How to Master the ART of Consistency & Find Joy in Your Work

Well, to get great at anything, you have to be consistent. Anything, any skill that you want to develop, you have to be consistent on. At the beginning of a journey, it's okay to experiment and taste and test and try and do a bunch of things. You know, I made my first video and I wasn't like the next day making another video and the next day making another video. It wasn't consistent at the beginning and my growth reflected it. You know, in year 1, I post on my website where I'm at with subscriber count year by year by year. And year 1 is like 25 subscribers. And by year 5, in my 5th year, I'm still at 700-something subscribers. It's not like I took off and was blowing up right away. A lot of it was me sucking and not having the skill, but a lot of it was just lack of consistency as well, and that I wasn't doing it every day. There's a reason why, from all the people I've studied, the number one rule for success that they have is you have to love what you do. Not just the end result of the thing that you're doing, but you have to love the actual thing that you're doing. It just takes so much effort and so much time to get world-class at the thing that if you don't love it, you're going to quit. You kind of have to be crazy doing it because you just love it so much where most people would quit. That's how you end up winning. And so finding the thing that you love to do that you can stay consistent on so that it doesn't feel like work is the thing ends up getting you through it. Like, if you're hosting a podcast show like this and you don't like interviewing people, do something else. Don't do it because podcasting is a hot trend. Go do something else that you really love to do. We've made over 13,000 videos now in 13 years. I've made videos through tragedy and trauma and the broken neck, and videos still went up. Why? Because I love what I'm doing, and that's how I wasn't burning out. And if I stop liking making videos, then I'll move on to something else. Um, so consistency really matters, but it's a lot easier to stay consistent on the thing that you actually love doing. Need motivation? Watch your top 10 with Believe Nation. Hey, it's Evan Carmichael, and I make these videos because in my first business I was making $300 a month. I quit on my business partner, and the thing that saved me was studying the stories of super successful entrepreneurs. So I hope that this story today helps give you the motivation you need, because I still need it too myself. So today, let's learn from me and my team's take on my top 10 rules of success. Enjoy. Rule number 2 is find your core value. I think everybody has a single most important core value. And when you figure out what that is, it allows you to live a more intentional life. So like, even if you had to pick, what's your most important core value? Oh man, integrity. It's a big one. Just being of integrity, period. I mean, I mean that Makes sense knowing you. And so now when you're looking at, you know, who do I— whether it's in a relationship with somebody or you're bringing on team, if you're gonna, if you're gonna bring on a new video editor for your team, what most people do is just think, do they have the skills that I need? Where for you, that's not enough. They have to, they have to be a person of integrity. Yes, big time. And when you're around people of integrity, it just allows everything to, to, to flow more right. Where you had the greatest video editor of all time, but they're, they're cutting corners and lying or whatever, it's not just about the results. Like, how they get it really matters to you. And so, it changes the intention with which you show up. So, if you're gonna do a job posting now for a video editor, it's like, you post a video editor who believes in integrity. Like, and that's the title. And some people will see that and say, "That's the stupidest thing of all time. Who is this guy?" And like, cool. Like, don't apply, right? Like, Self-eliminate. Thank you. And others would be like, yes, finally, somebody's speaking my language. And so, I think everybody has a single most important core value. And it's the job of finding out what that is for you. And so, for me, it's believe. And that becomes the brand in that, like, a brand is just an emotion. So, I want people to leave everything that I make with more belief. I may not accomplish it, but it's the intention in everything that I make. And so if you could gift integrity to the world, what a great gift to be able to create. I like it. Yeah. So that's the concept. Rule number 3 is aim to inspire. Let's go here. YouTube is an education platform. Like I think a lot of people think of it as entertainment and fun and movies and music. Cool. But YouTube is the number 1 education platform. So, you know, people are trying to figure out how to become a more influential leader. Where are they gonna go? They're gonna go to the library. Like, who are they gonna talk to? They're gonna talk to their mom. Like what they're gonna go and search and your stuff will pop up and not just your videos, but against other people's videos, this content that people are going there to learn. And so YouTube is different than any, every other platform where we want to be making long-form content, teaching people, because ahead of whatever we're trying to sell, we want to put information. We wanna put education. We're teaching people at scale to then bring them into whatever the thing is that we're selling— coaching, products, programs, services, books, etc. And the beauty of something like YouTube is one, your, your content lives forever. So the videos you make now, in a year, in 2 years, in 6 years, are still getting you views, subscribers, attention, leads, etc. Where every other platform, it goes away, right? Like Instagram, nobody cares what you posted a week ago. It's instant. It's Instagram. It's gone. Every other platform's the same. YouTube has the best monetization, so they'll pay you, right? Like you could be making 7 figures just from the ad revenue on your videos, as well as actually building your business. Um, and the best part about YouTube is you can take the content since it's long form and splice it up to put on all the other platforms. So YouTube will tell you the best moments in every video, according to what the audience cared about. Those little highlight moments, you can then tweak and put them to Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and all the other platforms. So all you really have to do is have a regular show, long form on YouTube, and now we're creating content everywhere. Most of the people listening, watching, your goal is not to be a full-time just content creator. You got a business that you're trying to run. We're trying to build our membership groups and our coaching services and be a speaker and all of that stuff. And so you don't have time to all day, every day, be on every single platform. You don't have to be. Long form from YouTube, take the data, cut it up to be on every platform. So it kind of sits above all the other social media platforms, um, and most importantly, to helping people's message get out to change the world. Rule number 4 is trust your ideas. This is where my perfectionist nature, you know, used to take over and slow me down. So I could get an idea, you know, you get these ideas and then your brain takes over and you start researching. Like, I gotta, I gotta make the perfect plan before I start. Don't want to make any mistakes, so I'm just going to start. What I've trained myself to do is two things. One, I tell myself that great ideas flow through me, that great ideas will flow through me because it came through me, then it's a great idea. And what that does is kind of shortcut the brain from overanalyzing, overpreparing, and overthinking. That as long as you're in a good emotional state, right? Like, if you're frustrated or pissed off or upset or jealous, maybe don't trust the ideas that come to you. You know, like if somebody cuts you off in line or in traffic and you want to go chase him, like maybe think on that one. But, but if you're in a, in, if you're in a positive place, if you're watching this episode and you feel inspired or hopeful or, or you want to do more, you're grateful, trust the ideas that come to you. Cuz those ideas often don't make sense. Like your next great idea doesn't make sense. 'Cause your brain tries to make sense of it, but it doesn't make sense, but your heart wants to do it. So it's listening to your heart and just trusting that great ideas flow through you. From there, to get over the perfectionism, I came up with what I call the 2% difference. So what most people do is focus on how do I plan to 100%. I'm gonna start a podcast, so I need to have— look at Alan's setup. He's got the TVs and he's got the microphone and he's got the— right? And people would look at that and say, I need all that before I start. The 2% difference is if you trust that great ideas flow through you, then what's the first 2%? What's the first 2% that you can do right now just to get started? And don't expect it to be perfect. Expect it to suck. But momentum for most people is the only thing that's missing. We often use our best energy on planning. And so you come up with an idea and then you plan and you plan and you plan and plan, you strategize, and then a week goes by and then you realize you don't have the same courage and boldness that you had a week ago. And you spend all of that great energy on planning instead of doing, where the first step should be to do something, and then you start working on the plan. So if you want to work out, you got to get healthier. Cool. What's the perfect workout plan? Well, did you do HIIT? Do you do cardio? Do you hire a trainer? Do you, do you go to the gym and lift weights? Like, what are you going to do? There's so many options. The best thing to do is just do as many push-ups as you can right now, right? You get on the floor and you do 5 push-ups, 20 push-ups, like however many you can do. Is that going to help you long term get your result? No, it's just one day of doing a thing, but it solves the most important problem, which is momentum. Because if you do 10 push-ups today, then you can do 12 tomorrow, you can do 14 the next day, you could do 20 the next day. And then as you start the plan, maybe you realize, hey, push-ups aren't the thing. Maybe you should be doing pull-ups, maybe you should be doing yoga, maybe you should be— right? Like, the plan always changes. Just like we talked about, the Alan from 5 years ago could not plan to where the Alan is right now. The plan will always change, but the biggest thing that's missing from most people is just momentum. So trust that great ideas flow through you and then apply the 2% difference to just get started. Also, to make sure you're actually taking action after watching this video, I've designed a special free worksheet just for this video. The worksheet will highlight all of the lessons learned in this video as well as pull out our 3 favorite learnings and quotes that will you to actually do something. The worksheet will also give you space to write down what your key takeaways are and your specific plan of action to make sure you're getting results. If you want the worksheet designed specifically for this video, absolutely for free, there's a link in the description below. Go click on it and start building the momentum in your life and your business. I'll see you there. Rule number 5 is believe in yourself. Whatever you think the problem is, cancer or whatever, like, well, I think, you know, I think the woman who solves cancer would have solved the by now, but she's a manager at an accounting firm hating her life because she never either didn't go to medical school or never even thought about it or just never chased it down. Like, I think everybody has what I call Michael Jordan level genius at something. You're the greatest in the world at something. And we either don't believe in that or we don't chase it down and we end up living a life that is less than what it could be. And so even me, I mean, my biggest problem is a lack of belief to get to the next step. And so that's what I wake up every day trying to solve. You know, never gonna do it, and I wake up every day trying to do it. Rule number 6 is build access to community. Who's watching a YouTube video for 3 hours? The whole— the entire world, right? Like, think about if you're gonna teach, if you're gonna make a video talking about how do you become an influential leader, where am I gonna learn that from? Nobody. And the people who are sharing it, like, go to YouTube and search, people are talking about it, Are they as good as Rory Vaden on that topic? No. It's like somebody who came from Instagram and they're 25 years old and still trying to figure it out, but they're gaining a lot of traction and attention because people like you who actually know what they're talking about aren't on the platform. So there's giant demand and consumption and very little supply, period, and almost no quality supply. So am I too late on YouTube? We're just getting started inside of education. So if I wanted to learn how to become that influential leader, If you did a 4-minute video, how much are you going to teach me in 4 minutes? Not a lot. But if you talk for an hour or you did a coaching session with somebody or you had a guest coming on sharing something, people would watch that because it's the best thing there available. And then when you've got your next launch, your book, your course, your program, your private membership, like, "I love this Rory guy. Nobody's talking like him. How do I get more of him?" And they want to pay for the access to get into everything that you're offering. And so you don't worry about giving away too, too much there? I mean, like, I mean, how many of those videos is it? Is it kind of more like have one really killer 2-hour video? Or are you trying to like crank? Because to do that every week would be pretty tough. Not to mention, you know, if you did an hour-long video every week, that'd be, that'd be a lot of content. Like, what would you be charging for if you were giving away that much? So is it kind of like have a couple key trainings out there and do it that way or? It depends what game you're playing. Often the best thing to sell is access. So the best thing to sell is access to a community. So if you're trying to sell your program, your community, which is awesome, I was able to, I had the honor to speak in front of, if you had a lot of long-form content that was getting millions of views, you're going to convert a lot of those people to want to spend more time with you because they love how you think. You're, you're a weird duck. You think differently than other people. Like, I want to think the way Rory thinks and I want to be around him more often. So I want to join his community. Um, it's less about the actual ideas. A lot of, a lot of people have paid programs. A lot of the same content is in the YouTube video as in the paid program. It's just packaged altogether. So it's easy to find, it's sequential, there's community, there's access. And so that's really what we're selling, not just the information. I'm giving you everything. I got nothing to sell here. I'm giving you the best. Like you're asking me questions. This is what I do. This is what I teach. People will still— some of the names that you mentioned want me to help them with their channel. I'm telling them the same thing that I'm telling you guys right now here on Rory Baden's show, right? So that I think builds credibility, builds trust, and it makes people want to have a deeper relationship with you and buy all your stuff. Rule number 7 is serve. I think ultimately we're all built to serve, Eric, right? Like, we all want to serve. We all want to wake up and feel like we're going to do something today that matters. And some days we feel like we're going to change the world. Like, if you're listening to Eric's show, you want to have a big impact. You want to change the world. You want to, you want to have big ripples across the planet, right? I mean, that's, that's why you're here. But some days that feels too big, and some days you're like, I'm never going to change. I can't do that. It's too big a mission. Cool. But you can help one person. Yeah. Or what about like yourself? Yeah, definitely. Like whatever you need, whatever you want to give to the world, you still need yourself. I think though, at the end of the day, you want, you want to feel like what you're doing is helping somebody else. Like if you're only chasing down selfish pursuits, you won't end up being happy. Like the happiness will come from serving others in some capacity, either on some grand scale or, or even just knowing that you made an impact on one person today somehow. I don't think it's possible to feel down and negative and low and have a terrible self-esteem if you are actually helping something. Like when somebody says, thank you so much, you really helped me. Even if it's that little moment, the 10 seconds of like the brightness and enjoying your life because you did something that helped somebody else out. And so that's always a path. Like we want to feel like what we do matters, is important to somebody else. And that's what, if you can connect to that, it's hard, right? You might have the greatest day of all time. Today's great. I'm talking to Eric. It's amazing. Here we go. We're changing the world. Let's do it. Let's go, Eric. Let's go. You wake up tomorrow and it's like you're back to square one. It's like brushing your teeth. You have to do it every day. You have to find a way to connect to the mission that you're on, to connect to serving people every single day. Otherwise, it's an easy slippery slope down to apathy. And if you keep going down, stress and anxiety and depression and suicide. Because you feel alone and you feel like you don't matter and you feel like the work you do doesn't matter. You know, like when you feel like what you do doesn't matter, the next step becomes, I don't matter. And when you're in, I don't matter, that's a really dangerous zone to be in. And so the path out is service, helping every day. Rule number 8 is prioritize quality. The editing almost doesn't matter. Like, why are people listening to you? Because like, if we think about quality content, It— people default to production quality, like, oh, what microphone are you using there, Rory? And what's your headset? And like, what's the lighting? But nobody's watching your stuff for your microphone. So the quality isn't production quality, it's quality of thought. Can you teach me to think like you think? And so the mistake a lot of people make is they— if they're doing it themselves at the beginning, a lot of people do this— you spend 20 minutes, uh, making a video and then 5 hours editing it. You're training the wrong skill. You're training yourself to learn editing software as opposed to training yourself to be a better speaker, where your ultimate goal should be to be a better speaker. Train, spend 5 hours making a video and 20 minutes editing it, or zero time editing it, because the ability to communicate your message in front of a camera will be a skill set you use for the rest of your life, whether YouTube exists or not. When, when we're beaming into your your living room in VR and holograms and all that, you're still just talking to a camera. And so that ability to get your message out there is the thing to train and practice. So I wouldn't worry about editing being the most important thing. Train yourself to be a great speaker. Train yourself to press record, deliver a fire message, and then release that as a video. Because when I go live on a podcast like this, when I get up on stage, when I'm doing interviews, There's no edits. I mean, maybe if I really mess up, Rory will do me a solid and like cut out that piece. But you get on stage, there's no edits. Like you can't train yourself. If you're a speaker, you can't train yourself to only communicate when you're perfectly edited. Yeah. So we have to train ourselves to be great. It doesn't mean that you completely disrespect the editing, but my goal would be to, hey, let's get your business up to the point where the content is helping you generate enough money, whether it's through your coaching or your books or your programs, so that then you can afford to hire an editor. To take it to the next level, but the editing will not save you. It's quality of thought more than production quality. Rule number 9 is start small. This is like the only thing I had going for me. You know, like I wasn't, I wasn't super smart. I wasn't charismatic. I was not getting any, you know, real success, like 2,000 subscribers 5 years in. Um, the only thing I had going for me is I always focused on who I was serving instead of who I wasn't. Yeah. So for me, it's like if I had 50 people watch the videos, like, 50 people watch my video. That's pretty cool, right? Like, those are 50 real people who saw that. Like, if you were going to go give a speech at a library or something and 50 people showed up, at least for me at the beginning, I'd be super nervous and excited to go off and do that. But when it's online, we feel like we're some kind of failure. And I'm ambitious and I want to grow and I want to have a huge impact. And it's great to chase numbers. But I just always focus on who I was actually helping. I think that leads to a lot more satisfaction. Doesn't mean you stay complacent and only like gratitude doesn't mean that you have to stay stuck, but it makes you feel more connected to impact. You know, like we all want to wake up and feel like today's going to matter, that we're going to do something today. Maybe we're going to make something that hits a million people, or maybe we do something that just touches one person's life, but we want to feel like today is going to matter in some way. And that's what I always just— if I saw 50 views on videos, like, 50, that's weird to do that. And rule number 10, the last one before some very special bonus clips, is shift your perspective. I feel sometimes like, okay, one, one piece of the puzzle is, for example, going and it's kind of slowing down and I'm, I'm feeling a little bit exhausted, so I want to like turn and pivot into something that also excites me. And it's a different kind of hobby, different interest, different excitement, right? So it's like one thing I'll be be talking about, you know, leadership development or the other, and then all of a sudden I'll be curious about fashion and want to like navigate those two polarities so that I'm constantly feeling like I'm adding value in different industries. Well, here's the thing. I would, I would encourage a perspective shift for you to see that those are not actual polarities. Okay. So inside, but this is the challenge we have. So inside of leadership and fashion, What actually connects them? Like, what's