How to Make Your Dream Business a Reality | 61 Minutes of Powerful Insights

This is one of the messages that I wish I heard when I was younger. When I first started my very first business, 19 years old, I thought it would be a lot of work, but I was not prepared for how much work and how much feeling would be a part of it. And as a result, I was too afraid to tell my friends. I was too embarrassed. Like, I'm making $300 a month. I can't afford $20 to go for pizza and beer. And so I would tell them, I'm too busy, I'm entrepreneur lifestyle, you know, I'm doing my thing. But really it was like, I can't afford $20. And I'm sure if I told them, they'd be, you know, somebody would spot me the money or buy me the beer. I just felt too ashamed and embarrassed to do it. And so that concept that you're just going to have instant success, it's crazy. Like nobody does it. If you think about your own experience, whenever you're learning anything, you learn to ski, you get up and you fall down the hill, you get up and you fall and you get up and you fall and eventually you make it down. You don't just get up and you're awesome and you're doing jumps and moguls, right? I was looking at my YouTube channel and the first video I posted and I sucked. It's really, really bad. I'm so nervous. It's so awkward. I'm sitting down. I've got this suit and tie on and perfect, you know, lighting and background. And I was just so nervous doing that video. And I'm glad it's up and I'm not taking it down because it's a lesson in that if you keep going, I think most people can get there way faster than me. I'm 5,000 videos in. You better get good at something if you do it 5,000 times. It's almost impossible not to get good at something if you do it 5,000 times. I think anybody can get there a lot faster, but I sucked. And it's everybody's story. You've always failed at the beginning. It's your own story. You've always failed. You don't just sit at a piano and know how to play. You play one note and then you make mistakes, right? And so that was a great message that again comes up in every single episode. And I really wish that I learned it when I was younger. And it's awesome that you're highlighting it here because I think for the people watching, they take failure as a personal, like, because I didn't get up and ski down the hill perfectly the first time, I suck as a human being. No, it's just a skill that you need to learn and get better at. Need motivation? Watch a top 10 with Believe Nation. Hey, it's Evan Carmichael, and I watch these videos every day because I need them for motivation. Being around successful entrepreneurs every morning helps me believe that I can do great things too. It's like your morning coffee, but for your goals, kickstarting your day with a blast of positivity. So here is a challenge for you. Try watching one video every morning for the next 30 days, and let's find out together if they help you do great things too. If you're in, leave a hashtag #Believe in the comments below so I can celebrate with you. So today, let's learn from me and my team's take on my top 10 rules of success. Believe. Rule number 2 is do the difficult things. I have this because I have a strategy called Damn the Doritos, where most times when you're on a diet, what do they say? Get rid of the junk food from your house. And I think that's a crutch. Like, it's a good first step. But this is how my brain works. It may not be a good prescription for other people, but my brain works like That's making me weaker. I'm telling myself I can only win in this perfect environment. And then if I go to a cruise or a vacation or a party or whatever, I'm basically telling myself I'm not strong enough. So I don't like that feeling. So then the Doritos is the strategy. And people ask like, why can't you get a healthier sponsor for your videos? And like, if Doritos knew why the bag was there, they wouldn't want to sponsor my video. So it's just a reminder to myself that I'm stronger than the Doritos. So how do you translate that into business, into the social media and stuff you're building? Is there something how you can translate, like having that Doritos there to always remind you to say something? Is there something that you do in business that does the same? It's doing the difficult things. It's like not accepting excuses or reasons for not following through. So how I bring it into social media world is making content. Now I'm an introvert. It may not come across, Daniel, in like a, in a show like this, but I'm an introvert. I'd be super happy never making video ever and just sitting on my computer and getting work done. But it's not— that doesn't ultimately serve my mission. And introverts want to serve too. And so just getting in front of the camera is a version of doing difficult things. And so I just— anytime I'm scared of doing something, I don't want that to be a good enough reason. The trick is trying to catch it because we'll often default into believing our reasons why we can't do it. And they're really good reasons. You know, like somebody wants to start a show. How long you been doing this show for? 4 years. 4 years. And how long was the gap between when you wanted to start the show and then you actually started the show? It was quick. It was COVID, so I had nothing else to do. Good. Well, like a lot of people, unusual, go the other way, right? And it's like, well, who's gonna want to talk to me? And what kind of founders that want to come on my show? And I'm not, I'm not insert whoever, I'm not Gary Vee or Joe Rogan, so they're not gonna want to talk to— this is the conversation that we have in our head. And then it goes down to, well, and I don't know what camera to buy and what mic to buy and what lights to buy and my background. And do I put an amethyst is there or not, and all of this stuff that logically we tell ourselves are good enough reasons. But really, it's like, just start the show, man. Just make your first episode and expect to suck and keep going. And so there's a lot of things that I have in my, my life. Like, there's a neck brace above here. It's a, it's a reminder constantly of, I want to be the person who does difficult things that he's afraid to do, even if other people don't see it as difficult. Like for some people, what do you mean you just start a show? You just get in front of the camera and you press record and like, what's the problem? For some people, like that's super easy. For me, that was really difficult. And so it's not what other people think of your difficult choices, what you think about your difficult choices and the willingness to step into them. Rule number 3 is believe. I think the world's biggest problem is people don't believe in themselves enough. So I think whatever problem we've got in the world, it's gonna be solved by an entrepreneur. I think. Yeah. It's not the government or anybody else. It's the entrepreneurs, I think. So cancer, you know, the woman who would have solved cancer by now is, you know, a manager at McDonald's because she never believed in herself to go to med school enough, right? So that's what I'm trying to unlock in people. Hey, how can you believe in yourself more to go off and become what I call the Michael Jordan of your industry? Like, everybody has Michael Jordan-level genius at something, but we either don't believe that we have it or we don't believe in ourselves enough to go chase it down. And so that's the mission of the company. Rule number 4 is find your connective tissue. If you think about all the great things that have happened to you in life, they're all connected somehow. And we often don't see the connections. We just have experienced these great things, but there is a connective tissue between them. And so, you know, when you building your business and loving martial arts and doing all of your biohacks and the guitars and the music, all— it's all connected. It makes you feel a certain way. And if you think about all the great things, your favorite movie, your favorite teacher, who's your favorite teacher of all time? It wasn't because they taught you math or English. It's because they made you a better human somehow. And so how did they make you a better human? And if you think about what you loved about your