You have Michael Jordan level talent and you have to find it and you have to own it and you have to use it to become happy for yourself and to make a difference for the people around you and the world.

Rule #4: Take action.

Most people don't fail enough. Most people are so afraid of a huge fail that they don't even try.

You're afraid of taking a big bet. You're afraid of going into deep debt, and that fear prevents you from having the thing that matters the most right now in your business: momentum.

You don't need to fail big, but you do need to start. Otherwise, you will never build the big business that you're capable of building. So I'm a big fan of going from idea to action, idea to action, idea to action, idea to action. You get an idea, what do you do?

You take action. Teach yourself, train yourself as soon as you get that idea.

Don't judge it, don't think about it, don't plan and ponder and strategize because your list of ideas is a mile long and it's not going to get any shorter. You're a genius, you come up with great ideas. You're going to keep coming up with ideas for the rest of your life. That list of ideas is not going to shrink.

So how do you start moving?

You take action. I call it the 2% difference. Instead of planning to get to 100%, for your idea? What's the 2% difference that you can just do something about right now? I think your ideas came to you for a reason. I think it's inspired. Why are you thinking about this thing?

Don't judge the reason, just go off and do something.

One small conversation, one small action.

Start building momentum.

That's the thing that's missing right now is momentum. You need more momentum. You're a genius.

You have great ideas.

You should be changing the world. What's missing is momentum, and I want you to find it. So quick example, when I was on my tour and we're driving through the desert through Texas, and two people came to my mind. One was my friend Mark Drager, who I'd known for over a decade, and I thought, I'm going to start a podcast with Mark Drager. Like, that's weird. Why am I thinking about this? Why am I thinking about Mark? I haven't talked to him for a while. I'm on my tour. Why am I thinking about a podcast? I've been, I've been anti-podcast for so long seeing it's not my priority. I want to focus on my YouTube channel. I want to build my Instagram up. I don't care about a podcast. Now for some reason I'm driving through the desert thinking about my friend Mark and a podcast. What do most people do? You judge it. You think about it. You strategize. You research. Is it time for a podcast? How would you make it work? What's the best thing to do? Just email Mark and say, hey Mark, what do you think about starting a podcast together? And he said yes, and we started doing a podcast, and we didn't worry about having the right gear. When did we start the podcast?

Now.

Like, when's our first podcast?

This week. Let's make it happen. And Mark's an AV guy, audiovisual guy. He has a video production company, million-dollar-plus. Obviously, he wants to use good gear, good sound, good, good video for the video version of it, but we can't yet. And I'm only a month in on my tour, so what am I gonna do, wait 2 months until— no! We'll do it live on Instagram. And the audio quality won't be fantastic, and the video quality won't be fantastic, but you know what we're building? You know what's happening? Momentum. Momentum. The thing that you're missing is momentum because you're trying to make it perfect. Because you're gonna wait 2 months to start, and then by the time 2 months happen, you won't start.

That's the problem.

And so now that we're back in Toronto, we film it and we have 3 cameras on me filming it and we've got high quality microphones and all of that stuff and it's a way better product. But we started. If we waited 2 months, it wouldn't have happened. Second guy I thought about in the desert was Jeremy. Jeremy Stickney came to my Thought Leadership Academy late last year, September last year. And why am I thinking about him? I don't know. I mean, I haven't talked to Jeremy since. This was now— it was— I met him in September. This was now what, February, January? Haven't talked to him a couple months. Driving through the desert, and I think, I want to start a YouTube consulting business with Jeremy. I get asked all the time for people to help me with their YouTube channels. I don't, I don't want to be in that business. I don't want to be a consultant, but that's a business. And why am I thinking about Jeremy? He was doing something else. I don't know. Don't judge it. Don't disrespect it. Don't worry about it. My next step is I want to talk to Jeremy. I'm going to Facebook message him. So Nina's sitting next to me. I said, Nina, we need to message Jeremy Stickney and say, Jeremy, I have an idea for you. And I need to get him on a Facebook Live call today.