a core value that you have? The expression for me. So then that's it. But yeah, so, so expression. Eric is all about expression, and, and it's how do you express yourself better and, and how do you allow others to express themselves better. Like, if somebody said, Eric, man, I listen to your show, or I watch you, or I had a conversation with you and you gave me the permission to express myself fully, that's like the greatest thing you could hear from somebody. I love it, right? Yeah, to me this is— But the job though for you then becomes to be able to communicate expression through the work. So it's not, if somebody just looked at the content, he's talking about leadership over here, he's talking about fashion over here, it feels like it's all over the place because you haven't done the job. And I mean, I haven't seen all your content, so I'm just putting that on, but when you can do the job to explain that it's expression, then it all makes sense. Then I'm watching Eric, not just for leadership tips. I'm watching Eric to figure out how can I express myself better in all areas of my life? There's this great interview with Jay-Z where he was talking about— somebody asked him, reporter asked him like, how do you move from rapping to fashion to being an entrepreneur? And he's like, it's just all about— I think expression might've been— is either expression or creativity was like— it was his answer. Your energy changes how you show up. When you are happy, positive, optimistic, full of life, creative energy, you, you make amazing things. But when you feel negative, down, depressed, sad for yourself, low energy, you know, you don't make amazing things. And this is not something new that I'm telling you. You know this. The challenge is we are not in a high energy state consistently enough to stay consistent on our goals, to follow through, to create the momentum. Because we allow outside forces as well as our internal voice to keep us small, to keep us protected, to keep us scared, to depress our courage muscle. And then even though you have great ideas and great ambitions and a great heart and desire to serve, Doesn't happen. Doesn't happen because the energy isn't connected to it. If you've got a big idea but low energy, nothing happens. You don't follow through, and you end up seeing other people with a worse version of your idea but just more energy go off and do it. Have you ever seen it happen? You ever seen somebody make tons of money, have a huge impact off of your idea, somebody with less heart and less vision and less creativity, but they just, they just did it. They just got started. They just took action and just stayed consistent in their energy, and they made it happen, and you didn't because you allowed the energy to dip. And so if energy is so important, then how do we, how do we manage our energy? How do we keep it high? And it doesn't mean that you always have to be on top of the world, and you don't have to delude yourself and say, I'm amazing, this is gonna be the greatest day of all time. Like, you don't— doing things that you don't believe won't help you get the energy that you need, because you'll do those things, say, this is BS, this isn't working. You don't always have to be in peak energy, but what you do need to do is be in the right energy to serve your mission and whatever you're doing today. So let me use me as an example. And today is a This is a great example because I did not sleep well last night. Had 2.5 hours sleep, just tossing and turning and just could not, could not get to sleep. So I slept from like 6:30 to 9 o'clock, did not sleep until 6:30 in the morning. And that is thankfully a rare occurrence. You know, most nights I get 8 hours sleep, 7.5 to 8.5 hours sleep, but on a day Just like today when I woke up and did not have a ton of energy, I did not wake up and say, "Yes, I feel like crushing it. Let's go." And I didn't want to do something that would feel fake and disingenuous because if you don't believe it, then it's not going to happen anyway. So what did I do? Well, first off, videos have to happen today because that's part of my identity, right? So momentum has to happen. So if you start to train yourself and you create a calendar and say, okay, today is a blank— I'm filming this on a Tuesday. Today's a Tuesday. Tuesday's my video day. No matter what, I'm filming videos. I got to film videos. It's got to happen. It may not be my best video, but I'm going to show up and give it my best that I've got, the best energy. This is, this is a lot lower energy than I would normally show up with a video, but it's a different vibe. It's a different kind of energy. And hopefully it still serves. And maybe, maybe you like and connect more with this energy than Evan yelling in the car. I don't know, but videos have to happen, first off. Second, get outside, you know, get outside, get fresh air, get some sun on my face. If you, you know, you want to change your energy, you want to shift where you're at and how you're thinking, because it's part physical energy but also just mental energy. How do you feel about what you're doing and what's going to happen today? And getting Getting out of your home, changing your physical environment, getting some sun on your face can make a huge difference. So every morning I have my Believe Walk, and I'm walking around the park getting some green, getting some sun. Hopefully it's not raining. Today's a beautiful day, and already it starts to make you feel a little bit happier, a little bit more in the right energy space. Music is a great way to change your energy, and often what we do is we put on songs that make us feel how we currently are. So if you feel sad, you put on a sad song. If you feel low, you put on a low song. You feel chill, you put on a chill song. Where what we want to do is, if you want to change your energy, put on the song that matches that energy. If you want to feel happy or upbeat, put on happy or upbeat songs. I have a playlist on my channel called #BELIEVE, all caps on the, on the letters BELIEVE. That's all of the songs that I listen to. And every day I've got that playlist going. I pick a random song and it just starts playing. And they're all songs that if they came on, it would make me move. And when you move, you start to change your energy. What I'm trying to do is, again, not create some fake energy, but something I can actually connect with. I'm putting on songs that I actually like. I actually like having some sunshine on my face, you know. I actually like doing the work that I'm about to do. But it requires you showing up with a certain level of energy. And then the last one is, you know, who you're feeding your mind with. Who are you around? Who are you surrounded by? Both the people in your life, you know, actual humans, and the videos that you watch or books that you read and podcasts you consume. I remember on the weekend, and you got to guard against this, it's crazy. So on the weekend, I went to go meet an old family friend, and he just had a lot of limiting beliefs about him and what he's creating and where he wants to go. And it wasn't, it wasn't meant to be a coaching session, and I'm not there to help him, but just a really negative, low energy on a weekend, and that's not usually part of my routine on the weekend. So I go to meet him, and my whole day ended up being thrown off until I caught it at night. I said, "Why am I so low and negative today in comparison to what I would normally be?" I thought back, like, "Oh yeah, you know what? Ever since I went to see him, I was fine in the morning. I went to see him and had this negative ripple effect." like you can have a positive ripple effect on people. You watch a video and it can have a positive ripple effect on you, but, but there's negative ripple effects too. And the people who you're surrounded by, who you're hanging out with, or you're watching on YouTube or podcasts, etc., they can have a negative ripple effect on you as well. And so he had this negative ripple effect on me that lasted almost the whole day until I caught it in the the evening, said, this isn't what I want. Maybe it's not even my voice. It's like his voice planted in me. Why am I feeling this way, thinking this way? I don't like it. And so it became a conscious choice, and I applied a lot of the same things. I thought— I went outside, went outside, reset, get some fresh air. It always helps me. Put on some music, songs that I actually like, not some fake song that somebody else likes and says dance 'Listen to this, it'll make you feel good.' Songs that I actually like. There are some songs that if it came on, it would make you move. It doesn't mean you get up and dance and go spastic and crazy, but there's some songs that if it came on, you would bob your head or you would tap your feet or bounce your knee. There's some songs that would just make you do that, right? So put on one of those songs. It would naturally make you feel happier. So I did that too. And then in terms of just guarding against people, I made a note that, hey, the next time I go see this person— he's a family friend— so the next time I go see him, which is not often, but still, the next time I see him, I need to remind myself of this, you know, that I need to have my shield ready. I need to give love as much as possible, and I'm not going to allow his negativity to break my my shield, you know, to permeate through. And so the more that you can catch those things, the more you'll stay in a more energetic state. And all of this, again, is not trying to force fake energy and have you feel like you're doing something unnatural. I think it's actually the most natural thing of all time. I think getting sun is natural. I think smiling and being optimistic is natural. I think everything— I think the negativity inside your head was planted there, was put there by other people. That's what's unnatural. When you were a kid and smiling and happy, had dreams for the future, everything was possible, everything was hopeful. Sure, you had bad days, but you were a happy kid. And all of those dreams and positivity gets squashed out of us by other people who hate their lives. And so I think having energy is actually the most natural thing. Not every day has to be on top of the world, but having positive energy is natural. Having sunshine leading to happiness is natural. Putting on music and dancing and moving is natural. Being around other positive, optimistic, happy people— when you're around them, you'll naturally be more positive, optimistic, and happy. And so it's about finding what is a natural flow for you. That when you do these things, it brings out a better energy in you. It brings out a happier, more positive, more optimistic you. And if you know what some of those things are, you can copy my list if you want, some of them, right? Sunshine, music, videos. Then put into your daily routine, put into your daily calendar. Every day this has to happen, because if you did the thing— just imagine this You've had days when you felt energetic and you've had days when you didn't, and everybody would give you the, the out, right? Like a day like today, 2.5 hours sleep, everybody would give me the out. It's okay, you don't have to do it. There are days when you need to bring the energy. If you did that every day, just imagine for the next month, every day, you did the thing that puts you in a better energy state, that you're on top of the world and then a fake high every day, but a better energy state. You did the thing in the morning that puts you in a better energy state for the next 30 days. How much does your life change? How much does how you show up change? How much does the work that you do change? How much does your bank account change? How much does the impact you're creating change? How much of a better father or mother or husband or wife are you because you're showing up with more energy, more positive energy. I think we play small by default. I think, man, we are capable of so many amazing things and we're constantly living in fear and excuses and reasons why we can't do something. And we, we have it trained in us from a young age— our parents, our family, our friends, our teachers. Think about who Who did you learn about life from? Probably people who didn't like their own life. You know, who did you learn about careers from? Probably people who did not have a great career, you know, who barely are enjoying what they're doing in their work and they're living in scarcity mindset of this is all I can do. And that's what we've learned from. And, you know, guidance counselors at school, do they love what they're doing? I mean, I think this is a huge problem. And we're stuck living small and living scared and living as a result way below our potential of what we could do and who we could help. I think it's a big problem. I think lack of belief is the world's number one problem. It's what I wake up every day trying to do, trying to help, trying to create. And so how do you, how do you get out of it? Well, I think the starting point is being around the people who are living in doing the things that you want to do. I think the way to 10x your results is not to 10x your effort. Sometimes it is, especially at the very beginning. Sometimes the answer is just do more work. But once you're at your max capacity, you get to a point where you can't actually 10x your work anymore. It's changing your mindset. It's getting new leverage. Busting through limiting beliefs because just working harder will not be the answer anymore, right? Is it working harder, working smarter? Well, it's both, right? You have to— working hard is your entry to the game. Nobody wins without working hard in anything. You have to work hard. But there's lots of people who work hard who never accomplish their goals, who don't end up succeeding or winning. Because they're not working smart. So it's always a mix of both. And so if you're not working hard, then you don't have a shot. But assuming you are working hard and you want to 10x again, then it's a shift in mindset and a shift in limiting beliefs. So how do you identify the limiting beliefs? How do you figure out where it's holding you back? How do you break through the paradigm and hit a new level? A lot of it is environmental, you know, the The current thinking that you have was environmental. It's your parents and your family and your guidance counselor and teachers and family, et cetera. That's environmental. You've adopted their beliefs and unfortunately a lot of them are negative limiting beliefs. There's probably some that are very positive, but a lot of them you've adopted that actually don't serve you anymore for what you're capable of and where you want to go, especially what's possible now. In today's environment. So the shift is in a new environment to start to surround yourself with the people who are like the people who you want to be, who believe the thing that you want to believe. And whoever is more confident wins. And so if you're around people who are deeply confident that the thing that they're after is possible, or they've already gone and accomplished it, if they deeply believe it and you just kind of don't believe it, they'll pull pull you into the land of belief because they are more confident in their belief than you are in the disbelief. And so it's finding the people who are living the life that you want, or at least aggressively chasing it down. They will motivate you, inspire you to want to go and live your life as well. So, well, how do we do that, right? I mean, it'd be great to be able to hang out with Warren Buffett and Elon Musk and all these people every day, but you know, we can't. So how do you do it? Well, Step 1, I think, is just through content. It's why I make so many videos on all of my channels, is why I've stayed consistent over a decade of making content. Why? Because I think when you are around the people, even just visually, even just through a computer screen or a cell phone, it starts to shift your beliefs and your mindset and what you can do. Even for me, I make these videos for myself so that I can be around John Assaraf and Warren Buffett, Elon Musk and Oprah Winfrey, etc., because they inspire me to want to be bigger. Looking at Elon Musk as an example, the news of the day right now as I'm recording this video is he's looking at buying Twitter. And when somebody asked me yesterday on Instagram, do I think Elon Musk will buy Twitter? I said, no, I don't think he'll buy Twitter, but it's probably not a good idea to underestimate Elon Musk, just in general, right? You know, lots of people have underestimated him and he's proven them wrong many, many, many times. And I just like the thinking. You know, one of the things I love about Elon Musk is whenever I watch his stuff, it challenges me to think bigger. Why would Elon Musk, logically, if you're thinking through it, if you were running Tesla, and SpaceX, would you have thought about buying Twitter? Would that enter the realm of possibility? You know, like, this is the difference between small thinking and expansive thinking. Like, in his world, it makes sense, and he wants to have a backup plan for the planet. Whenever I think I'm thinking big— Elon Musk is trying to have a backup plan for the entire planet— I realize I'm still thinking way too small. And the point of The key to that is not to beat yourself down like, "Oh, I'm not as big a thinker as Elon Musk." A lot of people say comparison is a thief of joy and a lot of people will get off of social media because they're comparing themselves to others. I think comparison can be a fantastic tool. I think it can be amazing because when you are running with people who only make you feel good about yourself but based off of their small smaller accomplishments, then you stay stuck and you stay a big fish in a small pond. I think competition is amazing, but using it in a positive way as opposed to looking at someone like Elon Musk and saying, oh, he's so much smarter than me, he thinks so much bigger than me, I suck, I'm never going to be able to do that. Look at it as a, hey, this is what's possible. There's not that big a gap between you and Elon Musk. It shows that it's possible, that you could do it too. If he can do it, then you can do it. He came from South Africa and immigrated to Canada, then immigrated to the United States. He had a father who he calls a monster who beat him. He had his friends bully him and push him downstairs at school. Like, he had, he had all sorts of pain and trauma and struggles in his early life, and he, if he can overcome that to get to where he's is that I see it as so can you, and I see the comparison as an opportunity that when you see somebody else do something, it makes you feel a lot more confident that you can do it too. And so just use it in a positive way instead of a negative way. So whenever I see someone like Elon Musk, it's a challenge to myself. And looking at him trying to buy Twitter, it's like, huh, what should I be doing? You know, it's easy to get stuck in the same, in the same groove, but the groove can also be a rut in that you're getting slow growth and improving where it could be a lot more expansive. You could be having exponential growth if you change your environment to be around the people who have expansive thinking, right? So step 1 is just through content, through aspirational mentors, what I call them. An Elon Musk, a John Assaraf, Oprah Winfrey, people who you may never meet, but you can still learn a heck of a lot from. Step 2 is to then try to go to some events that change up your environment, right? If we're a product of our environment, then if you're always stuck in the same habit, the same house, the same routine, the same environment, then it's going to constrict the thinking. Have you ever noticed when you go on vacation, you come up with some great ideas? Why? Well, you've changed your environment. You've been influenced by new things, and that leads to more expansive thinking. So it doesn't mean you have to go take a vacation to the beach or something this week, but what are some changes you can make to your environment? What are some conferences or events you can go to to be around the people who think the way that you want to think, to inject some newness, some creativity, some ideas into you that will have you come back a stronger, bolder, more courageous person because you've broken some of the chains of the rut that you are in, that things that used to make sense, like, yeah, that, that, that makes sense for me to keep doing. All of a sudden you go away to a vacation, a conference, an event, you come back, it's like, huh, I want to— You ever gone away and come back and wanted to be a different person? Wanted to be working on new projects, new goals, come up with new ideas? I get ideas all the time when I'm traveling. Just think about if you're just constantly stuck. It doesn't mean you have to go travel on vacation. It may mean you take up salsa dancing. It may mean you try a new hobby. Take that idea that you've got and just go to it. Look at any events that are happening in your city, meetup groups, conferences, clubs that you can join and be a part of to meet new people and take on a new interest. And I promise you, they may not all work out in terms of this is my next career move, but it leads somewhere. It's a part of who you are. You take the learnings and the lessons from that and it'll make you a better person, a better entrepreneur, and you'll find a creative way to mix things together. I think of Steve Jobs, who started Apple, who dropped out of university because he wasn't enjoying the classes, and he dropped in on calligraphy classes, drawing like text and letters for fonts, which made no sense. Like, why are you dropping out of this really practical school and material to then sit in on calligraphy? When are you ever gonna use calligraphy? It made no sense, but he was interested in it. And what ended up happening was when he, when he started the Apple and he created the Macintosh, it had the most fonts. It wasn't just boring computer fonts. There were a bunch of different fonts that he could use that people could then use in their word processing, etc. And it was the most beautiful computer at the time with, with unique fonts. Why? Well, because he pulled from his experience in his calligraphy classes. And how he describes it is you can't connect the dots looking forward, only only backwards. He didn't know going to the calligraphy class that, you know what, in 5 years I'm going to start a company and I'm going to have beautiful fonts as a part of it. He was just interested in calligraphy, so he went to the class not knowing how it ever working out, but trusting that the dots would at some point align in the future, right? So looking back, it makes sense. Oh, this and this and this all aligned to get me to where I'm at. But he wouldn't have known that unless he dropped out of school and dropped in on the calligraphy class. So it's