favorite teacher and what you loved about your favorite movie and your favorite song and your favorite instrument, and you can combine those together, if you can identify what's the connective tissue between them, that then gives you a roadmap going forward. So my favorite teacher of all time is Madame Farr. She taught me French. I don't use French. I mean, I'm in Canada. We're supposed to all learn French up until grade 10, but I don't use French at all in my day-to-day. So how is my favorite teacher of all time, my French teacher, she taught me something that I don't use because she taught me to believe in myself more. She met me, I went from a B and C student to being straight 90+ in my last year because she met me every week before school. So every student was assigned a teacher mentor and most of them never talked to their teacher mentor. I went to go talk to mine every week. So every, whatever it was, Wednesday before class, I would go meet with her and we would sit down and we would just talk, not about French. and she would help me believe in myself more, and, and she helped turn me from a B, C student to straight 90s. And I, I didn't realize it till looking backwards. It's like, oh, she was just really nice. But why did I gravitate to her? My favorite movie of all time is Seabiscuit, which is this racehorse movie. I don't know if you've seen it, but I have. Yeah. Long time. It's about this jockey that's way too big and a horse that's way too small and an owner who's bankrupt, and they all find each other somehow and they win all these races. And it's based off a true story. Obviously dramatized up for Hollywood, but it's not, it's not the best movie. It's not winning tons of awards. It's not the greatest acting. It's kind of cheesy, but I really like it. It's a believe story. And so as I look through the things that made me come alive, believe is a consistent theme. And so that's great looking backwards, but going forwards, it allows me to build a plan. The more belief I have in my life, the more I'm going to be happy. And so we can all do this for our own lives. 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 our favorite lessons from the video that will inspire you to remember what you learned today and actually apply them. 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 5 is think big. I think if you're struggling to believe in yourself, which is everybody, by the way, like to get to the next step, you, you're confident and believe in yourself to do the things you've already done, but you don't believe in yourself to take the next big step forward. If, if there's nowhere in your life that you don't believe in yourself, then you're thinking too small. So, you know, when you couldn't, when you couldn't tie your shoes, then you didn't believe in yourself to tie your shoes. And now you could do it without even thinking. Like, it's no big deal at all. But the next big thing, what is the big thing? Look, what's Kelly's like big thing that he's looking at? He's like, there's no way I could do that. That, that's the problem. And other people like you have done it. People with less resources, less money, less, less smarts, less talent, less hustle. Like they've done it. And you haven't. And so the way that I try to fight to get through it every day is I surround myself with people who make me think bigger. So you mentioned Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins and other names. Every morning I start with that. And this morning I had Zig Ziglar in my ear. So it's great. That's crazy that you just mentioned him because I was listening to him as I'm walking and it just makes me come home. Feeling like, damn, I got to go do something bigger, you know? And the biggest challenge I find is no matter how much of a great day we have— today's awesome. I've been in, you know, in, in and out of podcasts all day. I get to talk to Kelly. This is going to be great. I'm going to leave today feeling on fire. And then I wake up tomorrow morning, like I'm starting over again. And so I need that injection every day. And so whatever the— whoever does it for you. Be around that every day. Rule number 6 is define your goal. If you were to start over today, right now, with your social media, people didn't even know who Evan was, or maybe you want to start a new channel in a place that nobody knows who you are, what would you do right now? It all depends on my goal. So is my goal to try to get famous? Is my goal to try to generate revenue for my business? is my goal to like sell a coaching program? I, I, so whenever I meet with somebody who's like, hey, help me grow on my YouTube channel. Cool. What are we trying to accomplish? Because depending on what you're trying to accomplish, it's a different strategy that we will put into place. So if I'm starting from scratch, uh, the entrepreneur in me is like, okay, I wanna generate sales, right? I mean, even if you have a big mission, which I think everybody listening to this show, you have a big mission, you wanna change the world in some capacity. Amazing. You need a team to do it. So I've got 52 people on my team right now who help me do all the stuff that we need to do for our business. I can do a lot more with 52 people helping me than I can me trying to do everything by myself evenings and weekends and having to have some job to kind of pay the bills. And so you need to figure out how to turn it into a business so you can invest in team to help you scale and go make a real impact. So I would start with what am I selling? And what am I passionate about selling? And then what's a content strategy that I can build around the thing that I'm selling to start driving sales for my business? Even if the long-term mission is we're gonna change the world in some capacity. Rule number 7 is give yourself options. I don't know that everybody needs to be an entrepreneur, but I think it's worth at least testing and trying. Mm-hmm. Like, how do you know if you like sushi until you try it? Mm-hmm. Sushi sounds gross. It's raw fish with really spicy mustard. And fish eggs and seaweed with some rice. Like, it sounds really gross. And then you eat it like, oh, this is actually really good. So how do you know if entrepreneurship is going to work for you unless you actually go off and try it? Give yourself options. So if you've been laid off, you have, you have, you know, some severance. Great. Don't just sit on the couch and, and waste it. What are you going to do? This is the time to invest in yourself. And even if investing in yourself leads to you getting a better job, Cool. But it's worth spending the time of reflection to say, you know, you were laid off, but other people weren't. So cool. Maybe your boss was an idiot, but other people didn't get laid off. So what did you do wrong? Right. That's how I would approach it. Right. Okay. I got laid off. Cool. I was a top performer, but why did I, why was I not one of the ones that got kept? Yeah. And so how do I, it might be the biggest blessing of all time, but how do I get better? What am I missing? And if I'm going to go back into the workforce, then what skills do I need to improve to, make sure I'm not the guy laid off next time. Or if there's been this itching idea of starting your own company, then maybe now's the time to go off and do it. I'm not the burn the boats guy. I'm actually pretty risk averse. So for me, if I wanted to really focus on learning something and I was stuck, like if I had a family, I mean, I look right now, I have a wife, I got a son. What would I do? I would probably get a job to learn the thing. If I wanted to really learn YouTube, I try to get a job with somebody who's doing YouTube. You were here at this podcast production studio, right? Like, get a job here, learn about the industry, make some contacts, and start my thing on the side until my side hustle became enough that I could go and quit my job. Rule number 8 is create an inspirational environment. My message more here is put things up that represent something to you. Like, I walk in, I'm working here, I got like Steve Jobs and Howard Schultz staring me down every day. So it It's inspiring for me. For the people watching, you want to have an environment that inspires you. Why Kanye is on the