How to Ignite YOUR Mind for Success

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan Carmichael. My one word is believe. I believe in you, and I want to see that special thing you've got inside you unleashed onto the world. And so to help you on your journey today, we're gonna learn how bad do you want it. And as always, guys, as you're watching, if you hear something that really resonates with you, please leave it down in the comments below. Put quotes around it so others can be inspired. And when you write it down, it's much more likely to stick for yourself as as well. Enjoy.

People ask, what does it take to succeed? The one answer I give them is hunger. That hunger is the greatest asset that you'll see in everybody from Richard Branson to Google or an Apple or Facebook, these, you know, giant companies. You got to become a master of your ability to turn on your determination or your creativity or your hunger or your passion or whatever it is it's gonna take for you to get from where you are to where you really wanna be. Intelligence is so valuable, but there are so many smart people that can't fight their way out of a paper bag. Hunger is that part of you that says, "I will not stop. I will not give up. I will not settle for less than I can be or do or share or give." You want—

you know what's so funny? We want people to make guarantees to us, but we not willing to make guarantees to ourself. Now for real, I'm gonna say it again. Like you, somebody gave you a guarantee, $30, 30-day guarantee. In 30 days, if you don't make what they told you was gonna make, in 30 days you got an attitude, you want your money back. But you've never demanded your money back from yourself. You've never looked at yourself in the mirror and said, you let you down. Until you get to that point, you let you down. You've never, you're not brave enough. You wanna put it on somebody else. The reason why I'm not successful is 'cause of my boss. Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and said, I'm not getting up on time. I'm not going to work on time. I'm not putting in 120% when I'm at work. I let me down. And when you get to the point where you can say you let you down, I don't care. Listen to me, no disrespect. I don't care about Glenn. That's not why I do what I do. And I love Glenn. I don't come here and do what I do so Glenn can affirm me, so he can give me a pat on my back. I care more about me than I care about what Glenn thinks about me. I have standards. I have values. I don't care how much you pay me. If I speak at an elementary school for $300, I chose to do that. For $300. If I chose to speak at a prison for free, I chose to do that, and I will not go in there giving those prisoners less than what somebody pays me $100,000. Why? Because I value myself enough to give 120% or don't do it. And that's the problem with some of you. You always want to blame other people. You always want to hold other people to the fire, but you're not holding yourself to the fire. You just said you're giving 50%. You owe you an explanation. You owe you an explanation. You need to look at yourself in the mirror and say, why are you only giving 50%? What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? You need to put yourself on punishment. You need to tell you no more TV, no more snacks, no more desserts, no more, no, we working out now. No more alcohol, not right now. Not, no, I can't handle it right now. You need to tell you that you owe you something. Stop going back to, you keep going to the mall with the receipt. This is what y'all said it was. Glenn, you didn't do what you said you was gonna do. Well, you didn't do what you was supposed to do, so how am I gonna do what I'm supposed to do for you? You walk out of this room, you owe yourself. I didn't get here making excuses. So what, my father wasn't in my life? The truth of the matter is he ain't never coming to my life. So what, I'm gonna wait for the rest of my life for my man to come? He ain't coming. I live in America, I'm an African-American male, they don't treat us the same. It's something called racism. I ain't gonna cry about it. It's probably gonna be racism to the day I die, but I'm not gonna cry about it. I'm still gonna be a millionaire. I'm still gonna be one of the top motivational speakers in the world. No, I didn't grow up on that side of the town. No, my mama don't have no network. No, No, I don't know a whole lot of people. No, I'm not at a country club. No, I don't play golf and I don't plan on playing no time soon. But I'm still gonna be successful. I'm still gonna get to where they are.

Why?

'Cause I owe it to myself. And can't nobody stop me but me. And you need to get rid of them excuses and you need to stop pointing fingers at people. And you need to start pointing fingers at yourself. What did you not do?

You know, I didn't have as many personal relationships as I probably would have liked. I put personal relationships aside. I had girlfriends where it was like me or your business. And I was like, what was your name again? You think I'm kidding. So I probably took things to an extreme. Um, but yeah, I gave up on personal relationships in a big respect because I really was on a mission. And once I, once I realized I was going— so when I sold my first company, I bought a lifetime pass on American Airlines, and my goal was just to party with like a rock star in as many countries with as many people as I possibly could. Then I went back and got involved in the streaming business, and I remember sitting there and telling, you know, we had probably 10 employees, and look, This streaming thing, I think, is going to be really big. And so we really have to focus. And there's going to be some sacrifices. And if you're willing to make those sacrifices, let's go. And if you're not, I understand. You make your own decisions. And I was willing to make those sacrifices. And it all turned out great in the long run. But during that time, it wasn't always easy and wasn't always— yeah, it was tough sometimes.

I think what people don't realize is that when you own a business, the personal sacrifice that you have to make— you're not home as much. I don't have kids. I'm not married. You just don't have the time to do it all. And I know you can relate to it, that when you're doing your craft—

Oh, I lost a lot of marriages.

You lose marriages?

Because my work came first.

Do you lose friends? And I've had people say to me, I can't be in a relationship with you. You don't have your priorities right. And I said, I do have my priorities right. You just don't agree with them.