changing the environments, being a part of new things. It's, it's not just staying stuck in the same habit, the same routines, and same thing that you're doing constantly. And that will inject newness that will then allow you to be more creative and create amazing opportunities for your next goals. So step 1 is to be around aspirational mentors, to be around the people like Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, etc., watching videos, content, interviewing interviews, podcasts, books that make you feel better, stronger, more courageous. Step 2 is to get out of your comfort zone and go to things, physical things, travel more, take on classes, say yes, go to conferences and events just so that you expose yourself to new ideas and opportunities and come up with fresher ideas of what you could do with your life. And Step 3 is to actually have humans in your life who you're around who make you want to push and do more and be better. And this means, hey, if you're hanging out with Elon Musk, amazing, that's awesome. You're probably not doing that, but who can you hang out with who are on the same similar path as you? And that's where I love groups like Movie Makers that I created for thought leaders. But, you know, it's not Movie Makers, something else. But being around other people who are doing the thing, who believe in this, in the same thing. If you're, if you're trying to run more, join a running club. You're trying to work out more, join a gym. If you want to be a thought leader, join Movement Makers. If you're like— join a club or a group where you can feel like you're not doing this alone, where you can talk to people about the journey that you're going on. Will they understand you and not look at you like you're some kind of alien, like your family or friends might? Like, what are you talking about? What are you getting into? Right? Join relevant Discord group, like be a part of a community because it's probably the biggest mistake I made early on in my life. I was doing everything all by myself. I had, I had business partners, I guess, but I felt isolated. I felt alone. I didn't have friends, had nobody to talk to. And I really, really, really struggled. So find other people who are on this journey that you can do it with. Because when you feel like you're doing it with other people and you're not alone, you'll be a lot more productive, a more effective and have a lot more fun as well. Your environment creates your energy. When you are at home and you are down and you are out and you just stay home and you never get any fresh air and you never get people around you to push you and make you feel like things are possible, then you stay stuck. And when you get outside or when you go to events and when you meet people, even if you're not there to learn Even if you haven't picked up anything at that event, just the fact that you got out and you met people and you changed your environment and you got some sunshine can make a world of difference. It is incredibly difficult to be an entrepreneur. It's hard. It's hard not just in that you're not seeing results at the beginning and you're trying to figure out how to make money, but it's also hard that you're by yourself and you doubt yourself and you have insecurities and fears and you don't know if it's gonna work out or not, it's really hard. And so when you're stuck doing everything on your own, and then the fears and the doubts and insecurities creep in when you're by yourself at home, that's the path down to the scary land, you know. That's the path down to anxiety and stress and depression. And it's why— a big reason why we stay stuck and why we start and stop and start and stop and start and stop and can't stay consistent. Have you ever been on that entrepreneur roller coaster where you're motivated and excited and things are great one day and the next day you wake up and it's kind of not so great anymore? Has that happened to you? That happened to me a lot, that's for sure, in the early days. I mean, I quit on my business partner because I wasn't getting results and I just felt like a loser, felt like a total idiot. Because nothing was working out. It was the worst day of my life. It wasn't that I didn't have the heart or the ambition to do great things or didn't believe in the company, it's just it wasn't working out. Nothing was working out. And I felt terrible about it. And a big reason why is because I was alone. I was by myself, I was alone. I didn't tell my friends. I mean, I guess I had a business partner, but I I felt bad talking about it with him, and I stayed stuck. And so it took me a bunch of years to figure out these things that I'm about to share with you today about some hacks that I've used to help me maintain the momentum. So let's dive in. The first is every morning I go for a believe walk, and the believe walk is just me going outside and sun or rain rain or snow here in Canada, I go for a Believe Walk. And on that walk, it's just a way to start my day, because no matter how great a day I might have today, tomorrow I wake up and it's another day. Even today was rough. I only slept 2 and a half hours or something last night, so it's a very non-typical day. Energy not where it needs to be or usually is in the morning. And so first thing, let's get up and, you know, give give ourselves a little bit of grace. It may not be as great a day as, as we usually do, but I'm gonna go for my Believe Walk. And just getting outside, just getting some fresh air on my face, just, you know, having some sun with me, just not being in my, my home already starts to lighten the mood, already starts to give me more energy. And so every day I go for a Believe Walk. You know, unless I am just completely incapacitated, I wake up, get some sun on my face wherever I am, and get my belief walk and just think about what's the kind of day I want to have. You know, what's my intention for the day and try to set that up. 2, try to go to events and to the idea of, you know, buy tickets to things. It could be things that you don't care about, but it could also be things that you actually, you know, you're going to be around some people. Every time I go away to an event, this is why the pandemic has been hard because you've just been sitting inside. But every time that I get to go away to some kind of event, whether I learn something there or not from the speakers or the people there, I always come back with renewed energy, with renewed excitement, with renewed ideas. Even if you just go on— remember going on vacations, you go on a vacation and you sit on the beach And I hate the beach, you know, I hate sitting there on the beach. I'll go and sit on the beach for one day and then all of a sudden get bored of sitting on the beach. I want to do something. And so I'm then instantly pulling out my notebook and coming up with ideas or reading books, and you come away refreshed even though the goal wasn't necessarily business, but you get new ideas for your business when you get out of your routine, your, your You know, the routine is great, but when you feel like you're stuck, then adding a little bit of variety to it can really help. This is the balance that we have to do as entrepreneurs. We love variety, we love new, we love, we love trying all sorts of new things, but if we don't stay consistent on something, we'll never accomplish our goals. But if all we do is do the same thing constantly and we stay consistent on doing the same thing, we end up getting bored and hating our business, and now we just bought ourselves a job. So it's that constant balance where if you haven't had any variety for a while, you need to add more variety in. And if you haven't had consistency for a while, you need to add more consistency. This ebb and flow, that's part of being an entrepreneur that I think you need to build in. So just scheduling time. So you have your believe walks, as I do every, every morning to set me up for the day, and then scheduling time to be able to go off and just, just not be at home, you know, whether it's a conference or an event, a vacation, just something to refresh my mind. And then the third thing is just join a community. It was one of the biggest things that I missed was I had no community. I was doing it all by myself, and being introverted and being shy, I don't naturally seek out community and talking to people. It's not something that is is normally in my mind, and I'm nervous, you know, going up and talking to people. So it's harder for someone like me and maybe someone like you to join a community, but man, what a difference it makes. I think of Movement Makers, and this is really the program I wish I had when I was getting started. You know, Movement Makers is, yes, advice for me, and we meet every 2 weeks and talk about your— the movement you're trying to build and everything you're trying to create. But more than that is the connection, community to each other. That if you want to be a thought leader, you are not by yourself. Think about what you're trying to do. If I think about what I was trying to do, like, I'm the only one who I know who's trying to do this. You know, who are your friends who are trying to make YouTube videos? Who else is walking through this mall making content, right? Nobody. So who do you know who's doing what you want to do? Probably nobody. And who do you know who's doing what you want to do at a high level, who's ambitious and hungry? Probably nobody, right? Like, you are probably the one who is the most kind, optimistic, ambitious person around you. And so when you start to get around other people who are like that as well, man, what a huge difference it makes. And so you can look at Movie Makers if you want to be a thought leader, but just in general, find a community. Find a community of people who are doing the thing that you are trying to do, even if they haven't done it yet, but they're ambitious and they're hungry and they're trying to do it, it could change your life. Starting a business is really hard, and you know this. If you're watching this video, you made it this far, you know it's hard. The environment that you're around is only partially supporting you, and when you can shake it up, when you can get outside and go for walks, get some sun on your face, when you can get out of your home and go to events, and just be around other people who are doing things. And when you can join a community of people who are trying to do something similar to what you're doing, it can make all the difference in the world. You've got a great idea. You're doing it for the right reason. You've got a noble cause. And if you feel like you have those energy dips where one day you're on top of the world and it's all exciting, and then the next day you kind of wake up and you're, you're in a rut. If that rut continues on, you know, for days or weeks, it's a sign not that you are on the— that this isn't right for you. It's just a sign that you need to add a little more variety and remind yourself of who you are. Be the change you want to see in the world. One of my favorite quotes, Mahatma Gandhi. If you're not happy with something, you're not happy with a situation, you fix it. That's why entrepreneurs are going to solve all the problems. As much as there's government and big business, I think it's entrepreneurs. It's us. We're going to solve all the world's problems because we see a problem and we want to fix it. We want to solve it. That's what we do. That's the most exciting part of being an entrepreneur is that you're not waking up and driving to some job that you hate where the work you're doing does not matter, has no meaning, and instead you get to do something that is actually going to touch somebody's life and that is meaningful to you, right? You get to pick. You get to decide, you get to choose. And we're trying to make the world a better place. We're gonna make money doing it too, but mission first, purpose first, and then making money along the way in service of others. And it's in that combination of what you love doing with what brings value to other people that you have a successful business. Part of that then becomes being a leader as well. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with being a leader because at the beginning we are just managing ourselves, and that's hard enough, right? It's like, have you had a hard time managing yourself? Have you had a hard time sticking to your routines and keeping to your motivation and staying strong and the things that you say you're gonna do? Like, self-management, self-leadership is hard enough. Now we're gonna go off and lead other people as well? And where do we learn about leadership? We don't go to school for this. We don't have programs. We don't probably have great mentors to help us. If you had jobs in the past, or maybe you had a job right now, you probably don't have the greatest leaders around you. Most people suck at it, but it doesn't have to be extremely difficult. And it took me a long time to get used to it and get better at it, and I'm still learning and improving. We've got almost 40 people on the team now, and when people ask me what's my definition, my definition of leadership It's I want people to win more than I want them to win with me. And so the key becomes wanting the humans that are on your team to win as humans more than you want them to win with you. That you can have this little disconnection. Obviously they have to do the work if they're gonna work with you, but sometimes the best thing for them to do is to move on. Not because they're not doing their job, job, but because it's the best thing for them. And so when I connect with the people on my team, it's always trying to figure out where do they want to go, what do they want to learn, what do they, what do they want to improve on. And I see everybody as running parallel paths with me. So the people around you, the people, even us right now, what we're doing right now, this is a parallel path. You've decided to watch this video, I decided to record this video, and we're sharing this moment in time. And maybe you never watch another episode Carmichael video again. Maybe you end up watching all my videos and we end up being partners on some future business. Who knows? You know, maybe I'm seeing you every day in the future. But as of right now, we're on this parallel path together. And when somebody's with you walking down that parallel path, the goal of a great leader, I think, should be to try to make that person leave better than than how they came in, right? Have you ever heard the expression— or maybe it's just my grandfather used to tell me about, you know, when you go to a hotel or you go to a new city or you go to a new event, they always try to leave the place better than when you came, you know? And hopefully that's our goal for life, you know. In this life, we try to leave the world a little better than how it was when we came in. And so if you take that approach to leadership that when you're with the people on your team, and maybe it's for a week on some really short internship, maybe it's for a year, maybe it's for 5 years, 10 years, maybe it's their entire life with you, that they have left a little bit better than when they came in because they got to hang around you. And not taking it as an ego play, like, I'm gonna make this person's life better because I am so amazing. It's more out of care. Genuine care for the people on your team. And I think when we're first hiring, we suck at it. Most entrepreneurs suck at hiring. Most entrepreneurs, their first employee is not with them, you know, a year, 2 years, 3 years later because they hired the wrong person. They have no idea how to manage that person. It's not that that person sucks. It's more that, you know, you don't have the skill set. We don't have the skill sets at the beginning. I mean, to know how to even find the right person, let alone manage them. That's a skill that we have to develop. I think it just starts with genuinely caring about the people on your team. Yes, they have to get the work done. There's a job that has to get done. But how we often think about it is more from a selfish perspective as I need to get this stuff off my plate. You're overloaded with work. Right, who's over— are you overloaded with work? We're overloaded with work, so I got to hire somebody to take this off my plate so I don't have to deal with that ever again, and it frees up my time to go and do other stuff, right? Sound familiar? Listen, at the beginning, when you bring on a team, it takes more time. It takes more time than it frees up because you have to train them, you have to listen to them, you have to care for them, you have to answer their questions. If you treat them like a robot or a monkey they're not going to stick with you. You're going to constantly be hiring and firing and hiring and firing. You're going to be massively frustrated and overwhelmed. And a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck in that cycle where— has this happened to you? You hire somebody, you know, looks great on paper, you're so excited for it to go, and then it doesn't work out a couple months later. And then you decide that, you know what, I'm just going to do it all myself, right? I know I can I can get it done, I'm just gonna do it all myself. Does that happen to you? That is not the path to building a movement. You know, you can have a great little solo business for yourself, but that's not how you change the world. That's not how you realize your potential. That's not how you have the impact that you know you're capable of having. You have to have people around you if you've got a big mission. If you don't have a big mission, it's just you, cool. Go for it. But if you've got a big mission, then it needs to be team, and that becomes a skill set that you have to pick up and learn. And so leadership for me is again caring about people as humans more than caring about them winning with you. It's about discovering what they want to learn and grow and improve at, and you being a vehicle to help them do that. And it's surprising how often you can find things that support them and support you. Not all the time. I remember having one guy on my team who his dream was to be a baker. Like, well, I don't have an interest in opening up a bake shop, right? But ultimately, you should, you should leave us and go do your passion because, because I can't help you inside of this job until I open a bake shop that can can really support you in what you want to do. And so even though he wanted to stay, he was staying more out of fear and insecurity than actually doing something that he was deeply passionate about. So I gave him till the end of the year. I said, it was, you know, summer, give him to the end of the year to, okay, you're, as of the end of the year, you, you're out and you have to go find a job. I love you, but you have to go find something that is in line with your dream. 'cause you staying here is safe and it's actually squashing your dreams. You have to go do your thing. And so, you know, he had to go and move on. I was appreciative for it and giving him time, not like, okay, you're fired next week. And then you have other people though, and usually you can find something inside of what they care about. So the amount of people who I've met on my team who then They want to learn graphic design or they want to learn Photoshop or they want to learn copywriting or they want to learn how to come up with good titles or they want to learn better communication skills or they want to learn— they have their lists of like the things that they want to learn. It's like, cool, as long as there's something that we've got that can help you with that, some kind of program, some project, something that can also bring value to the company, then Let's do it. Because when people are working on the things that they feel like they're growing in and they're learning in, they're gonna— it's just a good thing to do because it's, it's from the heart, you know? And when they feel connected to your heart, everybody's happier and more productive. But it's also just good business strategy if you want to just put your XO business strategy hat on. It's great. This is how karma becomes practical. If somebody's engaged and they feel like they're learning and they're growing and they're improving, you're gonna get the best of them versus if they feel bored and stuck and learning nothing new, right? That's what most people do in their jobs. And honestly, the bar for leadership is so low. It's so low. Most people wake up and drive to that job that they hate. So all you have to do, to be honest, to be their best boss is probably just to not be a bad boss. You don't have to be a great boss, you just have to not, not be a bad boss. You just treat somebody like a normal human being and actually have a little bit of care and compassion and curiosity to see them win in life. You do that, you're already probably their best boss of all time. I think that's a pretty low standard, but it's a great starting point to then be able to say, hey, no, I want, I want this person to have come out of my organization, whether that's in a month or year or 10 years from now, a better human because they were with us. And it's totally possible. It's just a mindset shift that these people are on your team because they have something to prove as well, and they want to learn. And it's not just about you saving your time time and dumping stuff off of your plate and giving it to somebody else so it can be all delegated away. It's that you are a leader and you care about people and you want to see them win and you're responsible for making sure that they get pushed outside their comfort zone. You got a big mission inside you. It's a huge mission and you can't do this alone. You may not have the skills yet to be the leader that you want to be. Maybe not yet. But you've got a big heart. And honestly, that's the biggest skill that you ever need. Your environment is keeping you where you are. Your environment has been perfectly designed to keep you exactly where you are right now. The people you listen to, the media that you consume, the habits that you do you daily, all of them, all of them are designed to keep you exactly where you are. So if you want to raise your game, if you want to raise your life, you need to raise your environment. I've changed a lot over the course of having this YouTube channel. The people who've known me the best and the longest, especially in the past 2 to 3 years, have said, Evan, you've changed a lot for the better. You've evolved. You're more confident. You have more, more poise. You're a better speaker. You, you're pushing the boundaries more. You've changed. What happened? How do I get that for myself? Right? People want it. Whenever you are off growing and learning and evolving, other people, they want it. They want a taste of it. They want to do it too, because we are not designed to just photocopy our lives over and over and