board is that's the moment from an interview that I love. It's one of my favorite interviews with him where he was saying, "The time is now. The time is now to be the greatest you. I don't want to be locked inside some corporation for the next 30 years of my life. The time is now." Take action. A lot of these guys have great messages. and I believe in them and I love them, but like now. Don't wait. Don't wait for a 5-year plan to happen. You want to start a YouTube channel? Start. Right now. Get your phone and start making videos. All of these people— I don't think you need to have a role model that you want to be exactly like. You may love Steve Jobs, but maybe he wasn't the greatest father. Maybe he wasn't the greatest manager. That's not what I look to him for. All of these people. So all the people that I profile on my channel, they're people that I pulled something from. It's not that I love everything about them. There's a lot to Kanye that you don't want to really model. You don't want to emulate, right? Uh, he says a lot of things that, you know, he puts his foot in his mouth more than maybe any human being. Uh, so that's fine. I don't want to take that from him, but that concept of the time is now and to do the thing that you want to do and not wait and not be put in chains and not sit "I know a lot of your audience is the wantrepreneurs. How long are you going to be a wantrepreneur? Are you going to be 20 years later still thinking of that idea? The time is now. Go out and do it." That's the reminder. When I see Kanye, that's a clip from that interview. That's what's the reminder for me. Anytime I think of something like, "One day I want to be on Tim's channel." No, the time is now. Let's make it happen. Fast forward your 5-year goals to 3 months and then start making them happen. Rule number 9 is figure out your learning style. What other resources do you recommend for up-and-coming leaders or someone looking to get better at leadership besides obviously your YouTube channel? Where do you go? Yeah, I mean, I would go to the YouTube. I would even forget my YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube. Well, first dissect how you learn. Like, do you learn through videos? You learn through books? Do you learn through podcasts? Like, what's your best learning style? Or maybe you need to learn best through like a person, like a mentor, a coach, a trainer. Uh, but figure out your learning style and then, and then just start dissecting. Like there's so much great information you could learn from John Maxwell and like some of the greatest leadership trainers in the world for free or for a $20 book. Right? Like it doesn't, it doesn't take a lot. Kelly said he learned sales from Zig Ziglar, but Zig Ziglar wasn't coming into his house every week and training him on what to do. He learned by consuming the content. And so whatever your, your learning style is for whatever it is that you want to learn, like you're not that far away. This is part of the belief being the biggest problem. You're not that far away from being a completely different and better version of yourself. Whatever skillset you need to learn is completely learnable and often for free if you just are willing to put in the work to do it. So wherever you learn best, go and do a search and say, leadership and see what pops up and start to digest it. And the first video may not be the best video. And I mean, I think we have some awesome videos on the channel, but it doesn't have to be my channel. Go anywhere, go on YouTube. There's probably tons of videos about leadership that if you just spent a bunch of time consuming it, investing in it, not wasting time, then you'll start to learn. But the most important thing that is like the application, right? So you watch a leadership, You watch a sales video by Zig Ziglar and he tells you how to do something. Cool. Nothing changes until you start to apply what he told you to do. There's lots of people who have all the information, but then they don't have the courage to then go act on the information. So if Zig is telling you his story and you get inspired, cool. Like, how's that going to change the next pitch that you show up to? Or how is that going to change the time you show up to work? Or how many calls are you going to do? Like, something has to then change from the information. Like, if information alone was enough, then the academics of the world would be the most successful people of all time. Like, they have all the knowledge, right? But a lot of it is practical knowledge not applied. So you need to then take that information and apply it into your life, into your business, so you can start getting different results. And rule number 10, the last one before some very special bonus clips, is use your big and little why. As entrepreneurs, we have a big mission. We want to do big things. You want people to read more. You know how much reading has helped your life. You know how important books are. You named this show The Power of Books. You want people to pick up books because that's a window into a new world that people can go and explore. And that's amazing. I'm sure if you knew that every human— now we have 8 billion people, all of them read a book, in some part because they watched a Timo video, that's insane. That's amazing. And there are some days where we wake up and we can actually feel that and it pulls us forward to say, "Okay, I need to play a bigger game. I need to do more. I need to make more videos. I need to get content out there." But there are some days when we wake up and that feels too big. Like, who am I to be the book guy? There's so many better book people. I can't hit 8 billion people. Like, I can barely hit 40 people on a video. It just feels too big. So, some days the big vision is inspiring. And some days it's actually counterproductive. It's actually disempowering because we feel like we can't do that. Who am I? Imposter syndrome sets in. So, on those days, that's where the little y matters, which is one comment on a video, which is one email that somebody sends you. It's one Instagram DM that says, "Hey, Timo, you introduced me to this book and, man, it opened—" Like, you've gotten some of those? 100%. And those mean so much. And it's holding on to those. So, on the days where you feel like you can't go and change the world, it's like, "Well, I helped that person and that makes me feel something." So, some days you need the big why, some days you need the little why. It's knowing kind of how you're feeling on that day, but you have two levers to pull where I think most people only lean in on the big mission and they're afraid to even tell themselves that or admit to other people that some days that big mission actually feels disempowering and too big. That's where you go to the little why. All the successful people that we profiled, whether they're entrepreneurs or athletes or musicians or artists, the people at the top of their field, if you don't believe in your, maybe not current abilities, but the abilities to figure it out. If you're some young speaker on the come up, it's like, okay, well, you don't have any abilities yet, but the belief that it's possible, the belief that tomorrow that tomorrow you don't have to be in the same spot that you are today. Even when it doesn't look like it, like your family's not doing it, your friends aren't doing it, the people you know aren't doing it, who are you to be this crazy guy going off and changing the world and doing amazing things? The belief that you could be way bigger than you are right now, that is consistent across all the people that we profiled. Think it's ego, belief, conviction? There's a healthy number of people who have a big ego, You don't have to. I don't know that you have to have a big ego, but confidence in your abilities to figure it out. Not even confidence in yourself, but confidence in your ability to figure it out. I think that is consistent. 