How to Make Mindset Matter | 16 Minute Guide to Business Success

Welcome to the Ask Evan Show, episode 9. Let's get to your questions. I am excited. Oh, before that, I have a special guest. So we've had this whole orchid, no orchid debate fiasco. Today joining me are Nina's Minion cupcakes. So they're cupcakes with Minions on it. So I want to know what you think about the Minion cupcakes, and if you have a challenge for Nina to make something else that should be here, leave it in the comments below and she might have to do it, which would be a fun challenge. So we'll see. Okay, let's go! Episode 9. First question comes from Olga from my newsletter list. Love you guys. Writes in to say: that she has a book and she says, "Perhaps you can show me ways to promote a book when most of today's talk shows just want laughter, jokes, and discussion of movies. They're not eager to discuss why history repeats itself and why no matter how hard some people try, the world is filled with violence and despair." This is a great question and the very first thing you need to do is change your mindset because now you've created this world for yourself telling yourself that this is all people want to talk about and the world is against me and so I'm not going to be successful. Hey, there's people who care about this stuff. How did Oprah become so successful? Was it by talking about violence and war and just movies and jokes? No, she tried to touch on real things that people cared about. There are people who care about this stuff. And the first thing you need to do is take accountability. This isn't— this isn't, "I'm not going to sell my book because nobody cares about this topic," right? It's, "I'm going to find the people. I'm going to take personal responsibility, personal accountability, and find the people who care." This is part of my message, you know. I don't talk about a lot of jokes. I'm— maybe I'm not funny enough guy. I don't talk about violence. I don't try to put people down and talk about celebrities all the time. You know, the stuff that I put out, I try to make sure it's meaningful stuff that people care about. You know, I believe entrepreneurs should change the world, and so that's what I'm here. It's my mission to put out there, and I've been covered in tons of media. And so the way to start is to make a list. Find the bloggers, the magazine editors, the newspaper editors, the YouTube video people. Don't just limit yourself to traditional media. Go online media. There's a lot of YouTube people who are awesome who can help spread this message really quickly for you, better than a lot of the people in traditional media. Find those people. Make a list and reach out to them and give them a story. Don't just say, "Hey, I've got this new book that I'm trying to promote," because nobody cares about that. Everybody's got a book they're trying to promote. Tell me about what it's about. Tell me about why history repeats itself. Tell me about the point of this book. What are you standing for? What positive impact is your book going to make? What's the big problem in the world that you're trying to help solve? Lead with something like that to a targeted audience. If this book was about entrepreneurship and how entrepreneurs are heroes and how entrepreneurs are the people who are going to change the world, you send that to me, I'm interested. I want to learn more. I might have you on my channel. I might put you in my newsletter. I care about that stuff. And so you just need to find the people who are like me, but for your market. But don't, don't, don't give up. Don't sit there and think nobody cares about this stuff, because as long as you create that reality for yourself, that's the world you're going to live in, and your book's never going to get anywhere. People want to say yes. People care about this stuff. You just have to find the influencers. They exist. They want to hear from you. So reach out to them. Okay, next up, Dennis, another newsletter reader, writes in to say: "It's true, I wake up this early in the morning to do something that I don't like, but what else is there for me? I don't have enough capital to start my own business, not enough salary to support my desire of freedom. Where should I run to, Evan? Yes, I have great ideas on how to grow economically, but these tough handles in life can't allow me to reach there. Help me to realize my dream, brother." Dennis. This is another one, okay? This is a mindset thing. As long as you're telling yourself that, you know, you don't have the resources to do it, you don't have the job to do it, you don't have savings to do it, the economy won't let you do it. Some of the greatest businesses ever were started in recessionary times when the economy wasn't great, were started by people who had nothing, had zero income, had no savings, had no education, had no resources. Look at famous entrepreneurs. Look at the entrepreneurs you respect. Look at where they started from. Look at how they started. Look at the conditions that they started in. They didn't start with everything handed to them. That's not how successful entrepreneurs are created. So you have to make up your mind that I'm going to be a successful entrepreneur and start chasing your dream. And if you have a job where you're not learning anything that you hate doing, then the next step is to go actually get a job from somebody who you can learn from, somebody who you can— who they can be your mentor, who can teach you about a certain business. If you're going to work, you're not working for money, you're working to learn and start something on the side. You have half an hour every day to make your dream happen. Half an hour, you can find half an hour every single day to move your business forward. If you don't have half an hour, then you don't deserve to have the life of your dreams. If you're not willing to put in half an hour at least every single day to move your business