over again. So how did I get it? I paid more attention to my environment. I paid more attention to my daily routines. I paid more pay more attention to the people that I hang around with. It's important. So looking at my physical environment, right? Look at this office. Look at the people behind me. This all means something to me. Looking at the new design that I've had here below. Putting things like my neck braces. It's down below. You can't really see it. But this inspires me. I walk into this every day. My YouTube videos, the channel, I create for myself. The people that I profile, I'm learning from. I feel like I have GaryVee in my head. I've got Oprah Winfrey in my ear. I've got Elon Musk telling me what to do, pushing me to try to get better. I hear these people talking about, "You have to be courageous. You have to be bold. You have to believe in yourself more." And when I feel myself being nervous about something, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, it's a push that I have to do it. And so I've designed my life, I've designed my environment to help push me to get to the next step. And it's scary. And it should be. Where am I going next? I don't know. I'm still a work in progress. But the more that you are around people who push you, who make you better, who make you want to do more, who pull you up to their level, guess what? The more you're gonna get there. The alternative is you're stuck where you are. You stick with your friends, you stick with the media you consume, you stick with the habits that you have. And listen, if you love your life, awesome. If you're good, then you're good. Then, then, then don't change anything. But if you're not happy with where you're at, if you know you're capable of more, especially for the entrepreneurs, you know you're capable of more, you know you have a gift, you know you're a genius, you know what's in here needs to get out there, can have a huge impact and help a lot of people. If you feel like that's you, then you need to make a drastic change to your environment. You need to change it because everything you're doing right now is keeping you on the path that you're on. Maybe there's been some growth. If you look at who you were 5 years ago compared to now, you've grown. If you're watching this channel, you've grown, right? You've made some changes, but is it drastic enough? Like, are you proud of where you're at? Look at where you've come from in the past year, 2 years, 5 years. Are you proud of where you're at? And are you comfortable with that same level of growth for the next 5 years? If not, if you think, I want more, I want to help faster, I want to have a bigger impact faster, quicker, then the fastest way to do it is to change your environment. So if that's you, I'm going to give you a 3-step process that I think will help. Step number 1 is cut out negativity. Just cut out the people who don't serve you. Sometimes those are friends that you've had from kindergarten or high school or university. You're in the friendship out of convenience now. There's a lot of people who you might need to let go of. You might need to just let them go. They don't serve you anymore. You've, you've walked your parallel path together, and now they've gone out— well, they probably just stayed here while you've gone out here. They don't serve you anymore. And it doesn't mean you have to be a mean person or cold or rude. You're just not on the same path anymore. And a lot of people fight that because you're worried about finding new friends or being around new people. And so you stick with these people who don't serve you anymore, and that's a mistake because they're keeping you where you're at. Because their negativity, their complaining, their unwillingness to change, their pessimism, their laziness, they're not chasing down goals, that, that becomes toxic. Even if you're trying to be a beacon, even if you're trying to be the person who pulls everybody up, if all you're doing is trying to pull other people up and there's nothing pulling you up, you're going to be limited for life. When I went to the Tony Robbins event, the second one where he invited me to come as his guest, At the end of the first day or second day, you're asked to go do a firewalk, and the whole idea is to do something scary. Well, I went home to my Airbnb at the time, and, and I did the scary thing. I didn't— I skipped the firewalk at Tony's event to go home and do the real firewalk, which was letting go of some people that I had been around for, in some cases, a decade plus, that this doesn't serve me anymore. I'm doing this just out of convenience. Opinions instead of something that's actually helping me grow. And so I need to shed this skin so that I can be reborn. Like, there's this new skin under you that's trying to grow, right? You're trying to become a butterfly, but you're forced to stay a caterpillar. You don't want that, so you got to let go of the negativity. Sometimes that might be family. And with family, maybe, maybe you should cut out some of your family members from your life. Maybe, maybe that's— that sounds drastic, but Maybe you should. A less drastic version of that is just don't talk about some things. Limit access. If you know that career talk is always going to cause problems with your family, then don't talk about your career. Say, "I'm not talking about that." And stand up for yourself. At what point is this your life? This is your life. Your parents, the people around you, they love you, they want you to have success, they just, they're from a different era, they're a different generation, they don't know what's even possible right now. What they did— if you're 21, their life at 21 was totally different. Your parents' life when they were your age was totally different. They don't understand what's available right now. And so even though their messages is out of love, likely— like, your parents probably love you. They just don't understand what's possible, and you can't blame them. This is your fault now. You need to accept responsibility responsibility for where you're at and limit conversations, limit exposure, cut out the negativity from your life. It's really hard for a seed to grow when it's in a toxic waste dump, and that becomes a choice. You know, a seed, where it gets planted, doesn't really get the choice of where it gets planted. But you, you get to choose. You get to change your environment. So choose powerfully and cut out the negativity from your life. Step number 2 is then seek out optimism, seek out positivity, seek out things that that make you want to learn, that make you want to push yourself. Right? I have my channel that's really helped me. That every day I wake up and I'm surrounded by positivity and optimism and belief and things that drive me forward. That even if I've had a rough sleep or a bad day or whatever it might be, I see Steve Jobs right next to me staring me down. I have my parents behind me looking at me, encouraging me, putting belief back in me. I've got videos to go to. That will build me up. I've got my believe playlist of music that I listen to that will change my state and bring me back to a place of optimism, positivity. What is it for you? Is it people? Do you need to be around people physically? Can you go to meetup groups? Can you go to the library or coffee shop? Can you go join some entrepreneur circles? Can you become part of a coworking place? Can you be around people that are positive, that are energizing? For you? Or can it be your physical environment, right? Or can it be your habits and your routines? Or can it be the, the media you consume? What are you consuming? What are you watching on TV or on Netflix? Is it, is it entertainment? Are you just shutting off your life to try to forget about your problems and just be entertained? Or are you trying to educate yourself to build a better life? This is, this is one of the fundamental problems in the world right now. People, they have problems. You have problems. Most people choose entertainment as a way to forget about their problems instead of education as a way to make their problems better. Do you want to shut off the world and, and laugh at somebody else's expense and watch Big Brother and see, man, that person's life sucks? Or do you want to go build a better life for yourself? Most people don't want to do the work to actually build a better life. I hope that you do, because that's how you actually end up being happy? Do you want to numb it with drugs, or do you actually want to build a better life for yourself? And then step number 3 is schedule for success. Schedule for success. So what are your daily habits? What's in your calendar? What is the thing that makes you feel bold, alive, contagious, you know, optimism? What's the thing? For me, it's watching videos. For me, it's going through my 5S schedule. So I start the day with singing, where I have videos that are on YouTube that just There are songs that make me want to sing, make me want to dance, make me want to move. It's the fastest way to change your state. I wake up tired and maybe low energy, and then I put on music and it changes my state. It makes me happy. Do that for yourself. Don't put on music that matches your current mood. Put on music that matches the mood that you want to feel like. It's the fastest way to just in a snap be able to change yourself. We all have music that makes you bounce and come alive. Start your day with that. Right? That's part of mine. Singing, then sun. I like getting sun, going outside, being in nature, just having sun on my face, not just being stuck inside all day, especially in the morning. It makes a big difference. My third S is soar. So I want to do something that makes me feel bold and come alive. And for me, I don't have my phone here, but for me, I share a message. I want to share a message. I want to feel like the work that I do has meaning and importance. So I think about somebody that I helped yesterday, and then I share a message on Instagram and Snapchat. And put it up. That helps me soar. What do you need for yourself? Then I sweat, so I'll do a quick workout, and then I do something to scare myself. Right now it's doing, um, cold shower. So I sweat and then I take a cold shower, and it's like, and I do difficult things. That's my morning routine, right? I call it the 5, 5 and a half S rule because some days I'll start with a snuggle with my wife in bed. So we're seeing if that's going to become like a 6 6S protocol, but at least it's 5.5 right now. That's what makes me come alive. You might need something totally different. I'm okay with that. That's amazing. Maybe you need to meditate. Maybe you need to pray. Maybe you need to pet your cat. What is the thing that you need to do to make you feel bold and alive? And then schedule that in so that you're not hoping one day that something happens. You're not hoping that you're going to meet the right person or hoping you're going to find the right video. Demand excellence from yourself. Demand positivity and optimism from yourself every day. Because if you did, if you were bold, confident, optimistic, positive every morning, if you created that system for yourself, man, what could you accomplish in a year? Can you imagine? If you did something every morning that made you feel bold and confident, if you felt bold and confident every morning for the next year, imagine the life and business that you're going to have. It's crazy. It's wild, right? So you have to create that. You have to schedule for success. Success will come from your habits. So look at your calendar. What are your habits? And if you did these habits, would it lead to you becoming a success? Nothing happens until you do something. Your life doesn't change. Your business doesn't change. Your situation— nothing changes. Nothing changes. Nothing gets better until you decide to do something. This is where a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck. Is that we're so obsessed with learning, and it's great. Learning is amazing, and watching videos is amazing, and going to events is awesome, and reading books and learning is just awesome. But it's easy to get stuck in our head and feel like the fact that we learned something, got inspired, got motivated is enough. It's not enough until you go and you do something. Your life doesn't change until you do something. And so I've seen a lot of people who, who just seminar hop, who go from one person's seminar to the next person's seminar to the next person's seminar, and you go and you celebrate and you write a whole notebook full of ideas, but then nothing's changed in their life. And listen, that's better than the per— than most people. Most people are just trapped. Most people do not like their life at all. Most people are not investing anything in education and learning and improving. So at least it's a step up from there, but it's not where you ultimately want to be. The difference in where you are now and where you could be in a year, 2 years, 5 years, etc., is not just what you've learned. It's the action that you've taken. It's learning something and then immediately applying. And the ability to be a fast starter and build momentum, I think, will make an incredible shift forward for you as a new skilled learn this year. So for example, I just came back from a crazy number of events. I was recording a VR version of Built to Serve in Arizona, which was awesome. And then I went to two back-to-back events where I was invited to be a guest speaker and sit in on the events of one, you had to pay $25,000 to be there and the other you'd be $100,000 to be there. The $100K event was a lot smaller and more intimate than the 25K event, but still highly successful entrepreneurs in the room caring about personal development, lots of speakers. And I had a binder full of notes, right? As I learned something, as I want to apply something, I'm writing it down feverishly. And at the end of that week, it was intense. You know, I mean, some of the notes, for example, on my last day, I went for coffee with a guy who had sold his business for over $200 million. And he picked me up from my hotel and we went to his, his compound, not just his house, and spent a couple hours there. And then he drove me to the airport. And these are the kinds of people who are at these events. And so if you're talking about people who had built and sold 9-figure businesses, uh, there's a lot of wisdom, there's a lot of learning. I'm trying to soak up as much as I can and extract from his brain into to mine and, and take as many notes as possible. And I remember sitting on my airplane ride home and just being one, incredibly grateful for all the awesome humans that I met and the advice that I got, and then feeling overwhelmed. I've got so many notes just from this past week. I've got so many notes, I don't know what to do next. And so what what I used my time on the airplane. There was no direct home— there's no direct flight home from Phoenix to Toronto. And so I had a lot of airplane time, and I used that time to map out what I was going to do next. The worst thing you can do is just go get inspired by anything, whether it's an event, a book, a podcast, a video. You just get inspired and then you fall back into your regular routine. You get so overwhelmed by so many things that then nothing happens. You get excited but then overwhelmed, and then nothing happens, and you fall back into your regular life. Where the best thing you do is take some kind of immediate action. So one of the things, as an example, that this guy who sold his business for $200 million said was have a single most important number. What is, what is the most important number that would drive your business forward? And align all of your business businesses around that. And so everybody on the team has a, has a single most important number they're working towards. And his structure was most important number, and then the drivers underneath it, and then the action steps that you had to pick. So whatever— if you could workshop it right now, think about what's the single most important number for your business right now. What are the 3 drivers that then make that up? So to help get you that number, there's 3 things, most important things that you can do to help you focus. And then underneath those drivers are the action steps that you're going to take. This is his methodology. And I liked it. I'd never heard of it before. I liked it. He's writing a book on it. And so he gave me the first draft of the book for me to be able to read. And he said, hey, I'm happy to hop on a call with you for 2 hours to walk you through the process and how you can apply it to your company, whether you know, it's you by yourself, you with Nina, well, we'll do a Zoom together and I'll help you through this. I'm like, this is amazing, right? Like, yes, I love this. Uh, it's like, when, when can we do it? He's like, I'm, I'm busy and I'm traveling, whatever. And so, you know, 2 and a half weeks out from when I left is when, when we're gonna do it. I'm grateful and it's awesome, but that's too long. And so I'm of course not saying no to being on the Zoom and getting his wisdom, but I need I'm gonna do something now because I don't want to just— I don't want to wait 2 and a half weeks, right? Like, stop being in the waiting business. So I just started. So on the plane ride, I came up with my— some most important numbers for me and for the team and how to organize it. And then when I got home, I talked to Nina about it and we started working it and planning it and creating Google Docs around it and starting to tell the team about it and restructuring my meetings around it and making some changes even though I don't have the model. I haven't talked to him yet. We haven't gone in deep. We haven't done our 2-hour session. And I'm sure after we talk, I'm gonna have to make some more changes too, that he's gonna look at what I did and say hopefully some of it was right and that some of it was wrong and I need to tweak it. And that's fine. But the most important thing is that I took some immediate action, that I took this binder full of notes and ideas that that are inspiring, but then got overwhelming to say, what am I going to work on when I get home? And 80% of the things in that notebook don't have to happen. Right? If you read a book, you don't need to apply everything in the book. You just need to apply something to start making a difference. If out of every video that I make, you just apply one thing to your life and it makes a difference for you, that's all you need. Right? And so the willingness To stop learning and start applying is hard, but is important. The willingness to put down a book. If you're reading a book and you're getting a lot from it and you think of an idea to apply to your life or your business, stop reading the book and go do something on that idea. If you're watching a video, listening to a podcast, you get it, you get inspiration. Stop the video. Stop this. If something came to you while I'm talking, stop. Press pause on the video and go do something on that idea. And maybe you never even come back to the video. Cool. You've done something. That's more important, right? Like where you are now to where you're going to be in a year is going to be the sum of the actions that you've taken, the inspired actions. And the inspiration can come from the books and the videos and the conferences conferences and podcasts and events. But just inspiration alone is not enough. It's the action. It's inspired action to go and do something. And so it's something I'm constantly reminding myself of. And as you make your path down personal development and growth and learning entrepreneurship, it becomes very easy to get sucked into the trap. And let me just quickly explain why. When you're learning, everything is possible. When you're at an event or you're watching a video, everything is possible. It's like, yeah, man, I could create this and I can build that and I could be up here and I can serve so many people. Everything is possible. And it's such an exciting place to live in, you know, that visionary inside us that wants to change the world and other people are doing it and you're, you're trapped. You're not trapped, you're locked into that zone and it's exciting, right? Everything is possible. And then when it gets to taking action, everything becomes scary. You're judging yourself for not being good enough. You don't know how it's going to work out. You're afraid the first step is going to be a bad first step. You're just— all of the fears and the doubts and the insecurities come flooding back in. And it's easy to eliminate all of that, all of those fears and insecurities, by going and learning something else. Like, oh, if I learned that, then, oh yeah, everything's possible again, right? It becomes an addiction. We're addicted to the learning and growing and the, the knowledge because it makes us feel good. But what you need to start getting addicted to is the action, is the service, right? Like, get addicted to serving people, get addicted to helping people. And that will not come until you take the ideas that you come up with and the knowledge that you figured out and apply it. The best thing you can do whenever you've learned something is to apply it. And I call it the 2% difference. What is the first 2% that you need to act on? Stop the videos, put down the book, and just do something on the first 2%. Expect it to suck, expect not to get results, but build momentum. When you start building momentum, when you turn yourself from being a knowledge machine into momentum machine. That's when you start serving. That's when you start helping. That's when you start building a life that you want. That's where the fulfillment comes. That's where the money comes. Everything is on the other side of taking your knowledge and turning it into inspired action. Burnout is real, but I think most burnout happens because people are not doing the thing that they actually love doing. It's not just about being busy and keeping your mind occupied all all day. You can be busy and hate your life and get burnt out. If I was an accountant, I would hate my life and burn out in a day because I don't like being an accountant. But doing this thing that I love, I put in way more effort, way more work, and I love it. It's been 10+ years of still having my YouTube channel and I'm not burnt out. If anything, I'm pushing harder than ever before because I love it. And so I think it's not just about being busy, it's about being busy on thing that is your mission for life. Now compassion fatigue is a thing. Doing it so much that you burn out yourself is possible, but again, that is not why most people are burning out. Most people, I believe, are burning out because they're spending too much time, too much energy, too much effort doing things that they hate. And if you wake up and hate your life and hate the job you're about to go to, then there's no wonder why you feel like