'Cause you look at where people came from, chances are your hero started with less than what you already have right now. The people you look up to started with less than what you already have right now. If they can do it, what's your reason for not doing it? And there's tons of reasons why you're not doing it, Like, it's only easier to grow and build and create. You know, I look at Oprah, who had such a crazy upbringing and the rape and all this stuff, but one of my favorite stories was she was raised by her grandmother, who was poor, and she had to go to school. Her grandmother couldn't afford clothes for her, so she would buy potato bags, bags of potatoes to eat the potatoes, and then she'd take the bag and sew it into a dress. And Oprah would wear potato sacks. I've never heard that story. As a dress going to school. Right. You can imagine, like, school sucks already, kids are making fun of you, and now you're showing up to school in a potato bag. Now, obviously it wasn't just like cut garbage bag, but still, it's like, it's a potato bag. Yeah. That's your dress for school. No, I can't imagine. It's inspirational for anyone. And she can go from that to where she is now. Right. Like, what are you, what's your excuse? Without the internet, it's like, yeah. What's your excuse? Personal brand is everything, but you already have a brand. Like anybody watching, you have a brand already. A brand is an emotion. When people are talking about you, what are they saying? The main way that most of these businesses grow is word of mouth referrals, right? I mean, maybe you got some start with advertising or whatever, but it's usually word of mouth. Somebody says, hey, you should hire Rob to do this. You should hire Dennis to do this, whatever. So what are they saying about you? That's your brand, whether you're affordable, whether you are pleasant to work with, whether you take time to listen, whether you're understanding, whether like whatever it is that you're already doing that is, that people love talking about you, that is now just brought into the content. So you don't have to create this new persona of somebody who isn't you. You already have a brand. People are already saying great things. So if, if, uh, Dependability is the main thing. Like, yes, I am Mr. Dependable. Cool. Now, when you're making content, talk about dependability, talk about how important that is to you. Talk about examples of client stories where you were the dependable one, right? So it's more, you know, the easier we can tie it into who you already are, as opposed to giving you all sorts of new things that you have to memorize and, and, you know, be fake about. It's just easier to get the ball rolling. So personal brand is super important, but it's not a content thing. You already have a personal brand. What the other contractors around you are saying about you really matters. What your clients say about you really matters. What your Google reviews say about you really matters. All those scores really matter. And whatever words are coming up in those conversations, that already is your personal brand. So now it's just, amplifying that a little bit more through content so I can feel that when I see your videos and it makes me want to hire you. Hack your network. So this one is very valuable because there's probably people who you're connected to that you, you don't even know that you're connected to. And so there's a couple of ways to look at this. The first is through YouTube. So on YouTube, if you go to your dashboard, there's a little card that shows you your recent subscribers. So last 90 days, it'll show you here, last 90 days, and it'll show you who subscribed to your channel. So when I go to mine, I see that Kochi, Danny Mac, Global Video Pro 1, all subscribed to my channel in the past 90 days. And what they do is they sort it by the channels with the biggest subscribers. So all of you right now could go do this, or after this, after this session, you can go look at your own channel and see who has subscribed to your channel, because these people are going to be easier to do collaborations with. If you reach out to them, you find out their email address or Instagram handle, it's a lot easier to get a yes because they already know who you are. They already like you because they've subscribed to your channel. And so it's much easier outreach. You can then click that See All button. And everybody should have this card. This was an experimental card a while back, but everybody should have this now. It's, it's kind of buried on the page, so you got to scroll down. So Dashboard, and then scroll down, find Recent Subscribers. And then click see all. So then you click see all. And what happens is it'll take you to a giant page and you can switch it to lifetime. So at the top, it defaults to 90 days, but then you can switch it to lifetime. And then this will show you everybody who has subscribed to your channel that has significant subscriber counts. So this is mine, right? This person has 5 million, 5 million, 3 million, 2 million, 2 million, 1 million, or whatever, 2 million, 2 million, we're getting there. So of this list, the only one that I've done it with is Tom. So I've done a couple of collaborations with Tom in the past, and he was gracious enough to read a section of my book, Built to Serve, and use that for our promo pieces. The other ones I haven't, I haven't. I just, I undervalue this strategy. The amount of work to kind of reach out and then back and forth, I just haven't prioritized it. I don't see it as a huge win. Even though some of these channels are bigger than me, right? I'm almost at 3. So we've got 3 of these channels that are bigger than me. This one is almost double my size. I don't know what she does. I think she's more like lifestyle in Russia or something. This guy does cartoon. Psychology. I don't remember what Gavin does. I think it's lifestyle vlogging kind of thing. So it requires some creativity, right? If Chris is finding that there's a Fortnite channel that is subscribed to him and they've got an audience, well, maybe your music could be on in the background for his next Fortnite series. Maybe we make a special playlist for him that's an hour of your music back to back and he has a special, maybe he even streams with you, maybe you learn Fortnite, maybe you're already a pro at Fortnite and you do a session together, right? And your music's on in the background, that kind of collaboration. If you find it fun, it could be really good. Again, the work to set up. So now it's thinking about what's the value that you could bring their channel? Like what are you an expert at? That they need help with, that they're not good at, that they could use some content for. First off, if you go to their about page, there's usually some kind of contact information. Like you go to YouTube, look at their channel, and there's an about tab. Click on that. It'll show you contact information typically for them. Often it's an email. If not there, then you've got a Twitter or Instagram account that you can connect to. That's how you reach out and you say, hey, thank you. Hey, it's Nicola. Thank you so much for subscribing to my channel. It's awesome. Do you want to do some kind of collaboration together? I, I'd love to make a video on your channel about 1, 2, 3, right? So you look at their channel, you see what they're great at, and don't just do the exact same thing that they're great at because that's competitive. But what are they missing? And then those could be topics for you to be able to reach out to and share. You got to combine your heart and your head together. If you're just doing for you and it's heart, it's what's in your soul and you just want to create, cool. Like, you got a hobby. Yeah, it's a great hobby. Like, you can go and paint or make music or whatever, never have to release it, and it doesn't have to be a business, but it's a hobby. So as long as you're cool with that, cool. If you're doing it as a business, it has to bring value to people. That's where the head comes in, right? So it's like in that mix, because if you're only doing it for that because your brain tells you to do it, or Inc. magazine says, you know, here are the top 20, you got to start a podcast for 2023, 2024, whatever, right? If that's the only reason why you're doing it, you're going to lose because people actually love the thing. And for you, it's just a strategy. So if you're going to start a podcast, you don't like talking and you don't like talking to people, like, that's, that's a problem. Like, it