And he was working.

It's like, I need to get him on the call. Tell him to take a break. I need to get him on a call right now. Momentum, guys.

Momentum is the thing that's missing. Right now. It has to happen right now. Your ideas matter.

Don't judge them.

Your ideas are important.

Build momentum immediately even though they don't make sense.

Why am I telling Jeremy to take a break? Why am I telling Jeremy to call right now?

This has to happen while I'm on this drive right now because tomorrow I'm gonna wake up a different person. By the time I land in Albuquerque, I'm gonna be a different person.

I'm in the zone right now thinking about it.

It has to happen right now. You need to build immediate momentum. This is how you start projects. Now, it ended up working out with Mark. We're, I don't know how many episodes deep on our podcast. Jeremy said yes after that call, and we've been working. Now he's gotten his first clients, and he's helping people build their YouTube channels. It's amazing. A lot of the ideas don't necessarily work out.

That's okay.

You'll get some crazy idea, you're still building some momentum on it, and maybe it doesn't work out.

Maybe Mark says no.

No, maybe Jeremy says no. Maybe we do our first podcast and it sucks and we both hate it. Awesome. How are you going to know? By doing, right? You're not going to know by thinking about it. How do I know if I'm going to like doing a podcast? I can think and think and think and think, but you won't know until you try. You can't think your way through liking sushi. You have to try it and see. And so this is why I get frustrated, because I think you're a genius. I think you have great ideas. I think you have noble intent. I think I think you should be off making an impact and making money and changing the world. I think, I think you deserve that.

You should. But there are dummies that are winning off of your idea.

People who don't have a big mission, people who don't really care about their customers, they're just chasing an opportunity and they're making money. They are. Why? What's the difference between them and you? They started. That's the only difference. They started and you're still thinking about it. And so if you go from idea to action, idea to action, what's this 2% difference? The smallest possible way to just build momentum, not strategize, not think, not plan, do something. Email somebody, call somebody, take action. Man, if you guys just did that for the next 3 months, your life would look dramatically different. So how do you make the shift?

How do you learn to fail more elegantly?

How do you take more risks? How do you say yes?

How do you take action?

I'm gonna give you a 3-step process that you can follow. Step number 1 is idea to action, right? That 2% difference. I want you to find something today. What are you thinking about? Find something today that's been on your mind and just do something. Like, teach yourself, I'm the kind of person who takes action, not just watches a video and gets motivated and inspired, but does something. Do the hard thing. Take some kind of action, even if it doesn't make sense. That's the number 1 gift that you you can give yourself right now today after watching this video or even pausing right now and just sending that quick email out or making that quick call, take immediate action right now. Step number 2 is expect to suck. Expect to suck. One of the big reasons why people are afraid to fail is 'cause you're afraid to fail big. Don't worry about failing big, fail small and expect to suck.

Like the first thing you're gonna do is going to suck.

My first podcast sucks. Jeremy's first call sucks.

Sucked.

He was actually pretty good, but it sucked compared to what he's capable of now.

The first time you try to do anything, you will suck.

That's okay.

It doesn't mean you suck as a human. It just means you don't have the skills yet. You don't have the talent yet. You haven't learned the thing yet. That's okay.

How do you learn? By doing.

By experimenting. If you go out and you expect the first thing to rock, then when you do the first thing and it sucks, you feel depressed. You beat up on yourself. You want to flip it. The first time out, expect to fail. Fail gloriously. It's gonna be a total disaster. That's the best, right? Expect to suck. And what that does is reduces the pressure. If you expect to suck, then there's no pressure. Then you can have fun.

Then you can actually have fun.

