In this 16‑minute motivational montage, host Evan Carmichael introduces a collection of success habits shared by a lineup of high‑profile entrepreneurs and speakers. The video opens with Evan asking viewers to comment on their favorite habit, then cuts to short clips from Eric Thomas, Tony Robbins, Richard Branson, Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Jack Ma, and Gary Vaynerchuk. Each speaker offers a concrete practice they credit for their achievements: 1. Eric Thomas stresses the "power of 21" – committing to a habit for 21 consecutive days to build consistency. 2. Richard Branson highlights active listening and writing down ideas as a leadership habit that fuels exceptional customer experiences. 3. Warren Buffett describes a lifelong reading habit, especially biographies, that opened doors (e.g., discovering GEICO). 4. Elon Musk reveals an extreme work schedule of 80‑100 hours per week, arguing that sheer time investment multiplies odds of success. 5. Jack Ma emphasizes optimism, refusing to complain, and reframing rejection as a stepping stone, sharing personal stories of repeated academic and job rejections. 6. Tony Robbins introduces "incantations" – embodied, high‑energy affirmations combined with peak physiology to reprogram the subconscious and boost confidence. 7. Gary Vaynerchuk talks about giving direct, honest feedback ("honey over vinegar") to accelerate decision‑making and growth. Evan wraps up by urging viewers to share takeaways, suggest future topics, and adopt a personal "one‑word" mantra. The overall narrative positions these habits as actionable, repeatable practices that viewers can adopt to "own" their goals.
Chapters
Good morning, Believe Nation! Today we're going to talk about the habits of successful people. Rule number 1 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. And as always, guys, as you're listening, if you hear something that really, really resonates with you, please leave it in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired. And also, as you write things down, you're much more likely to keep it in here as well. Enjoy.
The power of 21. And so when I've been telling you to get that goal, get that dream, and I've just been telling you drive it and drive it and drive it and drive it, what I've been talking about is consistency. And for some of you, for real, for real, you'll never have it, you'll never be it, you'll never you're not going to do it because you don't have any consistency. You listen to me, you are killing me and you killing yourself. You start and you stop and you start and you stop and then you start and you stop and your goal, you got the on the wall, you got the Bentley on the wall, you got the gated community on the wall, you got the degree on the wall, but the problem is you keep starting and stopping and starting and stopping and all I'm asking you to do for me is I'm asking for some consistency. All right, all right, so I'm talking about the power of 21. Are you hearing what I'm telling you? I'm talking about doing something for 21 straight days. Now, it may not work. I first did this, the first thing I started, my boy Hollering Hill, he gave me a book called the Book of Proverbs, right? He told me to read like a book of Proverbs a day for 21 days. Like, he's like, E, just start a habit. He's for real. We started with reading Proverbs, something real simple. But he said, E, if you can, if you can do something for 21 days, like, you'll never have to think about it. I don't know if you caught what I told you this morning. I woke up at 3 o'clock this morning, 3 o'clock, burnt out, tired, like, yo, E, I can't do it. I just boom, went back to sleep. Boom, 3 minutes later, my body woke me up. What am I saying to you? I'm telling you, consistency, habits. My body like Like, yo, E, I don't know what you doing. I don't know what you think you doing, but we don't do that. Sleep is for suckers. Get up. Listen to me. Not my mind, my body kicked in and said, get up. We talking about consistency. And so I read the book of Proverbs 21 straight days, right? And I started doing other stuff. I said, we gonna exercise for 21 days. I just started trying to do stuff for 21 days to see if I can do it. And what I discovered is, for real, and I'm gonna be honest with y'all, I did 14 days, then I started all over again. I said, this time I did 16 days, then I started all over again, and I did 18 days, then I started all over again, and I did 21. Some stuff, I can do 21 straight days. Some stuff I gotta start and stop and start and stop and start, but when you get to 21, there's power in consistency.
What do you see is some of the common habits of these successful people outside of believing in the best in people like you talked about, not being as critical, you know, being flexible mentally, whatever. What are some of the other habits?