might be the best marketing strategy, but because your heart's not in it, you're going to fail. So it's in that combination, right? If you, if you love it, but there's no market for it, it's just a hobby. If there's a giant market for it, but you don't love it, you're going to lose because you're going up against people who love the thing. So it's in that combination of what do you love doing where there's also an opportunity combining the heart and the head together, that's where you actually start to win. You may not have to believe that you can do it, but you can believe that you can figure it out. And so my wife helped me design this t-shirt a bunch of years ago where it's this bird that's, um, there's a tree and there's a bird that's kind of out on like the, the far branch. It's like a really skinny branch and the bird's just kind of chilling there. And the message is something like The bird isn't afraid of the branch breaking because her trust is not in the branch but in her wings. So even if the branch breaks, she'll be fine, she'll fly. It's like, it's just the belief that you can figure it out where a lot of these things seem scary until you just start doing something. One of the entrepreneurs I invested into, Alex, he helps me run Toronto Dance Salsa. It's the largest salsa dance school in Canada, maybe North America. That's how I met my wife. Wow, right, right, right. And, um, we have a, we have a lease in a, in a commercial space. It's, you know, six figures a year to have this space, uh, just in rent. And it's coming up for renewal, and I did the last one. It's okay, you're Alex, you now negotiate the renewal here. Like, you negotiate the lease. Like, oh my God, I didn't— I don't know how to do this. I don't know what I'm doing. What should I look for. And said, well, so he had no belief in his ability to be able to negotiate this lease. So, okay, it's fine, but how much research have you done on this at all? How many articles have you read? How many videos have you watched? How many podcasts? It's all online now. This, like, the amount of information, whatever problem you want to solve, it's out there. And so he said, well, nothing. Like, okay, great, so solve that problem. Like, go, go spend 15 minutes watching a video to educate yourself. A lot of the things that the people come to you that are feared, they're just afraid to even look at it. Yeah, we're in a 15-minute video, a half an hour video, a phone call, like you can learn so much. And so he watched one video about a martial arts school where the guy was explaining how to negotiate the lease, and then he sent me this video. I said, okay, what did you learn from it? And he listed like all these points of what he learned. It's Great, for 15 minutes of your time. Now you have a little more belief that you can figure this out. Now spend more time, right? So for all of these problems that people are coming to you for as well, just, it's so scary, it's so impossible that they spend zero time just looking at the problem saying, okay, I can figure this out and just taking the first steps. How have you seen challenges done and what is, what is like the most interesting challenge that you've participated in? I think the biggest thing about challenges is it has to feel like it's a community thing, which is why it's not just— so the Movemaker Challenge is one solo video, three collab videos, and one lead magnet. The most important part to keep momentum going is the, the three collaborations. The thing that will help the business grow the most is probably the lead magnet. No, uh, it's to force people into action. But if it's just something that people are doing by themselves, they're probably not going to do it. And so forcing community and forcing connection is the thing that makes the challenges go. You may not feel like making a video on impact today, but because IG Live with Angela agreed to go live with— like, okay, well, Angela's gonna be there, so I'm gonna be there, and let's do it together. And then, and then it's great. And then all of a sudden you have content that you didn't have before. And I think a lot of the people, the challenges were born out of, I want, well, two things. One, I want people to have more momentum. Like I'm talking and giving strategies around content. We're giving you the template. Like here's the thought leadership template, connect to each other. Like we're saying it, but still some people aren't doing it. So how can I force people to do it? You know, it's like, if you just started, right? Got going, you'll start to get more momentum. And so that was one. And two, I still really believe there's so many amazing connections inside movement makers and inside any community that it can't just run through the leader, right? The fact that you and Bonnie met through my livestream and then started this whole business together, I think that's amazing. I think there's a lot more of those opportunities for people. So if you're going to create your own community, It's great for you to get to know everybody and to help them and to coach them and do one-on-ones and to look at— I mean, I connected you guys together on the livestream because I knew you and I knew Bonnie, and I forget what I said, but like, hey, you guys should, you should talk about something. I think if you wake up and you're in a crappy environment and it's not your upbringing and it's not, you know, your family isn't successful, your family's telling you go to school and, you know, all the stuff that you might be fighting against, it's really hard to be on an island fighting the world. And so to know that Bill Gates thinks this way and Oprah Winfrey thinks this way and all these people that I look up to think this way, but my family and the people around me, they don't. You need to shut down the negativity or limit access at least to it. And then in that void, fill it with positivity, with the messages that you want to hear. And so the goal with my channel is to provide as much of a spectrum 'Cause if you watch the same video every day, it's not gonna, the message will decline. It's not gonna have the impact anymore. But if I'm talking about believe, like believe is in every video in some form of what we do. Right, whether you're one word. It's my one word. One word. Whether we say believe or not, it's the theme through everything. But if you watch that same Les Brown video, you're not gonna feel the same effect a week from today, a month from today if you watch it every single day. But you come back to the channel, there's gonna be a new piece of content. Like I produce more than people can consume, which I like. I'm a channel, I'm not a show. I don't need people to watch. I'm upset if people are watching every single show on my channel. Like, you gotta go off and do. I want people to work, right? Like, go chase your dream. Don't just get inspired and watch something. But there's always something there for you. So if you ever feel like you need more belief in your life, people comment and say, you believe in me more than anybody else in my life. It's like, I don't even know you. That's how little belief they get from the people around them. Whoever's more confident wins. So when you're trying to build confidence around something, and you don't have a lot of confidence in it, you don't want to be around people who are really negative or doing something completely different. Because who's more confident, you and your ability to do this thing, or them in their inability to do anything, right? They're way more confident in their— loser is the wrong word— but in their mediocrity or their being stuck, right? Like, they're more confident in them being stuck than you in growing. And so whoever's more confident wins. They'll, they'll pull you down. You won't pull them up, they'll pull you down because they're stronger. It's a stronger wolf, right? So their wolf is strong, your wolf is not strong, your wolf dies. So while your wolf is gaining strength, you need to not be around these other wolves until you get to the point where your wolf is so strong it doesn't matter what these guys are doing. So if you bring me in with your friends who are clubbing and drinking and whatever, if we spend enough time together, I'm gonna pull