When I used to do seminars on how to become a champion, I would always ask people, why do you want to be a champion? Or what do you want to accomplish? Why are you training? And they will— if a guy will get up and he would say, well, I want to train because I think that if I get muscular and, you know, I feel like I'm getting the kind of definition then I maybe can enter a bodybuilding competition. I said, sit down. I said, if you think this way, you're going to be a loser. You're never going to make it because there's no maybe. You got to get up and say, I want to be a champion and I do whatever it takes. The amount of hours it takes, the posing, the this, the that, the visualization, looking at training footage, looking at motivational books, reading this, reading whatever it takes. I would do? That's the answer I want to hear from you. You can detect right away those that are going to be shaky and that will fall behind and they will not go all the way, and those that are very hungry. And that hunger you have to develop because you have to create a goal for yourself, whatever that may be, a short-term goal and a long-term goal, and you got to go after that. And if you do not see it and if you do not believe it, who else will?

I tried working for somebody when I was very young and they fired me.

Right, in ice cream.

Right, and it was a very, very profoundly— it affected me profoundly and I just said I'm never working for anybody again. It doesn't mean your life is easier. In fact, you have to have a lot of sacrifices on the road to success and a lot of failures along the way. I just find it a more interesting way to spend your time and I really believe in this concept of money buys freedom. And so, you know, I think every— it's a very noble pursuit for some percentage of the people out there, but not for everybody, because you have to sacrifice a lot for the period that you're working on your business, and not everybody wants to do that. And I think you find that in your own— you start down that path, and if it's too much of a sacrifice, you revert back to being an employee, which is— it's very noble to do that too, but it's not the same thing. It takes a long time to set yourself free working for somebody else.

A good fighter is not necessarily the greatest fighter to ever live. It's where you want to go. You know what I mean? A good fighter is just to be diligent and committed and disciplined. Doing what you hate to do, but do it like you love it. You know, always testing yourself and forcing yourself to the limits. You know? If you know you like— if you love women, then deny yourself that. You know what I mean? That's what— That's what success in general is all about, sacrifice. From my experience, if any little success I may have had, is be willing to sacrifice, you know. Unfortunately, sometimes you can't have fun accomplishing your goals. And when sometimes people don't have the determination, the will, and the steadfastness, the tenacity, the They give in under the slightest struggle.

Are you surprised how your life has changed?

Yeah.

Because it seems to have changed pretty fast.

Yeah, it has. 2 years ago, I was in my flat, kind of not knowing what was going to happen.

That's extraordinary. Because you feel— do you feel like this was always going to happen?

Hmm. I didn't know, which is kind of what gave me hope. But I knew that I had to end up doing something like this.

You see, that's what I think makes— for me, that is what determines success. I very much feel like when you know inside you, like, I am born to do this thing, this is what I'm really good at, I don't know what else I'm gonna do, so I might as well put everything I've got behind it.

You have to.

You have to, and not be afraid.

I think that if you have a plan B, you know you have cushions. You have an out. You have something to fall back on. I had no— nothing. You can't fall back on anything. You know, that's what makes you hungry.

It's true.

It really does. And it's made me starving. And I kind of still am. I'm never gonna lose that hunger, but I'm just so grateful that, you know, I didn't give up.

So, it has come to my attention that a lot of people in the world want to become something. They want to achieve something. They want to reach some sort of goal. Everyone, whether it's, "I want to be an actor or actress," "I want to open my own business," "I want a six-pack," "I want a Bugatti." Everyone wants something. Anything, everything. You, for example, just take a second, think about what you want in life. What do you want to become? What do you really, really desire? Think about it. You got it in your brain, okay. Okay, so you're thinking about it. Good, good, good. Now keep in mind that there's so many other people in the world right now that claim they want something really, really bad, okay. Now the purpose of this video is for me to stand here and call you out and say, you don't want these things so badly because if you wanted them so badly, you'd be getting them. Now before you cuss me off and close this video, lemme bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh it down for you. If you lie down at night and you are not utterly exhausted, then you, my friend, do not want it bad enough. Because if you have a dream or a goal and the concept of sleep does not seem foreign to you, then you sleep too much. Because when you're trying to reach a goal, sleep should feel like a guilty pleasure, okay? You should go to sleep at night, when your head hits that pillow, it's a straight 7, just straight up, "Praise the Lord, I'mma get some Z's." And here's the thing, right? I hear people complaining all the time about being broke, not achieving their goals, nothing ever goes their way. But then those are the same people that go to sleep 'cause they're too tired. Stop working 'cause they're too lazy. Can't drive to a meeting 'cause it's too far. Can't network with people because they don't like them. Who can't finish a project because the game is on. Who can't take on a challenge because it's too much work. So to you I say, hi, hello, welcome to the real world where as hard as you think you're working, there's many people working 10 times harder than you. So let me just ask you a question. Why do you feel that you deserve success? Why do you deserve to reach new heights and achieve great things? Because this is the reality of the situation. You can be doing anything. Say you're a musician and you wake up and you spend hours and hours and hours practicing and working on music. And then at night when you're tired, you go to sleep and you're like, you know what, I've worked really hard. I can tell you that somewhere out there, there's another musician who's choosing to stay up that one extra hour and that's putting in more grind than you, my friend. AKA, what I'm trying to tell you is all these people who have dreams and say they wanna become something and say the world is against them, sweetie, Sweetie, the world isn't against you, okay? Your excuses are against you! So hi, hello, my name is Lilly, I go by the name of Superwoman if you don't know me now you do and we're friends wassup?! Shh... La la la la pshew! Whoever you are whether you know me or not watch my videos or not even if you see me for the first time you have a dream, you wanna achieve something stop watching this video— Stop! Okay well, watch the video ain't no harm in watching the video mm-hmm watch the video but after this video, okay? Achieve something!