forward, to move closer to this ideal life that you want, if you're not willing to put in at least that amount of effort, then you don't deserve it. And this is such an important question because So many entrepreneurs or wannabe entrepreneurs tell themselves all these same excuses, right? I don't have enough money. I don't have enough savings. The economy is really bad. You know, or they tell themselves other things, right? I had the guy from a previous episode talk about how he was gay, and because he's gay, he's not going to be able to be a successful entrepreneur. Some people think because they're old or they're young or they're a woman or they're, you know, not from America or they have an accent, whatever it is, we find these excuses that hold us back, and it's just a limiting personal belief. None of that stuff matters. You can build a successful business from nothing. We did a profile not so long ago— Christine, let's put that up— of Tom Monaghan, who founded Domino's Pizza. He had nothing, and he turned it into Domino's Pizza, which became an international franchise, made him millions of dollars. It's possible. It's almost normal for these highly successful entrepreneurs to come from absolutely nothing. So your game plan, you start by finding a job that supports you, that you like a little bit more, where you're learning from and you're not just punching a paycheck and waiting for evenings and weekends to come. Two, you're starting your business on the side. Something, half an hour every day you get home, half an hour every day you're working away, something to grow your business. And three, start to get some inspiration. Find entrepreneurs that you look up to who started from nothing and that you can say, "Hey, they did it, so I can do it too." Create that list. Get inspired by their stories because you need to break out of that mindset that's holding you back saying that I will never be successful because of XYZ. You can be successful. It's totally in your hands. You got to change your mindset and start to believe. Okay, next is Gamal, another newsletter reader. We got a lot of newsletter love today. Writes in to say, "Is the owner of my business, does he have a right to log into my company email and see all my correspondence with suppliers as well as clients or not? I'm talking about is that a professional way to do things or not? Your reply is highly appreciated. Thanks, Gamal." So in short, typically yes. You know, if it's company, the company owns the email, the company has access to it, you need to expect that they have potential access to your email. That's why a lot of people have their own personal email, and if they're going to send something that they're worried that their boss might see, they're worried that might not look good, they're worried that, you know, they don't want people to find out about, then they put it on their personal account. So in short, yeah, they have the right to have access to it typically. Is it professional or not? Just depends on the company. You know, I could go in and look at all of the emails that everybody on my team Has sent. Do I care? No, I don't care. I mean, I'd rather hire people who I trust, who would do a good job, who I don't need to micromanage, right? And if you feel like you are being micromanaged, that there's no trust at the business, that people are looking at everything that you're saying and they're judging you and it's holding you back, doesn't let you focus on what you really want to do, then leave. Don't put up with that. Have some respect, right? You have to have standards, what you will and will not expect in your life, and, and people will, will live up to those standards, right? If you have no standards for yourself, then people will walk all over you. Where if you raise your standards, you see, this is, this is who I am. I have self-respect. This is what I will and will not respect. Then people have to play by those rules, and that may mean going to a company that will respect you more and and won't dive into your emails. Sounds like you're kind of pissed off about it, and so if that's the case, then go find a job that better supports you, or better yet, start your own business, friend, and start making a huge impact on the world. That's what I'm talking about. Believe. Next up, Darius, one of my YouTube viewers. Love all you guys on YouTube. I thought it was too late for me to start a business. I'm 21, still don't know how or what to do. Sai. Darius, bro, man, 21, you still got tons of time ahead of you. There are so many entrepreneurs who don't even get started till they're in their 50s or 60s and still go on to create huge companies and have a major impact on the world. 21, I feel the frustration. You know, you want to move on, you want to get started, you want to feel like you're having an impact, you want to do something with your life, and there's nothing more frustrating than than not knowing what to do, right? To wake up and not know what to do, or go to some job that you hate, not feeling like you're leveraging your skills or having an impact or learning. The best thing that I could advise you to do is start to explore. Just try stuff out. See what you like. Jump. It's okay to jump from one thing to another to another until you find something that you start to fall in love with. Because most people do the opposite. Most people take the safe advice. The proper thing to do is, you know, go put on a suit and tie, go get this job because you went to school for this type of career, and then you end up in this career that you hate, that you don't look forward to. Every day you're driving to work and you like it less and less and less, and your mind starts to numb, and you just can't wait to go home and live for that evening. And so I don't think that's a smart thing to do. People say that's a smart thing to do. I don't think that's a smart thing to do at all. I think your better bet is to try something