them up because I'm more confident. My wolf is— my positive wolf is stronger than their negative wolf. So they're gonna start to doubt themselves and what they're doing. I don't even have to convince them. If they were just hanging out here, if they came here every day and they started hanging out, they're gonna start to think, I'm Maybe I should do, like maybe I should stop just having weed every day. Maybe I should do something with my life. They will naturally start to do it because the environment creates it. And I am more confident in the ability for them to grow. Like I believe more in them and where they could be than they disbelieve in themselves. And so I'll pull them up. But at the beginning, you're not strong enough. Like you can't do that. And don't worry about it. Yet. Don't, don't even make that the, the goal or the ambition. That can be later when you get so strong that then you can bring anybody into your orbit. A lot of top YouTubers can kind of come and go in like 2 or 3 years. So how have you been able to reinvent yourself and keep up with the different changes and trends and demands of content over the last 14 years, basically? Yeah. So what, I started in 2009. There at the beginning, I wasn't having success, you know. Like, at the beginning, I had what, first year had 25 subscribers. 5 years in, I had 2,000 subscribers. But in the first 5 years, I wasn't getting any traction. It was no results. It was no winning. It was, it was me just doing it to do it, just, just to try to have fun. Um, I thought it would help people. Like, if 50 people watched the video, it's like, that's 50 people who saw my video, you know? Nobody had a million subscribers when I started my channel. Uh, it wasn't even a thing. Like, 10 years ago, you, you— like, YouTube influencer didn't mean anything. Yeah. Um, so it wasn't a strategy at the beginning. Now a lot of people— there's a lot of people— a lot of the OG people are leaving YouTube, they're quitting, um, or they're getting burnt out. Yeah, uh, I think what's happened more recently is it's become a— it's starting to become more professional. So people who do what I do, they're, they're building teams, and so it's hard for a one-person show to keep up unless you really love it. And if you love it, then it's easy to keep going. Like, you, you don't burn out from things that you love. I've been making videos for 15 years. I still love it. It's like, let's do it, let's do it in the car, whatever, let's just make videos. It's awesome. I love it. I love, I love helping if I can, uh, but if you see it as work or just a strategy, you're going to give up. Like, you, you never win. Nick Peterson says you never win the race that you don't want to be in. And so a lot of people are doing too much work that they don't like. Like, if I was doing accounting I would burn out in a day. But making videos, it's 15 years and I haven't burnt out. I still love it. So do you actually love the thing that you're doing? I just need to be 1% better today. I just need to make one more call or do one more rep or do one more push-up or read one more page. Like most people, that's not their default mindset. And most people in your life, that's not what you're being pushed to do or told to do. But if you keep hanging out with Zach and virtually, right? I mean, Zach, as far as I know, is not taking on interns or you can go live with him for a month or something, but you can learn from him virtually. And if nobody else is telling you about the 1% concept, but every time you listen to Zach and there it is again and there it is again, it will force you to start to become that person. So most of the people in our lives are not pushing us forward in a loving way. Hopefully we have people who love us, but they're giving us an agenda of what they want us to do with our lives. And you want to limit access to the people who make you feel worse, who you feel drained about, and then start filling that void with the people who make you feel better. So, you know, if you want more belief, come follow me. You want more 1% better every day, go follow Zach. And when you find those people, surround yourself with them. What does being well and strong mean to you? I would say feeling like what you're doing matters every day. I think there's a lot of, uh, content and a lot of great advice around health and, uh, diet and exercise and all of this stuff, which is great, and I'm not the expert on that. But one of the things I found to be the most helpful for me is just feeling like what I do matters. When people ask me, like, how are you so optimistic or happy or energetic all the time? Like, well, first, I'm not. But second, it's like, it's not my diet. You know, I could eat Snickers every day and I would be 50 pounds heavier, but I'd still have energy. Like, let's go, I'm ready to do this interview. Why? Because I feel like the work that I do Matters. And it might matter to the world or might matter to 5 people. But if you could actually connect the work you're doing to somebody else, like it's not just about you. Like you mentioned, you did this because of your mom as a starting point. And now all the people that you're able to help who are like you and like your mom is incredible. And like, and you're still getting started. Fast forward to episode 340 and holy cow, how many lives are you going to have touched and changed and people coming up and say, like, your episode number 48, like, made a huge life-changing moment for me. Like, if you can actually feel that every day, that what you're doing is gonna impact somebody else, it's not enough to just to do it for yourself. Yeah, you feel like you're contributing to somebody else in some way. And if you actually felt that, I think if you combine that with all the health and exercise and diet and all that, feeling like what you're doing matters, I think, well, that'd be my definition of well and strong. What are some real key takeaways you can think about that, that can help somebody leverage just how they can be perceived as a home service type business? I don't know anything about you. I'm going to price shop. If I think that you are the same as every other plumber, what do I have? The only thing I have left is price. But if I know you and I trust you and I feel like you're going to do a good job, then I'll pay more for you versus somebody else. And so are you giving people the reason to pay you more? So when Jake did my soundproofing, I didn't even know how much it was going to cost. And when he gave me a quote, I said, okay, that's the quote. We didn't negotiate. I didn't take that to other soundproofing guys because I love Jake because of the video. And so what we— when we say clients are really cheap or they're price shopping, some of them might be, and some of them might be only looking for like the lowest cost possible. But a lot of people, the only reason why they're price shopping is because they have no alternative. You haven't given them any information of why they should pick you over somebody else. So this is where our content comes in. So I think the first video everybody should make is your story. Why do you do what you do? And again, it doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to be in a studio. You could be in your van, like be in your van, a little bit of sunlight on you. You know, don't film it at midnight or something. I can't see your face. Right? And, and whether you speak right into the phone or you use like a headset or something, don't go buying crazy microphones. And just tell me why you do what you do, and, and just try to make it as heartfelt as possible. Like, imagine you're talking to a client and the client said, hey, why did you start this business in plumbing anyway? There's got to be some story, and just tell me that story. Or think of all the different stories that you're telling clients all the time and just make that video. And that's a great video, not just for YouTube, but for your website. So when somebody lands on your website and they're trying to figure out, do I hire this guy or this guy? I just want it fixed. You have this video telling me about your story where anybody, everyone else doesn't. Oh, if I make one connection to your story, I'm already picking you and I would pay more for you versus somebody else. What does Ida need to be doing better? I think like a lot of people, it's stepping into a bigger role. You know, I think for, for the journey that you've been on and what, where you've come from and the business that you built up, it's like, it's, it's really impressive. You know, like, Ida from 10 years ago would look at Ida now, it's like, you're going to be doing this, you're going to be, you have your own business, you're making money, you have team, you're doing a podcast, you're like inspiring people, you're making TikTok videos, you'd be like, what? Who is this Ida, right? It's like, it's not— it's impossible. So you, you are an impossibility to 2013 Ida. It's like, there's no way you're gonna go off and do this thing, right? What year did you even move to Canada? 