you're burning out. So I recently came back from going to Tony Robbins's event in Dallas. He invited me to sit in the front row, and I'm super blessed and grateful to have Tony's support. And I went there with Alex, friend of the channel who helps me run Toronto Dance Salsa, and we're on a super crunch timeline because Alex was teaching classes the, the evening before we left and then the day of the last event. And we, we rushed down there. Alex was flying in just to get to the event. He's late on the first day, we're rushing to leave on the last day, and it's nonstop. If you've been to a Tony Robbins event, it's all day, all night, it's 8 in the morning to midnight, and then up again the next day and doing the same thing. And it's wild, and it's fun, it's amazing. And my favorite thing to do whenever I travel is actually meet Believe Nation, meet you guys. And so all through the event, I wear my Believe hoodie, and I'm not wearing Grant stuff, I'm wearing Evan Carmichael stuff. With the plane and the Believe on the back and people are stopping me. And that's actually the best. It doesn't take away from my experience. Tony's often on stage at the top at the beginning of every event saying, hey, I have some friends of mine, you might know them, they might be celebrities, leave them alone, don't talk to them, let them have their own experience. And it always makes me sad when he says that because for me, meeting you guys, meeting people who recognize me, and that's a group that I over-index because because people who watch Tony videos, you know, they're probably going to find my content. I like it, I like it more when people come and say hi. It adds to the experience for me. And then on the last day before we rushed out to go to the airport, I set up a meetup, right? I had an hour open before having to get to the airport, so let's do a meetup. Let's do a local Dallas Richardson, Texas meetup, right? And, and it could have spent the time doing something else or sleeping in or writing my book or doing anything else. But it's not burnout for me. Like, that fuels me. That gives me more energy. I love it. Hanging out with Believe Nation gives me more energy than it takes away. And I then took an Uber to get to the airport, and the guy who drove the Uber was actually in the meetup in Richardson. He's like, I gotta leave early 'cause I gotta start my job. Okay, great. And then I book an Uber and there he is. A total fluke, but amazing. And so it's a lot of work. You know, I was all day, all night, not connecting with my team, not doing the things that I'm supposed to be doing. And then I still make time to be with people and make a 1-hour meetup because that hour was open and it fuels me. But if it was something that I hated, just that half an hour just 15 minutes, I'd start to feel like I'm burning out, like I don't want to be here, like this is terrible. And so I think it's really important that you're doing work that you love that would be a burnout for other people but not a burnout for you because you love it so much. So how do you find it? How do you find the work that you love? I got a 3-step process called Who, Why, How. I'm going to talk about it in depth in my next book, but let's do a super quick analysis here to help you guys who might be struggling. Step number 1 is who. So you Your who is your most important core value. What is your most important core value as a human being? Mine is believe. It's the one word most important core value for me. So when you figure out what it is that you stand for as a human, you can then look at your life and see where you're falling short. If you are unhappy with life, it's because you are living incongruently with your most important core value. So someone whose core value is freedom, as an example, you can look at your life like, are you allowed to be free? Are you free at work? Are you free in your relationships? Are you free, you know, in these different areas? If not, then you're not gonna be happy. That's why you're not happy, because your boss doesn't allow you to have freedom. Mine is belief. So belief has to be in everything that I touch. If there's a situation that's lacking belief, I'm not gonna be happy with it. So that just gives you already an indication of who you are and starts to make sense of your life going backwards and allows you to plan it better going forward. So it's one of the most important exercises I think anybody can do— figure out what your who is. Who I have. Step 2 is why. So why is your purpose? Your purpose comes from your pain. Your purpose comes from the deepest, darkest, most painful moment in your life, whatever that was. Your purpose is to help other people who are currently going through that thing. Whatever you struggled with, suffered with, endured, felt like you never want to wish that on your worst enemy, never want to go back and experience again— that pain. That's what I'm talking about. About. You want to help other people who are currently going through that pain because there's a lot of people who are currently going through that thing. Who you were X number of years ago, there's a lot of people who are currently like that right now. That's who you want to help for life. That'll never get old. That's your purpose for life. I want to help entrepreneurs for life. I believe in entrepreneurs for life because I struggled so much as an entrepreneur and I want to make the path a little bit easier for everybody else. So that's your why. And your who and your why are constant. They never change. Your core values and your purpose are for life, and that's amazing. The last step is how. Who, why, how. How is your passion. How is how you got out of the pain that you're in. So you struggled with something. How did you get out of it? You may not be fully out of it. Maybe you're still on your journey out of it, but you're further ahead than you used to be. How did you get out of it? Did you read books? Did you watch videos? Did you meditate? Did you walk your dogs? Did you listen to music? Like, how did you get out of it? How did you get out of it? And that is a recipe that you can teach other people. How you got out of it was not some random one-off situation. You can teach other people. So I struggled a lot with my business. I felt worthless as a human. I wanted to quit. I told my partner that I quit. How I got out of it was modeling success. I looked at Bill Gates, how he started Microsoft, and I applied those strategies to my business, and we started to see some success. 20 years later, what am I doing? Still modeling success, right? I want to learn from Grant. I want to learn from Steve. I want to learn from Kanye. I want to learn from these people. It's why I keep creating this content. How I got out of it was studying success, and now I teach other people how to study success, right? How you actually go about doing it may change. When I first started doing it 20 years ago is through books, right? Now it's through videos, and in 10 years, 20 years, it's gonna be through VR and a bunch of other technologies that I'm sure are coming. But the how you got out is a teachable recipe that you can give to other people. So if you're struggling with burnout and you think it's because you don't love the work that you're doing and you know that you're destined for something greater, that you do have Michael Jordan-level talent at something but you don't know what it is and you want to figure it out, figure it out. This is, this is the process. This is the easiest process I know of to get there. Figure out your who, your one word most important important core value. Figure out your why—your purpose comes from your pain—and figure out your how, which is your passion—how you got out of it, you can teach other people. And that will set you up for an amazing life with hopefully very little burnout and definitely a lot of purpose. Standing up has changed my life. Not just standing up for myself and standing up for what I might believe in and the standing up—what is it? It's not metaphysical, the theoretical, I don't I don't know, but actually standing up, like the physical standing up, going from sitting down like I am right now in my car, but just standing up has changed my life. Stand-up desks are now a huge trend and a huge boost, and I would definitely recommend checking some of those out. But when I first started standing up was probably— wow, I don't know, maybe 20 years ago, 15 years ago. I just found that when I was on the phone and talking— see, this is how it started. So I've been on— I'm actually now on a— my office is a trampoline, so I'm on a stand-up trampoline desk. I had to raise my desk, uh, 10 inches so that the trampoline could be underneath it. And I get 20,000 to 40,000 jumps a day on my trampoline and went through 3 trampolines last year because they broke, because most are not designed to be jumped on that often, but trampolining while working might be a stretch for most people right now. If you ever see me and I'm doing an interview and I'm on my main computer, you might see me doing little micro bounces and I'm trying to control it, like hold it onto the desk, like don't bounce, don't bounce, don't bounce, because it can be annoying to watch on an interview. But for the most part, I'm bouncing up and down all day long on my trampoline. Now, why? Why did I start this? Well, 15, 20 years ago, I just found that when I was on the phone and I was, I was talking to clients, I would be better when I was walking around. I don't know if it's a nervous energy or what, but when I sat down, it was less energetic, less, less like, let's go do this thing. And when I, when I stood up, it was just, I had more energy. You could test yourself. Do you have more energy when you're standing up or when you're sitting down? And so on calls, I would not just stand up, but I would walk around. I like to have something going on. I often— people comment on some of my videos where I fidget with my ring. So my ring, whenever I'm thinking, I like to be— I don't like to be meditative and still. I like to have something going on. So I'm often fidgeting with my ring, or you might see my ear ears move up and down every now and then when I'm thinking. I like walking around, just having something going. It helps me think and process better. And so that was the starting point, was just, okay, cordless phone and walk around. Then I discovered a stand-up desk. I forget who it was, it might have been Tim Ferriss, again way back in the day. And the, the test was not full-on stand-up desk because those barely existed. But I took my bookcase and I cleared off the book— all the books in the bookcase, and I found the shelf that was the kind of the best height to put my laptop on. And I just tried standing there. And I think this is a good life hack, not just for standing up or not, but just in general. If you want to try something, don't go off and buy the most expensive thing and wait 3 weeks for it to be delivered. Just go try something right now. So if you want to try stand-up desks, don't go buy a stand-up desk. Don't do that. That's the worst thing you can do. Don't spend a ton of money on a stand-up desk and then wait 3 weeks for it to be delivered to you. Just take a bookcase or take some boxes and put it at the right height and see how it feels. You want to start a YouTube channel? Perfect. Don't, don't go researching and spend weeks buying the gear and the lights and the cameras and all that stuff. And most of that— most of the stuff in these little experiments end up failing. And they— now you bought all this gear that's just sitting in your garage, you know, your closet, or your mom's basement. The best thing to do is just start. Find a small way to just get started. And so I stood up at my bookcase, and the first day I didn't last very long— 20 minutes, 40 minutes. I I didn't last very long. When you're not used to standing up, it's really hard. It's like, oh, where— I need to sit down. And after that first 20 or 40 minutes, I got tired and I had to sit down because my body wasn't used to it. But while I was standing up, it's like, I really like this. This is cool. I have more energy in just answering emails and whatever else I was doing at the time. I had more energy. So I'm gonna try it again. And that 20 minutes became 30 30 minutes became 40, became 2 hours, became 4 hours, became 6 hours, to the point where I was like, I could just stand up all day long. It became weird when people came over to my office because there were no chairs to sit down at. So when we're doing a meeting, I'm standing up. And so they were standing up because there were no chairs, and it felt awkward to have one person standing, one person sitting. And then they start getting tired. After 20 minutes of standing up, you got tired. So I had to, I had to bring chairs back to my office to host meetings in. But that was the process. That was the starting point. And it turned out to have all sorts of positive health benefits. And I had, I had foot issues. I had the things that you put in your, in your shoes, what they're called, not implants, customized soles. Whatever. I was going to a chiropractor, like in my 20s, I was going to chiropractor almost every week because my back was, was a mess. My knees were, were achy and cracking every time I was walking. Like my body seemed to be falling apart in my 20s. I'm now 42 in May. I'm 42 and my body is in better condition than I was in my 20s because a big I think a big factor is because I'm on a trampoline all day long. Instead of sitting all day long with terrible posture and my body falling apart, now I'm jumping on the trampoline all day long. It's easy on my joints, my body. I'm happy, I have more energy, and as a result, I'm healthier. The move to a trampoline came because I was, I was already standing up for at least 5 years, maybe more. And I saw Tony Robbins do his seminars, and backstage he would always jump before he goes on stage. Tony jumps a couple times on his rebounder. Rebounder is just a mini trampoline, not like the giant trampolines like what you have in your backyard. A rebounder is a mini version of it that you can keep in your office or your home or whatever. He jumps a couple times on his rebounder, sprays something something in his mouth, uh, does like a spin, and then walks on stage. If you ever see him backstage, that's what he's always doing. He jumps on his trampoline a couple times, puts something in his mouth, spins around, goes out on stage ready to go. And so that's pretty cool. I wonder what he's spraying in his mouth. And I like the whole trampoline thing. If I'm already standing up, why not get a trampoline and try? And so again, What's, what's the easiest way to go off and do it? Well, I went to my local Walmart and I bought a rebounder and brought it home and had to adjust the height of my desk and had to raise it beyond what the max height was. And the rebounder I bought ended up breaking shortly after because it wasn't designed to be jumped on that often, all day long, every day. Right. But whatever, it's fine. Lessons learned, right? You figure figure it out and think, is this worth doing or not? Take the idea that you've got and try, because again, the biggest thing that most people are missing is just momentum. You're just not trying. You have this, you've got this idea, and we spend our best energy planning it and ideating and researching, and what's the perfect trampoline and what's the perfect stand-up desk? And you spend all that energy researching, and then tomorrow you wake up, but the next week you come back, or the next month whatever, and like nothing has happened on it still. You have all these great intentions, but there's not enough momentum. And so idea to action. Trust that your ideas come to you for a reason and go do something about them. And so go get the stand-up desk by creating boxes in your office. You know, go get the cheapest trampoline at Walmart and just jump on it and see how it feels. It's ended up changing my life. So I'm not used to sitting down anymore. We actually moved. We just sold our place. We bought a new place, and I moved into one of the rooms as a temporary place while we were showing our place because my office backdrop doesn't— is not very conducive to selling the house. Most people are not used to a stand-up desk, a giant stand-up desk and trampoline and all that. And so I took my office down because when you're selling a home, you want it to appeal to everybody. And I sat down for, I don't know, a couple of weeks while we were selling our place. And all of a sudden the back issues came back. I was cracking my back a lot. My knees started to hurt again. My feet started to hurt again. My posture was terrible again. And I realized, wow, this is why. I stand up. So, 2 lessons in this video. The first is try standing up. You know, you'll probably have more energy. You'll probably feel better. It's probably better for your health. People say sitting is the new smoking, right? So, try standing up and just give it a shot. And don't stress out if you get tired after 20 minutes like I did the first time through. It's okay. But do you have more energy while you're working? While you're standing up. And if so, then just keep going and just start with a bookshelf or some bookshelves or some boxes, whatever, just to get started. And the second lesson is just do something. Just momentum. Imperfect action. The ideas that you have in your head are great. They're genius. You need to do something. You need to stop putting the gas pedal on the energy that's flowing through you. Greatness is flowing through you and you're actively saying stop, stop, stop. Do something. Find the smallest possible way today, today, like right now, the smallest possible way to take that awesome idea in your head and build some momentum towards it. Because the only thing you're missing towards your great life is the momentum. Focus on one idea and make it work. Focus on one business model. Focus on one revenue stream. Focus on one social media network. And make it work. So many times we're focused on too many things, we're distracted, and our entrepreneur ADHD kicks in, and as a result, nothing happens. For all the people who are telling you to have 13 different passive income streams because if one goes away, you still have all these other 12— most of the people who start off doing that make zero money from all of the passive income streams. You're making $10 a month, $4 a month, $7 a month, where instead if you if you could focus on one thing and maximize it and make it amazing and put your energy into it, you will see exponential results. I look at social media as an example, and I just finished this training where we did the 7-Day Build to Serve Challenge. It was amazing, had so many awesome new thought leaders coming to the program. People have got a big message, want to serve, and one of the questions I kept getting asked is, how do I be on every social media platform? How do I be everywhere? How do I get started and just blow up everywhere. And it's like, you don't, right? The answer is don't, don't, don't try to do that. If you are the person right now who is trying to be everywhere, look at your social media accounts. Chances are you're sucking everywhere. Chances are not, not you suck as a human, just the results aren't there. The effort's not there. The energy is not there because you're so forcing yourself to just get out there and create content and be on all the platforms. That you also have a million other things that you have to do. And so as a result, you're, you're creating really mediocre content, content that people aren't interacting with. And if people don't like what you're putting out, it's not going to lead to results for your business. And so much, much, much, much, much better— it doesn't mean that you can't be there, you know, it doesn't mean that at some point you can't be there, that as you build your brand and you get bigger and you hire a team and you have more money that you can start to do this. But much better at the beginning is to figure out what is the one platform, what is the one revenue stream, what is the one business model, the one thing that if I focus on that thing, it's going to lead to results so that I can scale. Entrepreneurs have a hard time with this because we want to do so many things. We have our ADD brain. Going on and we don't want to just do one thing. We also feel like it is limiting for what we want to do, right? If you have a big vision, a big mission, a giant goal for what you want to accomplish, doing just this one little piece of it feels too small. The way that I would structure it and think about it is this is just a sequence. You still get to do everything. You still get to do it all. You just have to go in order. You have to create a sequence that the thing that you need to focus on at the beginning of your business, whether it's your revenue stream, whether it's a social media success, whatever it is, what you have to figure out is how do I start to as soon as possible get a sustainable business for myself so that I can quit my job, if you have one, so that I can bring income in for myself, my family, so I can start to afford to hire a team, even if it's part-time. Part-time or one person so you can scale up your company so that I can then go off and do all the other things. Because some of your ideas are, are amazing and huge and require more people and time and effort and energy, and some of the ideas can get started a lot faster. And so if you want to go and accomplish your big goal, your big dream, your big mission, then it's important to think about the sequence of things. That instead of doing everything all at once, and as a result, all of the results being mediocre, focus on the one thing that if you push that lever, you really maximize that thing, you could start to make more money, you could start to have more impact, you can start to have more reach, you can start to see more success that then allows you to bring on more people to help you build and scale. For me, we've got 37 people on the team now, and I can do so much more. More, you know, because we got team than if it was just me by myself doing everything. And so in building my mission, I want to solve the world's biggest problem, right? People don't believe in themselves enough. And so in building that up, I need people, I need help, I need support, I need team, I need, I need a lot more than what I've got right now. But to be able to build a business that can bring in money, then I can afford to hire team that helps me accomplish a lot more things and take on a lot more projects. But if I was at the very beginning of what I was doing right now, I would not be doing most of the things that I'm doing right now. I'd still be accomplishing and going after the same mission, but I'd have to pick one thing to focus on. Pick the one thing at the beginning that I think I could make some money doing this so that I can live, I can, I can