The people who win work the hardest because they love what they do. They put in the hours and the hours and the hours and the hours for days and days and days and weeks and weeks and weeks and months and months and months, years and years and years, because they love it, because it's not work for them. The only way you're going to be willing to put in the work that is necessary to win, to be the best in your industry, the only way you're going to put in that amount of work is because you love what you're doing. And if you don't, you're gonna lose, because there's gonna be somebody who will love it, who loves it more than you, and will crush you. And you'll be not even a number 2, you'll be mediocre, because there's lots of people who love what they do, and there's lots of people grinding it and working hard. If you are looking at your calendar, like open up your calendar, look what you're gonna do today, or look what you're doing tomorrow, what's on the schedule? If you're looking at it and you're like, ugh, I gotta do all these things. If that's your reaction, you might be in the wrong business. Now, if it's a one-off thing, if it's a one day, you know, you gotta deal with the government or something, fine. But if that's daily, if that's consistent, if that's always happening, if you continue to look at your calendar and you're upset and depressed and angry, you're in the wrong business. The work should feel like something exciting to go and do. Where other people might jump into your schedule and say, "That's crazy, I could never do that." That's great, that's why you're not crushing it like I am. Like, go, go crush it in your field, go do your thing. As an example, here's one change that I've made to my YouTube channel. You may have noticed this month the video series looks a little different. I'm working with a videographer, Jason, and the only way we can make this thing work was if we did it on one day. So I used to film my videos once a week on a Wednesday for the week, and Jason works by the day. So, okay, you know what, I want to increase the quality of the videos. I wanted to look more Hollywood. Do we look more Hollywood? Is it looking nice? Do you guys like the quality? Give a thumbs up for Jason down in the comments. And the way to make it work was to do it once a month. And so So I'm sitting here filming my videos for the month. We're doing like 70 videos in one day, grinding them through. I've got 2 extra large coffees. Got one sitting behind here, I'm halfway through that. And here's the thing, to make this work, it's a lot of extra pressure on my team to get a lot of things ready and sooner and faster, right? So my team's been working extra hard to get it ready for this one time. And if we continue it, it's their usual job. It's not as stressful or hard. I'm thinking about them. I don't want them to stress out too much. But really, the person who has the hardest is me. Because for me, it's not just a one-off thing. This is now going to be every month. Like, do I have the ability to stay on, to have energy for an entire day? Can I get through making 70 videos in a single day? I don't know. But when Jason and I are on email, we're trying to figure this out, and I look at how hard it was going to be for me to do, to be on camera for that long, I'm like, I gotta do this. This is awesome. I might crash and burn and like it doesn't work out and it totally fails and I can't handle the, the length and the time, but I want to try. Where so many people have a hard time making making 1 to 2 videos a month. Here we are making 70 in a day, crushing it all down. And I love it. It's hardest on me versus anybody else on my team, but I don't even think about it because I love the challenge. I love the ability to work that hard and see if I can do it and see if it makes sense for what we're trying to do. What do you guys think? You like these videos like this? You want more of it? Let me know. Leave a comment. And so in thinking about that, I don't think that I'm super special, by the way. I just found the thing that I love doing. I'm willing to put in this kind of hustle and work because I love making the videos, because I want to create more and better content for you guys. You could put in that same amount of drive, energy, hustle that I'm doing today in your business, but it's not going to happen if you look at your schedule and like, I like this. I was looking at my schedule last last night, like, I'm so excited about tomorrow. I'm so excited about tomorrow. So good. I can see how it goes. Let's try to crush it, right? And again, not every day is going to be super amazing, but you should love the work that you do. Net-net, you should be excited about the day that is ahead, net-net, and not feeling sad, depressed, angry, frustrated about the work that you have to do. The people who win work the hardest because they love what they do. Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed. I'd love to know, what did you take from this video? What was the single most most important message that you are going to immediately apply somehow to your life or to your business? Leave it down in the comments below. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. I also want to give a quick shout out to Tuan Nguyen. Thank you so much for picking up 10 copies of my book, Your One Word, and giving them to your friends as gifts. I really appreciate the support, and I hope your friends enjoyed the gifts from you. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. As always, much love. I'll see you soon.

So let me give you the one word secret to happiness.

One word.

This is all you need to be happy.

It's the most important word ever.

If you had to think of one word that's most important to you or that sums you up or that would be kind of like a little beacon. Hey, Believe Nation. If you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.