2010. Great. Okay, so like, just imagine you're here, you're here for 3 years, all the things that you've built up and created is, is very impressive. And it's you being capable of so much more. So just like me, I need to go hire my thumbnail designers. Like, you need to go find those people so that now we're not charging, you know, whatever a one-off client is and charging to get the monthly clients who value you and respect you a lot more. You know, it's like I went through accountants on my journey up to the place where we're at now. you could go through clients, like your clients may not graduate, but you could graduate your clients where you're now working with bigger clients who value your perspective and the strategy side of things even more. Yeah. And so it's you stepping into that bigger role, you know, and I mean, I need to do it too. Just where, and that never ends, you know, like once I get to that one, it's like, well, now I can go and do this one. So same thing. It's like, you, you know, here's the thing, like, you know how to do what you're doing very well. You're not having clients pissed off at you, right? Like people love working with you. So you know how to do what you're doing right now very well. And it's easy to stay just doing that because you're delivering, you're making money, you're helping people. Great. It's the knowing that you could be doing a lot more. And it's like, okay, so when, when does that actually decide to come out and say, okay, I've had enough? So particularly this younger generation, so at this moment in time, people that are maybe in their late teens, early 20s, what is the biggest misconception that they have about life? I think one, that they've got a lot right. You know, for all like the people crapping on I think they've got— I think they've got a lot right. If anything, I would say like lean in harder, you know, like I think a lot of the older generation is, is crapping on the younger. I mean, this is every older generation always craps on the younger generation saying they don't work as hard, they have no ethics and all of these things. But man, you could change the world like it's never been more possible. I started my YouTube channel when I was 29. So I was just at the end of my 20s, uh, and getting it off the ground. You could change the world. So whatever I would say, like, stop listening— like, believe in the, in the whispers even more. When you're watching Brian's show or other content and then you don't see it in your family, you see your mom is doing something else and your dad is doing something else, like, your parents might as well have been pilgrims. Like, they are from different world, not even a different generation. It's like a different world. Your parents. So like if you're, if you're 19 years old and your parents are, you know, 45 years old or whatever you want to call it, man, the opportunities for your parents when they were 19 are vastly different compared to what you have right now. So I would say whatever is in your mind of what you want to do, lean in harder, like believe in yourself more. It's maybe the anti-message compared to what most people are pushing, but you could go and change the world. If you start to build your audience on your YouTube channel or you send some emails out and people start to watch and you start building a base on YouTube, it doesn't have to be a big base. But what ends up happening is who are the people who are watching from your channel? They're going to be people who are in Norway, who speak Norwegian, who care about these kinds of topics, personal development kinds of topics. YouTube will start to recommend them your videos more because they've watched one of your videos. But if they start watching a lot of your videos, it'll start recommending it to people who are like them. So other people who are from Norway, who care about personal development, who have a similar profile, who've never heard of you, who might be just watching Tom Billy or my channel or whatever, right? And then all of a sudden, wait, what? But if they see it in Norwegian, it's like, wow, somebody's making content in Norwegian even though I'm used to watching it in English. Let me go watch it here. When we do subtitles in Spanish, for example, and in a lot of the languages we've done subtitles in, even if they're in the US, they'll switch it to their language. So our Spanish channel has a big audience in the US. They speak English, they're looking in English, but they switch it to Spanish because they'd rather consume it in their native language. They'll do it in English if they have to. People in Norway speak English at a pretty high rate, but they'd still rather consume it in their own language and have to go through the process of understanding. Not all the words may make sense, and if they're new to personal development, they may not understand some of the things you're saying, but in the native language is a lot easier. Here. Yeah, so it'll start getting recommended to people who are like the ones watching your videos, and then they see you pop up with Norwegian titles and thumbnails, like, who's this? Interesting. So the trick is, and I'll show you, I'll show you how to do it at Mastermind, that when you're sharing a link to a video, it goes to a playlist of all your videos so we control where they go next, so that when the video ends, it automatically goes goes to another video on your channel as opposed to the video ending. Yeah. So if we can train people that when they watch one video, they watch 5, they watch 8. Yeah. Other people are going to start seeing your videos a lot more who are like them. And geography is a big part of that. What would be Evan Carmichael's, after 10,000 experiments, what would be your, you know, 90-day game plan, so to speak, depending on the niche? Right. What a great question. Well, first, I mean, you pick a niche that you actually care about and you love. That's got to be it because if you do anything in entrepreneurship, you're not absolutely obsessed with it, you're just not going to have success. I know that that's a message that in all your interviews, people keep saying some variation of that. You actually have to love the thing. I loved how you even started yours of, okay, I don't know what I want to do in my life, so I'm going to go talk to people who are doing it. Expect to pivot. You did. You know, it's a day in the life. Oh my God, this is way harder to film than I thought. But if I just sit down with them, I can get some great questions out. Um, and what I love about yours is too, you, you ask questions that you personally care about, right? It's not just what you think your audience is going to care about, but you almost turn them into coaching sessions for Omar, um, which is great. You know, it makes it actually more interesting and enjoyable for somebody watching as well. So whatever you're curious about to start to explore that, I think you need to determine, are you the expert or are you, are you on your journey to discover? Right? So at the beginning, you weren't the expert. So it's not Omar coming on to say, okay, here's how you have success in entrepreneurship, or here's how you ask great questions, because he hadn't done any of that yet. So it's just showcasing the journey and you being curious to ask great questions. But now you've gone through it. Now you could make those videos. Now you could say, hey, here's how you