And when you're having fun and you're loving it, you're gonna create some amazing things. So step 2 is expect to suck. And then step 3 is how did that make you feel? You can win in a lot of different things. There's a million different ways to win, but you have to be doing something that you love, right? That's the common thread between everybody who's had success. They love what they did. And so you're going to try something new. You're going to go idea to action. You're going to expect to suck. And then step 3 is how did it make you feel? Did you enjoy it? Even though you lost, even though you sucked, you didn't get a great reward, you didn't get a great prize, nobody watched your video, you know, it was a disaster. But did you like it? Did you enjoy it? Because if you enjoy it, it'll make you want to go back and do it again and do it again and do it again and do it again. And if you keep going back and doing things again and again and again that you enjoy, guess what?

You get pretty good at it.

You learn to bring value to other people. You're on the path to now building a successful business. And so I did my first podcast with my Mark, and I loved it. It was fun. It was a ton of fun. I gave Jeremy a whole bunch of assignments and homework to do while I was on the road, and he started doing them. I met him once I got back, and we started the business. He got his first clients, right?

I like it.

I enjoy working with Mark. I enjoy working with Jeremy. Even though the first interaction, the first episode, the first call was a disaster, and we've gotten a lot better since, I enjoyed it. Think of these ideas as you're going on a first date. The goal of a first date is not to get married. If you try to go from first date to "I need to marry this person," you put so much expectations on it that you're going to sabotage the date. When it doesn't go perfectly the first time out, you're going to be constantly not even wanting to go on the first date because you've taught yourself that first dates suck. I never find the right person. The goal of a first date is to go on a second date. Did I like this person enough to go on a second date with them? If it's yes, then you do it. And if it's no, then you go find somebody else. Treat your ideas like that too. The goal of testing out your first idea is not just to make this list of ideas and an intellectual exercise you can be proud of yourself on. The goal of doing the first idea is just to see, do I want to do it again? Do I want to run the second Do I want to make the second video? Do I want to go to that second event? You need to try more. You need to be willing to fail more. You need to expect to suck at everything the first time out. Just pay attention to how it makes you feel. When you find the thing that you love doing, that you want to go back to every single day, I promise you, you're going to create something amazing. You're going to create an amazing business. You're going to create a lot of money for yourself and wealth. You're going to have a huge impact on the people around you.

In the world.

Can't wait to see you get there.

Rule number 5, the last one before our very special bonus clip: do difficult things.

Self-love comes from doing difficult things. Self-love, self-confidence, self-respect, all of it comes from doing difficult things and praising yourself for doing them. I think it's one of the most important things that people don't do enough, but I think in order to actually make the praise stick, stick, you have to prove to yourself that you're worthy of it by doing difficult things. You can say, "I'm a badass entrepreneur." You can say, "I'm amazing and I love myself." Your brain's not gonna say, "Well, no you don't.

No you don't. Show me.

What have you done? You're waking up and doing the same thing you did yesterday." At least this is the conversation in my head. So by doing difficult things, by doing the thing, even if you don't get the result, it doesn't matter about the result. You're tying your self-worth, your self-confidence to the effort, to trying the difficult thing, to taking action on a difficult thing that you were scared to do. If you woke up every day and did something that made you scared, that was difficult, that made your heart go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, like that, you did that every day, and then you praised yourself afterwards for the effort, I promise you're gonna love believe in yourself.

I promise you, you're going to go off and do amazing things.