pay, you know, rent, mortgage. I can pay my internet bills. I could pay for some food. Not, not living, you know, a fancy life, but just being able to live and survive so I don't have to have a job. And then I would start thinking, okay, how do I then scale this one thing that I'm working on to build up to the point where I can remove myself or at least take some of the pieces off so that I can hire a team to help build and scale and grow? If I look back on my YouTube journey here, I did everything at the beginning. You know, I filmed it, I researched it, I edited it, I did all of it, and it took a crazy amount of time, and I made a lot of mistakes, and I did a lot of stuff that I probably shouldn't have done. And just by focusing on that thing and making content and creating videos, it then allowed me to make a little bit of money that then I could hire my first part-time editor that then turned into a full-time editor that turned into a second editor and a research person that turned into someone helping with the thumbnails and the graphics. And it continues to build up and scale. But everything I was doing myself in a mediocre way, but getting it done, to then being able to scale out a team. And so most people are just stuck doing too many things. You're stuck— like, look at what you're doing on a day-to-day basis. Look at your calendar. You have a limited amount of time, right? You have a limited amount of time. There's only There's only so much you can do in a day, in a week. You have other responsibilities. Maybe you have a job. Maybe you have family, kids, health that you have to look after. You know, there's a certain amount of time that you have that you can dedicate to this thing. That time needs to go into the right efforts. And again, it's great to have that big mission and big goal and big dream, but if you have a limited amount of time every day or every week, and you are trying to create 13 passive income streams with that limited amount of time, no one of the streams ever gets enough energy, enough effort, enough of your mind space, enough of your creativity, enough of your love to ever become anything. And so you're diversifying way too quickly. You're diversifying way too soon. And apply that for anything that you're working on. Apply that to your, your business and the, and the opportunities that you're chasing, the partnerships that you're looking at, the things that you're saying yes to, the social media networks that you're trying to be on. Do yourself a favor. Don't try to be everywhere. Not yet. Right? Just understand there's a sequence to things and you can make it so much easier for yourself to have more impact, to make more money, to have a bigger influence, to be more proud of yourself, to start getting more success and more results and more momentum so much easier if you just sequence it out so that you don't have to do everything all at once. You don't have to feel the handcuffs and the restriction of saying, well, I don't want to do this one thing for the rest of my life. This is where it gets, you know, entrepreneur ADE kicks in. Right? And we don't want to be locked in. I don't want to do the same thing forever. Well, you don't. You won't do it forever. That's not the point. The point is not to do this one thing forever, that if you took these 10 opportunities in front of you, you could do all 10. You could do all 10, just not all 10 at the same time. Because if you do all 10 at the same time, none of them are gonna work out. And often it's a small opportunity that can pay you more quickly, that can start to build the momentum for you. So if you have your list of your 10 opportunities in front of you, 10 things that you could do, great. Look at what order should I go in so that I can start making money and start building momentum. One last quick example. I look at a lot of thought leaders. A lot of people have a message. A lot of people want to be speakers and authors and coaches and influencers, and they've got big goals and big ambitions for what they want to create. When I'm helping someone like that, usually the first option is coaching. The best thing to do at the beginning is coaching. So we're going to dive into one specific business model, right? If you can look at, let's say, be a speaker, getting brand deals as an influencer, writing a book, and coaching. If we had to, those are 4 opportunities in front of you, right? Let's say. So what did I say? Being a speaker, getting paid to speak, getting paid to do brand deals, getting paid to be an author and selling books, even selling courses, your own materials and training and etc., and coaching. Those are, those are, you know, 4 or 5 different business models that you can go through. Perfect. At the beginning, which one is the best? What should you focus on? It should be coaching. Why? People don't like the idea of coaching because you're trading your time for money, right? I don't want to trade my time for money. Okay, well, what are you doing right now? You know, you're at a job. Because if you're at a job, you're trading your time for money. If you have unlimited time to figure stuff out and you have, you have a giant bank account, then you could do something different. But if you need to start to make money to build this thing up, then yes, you're trading your time for money, but it's a faster path to get you out of your job and into your business full-time. Where everything else takes a lot more time. Speaking takes an incredible amount of time. If you want to be a paid speaker and get paid enough that it's actually meaningful, it takes a lot of time for you to get good at the skill as well as for you to build up momentum and a name in the industry. You have to do a lot of free speaking gigs before you ever get paid to do it. So if you have a horizon of years, awesome, but I'd rather you start getting paid immediately while we work on the speaking career. You want to be an author and get paid to have a book? Cool, you can go and self-publish a book right now if you wanted to. You can get it out, you'll make, you know, you can sell it to your friends and family, your audience, you'll make a a few bucks, but it's not going to be anything meaningful. To get a paid deal or to have a significant— even if you're going self-publishing, to make a lot of money off your book, you have to have a big audience. To get the deal with a publisher, they want you to have at least 100,000 followers. That's like your starting point to get in. So is that achievable? Of course. But now we're looking at years as a horizon as opposed to like this has to happen right away. So you're not getting paid right now off of your book. So if you're sitting there thinking, writing a book, creating a great manuscript, creating a great how-to guide, it's not going to be the thing that helps get you any kind of money anytime soon. And I want you to get paid because most people quit too soon on their ideas, or they're trying to do a million different things at once, right? If you're trying to create a course, same thing. You have to build up enough momentum. You spend so much time making a course, creating the filming videos or writing instruction manuals or creating the PDFs or whatever your course structure is. It takes so long to make the course and then you have to go and market the course and people don't know who you are yet. You don't have a brand yet. So could it work? Absolutely. Will it pay you more than coaching? Yes, absolutely. Most likely. It's way more easy to leverage that than coaching. But again, the timeline. Is so long, and most people quit too soon on it. Where if you are coaching, you can make money right away. As long as you have something that can actually help people, right? If you're good at what you do, you know how to solve somebody's problem, you can make money as a coach right away. And yes, you're trading your time for money, but it's better than having a job, and it also gets you closer to your customers. At the very beginning, I'm a much bigger fan of selling a service than a product because it gets you closer to your customers. You get to know their problems, you know their issues, you know what exactly they're struggling with, and you can help them solve it, which allows you to create a better book, a better course, a better product because you've worked with enough people through the problem. And so most entrepreneurs fall into the category, I want to do all of it. Great, I want to be a speaker, I want to be an author, I want to create my course, I want to I want to create my book. I want to be a coach. I want to do all of it. Awesome. You have a limited amount of time every week. To work on all 5 of those things at the same time means there's very little progress. How— if that's you and you've been writing your book, how long you've been writing your book for? Like, when is it going to come out? What year? How many speaking gigs have you done in the past 3 months, right? How much time has gone into your course? It's like we start and stop and start and stop because we're tackling trying so many different things because you want to do it all and you want to have income streams coming in like crazy. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's amazing. But there's a sequence. There's an order that if you can, as soon as possible, inside of your purpose, start to make money, start to build momentum, start to be able to bring on team to help you. It's so much easier. You can go so much further. You can go so much faster. You can have so much less stress. You can have such a big impact that you just need to focus. You just need to focus. It's all possible. Your big dreams are possible. Go in order, figure out the sequence that will start to get you paid, and focus. Honestly, I think we're all thinking small. You're thinking small. I'm thinking small. We're all thinking small compared to what what we're capable of. And I think we've been conditioned to think small. We've been conditioned by our upbringing, our family, our parents, our guidance counselors, our teachers, our— we've just been conditioned to think small because we're learning about life from people who also never thought big. And so because we are products of our environment, we have conditioned ourselves to think the same ways, the people in our environment. And if you're not happy with your environment and your environment is not around, around big people who've done amazing things or thinking big, then you will stay stuck thinking small as well. What I love about Naveen Jain is that he thinks big. You know, the first time I found his content, there were 3 people who I get recommended all the time. You should do a top 10 on this person. You should do an espresso on this person. You should profile this person. And there were 3 people who, for the first time, upon first consumption of their content, really blew me away. One was Denzel Washington. Uh, if you have not seen Denzel Washington, you should go watch his top 10. He— his backup plan for his life was being a minister, and he is a fire presenter. I just kind of— a lot of times we do actors, it's really hard to get anything good out of the interviews that they're doing, uh, but Denzel Washington is a whole other animal, so he really blew me away. The second was Priyanka Chopra, uh, who had a just amazing set of interviews and super intelligent, bright woman. Uh, and the third was Naveen Jain, where I like, no idea who this person is, you should do Naveen Jain, great, go look him up. I was like, oh my gosh, this guy's amazing, I, I want more Naveen Jain in my life. I think that's a great sign, you know, like when you find people like that, even if you've never met them. And up until this year, I had never met Naveen Jain. I had the good fortune to just recently have him on, on my channel to do an interview in a collaboration. But up until that point, I'd never met him before. And when you find the people who make you think bigger, who make you feel more confident, who make you feel more bold, be around them more. This is my solution, right? I am trying to hang out, even if it's just virtually, with the people who inspire me to want to play a bigger game. You know, either those 3 people— I haven't met Denzel Washington yet, I haven't met Priyanka Chopra yet, and up until, you know, this year I hadn't met Naveen Jain yet— but I can still be inspired by them. I can still learn from them. I can still look at their content. They can still push me to to become better. And I think a lot of us stay stuck and stay small because it's so good to feel important, and we end up being the big fish in a small pond. If you're watching this video, you are probably the one that's pouring into everybody else. You're probably the most optimistic person in your circle. You're probably the one who cares the most about the people around you. You're probably doing the most for the people in your circle, and you're the one people come to and say, hey, how do I X? You know, how do I grow? How do I get better? How do I— you're the one that's advising and helping and pushing other people, maybe pushing them too much. That make sense? Maybe you're, maybe you're pushing some people too much, but you're the most optimistic, most ambitious person in your circle, probably. That's great in a sense, in that you can support and give back and help others along the way, but who's pushing you? You know, if you don't have somebody pushing you to be better, to be stronger, to be greater, to be more ambitious, to think bigger, then you probably won't. Like, if you— it's really uncomfortable to think bigger, and if you don't have somebody inspiring you, pushing you, helping you, then you probably stay stuck. And that's what we need to change. And so it's a message for you, but it's, it's a message for me equally so. And so step one in doing that, I think, is just changing the environment to be around the people who do inspire you. And chances are, most of the people who do inspire you are not, not people who have— you have direct access to, and not people who are taking on an intern. You know, Warren Buffett's not taking on an intern to go live with him for a year, as far as I know. So how do you do it? Well, the easy way is through content. I've learned so much and been inspired so much by just amazing people through the content on my own channel. Like, I make these videos for me because I need them, because I need to believe more in myself, and then I share that with you. And thankfully, enough of you like it that I can make it a business and hire a team and continue to make even more content, because if it was just me, then then it'd be a lot fewer videos coming up and a lot less profiles and a lot less content. So being around the people— and when you find people who really speak to you, who really get you going, who's like, yes, this is exactly what I need— then be around them more. Subscribe to their channels, buy their books, listen to their podcasts, be around them more. If they're speaking at an event, go to the event because it, it'll push you to reach another level. And this is why it's so great to have so many people now. I'm, I'm passionate about helping bring new people onto the, to platforms like YouTube and getting their message out there, because some people will push you through things, some people will hug you through things. Everybody has their own lens, and you'll connect with people in a different way. So You look at Eric Thomas, or you look at Jocko Willink, or you look at Andy Frisella, who are going to be very in-your-face, cut right to the truth, no BS, no excuses, no wiggle room, like, get up and go chase down your life. You know, it's a hard push. They may be yelling at you. They're very intense. It's a hard push forward. And then there'll be other people like Oprah, like Brené Brown, like Dave Meltzer, who have a different approach. It's a much softer approach. They'll hug you through it. You know, some people will push you and yell at you to get through it, and some people will hug you through it. A lot of times the message is exactly the same. You know, Oprah's message is very similar to Eric Thomas's message. The difference is the delivery. Oprah will hug you through it, and Eric will push you through it. And it really just It just depends on what you need. There's no right or wrong, it's just what do you need. And when you find the people who give you what you need, just be around it more. Be around it more. Because no matter how much you watch one video, the impact will wear off, right? Like, you're waking up tomorrow the same person you were almost yesterday, maybe half a percent better. But you could be— you could watch this video and get all inspired, but Yes, all right, I'm gonna chase things down, amazing, let's go! And you have energy for a few hours or for the day, but then you wake up tomorrow and that energy is gone, right? Has that happened to you? That energy suddenly is not there anymore? You don't feel as bold or courageous or ambitious as you were yesterday? Why? What happened? It's not that— there's nothing wrong with you, that's just normal because you got an injection into your environment that took took you to another level, and then it, it fell off because there was no consistency in the environment. So you are what you consistently do. So whatever you want to accomplish, whoever you want to be, to consistently surround yourself with people like that, because you're not getting enough in your home environment. Your home, your environment now, your life has been perfectly designed to keep you where you are. It's allowed you to get to where you are right now. Amazing. And And if that's where all you want to be, awesome, congratulations, you've done it. You've hit the jackpot. But if you want more, then your current environment is not designed to help you go and get more. And again, I'm talking to myself just as much as I'm talking to you. Like, saying these words out loud, it's like, what changes do I need to make to my environment? Who do I need to be hanging out with more, either in person or just through the video content, to make me want to push more, be more courageous, say say bolder things and have bigger aspirations and goals and dreams and, and take bolder action towards accomplishing them. Right? Makes a big, big, big difference. And so if you want to accomplish something, if it's business success or mindset success, then, you know, it's just thinking bigger. Then if you love Naveen Jain, be around Naveen Jain more. Watch all his interviews and listen to any podcast that he does. And I did one on my main channel. We'll link that up at the end of this video. You can go watch if you want. If you want to improve your health and fitness and you're tired of, you know, being on an Oreo diet, okay, you can make a choice and decision that I'm gonna— I want to be this person. I want to be the person who works out. I want to be the person who takes care of my body, takes care of my health and energy. And that's awesome as a decision, but you need the environment to support you. And so now if you're subscribing to health channels, if you're following people on Instagram who are working out and take care of their bodies, it will make you want to live a healthier life. One of the ones that I love watching is Tom Bilyeu and his Health Theory show where he's interviewing experts around health. And every time I listen— I was listening to one this morning— every time I listen, watch, it makes me want to be a little bit healthier, you know. And the more that you're around that kind of stuff the more you will take on the mindset. Similarly, if you're injecting poison, like if you're around negative people or you're consuming negative content, and that's most of the news and most of media, to be honest, is mostly negative. If you're surrounded by negativity constantly and you're, you're watching negative videos and reading negative news constantly, you will be a lot more negative. You'll be a lot more scared. You'll be a lot more scarcity mindset. You'll be a lot more afraid. You'll be a lot less positive and ambitious because that's what you're feeding into your mind. So be very careful about now designing and engineering your environment. Your environment has happened to you. You know, you've had some control over it, but it's mostly happened to you. And now you can, with intent, change it to be more positive. If you had to ask yourself, if I wanted to surround myself with the most positive, encouraging, inspiring people who will make me more courageous, bold, and ambitious? Who would those people be? What would that environment look like? And then make a choice. Change it. Change who you subscribe to. Change what you're listening and watching. Unsubscribe from all the channels that make you feel worse about yourself. Change your physical environment. What, what clothes are you wearing? What what do you put on the wall around you, what's your background on your cell phone and on your computer, you start to change it. And when you change your environment, it'll force the change in your habits, in your mindset, and in your thinking. Think big, act small. Think big, you got a big dream, a big goal, a big mission, some big thing that you want to get done. That's where we love being as entrepreneurs, right? We love thinking about the big future and what we could build It is amazing and exciting, but it can also be overwhelming. It can be stressful. It can be hurtful to our own self-esteem because— tell me if this happened to you— you've got this big idea and big goal, and it's exciting to think about it, but then it also becomes scary, and it becomes impossible, and it becomes something that someone like you can't do. And then we get overwhelmed by the details, and then we can't do anything about it because it feels too big, and to execute it we need a team, and we need venture capital, and we need investors, and we need better people around us, and we need more skills, and all of these doubts and insecurities creep in. Does that sound familiar? Is that you? Certainly is me. You know, I want to solve the world's biggest problem. People don't believe in themselves enough, and anytime I think even close to that that scaled instantly, well, how am I gonna do that? How am I gonna do that? I'm nowhere close. And so the thing that's really helped me is think big but then act small, because the biggest thing that most people are missing— I'm missing, you're missing— is just momentum. Biggest thing we're missing is just we're not, we're not doing enough, because thinking big and having a big idea idea is amazing, but that alone is not enough. You have to go and you got to do the work. And we're so worried about the work being perfect, right? You're so worried about the first thing being amazing, and it won't be. And this is a hard lesson that I learned when I was in my early 20s in my first business, and we lost a $40 million deal because I was trying to be perfect. And I spent