out, and if it doesn't work, try something else, and try something else, and try something else until you find something that you fall in love with. And it may not look great on the resume, but you're going to end up at the end of your life looking back and saying, yeah, I mean, I had— I maybe spent 2 years wandering but I ended up finding something that I love, and now I'm having a huge impact. And so just don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to reach out and try things and actually go out and start doing stuff. You know, if you're thinking about starting a business, try starting a business. If you're thinking about learning how to be a cook, go try to learn how to be a cook. And if you don't like it, stop. As soon as you stop liking it, stop. But if you start falling in love with it, dive deep into it, explore it, and an opportunity will present itself. Some of my favorite advice from Steve Jobs is, "As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it." So keep searching. Don't lose hope. Don't lose courage. Take action. You are definitely not too late at 21. And report back, man. I know, 'cause it can be hard. I know you're frustrated. But report back and let us know how you're doing. Last question of the day comes from Mehran from my YouTube channel, writes in to say, "Evan, love the videos." I really feel inspired by them. You've made a great job sharing your valuable principles. I have a question for you. I'm a believer— I love that— who has 20 years old. I'm still in college. My dream is to build a company and develop products that make people's lives easier. What do you advise me to do to get my goal? Work for some company, get experience before I open my own business, or should I open my own business without experience? This is a fantastic question, and I would say embrace the genius of the ant. Instead of thinking you can do this or do this, Do both of them together because if you want to have a big impact, okay, you want to make a real difference in the world, you want to make a lot of money, it's going to come from providing value. And a lot of times when people start a business and have zero experience, they can't provide the value, right? You have to be able to give people value. If you don't know what you're doing yet, then you can't provide people that value. And so you can struggle along, struggle along, try to find your way and slowly start increasing your value. Or you can learn from somebody else who's doing exactly what you want to do, and they can help shortcut your path. So I would say go find a company who's in your space who— I don't know what you want to do— find that company who has 10 employees or less where you can jump in, and that's a company that you eventually want to build up to. Work as closely to the entrepreneur founder as possible. Get involved in as many projects as possible. Don't just try to— don't just be refined by like one little tasks, one set part of the business. Entrepreneurs need help, and if they see that you are aggressive and you are dedicated and you're putting in the time and you want to learn, they'll give you projects. Go to them and say, "Hey, how can I help make this company better?" And they'll give you more projects. So you're learning, right? You're soaking up that experience. You're making mistakes on somebody else's dime. You're gaining connections. You're learning the industry. You're understanding how to add more value to customers. At the same time you start on the side. You start your own thing on the side. You start part-time. If it's evenings, weekends, whatever it is, you start even if it's for free just to build up your roster, get some experience. Again, the whole thing is I'm trying to get value, right? I'm trying to be able to understand how to provide value to these customers. And as you build up, you can start charging, start charging more, start charging more, and eventually get to the point where you're not learning as much from this company anymore. You know, you've you learn like this and then you start to plateau, right? And hopefully your company is starting to grow as well. And that's, that's the flip point, right? You're not learning as much from the company anymore. Your own business started to make some money. You could jump to go full-time into your business. So that's what I recommend. Don't think of it as this or this. Combine them both together. Get the job, start working on your business at the same time, and start going out, giving value to your customers and making an impact. That wraps up another edition of the Ask Evan Show. Thank you guys so much for your questions. If you guys have further ones, leave it in the comments below and I'll make a video reply for you. Continue to believe, and if you like this video and you want to see more just like it, subscribe to the channel. And don't forget to comment on these Minion cupcakes. Nina's here. Nina. Hey. Here's Nina. So I took out the orchid. Okay, and you put my cupcakes in there. Yeah. What do you think? Well, so here's what I said. Okay. I said that you made these, obviously. And then I challenged them to come up with something else that you should make. Oh, for me to make? Then you didn't challenge them, you challenged me. Well, I challenged them to challenge you. So I feel like it's a good challenge. So leave a comment as to what you think Nina should make next beyond the minion cupcakes, and we'll see if she accepts your challenge. The challenge. Maybe. See. That's it. Bye! Bye! Which one should I eat? Eat the blue one. The blue one? Why the blue one? Because this is the most ugly one. It's the ugliest one? How come I get the ugliest one? How many? Oh, so many! Yeah! I can't make it down, I can't make it down, so get down off your seat and jump around, jump around, jump around! If you want to see more great content to keep you inspired, motivated, and believing, check out my newsletter in the link below.