You're going to take that idea that you've got and go off and actually execute it and actually implement it. One of the biggest reasons why you're not is because you don't believe in yourself. That's why I think lack of belief is the single biggest problem in the world. I'm trying to solve the world's biggest problem. People don't believe in themselves enough. The woman who solves cancer is a manager at some restaurant and she hates her life. Because she never believed in herself enough to actually go down the path that she should have gone down because she listened to her parents and friends and family and society to go do the safe thing. And she's got a safe, boring life she hates because she doesn't love herself and she doesn't believe in herself enough. And so you have to do the things that make you scared, that are difficult, that are difficult. It's not about being fearless. It's about feeling the fear and still going off and doing it and then saying, I'm amazing because I tried. Because if you woke up every day and did something where you felt amazing that you tried, you're gonna actually go off and accomplish amazing things, and you're gonna feel amazing about yourself. This then allows you to take on more criticism. I think people should actually be harder on themselves. I think people should be harder on themselves. I think a big problem is people are not hard enough on themselves. But you can't be harder on yourself because you don't love love yourself enough. The people who are coming here, the people sitting there on that beach down there, the people here who are escaping a life that they don't love for the most part— why do people go on a vacation, come to some amazing place like this? Because they're running away from a life that they don't like. The people like that, they can't be harder on themselves. Half of those people are already borderline suicidal. They can't be hard on themselves. They can't be hard on themselves because they don't love themselves enough. A yin-yang circle, right? The more you love yourself, the more you are your own biggest cheerleader, the more you fill your cup up, the more you can be harder on yourself and take more criticism and feedback and negativity. Constructive feedback. Constructive feedback and negativity, right? Air quotes negativity. The more you can handle because it's not sticking to you because you love yourself so much. You need to be your biggest cheerleader as well as your biggest critic. And too many people are their biggest critic but not the biggest cheerleader. The only thing that matters is what you say to yourself when you see yourself in the mirror every night and every morning. How do you actually feel about yourself? Doesn't matter if people love you. Do you love you? And self-love comes from doing difficult things and then praising yourself for it. Say, I'm amazing, look what I just did. I'm here speaking in Puerto Rico at Brendon Burchard's Mastermind event, and I was nervous getting on stage. I was nervous, and I'm like, who am I to go do this? And Brendon's giving me this amazing intro about how I helped him and how inspired he is and how I'm gonna change their lives. And my heart's beating out of my chest like, holy cow, I don't want to disappoint people because it's my biggest fear. I don't want to disappoint Brendon. I'm thinking in my head, please Brendon, don't talk such a I'm going to make a big game about me because I don't want to disappoint people when I get on stage. And then I got on stage and I delivered my message and I got a standing ovation afterwards, which made me feel amazing, but it wasn't about the standing ovation, it was that I got up and I tried. Because if I felt the discomfort, the unease, the heart beating boom boom boom, the fear of potential disappointment, the fear of potentially being judged by people, and then playing small, that is teaching yourself that you suck. Whenever you get an idea, something that you know you have to go off and try, and you don't, you play small because you're afraid, it's not neutral, it's negative. You're teaching yourself, "I suck. I'm afraid. I'm playing small." You may not admit that out loud, but that's the story you tell yourself at home when it's just you in the mirror, that you play small, that you suck, that you can't handle it, that you're not good enough. And you don't want that cycle to repeat itself over and over and over and over again. And so when you tie your self-worth to the effort, that I'm willing to try, that even if I get on stage and just vomit everywhere and suck and do let everybody down, I tried, I tried my hardest, I tried my hardest. And patting yourself on the back and saying, I'm amazing for trying. 'Cause if you woke up every day and you tried, you'll vomit a little bit less the next time. And then the next time you don't vomit at all. You crush it? Why do you expect to be great the first time you get out there? As adults, we don't try enough things because we think we're supposed to be great. You're not gonna be—

why are you—

why is your first video gonna be great? You will not be great. You're gonna suck at the beginning. The results will suck, not you as a human. You're amazing for trying. You're amazing for putting yourself out there. That's the story. That's the pat yourself on the back that you need to do more of. Doing the difficult things, tying yourself forth to the effort, not the results, and then praising yourself for doing it is the whole game. You do that, your mindset starts to shift, your belief system starts to shift, what you feel you're capable of starts to shift. And in that shift is your greatness. In that shift are the amazing things you can create for yourself, for your family, for your community, for the world. You're a perfect masterpiece and a work work in progress, both at the same time. So praise yourself for the effort that you're putting in today and go make yourself proud of you.