the whole summer working on this perfect plan and I lost the deal. And I'm a recovering perfectionist, and I think saying you're a perfectionist really just means you're afraid, right? You're afraid of it not being good enough. You're afraid of launching something and people seeing it and judging you. You're afraid of launching it and them not seeing it and nobody caring, right? We're afraid of being seen and not being seen, both at the same time. We're afraid. And so the answer is to do something. Immediate action. I've been helping people in my Movement Makers program get going on YouTube and now on TikTok, and the amount of indecision that people have around creating their first video, right? What should I wear? What should I say? What should my opening line be? What should my thumbnail be? What kind of gear should I use? What kind of camera? What kind of microphone? What kind of fill in the blank, right? All the things that just prevent you from taking action, where the answer is just film. Honestly, like, just, just get something up. Look, I'm filming this video on my phone walking down the street. I didn't sleep that well last night, and getting some sunshine on my face and just pressing record and going. And I'm doing the best I can with what I have. And that's what you need to do, is just get it started, because the best plan that you can come up with come up with right now is nowhere close to the plan that will help you win. You know, the plan that you come up with right now is not going to be the one that works because you don't have all the information. And so the idea that you can plan what the end looks like and the path to get there is impossible. So we spend our best energy planning and thinking instead of actually doing. That's a big problem. And so it starts with, okay, you've got this big idea. Awesome. Now what are you going to do today about it? Today is a couple of hacks that I want to share with you that I think can help. So the first is the 2% difference. And the 2% difference says instead of planning for 100%, you work on the first 2%. So what is that first 2%? That's all you need to work on. What's the first 2%? So if you're thinking about YouTube or making a TikTok you're thinking about a health journey, you're thinking about whatever it is for your business that you want to launch, what's the first 2%? And just start building momentum. So, you know, if you want to make a YouTube video, go film a video. Just take out your phone and film a video just like I am right now. You want to get started on TikTok? Cool, same thing. Flip your, flip your phone the other way, vertical, and start making your video. You want to start a health journey? Cool. You know, we get so stuck on figuring out what the perfect workout's going to be, right? Have you ever done this? Well, am I going to do HIIT? Am I going to do cardio? How many weights am I going to do? Am I going to, am I going to hurt myself? Do I need to hire a trainer? What new equipment do I need to buy? You know, we just get stuck in all this planning mode instead of doing. Just do anything. Just go for a walk. Do 5 push-ups. You know, do a couple burpees. Whatever comes to mind. It doesn't matter what you do, it's a matter that you're doing something. That's the big difference. It doesn't matter the specific action that you're taking. What matters is that you're starting to build some kind of momentum, that you're doing something. That's the most important thing, because if you get up and you do something every day, you're gonna find that you start making some tremendous progress towards things. And so 2% difference is to teach yourself that you go from an idea to some kind of immediate action, that we're doing something right away on it. We're not planning for 100%, but we're going for that first 2%. The next thing is just expect to suck at the beginning. You know, we expect to be great out of the gate for some reason. You expect your idea to work, you expect that you're gonna have the skills, you expect you're gonna create something amazing. You won't. Just expect to suck at the start. It doesn't mean that you suck as a human, it just means that you don't have the skills skill set yet, and that's okay, and that's normal, and that's totally okay. That's fine. Go back and watch my first video. It was pretty embarrassing. Go back and watch anybody's first anything, and it sucks. It's normal. So if you expect to be great and then you try something and you can't do it, then you feel really bad about yourself. But if you expect it to suck and then, and then you're just anything above complete terrible sucking, then you're good, then you've won. And so apply the 2% difference and then just expect to suck at the start and then you keep going. So for anybody out there who's afraid to take action, who, you know, you have these big ideas, big goals, big dreams, big things you want to do, but it just seems so out of reach and it seems impossible and it seems that you can't do it and it's it's never gonna work, you know? And you're stuck in overthinking, overplanning, overestimating, over, just over, over, over, just stuck in your head. And it's crazy how quickly we can go from being excited by something to then almost instantly overwhelmed by it, you know? And so you need to have the big dream, you need to have the big goal. That should get you out of bed and excited excited. It's like, yes, this is the change I want to make in the world. Amazing. And at the same time, you need an incredibly small action plan just to get going because you've got the great heart and the big dream and the big mission. The only thing you're missing is momentum. Finding your passion is one of the most important and least understood things that I think you can do, especially as an entrepreneur. We've all heard the expression, find your passion, find your passion, you gotta do what you love. And from all the videos that I've done and all the people that I've studied and profiled, whether they're entrepreneurs, innovators, athletes, recording artists, like whatever they are, the number one rule that they all have in common is find your passion. When I get asked, you studied all these people, what's, what's the most common thread? That's it. Find your passion. You have to be doing the work that you love. But how do you do it? How do you find it? Because most of the time we know what we don't want, right? You know the life that you don't want. You know the people who you don't want to be hanging around. You You've been at some job that you do not enjoy. We typically know what we don't want, but we haven't done the work or been given the tools to know what we do want. And that's what I'm going to cover in this video. For me, I love helping entrepreneurs. I think your purpose comes from your pain, right? So whatever you struggled the most in life is what you want to help other people through. You are built to serve. So your purpose, your passion becomes a part of that, will definitely be in service to other people somehow. It's not enough. For it just to be about you. You have to be doing other things. I just came from doing some squats. I feel a little out of breath, but it's amazing. I love this. This is the best. And so your purpose comes through your pain. Your purpose, your purpose is to help other people through something, especially what you went through yourself. The passion component though is actually enjoying the work to get people to the other side. So for me, I love helping entrepreneurs. I struggled a lot in my early days as an entrepreneur. And I'm basically trying to make the world of 19-year-old Evans who are struggling not struggle as much as I did. And I'm a visual learner, so I'd much rather see visual content than anything else. YouTube did not exist when I was getting started. And so I'm trying to share whatever wisdom I have, share the lessons from other successful entrepreneurs so that all of the 19-year-old Evans out there can learn and can improve and get better. I have a process that I call the Passion Process. And if you you go through this process, it'll help you identify your passion and give you a lot more light, love, energy, and money, you know, because we got to make money as entrepreneurs. So the passion process is this. If you want to go through it, make a list of all the things that you've done to help other people, especially the kind of people who are who you used to be. Like, make a list. And I went through this process in Built to Serve. I did this with my wife to help her find her passions. This is where it was birthed. But if you just make a list of all the things that you enjoyed helping people with, like you, you got them a result. You're so happy that they are now in a different spot because of what you did. Like, what did you do where you showed up and you helped somebody with something? And just if you want to pause the video, you can. If you want to make a mental list, just all the things that you've done to help other people. Okay. After you have that list, then write down or just circle the ones that you actually enjoyed the process of doing as opposed to just the end result. This is where we get stuck. This is where entrepreneurs get trapped. Okay? We enjoy the end result of what we've done, but we don't enjoy the process of doing it. How many times have you helped somebody else out because you're a good person, because you're built to serve, because you love that person, or even you see yourself in that person and you just want to, you just want to help and you're so happy that you helped them. but you didn't actually enjoy the work that you were doing. And that's the key difference. The result has to be there and that you help somebody, of course. And the thing that will make you light up, come alive, love doing for the rest of your life is the actual work you're doing you love to. So to bring it home, that's some great theory. Awesome. In my example, the example that I use in Built to Serve in my book is I love helping entrepreneurs. Like I want to see you win. Every day I wake up and I try to figure out what else can I do to try to help entrepreneurs win? How else can I help the 19-year-old Evans of the world out there get their business off the ground? And if you were to move your office, say you're going from a home office to you got your first office, it's like, wow, you got your first place. Amazing. And you needed help moving. I could help you move. And I would be so happy to see you in your new office. The problem is I don't enjoy the process of moving. I don't want to unplug computers and pack them in boxes and move desks. And sure, it might be a fun workout, but I don't get lost in the process of that, right? I don't love it. I love the end result of helping the entrepreneur, but I don't love the process of getting the entrepreneur to that result. And that's the key difference. That's where most of you will get trapped. You love the end result and feel like what you're doing matters and is important. Great. And you get that little hit at the end, like, yes, I helped that person. but did you actually enjoy the process of you doing the work? And if not, that's what we need to revisit. Most entrepreneurs are doing too much of the work that they do not enjoy, just trying to get to the result. Now, not everything you do is going to be amazing. Not everything that you do is going to, is going to fill you up with joy and passion. A lot of running a business does suck and you have to do things, you know, accounting and taxes and legal stuff is not stuff that makes me come alive and I find joyous, but Your goal as an entrepreneur needs to be to spend more time in that zone of genius where you do actually love it. And at the beginning, you know, maybe it's 50/50, but hopefully as you build and scale and grow and learn more about yourself, you can shift the percentage of how much you do that is in your zone of genius that you love doing versus what has to get done to grow the business, right? And as you build and scale and grow, that's hopefully where team comes into place to handle all those things that have to get done that you don't enjoy doing. So if you make your list of all the ways that you have helped people. If you have no idea, what's my passion? You have no idea. Make a list of all the things that you have done that you've, you've enjoyed the result of helping somebody. What have you done to help people? Then circle the ones where you actually enjoyed the process. So I don't want to help entrepreneurs move and pack boxes, even if it leads to a great result. I want to do something that I actually enjoy doing. If you're not happy right now, it's probably because you're not growing. Humans want to grow. We want to learn. We want to improve. We want to get better. We want to feel like we're making meaningful progress somewhere, and when we feel like we're learning and growing and the work that we do matters, we feel great, right? Have you felt great when you learned a new skill, when you, when you help somebody out, when you felt that the work you were doing was meaningful? It felt amazing. But if you have too many days in a row where you feel like it's too hard, it's too big, you're not growing, you're not learning, there's, there's no hope, that leads down a really dangerous and negative path, not where we want to be. And part of why we become entrepreneurs is because we want to grow, right? Because we don't want to have a crappy, boring job working for somebody else, wasting our talents away. I remember my— I didn't have that many jobs, but I had a landscaping job which was super boring, just everyday just rolling out grass. And then I had a data entry job where this really turned me off of the corporate world, where I was doing the work of— we had 6 people, 5 people on my team, and I was doing more work than all of the others combined. And I didn't take lunch breaks, I just, I just kept working. And my boss wasn't happy that because I was— overhead lighting gave me headaches. I used to have to bring bring in some snacks like food or popcorn or carrots or something so I didn't get crazy headaches. And my boss didn't like that I was eating a snack while I was working, and I got into trouble and almost got fired, even though I was doing more work than my entire team combined. And it just really turned me off of the corporate world to realize, hey, this is I was like, this doesn't make any sense. I wasn't growing. You know, I wasn't learning. I wasn't improving. And so you can examine your own life. If you feel like you're in a rut, chances are you haven't learned anything recently. And so we can plan for this. You know, you can change your schedule so that you can focus on learning. You can put it into your daily calendar. And this is where I think it becomes comes the greatest benefit, my greatest tactic or strategy for you, for myself, is schedule in learning, schedule in growing. So for me, it's my own videos. You know, I make these videos hopefully for you, that you learn and improve and something sparks for you. But I make them for me. I make it for me because I need it, because I need to be around people who are doing big things, and that I know that Every day there's a video for me, you know. It's, it's gonna be positive, it's gonna be uplifting, it's gonna spread belief, it's gonna be motivational or inspiring, it's gonna be tactical. And I know that on my channel I'm gonna get content that I want. And so I've hired a whole team and built the whole business basically around making content that I want to watch. And thankfully enough of you guys want to watch it as well. That it— I can build a business and have a team. But if I didn't, or nobody else cared about it, I would still do it for me. You know, it may not be as fancy, may not have as much intros and all that stuff, but I would still have it for me because I need it. And so we tend to catch these things too late because it's not part of our habits and routines. So if you notice, you go to an event or you watch a video and you get all inspired and you're— you got energy and you're working and things are amazing, cool. And then have weeks or months gone by and you realize, what happened to me? What? How did I fall off the horse so quickly? Where did my energy go? Has that happened to you? Chances are it's because it wasn't scheduled. You know, part of the entrepreneur roller coaster is because we're bouncing from one high to the next without having any scheduled in learning and growth. And so my challenge to you would be to try to figure out how can we schedule in learning and growing every day. And so it starts with figuring out, okay, what medium do you like the most? You know, for me, I like videos. I like being able to see stuff. It just makes it so much easier for me. I'm a visual learner. Before YouTube was a thing, I learned from books. That was the best thing available at the time. Now I still have I have a habit of reading 10 pages at least a night, but I don't get most of my learning from books, I get most of my learning from videos. But for you, maybe it's videos if you're watching this, maybe it's books, maybe it's podcasts, something. Like where do you get the best learning? And then the great thing about where we are right now is there's so much content, there's so many people to learn from, there's so many people creating things out there that you can go and learn from them. You know, if I look at an Eric Thomas or an Oprah Winfrey, they have a similar message, just a different delivery style. And so whatever you want to learn, chances are somebody's already making content on it. And so just go and find them and think about who you're following right now. Like, do an audit of who you follow right now. Who are you following on YouTube? Who are you following on Instagram or TikTok? Or what podcast you listen to? Or what books are you picking up? And how many of those people people that you're following or subscribed to actually make you feel ambitious and hopeful and better about yourself and give you strategies and light you up and feel like you're learning and growing, right? That's the whole point of this. We're trying to make growing and learning a consistent habit. So how many people that you're following actually make you want to learn and grow? And how many of them are you just mindlessly scrolling through? You know, when you load your Instagram or your YouTube when you're just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and 2 hours have gone by and not only have you not learned anything, you feel worse about your life because now you haven't been productive. You know, you just kind of mindlessly entertained yourself, but it wasn't even that entertaining. You're like, what just happened to the past 2 hours of my life? Has that happened to you? Cool, unfollow those people. It's not that they're bad people. Just that content doesn't light you up, and then start to be around the people who do. And the easiest way is through content. So if it's my channel, hey, good news, we got content every single day for you. You'll never run out of Evan Carmichael content to watch. But it could be somebody else, somebody else in marketing or business or entrepreneurship or personal development or whatever category you're in, to subscribe to those people and be around them as much as possible and watch their videos every day. Schedule it in. For me, I go for a walk every morning, call it my believe walk. I just like getting some sun on my face and fresh air and getting out of the home, and it just gives me some perspective and a little bit of motion and helps me set up my day. And then I'll, I'll have a video going for my channel, and, um, every morning, well be somebody else. It'll be Elon Musk or Oprah Winfrey or Mel Robbins or Tony Robbins or Gary Vee or Tom Bilyeu or whatever. And that's what we do, is pull the best clips that I would learn from, and then we share it with everybody else. But that's a part of my daily routine. And I've, I've seen my own growth and development and learning and bravery and courage and momentum and consistency be directly contributed and correlated to the content that I'm consuming daily. And so step 1 is to unfollow and unsubscribe from the people who just make you waste time, feel worse about yourself, get envy, or just mindlessly tune out. And step 2 then is to figure out, I need to make learning— you need to make learning, growing a part of your daily habit. And so where in your calendar can that fit? If it's over breakfast, if it's a morning walk, if it's an afternoon lunch, like where in your calendar can you put learning from your preferred style— video, podcast, books, etc.