get great guests. Here's how you ask great questions. Here's how you get comfortable in front of the camera. So evaluating where you at, where you are at. Are you the expert or are you the beginner? The beginner shows more of the journey to become the expert. The expert is the expert. So sharing your knowledge and information. And as you go on that trail of becoming, you start to adjust some of your content. So maybe it's all 100% journey of, but then as you start getting better, you start injecting more teaching. So it's 20% teaching and 40% teaching and eventually 80%, 100% teaching because you become so good at what you're doing. People say, a lot of my contemporaries, like big names, will say, "Don't say you're nervous, say you're excited." Because it's the same sensation. Your palms get sweaty, your heart gets racing. Feeling that if you had to describe what feeling nervous was and describe what feeling excited was, they're the same physical sensations. So tell yourself you're excited. I'm not nervous. I, I, it's, it's probably great advice for most people. I think I'm the weird one that, that, uh, maybe my advice is not as good because it seems to be working for these other people. It's like, okay, great, but for me, I don't like the mental gymnastics. It's like, that means I'm not capable of doing things that make me nervous. Yeah, but everything that I want in our life is on the other side of me doing things that make me nervous. If I never do things that make me nervous, I'm never going to grow and get the life that I want. And so I, I don't want the identity of who is Evan Carmichael for myself. Whatever other people think, cool. But for me, when I look at myself, I don't want to be the person who has to flip it to excited to get me to take action. I want to do the thing because I'm nervous, and I want to be proud of myself for doing things that make me nervous or scary or difficult or hard. And so Scary, difficult, hard are my trigger words. I call them play bigger triggers, where if I say it, think it, do it, feel it, scary, difficult, hard, I have to do it just because I said it and I felt it, even if it has nothing to do with belief or my purpose, because I don't want being nervous or scary, difficult, hard to be. It can no longer be a good enough reason for me not to take action. I am genuinely curious and I want people to win. Like, why are you asking me this question? I want you to, however that shows up in your life in terms of not listening to people, I want you to be able to get the answers you're looking for. And I can hold onto it because I'm curious about your situation. I'm thinking, why is he asking me this question? How does it relate to his life beyond just like, I forgot we're making, you're pressing record, right? It's just about helping you. So I'm genuinely curious about people and trying to figure out how I can help them. And so the other part about holding on to a conversation or holding on to listen is sometimes they'll say something, or even the way they say something tells you about that person. It can help me even if I have the answer. Here's what often happens. I'll have the answer, but I don't know how to say it yet. And I want to deliver in a way that you will hear best. Best guess. And so the more you talk, the more you're giving me information about you. Your tonality, your history, your stories, your vocabulary, all of it is helping me help you. So how somebody shows up to something is how they often show up to anything. And so the more someone's talking, the more it gives me the tools to be able to help them. Because I can have the answer, but if I don't deliver it in the right package, it doesn't get received. So the answer could be curiosity, but the way that I package it will depend on who I'm talking to. If I treat everybody like they're me, then it won't happen, or very few people will be able to listen. But if I can— that's why do I— why did I put on music that you like when I have a playlist of like 700 videos? Why put on the old-school rap and a couple Afro beats that you may not have heard of, but it's like still within— I could I could be putting on Croatian music or Japanese music, or not that you wouldn't appreciate it, but I would rather enter, I try to enter your world than try to force you to enter mine. Because if I can enter your world, I can have a bigger impact versus forcing you to listen to what I want to listen to or come into my world. We don't wake up, or at least for me, I don't wake up and be like, I'm gonna go change the world today, guys. This is gonna be the greatest day of my life. We're gonna go do— that's not how I ever, ever wake up. And so, what makes a difference? Well, it's the habits and routines and what we force into our ears. And so, most people will wake up and just go to the bathroom and load their Instagram and start doom scrolling and what just happened in the past 25 minutes as opposed to being intentional about how you want to wake up. So, the most important part of my daily routine is what I call my believe walk. And so, I get outside even when I don't want to. I live in Toronto, Canada. It's snowy today, fresh dump of snow. It's cold. I'm somewhat jealous. I'm looking outside like, I don't want to go out in that mess, slush everywhere. But it's like part of my morning routine. So I wake up and I try to get outside as soon as possible. And as I do my walk, I'm also listening to a video from my own channels, like some mentor, somebody I want to learn from. And Throughout the walk, I'm like, "Oh, that's a good idea. That's a good idea. I got Warren Buffett telling me to do this." And then I come home, it's like, "Let's go. We got to go do some work here." It's like how quickly things can change. And I think in that combination of the right headspace with the right content plus outside daylight as much as I can get in cold, snowy Toronto, fresh air, plus the movement and the action. So, I'm not just kind of lying down in bed. Waiting to kind of get out of bed and start my day. That combination has a magical effect on me and gets me set up to have a great day. It's inspiring to see you doing this. Yeah. It's inspiring to see someone from Norway and a woman from Norway betting on herself to do these things. And so showing the journey and any self-doubt you might have or any concerns you might have or any This is why I went to Toronto, you know, like most people won't do this kind of thing, come here. And that's so true. Like every time I share that I'm here, people are like, wow, it's so inspiring. And I really like one of the things I want to is to just help people believe that everything is possible, that they can do whatever they want to. Believe, that's a good word. Yeah, there it was. But your job as a thought leader is to teach people to think like you think. You see things differently, and it's normal for you. You come— yeah, I'm coming to Toronto, like, of course. Yeah, I'm gonna go surfing in California before, and he's like, of course. But that's weird, right? For most people in Norway, when they look at that, it's like, what? This is some crazy life that she's living. And it is crazy, but it's not crazy for you. This is just you living. So it's bringing people into how did you develop this mindset. To believe that you could even do this. To launch a course, to join masterminds, to fly around the world, to meet people. It's a different way of thinking. It's not doing it to show off and say, look at how fabulous my life is, but it's to take people behind the thought process that you have so that you're teaching them a way to think that they can apply to their life. It doesn't mean that they go join some expensive mastermind in a different country, right? Maybe it does, but it may encourage them to seek help. Yeah. Or to take an online conference or something to realize that they don't have to stay stuck. For 10 more awesome rules from me, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there. When there's a threat to the sheep, what do the other sheep do? They scatter. But a wolf pack, if you attack a wolf wolf, all the other wolves are coming to help you. We protect our own. Where the sheep all scatter. And so like, this is the main problem for a lot of entrepreneurs.