Your chances of success go up in direct proportion to your ability to, one, pick the right things to work on, and then two, focus on executing those things. It's so easy as an entrepreneur get distracted. We love shiny objects, right? We love dreaming up new ideas and chasing these different projects. But if you look at a typical entrepreneur, you'll see that so many of their projects start and stop and start and stop. And you take something 10% through or 50% through or sometimes even like 80% through, but unless you're willing to take it to 100%, you're not going to get the results. You're not going to get the fruit of your labor because you're just planting a whole bunch of seeds and constantly, but you're never taking care of that seed.

You're never watering it, right?

If you want to grow a plant, you got to plant the seed, you got to care for the soil, you got to add nutrients, you got to water it daily, it's got to have enough sunshine. You got to look after that seed, where most entrepreneurs, they don't. They're starting and stopping, starting and stopping, starting and stopping, and you never actually get to where you want to go. People talk about diversification. You need to diversify, you need to diversify. And while that's really great as an investment strategy, if you don't know what you're investing into. It's good to have a big portfolio of different things so that if one thing doesn't do well, something else is doing well. But it really sucks as business advice because if you're trying to do 10 different things at once, they're all going to be mediocre. They're all going to be below average because you're going up against people who are doing that full-time and have their focus on it. And so it's much better as an entrepreneur to, one, pick the things that you want to focus on, right? And then two, actually focus on it.

Do that work.

Andrew Carnegie was once the richest person in the world, and he had a great quote saying how he likes to put all of his eggs in one basket, and then you watch that basket carefully, right? It's only a major risk if you're not watching the basket. If you, if you take your eye off the ball, you start looking elsewhere, and then something happens to your industry, right? And so being the expert, being the best at what you do will always yield more results, more value, more money to you than being okay at 20 different things. Be the best at one thing.

Focus.

And I know that's tough because there's so many different opportunities, there's so many different ideas that we come across. As an example, when I got the chance to work with Lily and I took her under my wing and now she's working for me as we start to build up her business as being a public speaker, Lily takes up my Wednesday And Wednesday was supposed to be write my third book day, and the third book is something I'm really passionate about, really excited about. It's gonna be how to change your environment, how to create an environment for success, from your morning routines to your habits to your rituals to your friends to the physical environment. I'm really passionate about writing that book, and I need to do a lot of research to be able to complete it. But I can't do Lily and the book at the same time. I had that one day open per week because the other days are full. At least for now. And I had to decide: book or Lily. And I picked Lily. And so the book is on the back burner. I haven't touched that in months. And I could try to do both, but they would both be mediocre. And I want to see Lily have massive success. And maybe when I could build her up to the point where she's more free to do her own thing and doesn't need as much of my time, I can go back and do the book. I had a guy write to me talking about my Facebook strategy and said, hey, if you do Facebook better, if you change the pictures to look like this, and if you do more live streams and give me all sorts of suggestions. And, and they're great suggestions. This is the challenge, like, these are great ideas, but I can't focus on doing that and doing what I'm currently doing at the same time. And so you have to prioritize. Focusing means saying no. You're going to have tons of opportunities come to you, tons of ideas. That flow through your head that could all be fantastic ideas, but you cannot do all of them right now. So you need to prioritize, pick the right things to work on, and then put your blinders on, focus, and just go out and execute. You need to be in execution mode. You got to get that thing done. And it's great to dream, and it's great to have the big vision and the big picture and lots of opportunities, but until until you start acting, until you start doing, none of this stuff is gonna happen.

Because you made it this far in the video, I want to celebrate you. Most people start and don't finish. Most people never actually follow through. Most people say they want something, but they don't ever do the work to actually get it. But you are different. You are special. Believe Nation, you made it here all the way to the end, and I love you. So as a special celebration, if you put a hashtag #believe down in the comments below on this video, I will showcase you and celebrate you somewhere on the screen in a future video because you are awesome.

And if you want to watch Evan's top 10 rules for success, check out the video next to me. I think you can enjoy. Continue to believe. I will see you there.

We all want to wake up and feel like what we do matters. If you woke up and you felt every day that you don't matter to somebody else, that the work you do is meaningless pointless, it doesn't matter. That's the path down to anxiety, stress.