— learning into your daily calendar? If you did that, your life will change. If you did that every day for the next year, every day, if you did that, if you scheduled that in and you actually did it and you, you watched a video, read a book, or listen to a podcast that inspired you, said you You know what, I can do this, I can do more, I can be more, I can accomplish this. I gotta stop thinking small and stop doubting myself and stop telling myself that I suck and I can't do it. I can do this. Like if you felt that energy every day from watching a piece of content that you intentionally put into your habits and routine every day for the next year, your life will totally transform. You will be a totally different person, which then allows you to serve more, to help more, to make more money, to be a leader more, all of it, all of your ambitions and dreams, everything that you want is all possible. But you have to factor learning and growing into your daily consistent habits and routine. When you have a why to live for, you can endure almost any how. It's one of my favorite quotes. If you think about it, if you've got a strong why, most people are stuck on the how. How do I do this? How do I get started? How do I write a book? How do I create a video? How do I get my first client? How, how, how? We're stuck in the land of how. The problem for most people is not the how, it's just the why isn't strong enough. Think about the time where you really had to figure something out. You really had a strong why, like this must happen. We've all had those moments. You figured out the how. The how maybe didn't come right away. The how, you might have tried 18 different things before you found the how, but the how was often— when you say you're stuck on the how, it's often often just an excuse because you're afraid. That I want to start a YouTube channel. Cool. How do I do it? And you're stuck on what gear to use and what microphone and what topic and you know, whatever the typical questions people have that probably run through your brain. They ran through my brain when I first got started too. Really what's underneath that is just fear. It's just fear. It's like fear that nobody will watch the videos, people fear that people will watch the videos and you'll be judged. It's just fear. If you're stuck on the how, it's just fear talking. This is an important insight. If you can apply this to your life, it will make a huge difference. If you're stuck constantly on the how, it's just fear talking, and this is your logical brain guiding you through the process of staying stuck. I can't tell you how many people I've helped and given them the how. I'm just here Here's how you do it. Here, go. And then there's another question, another question, another question, and no action because it's fear. And so how do you get over the fear? No how is gonna take you through the fear. Fear is the why. You solve the fear through the why. Why? Why must this happen? Why is it so important? Why are you doing this? And it's a constant reminder of why, because you can feel super motivated and excited today, but then wake up tomorrow and kind of lose sight of the why. I think it's important to apply in 3 areas: 1, for yourself; 2, for your clients or customers, the people you're helping sell to; and then 3, for your team as you build and scale the company. So let's break down each one. For yourself, why do you do what you do? You know, if you're a solo entrepreneur or you've got a small team and you're building, why do you do what you do? Why is it so important that you wake up and show up today. Because you don't have a boss. There's nobody who's gonna fire you if you don't show up and do your work, right? It's part of a structure of a corporate environment and having a boss breathing down your neck and you know you're gonna have a performance review and you know that your next paycheck is dependent on you doing well, right? Sure, we have our customers as our bosses but a lot of times entrepreneurs will slack off, we'll find reasons why not not to do something. We'll convince ourselves of why we're not capable and why this is not a good idea for us to work on. But we're not focused enough daily, consistently on the why of what we are doing that forces us into momentum, growth, and action. Here, it's a Tuesday morning as I'm filming this video for you guys right now. I've got a lot of videos to film. I've filmed thousands of videos, over 12,000 videos, 13,000 videos, I should do a count because I reference it, but I don't know how many videos— like thousands and thousands and thousands of videos. And it's easy just to get in the car and film a video, but what's important is the connection to the why. I'm, I'm sitting in the car, we're driving to do some errands, and it's an exercise to remind myself why I do I do this because you guys are watching, because I want to help solve the world's biggest problem, because I want to make content for 19-year-old Evan who didn't believe in himself, because in learning from people like Elon Musk, it encourages me to think bigger and push harder and do more. And I'm not just sitting in my car talking into my cell phone. I'm doing life-changing work, you know, and it's that It's that daily reminder. And then I'll feel that and I'll press record and here we are making this video, you know, right now. And then tomorrow I'll need another reminder. At least it works that way for me. It's not that I can just watch one video or go to one event and then I'm good for the next year. It's a daily, not struggle, but a daily, you know, just like you have to brush brush your teeth every day. It needs to be a daily habit or you won't remember it. But it's important to remember because when you feel your why and you feel like what you're doing is at least on the path to having an impact on people, you're just going to show up with a lot more energy and care and kindness and drive compared to if you feel like, "Well, it doesn't really matter if I show up today or not." So that's the first First one is you building in the habit of connecting to your why on a daily basis to give you more energy to push forward and do the courageous things that you're afraid to do. So you don't get stuck on the how. How's not the problem, you're just afraid. Number 2 is the why for your customers. One of the biggest advantages that you have as an entrepreneur is your story. Like, why would I buy from you instead of buying from your competitor that I've known for years or some big brand name. Why buy from you? Why buy from, you know, the little guy? Well, your story, because I feel like you care, because I feel like you have a strong why. If I'm buying from you instead of Coca-Cola, why would I buy your drink? Well, because you have a strong why and I don't know what Coca-Cola's why is. People aren't connected to the brands that they buy from for their why. This is how you win. And so you're sharing your story and why you do what you do becomes really important. One of the best pieces of feedback that I get is on my website. And on the website, if you go to EvanCarmichael.com, if you want to check it out, I share my story and I share why I do what I do. So it's not just another guy making some content on YouTube and, you know, on various platforms, but you can hopefully connect connect with the reason why I do what I do. And people read that and then they, they want to dive deeper into my world. And the same thing can happen with you. You don't just sell a product or service. Don't just try to make yourself look like some giant corporation and be professional. Like, yes, you want to be professional, but your story is the thing that carries the day the most. Your story, sharing it, why you do what you do, really, really, really, really matters. Because if customers connect to your story, they're much more likely to know you, like you, trust you, want to buy from you, want to do business with you, because they feel something in your story that hits them on an emotional level that we'll then use to justify why we're doing it, right? Again, it's our emotions and our heart leading the way, and it's our brain convincing ourselves why we have to do it. Customers, if they like your story and it made them feel something emotional will find a way to justify working with you. They'll convince their brain that it's a smart idea, but it's really an emotional decision. So the first why is for ourselves, the second why is for our customers, and the third why as you scale and grow is for the team. So we've got 37 people on the team, and one of the hardest things that I've, that I've noticed as we, as we grow and scale is making people's individual work feel like it's contributing. I'm a little spoiled in that I get to see all the great stuff. I get to meet you at events and conferences, and I get to hang out with you in Movie Makers, and I get to see the comments, and I get to— people want to take selfies, and I get to see a lot of the good stuff. But this is a team effort. You know, if I wasn't— if I did not have my team, this would not be happening. I may be not making this video for you right now because I have a million other things that I have to do and run a solo business. One of the things that I found really helpful in my business is every Sunday I connect with somebody else on the team. So there's some people I meet once a, once a week that are, you know, mission-critical, but there's other people now as we scale and grow the team, but there's not enough time to meet meet everybody one-on-one once a week. And so what I do is I, I reserve Sundays for connecting and trying to really deeply connect with somebody on the team. This weekend I connected with a new member on our team who's helping do a lot of the research for these videos and finding the clips and putting them together and bringing them to me to be able to record. And it's one thing just to have a job and The, the, the bar for being a boss is so low, you know, to, to be a good boss, really just have to not treat people like crap. Honestly, like most people have bad boss experiences, so just care about people and you're already creating the best experience probably in their work history. But I don't think that's good enough. Like, I don't think that is— I don't think it's a good enough experience. I think people people should feel like they're showing up to work and they're doing something that matters. And so it becomes your job to connect the work that they're doing to something that matters. So back to, you know, my meeting on the weekend, uh, this person who's been doing a lot of great research for us, it's easy just to look at what she's been doing and congratulate her on finding great clips and, um, just telling her what a good job she's done. And worthwhile for sure. But what's the why? Is the why to just not get fired? Is the why to get a raise? Is the why— like, what's the why driving meaning behind her work? And we want to make sure that people on the team feel meaning behind the work. And so my job as a leader is to connect the work that she's doing to the end result so that if we see we see people leaving great comments on the video, we see people making life-changing decisions, we see people growing their business. That's, that's, that's you. Like, you did that. You helped do that. And we often as entrepreneurs forget that. So if you've built and scaled a team, even if just one person on your team, somebody doing— usually who's the first person we hire? Somebody to do admin work, typically, right? They're very behind the scenes. And so I think becomes your job to then show the person who's working behind the scenes how the work that they're doing is leading to a major impact. If you're up front and you're getting all the accolades and you're doing the speeches and you're getting the books and you're making the videos and you're doing the selfies and people are telling you how amazing you are, cool, it's great. I mean, it feels amazing. And then think about how can you bring that back to your team as well and let them know that they're a part of this, that they created something meaningful. Because I think when, when you can— when they can attach meaning to their work, they're just gonna be— they're gonna be a lot happier. They're gonna give you a better result. They're gonna— they're gonna have more connection to the work that they're doing, and they feel like they're living out their purpose as well. Not everybody wants to start a business, but everybody wants to feel like they're doing something meaningful. And oftentimes people people are. They just haven't made the connection because you as a leader, me as a leader, we haven't done a good enough job in showing them the impact that their work is having. So the why becomes everything. When you have a strong enough why, you can overcome and endure any how. If you're stuck on the how, it's because you're afraid. How do you get the courage to push through? Figure out a strong enough why. And if you consistently tap into your own why, if you consistently show your customers why you're doing what you're doing, and if you consistently show your team the why of the impact that they're having, I think that's a recipe for success. The fastest way to fulfillment is to feel like the work you do matters. At the end of the day, everybody is built to serve. I wrote a whole book on it. You are built to serve. You want to feel like today matters, that you're gonna wake up and you're gonna create something today that will mean something to some people, to someone. Maybe it's a million people, maybe it's one person, but you're gonna make something that will mean something to somebody. Look at me, I'm sitting here in a parking lot. My wife is shopping at a food store, and I'm sitting here in the car with my, my dogs passing out on my phone making a video. Why? Because I feel like this matters. I feel like somebody's gonna watch this video and it'll make a difference for them. And hopefully that's you. Maybe not everybody, but at least one person someone will watch this video and it'll matter and it'll mean something and it'll make a difference. And when I feel that, I'm much more likely to show up. I have more fulfillment, I have more energy, I have more kindness, I have more love, I have more motivation. And when we feel like what we're gonna do doesn't matter, makes no difference, nobody cares if we show up or not, that's the path down to anxiety and stress and overwhelm and depression and suicide. This is where most most people do not like their lives. Most people feel like what they do does not matter. I think most people wake up and they drive to a job that they hate and they feel like today doesn't matter, nobody cares if I show up or not, the work I'm doing doesn't really have an impact. And that's why a lot of people move towards entrepreneurship, is because we're looking for more fulfillment, because we want to feel like this thing we're going to do is going to make an impact in at least somebody's life. And if you're you can run some of those things together, you can have a couple days even in a row feeling like this matters, man. The energy difference that, that will be inside you, the motivation will change, the kindness will change, how you show up for others will change, how you talk to yourself will change, all because you feel like the work you're doing today matters. They did functional MRIs on people's brains, and I talk about this in Built to Serve, They did functional MRIs on people's brains to see what parts of the brain light up when we're helping people, when we feel like we're gonna do something that's even just a small act of kindness. And it lights up the same part of the brain as having food and having sex. Serving others hits the same part of the brain as having food and having sex. We're hardwired to do it. If you're not happy right now, it's because you feel like you're not serving. That you don't matter. You might be doing stuff that matters, but you feel like it doesn't matter. This is where I get stuck on goals. People say, well, what are your next goals? I don't know, 5 million subscribers, 10 million subscribers. It doesn't, it doesn't mean anything. What does that mean? It's more the qualitative stuff that means the most to me. It's the comments that you guys leave on the videos. It's the people that come up to me at events and tell me how much the content has had an impact on their lives. Like, that's the juice. That's why we do what we do. And of course you have to get numbers, and of course you have to drive revenue, and of course you have to— like, all of that matters because in making money, it allows you to go and create more and serve more and help more, you know, and build a better life for yourself as well. Money is definitely important. It's got to be in your top 5, but it can't be number 1. And number 1 is feeling that you're on a mission, that you're going to make something today that will matter. So how do we do it? Again, I go through the process in Build to Serve, but basically 3 steps. It's who, I have. So who is your single most important core value? And if you had to guess, what is your most important core value? What do you stand for as a human being? For me, it's belief. So I want to spread belief everywhere that I go. In this video, my intention is spread belief. I want, I want to believe more in myself, and I am hoping that you believe more in yourself as a result of being around the stuff that I make. I don't always accomplish it, but it's the intention. It's the goal always going in. And whatever your most important core value is, that's what you still need more for yourself. It's your biggest roadblock right now. And it's also the gift that you want to give to the world, to the people around you. You want to help them feel X as well. So for me, it's believe. What is it for you? Step 2 is your why, and your why is your purpose. And your purpose comes from your pain. So whatever you struggled the most with is the thing you want to help other people through. So I struggled so much as an entrepreneur, a young entrepreneur, 19-year-old Evan, quit on my business partner, didn't think I was adding any value, no contribution, not getting any results, working my face off but just getting zero results, no traction. And I hated it. I hated it. So I quit on my business partner. I went back the next day, but That was, that was, man, the worst day of my life. And my why is to help other entrepreneurs not struggle as much as I did. Whatever you struggled with the most is a gift because you're going to help other people not struggle as much as you did. And that will make you feel amazing forever. We all love helping, right? Back to the functional MRIs. You love helping. You love assisting. You, you'll, you'll buy the coffee to the person behind you in line, or you open the door for somebody, or you help somebody pack their car with groceries, or help somebody up who fell on the street or something. You'll do that, it'll feel good, but that's a little momentary thing versus if you felt like there's somebody who you're helping who was a younger version of you, you see you in that person and you help them come alive by talking to you, by spending 5 minutes with you, you see hope light up in their eyes that, wow, maybe I don't have to stay stuck. Maybe I don't have to struggle and suffer as much as I am because they met you. Man, that's a totally different vibe and feeling. That's the, that's the thing to get addicted to. Get addicted to serving. Get addicted to helping. Get addicted to impacting. You know what a difference it makes. And so figuring out your why becomes really important because we'll often just find ways to try to find any kind of meaning without ever, ever having done the deepest work. And as entrepreneurs, we struggle to often look back. I don't think about my most painful moment. That was in the past. I don't want to touch that. I want to be happy and optimistic and move forward. Well, this is how you do it, right? The point of looking back at your most painful moment is not to live there. It's to say there's lots of people who right now currently are struggling with the thing that that you struggled with before. You can help them, and you'll, you'll light up. It'll be the greatest thing of all time to help those people. So first is your who, your most important core value. Second is your why, which is your purpose. And the third is then your how, and that's, that's your passion. So how do you want to help people? So how— so I want to help people believe in themselves, and especially entrepreneurs, because that's what— that's where I struggled the most. But how do I do it? Well, however you came get out of the hole that you were in is a teachable thing that you can give to other people. So for me, it was modeling success. And that's it. Who has done this before? And I studied them and I applied that lesson. It was Bill Gates. I applied his lesson to my business and we started having success. Now, what have I done for the past 20 years is teach people how they can model success to the situations in their business or their life to accomplish their goals. So how did you get out of the hole that you were in? What was the thing that you did? And where we get trapped a lot is we love helping people to get the result, but we don't love the process of helping them. So the classic example I use, if you're moving your, your, your office, I love helping you as an entrepreneur move to a new office, but I don't want to help you pack boxes and pack up computers. Right? So I like the end result of helping you believe in yourself and you've launched your new office. Awesome. Them, but I don't like the process that leads up to it. So we're constantly chasing the result, but we don't enjoy the process. But the number one rule for success is you have to enjoy the process. And so we get— givers, we get trapped in this loop of constantly helping people because we love helping people. We feel good helping people and we get the result of helping people, but we don't enjoy the process. And so we never get actually great at the thing or world-class because we're not enjoying the day-to-day work. And so that becomes the next challenge is however you got out of the hole that you were in is a teachable thing to others. And we have to enjoy the process of doing it so it doesn't feel like work, right? That whole expression of find what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. It's true. You know, I love making videos. How have I done so many videos for so long, so consistently? Because it doesn't feel like work. This isn't, this isn't work. I would, you know, my wife is in this store here, you know, shopping for for food. That feels more like work than sitting here in the car and making a video for you guys, right? And so there's no right or wrong, you know. For, for my wife, she'd probably rather be in there than making videos. So for you, what's the process that you actually enjoy that is contributing to other people? So when you can combine all those things, when you can find the thing you love doing that's a service to others, that is helping people who currently are who you used to be, and injecting them with the core value that you've got that you still need even more for yourself, that's when everything starts to shift. So the who, why, how process— who, your single most important core value; why, your purpose— your purpose comes to your pain; and how is your passion, how you actually want to help people with their, you know, through your who and your why. You figure that out, everything gets easier, everything gets more exciting, everything gets happier, everything— you feel more grateful, more confident, more alive, more momentum. You start making more money. It's like you stop fighting the world and you start flowing with it because you want to serve. And you've got so much kindness and opportunity inside you that needs to come out, that where you are right now is not, is not where you want to be. It's not where it If you fast forward a year, 2 years, 5 years, you want to be in a better spot. Everything-wise, health-wise, emotional, gratitude, money in your bank account, all of it. And it's, and it's possible when you can connect your who, your why, and your how to find the fulfillment that you're after. Because you made it this far in the video, I want to celebrate you. Most people start and don't finish. Most people never actually follow through. Most people say they want something, but they don't ever do the work to actually get it. But you are different. You are special. Believe Nation, you made it here all the way to the end, and I love you. So as a special celebration, if you put a hashtag #believe down in the comments below on this video, I will showcase you and celebrate you. You somewhere on the screen in a future video, because you are awesome. If you want to watch another top 10 rules of Evan Carmichael, check out the video next to me. Continue to believe. I will see you there. Make your calendar your life. This is how you start to live an intentional life because you've designed it. You've put it in your calendar, not just the business things. When we think about a calendar, it's usually your business stuff. Okay. I got a meeting here. I got to