I think that the most important attribute of a good leader is somebody who listens well. A good leader knows what he thinks, so there's no point in spouting what you think to your team. What you need to do is learn from your team, learn from your customers, listen. I'm a great believer in writing things down. So if I'm having a meeting and people are coming up with lots of ideas, if I don't write things down, I know I'm only going to remember, you know, a couple of things the next day. And often quite a lot of my meetings are, you know, at the bar at 1 in the morning, and I know definitely I'm not going to remember the next day what my staff have told me. So again, you know, Write things down, and then the next day you can pull out your list and you can get, you know, set about sorting things out. If I'm flying on a Virgin airline, you know, I'll meet all the passengers, I'll listen to them, write things down, I'll meet the staff, listen to them, write things down, and sometimes it's tiny little things, but it's those tiny little things that make for an exceptional company over an average company. Here in America, Virgin America, we started it a few years ago. I think the reason is it consistently gets voted the best airline in the States is because we listen and we get all those little details right so that our customers are happy. If our customers are happy, your staff are happy, your staff smile, And, you know, it's quite rare on airlines to have staff that smile, but they do smile because they— because the customers are happy and everybody's happy.
Yeah.
So listening is a key.
I should mention one thing about reading. It was at the library here at Columbia that I wish I spent probably more time than any other student. I lived there practically. But, you know, I pulled a book out there, happened to be Who's an American? Told me something about my professor Benjamin Graham, and then I looked up and I went to the library and I said, I want to learn more about this because I learned this over here. That changed my whole life. You know, we own GEICO now because of that librarian directing me to some other book and then following through on that. It's the chance— I read about one-fifth the pace that Bill does, but I still spend 5 or 6 hours a day reading. I mean, it's just— you can learn so much. I particularly love biography, just, you know, to be able to live the lives of these people that have been so— see them so extraordinary, the lessons and the discouragements they face, just everything about it. So you can't get enough of reading.
I think my life would be very unbalanced by most people's definition since I work quite a lot. And I probably put in sort of between 80 and 100 hours a week of work, which is a lot. And yeah, so, and then most of my remaining waking hours are spent with my kids. So that's my life. I would say it's relatively unbalanced. And then just work like hell. I mean, you just have to put in, you know, 80-hour, 80 to 100-hour 40-hour weeks every week.
That's a lot of work.
And then, all those things improve the odds of success. Okay. Great. I mean, if other people are putting in 40-hour work weeks and you're putting in 100-hour work weeks, then even if you're doing the same thing, you know that in 1 year you will achieve what they achieve. You will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.
I'm lucky to know a lot of famous people: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jack Welch, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg. I know all of them. I would like to share with you that those people, the difference between those people and other people, they are always optimistic for the future. They never complain. They always try to solve the problems of the others. And I think, where is the opportunity? The opportunity always lies in the place where people complain. Some people sit there complaining, you think, "Mm, if I can solve that complaint, that's the opportunity." That's what I did. Don't complain. Let the other people complain. Those people complain, those people who fail. And do not Always say, "Well, I don't have—" Think about how you can make things different. Use your own brain to think. You tried to get into 3 colleges. Mm-hmm. Each time they rejected you. No, I tried— there is an examination that young people, if you want to go university, you have to take the examinations. So I failed 3 times. I had a lot of fail. I failed for— funny thing is that I failed a key primary school test for 2 times. And I failed like 3 times for the middle school, middle schools. And you would never believe in Hangzhou, my city, there's only one middle school that last only one year. It was changed from primary school to middle school because our graduates of our school, no middle school accept us because we were too bad.
They would become middle school.
What effect did it have though, being rejected? Well, I think we have to get used to it. We're not that good. Even today, we still have a lot of people reject us. I think when I graduate from universities and before I You know, for 3 years I tried to fill in the universities. So I applied jobs for 30 times, got rejected. I went for a police, they said, "No, you're not good." I went to even the KFC. When KFC come to China, come to my city, 24 people went for the job. 23 people accepted. I was the only one guy. And we went for Please, 5 people, 4 of them accepted. I was the only guy that did not receive it. So to me, being turned down, rejected— oh, by the way, I told you that I applied for Harvard for 10 times rejected. I know it would be rejected.
I just don't want to say that.
They're sorry now. They're sorry now.
10 times you wrote them and said, I'd like to come to Harvard. Yeah. And then I told myself, someday I should go teach there, Bobby.
Here's what I've created for my life and anyone I know has succeeded. I'm a 17-year-old kid from Azusa, California with no real education other than self-education, with no background, with parents that did their best, all of them, with no money, but I did one thing. I love people and I had an enormous demand I made upon myself and I sculpted my mind and my emotions to get me to do whatever it would take to achieve and to contribute. But to do that, I did it by using my body and changing my focus. I did it by putting myself in a peak physiology and using what I call incantations. Can you train yourself to believe something? Yes or no? Absolutely. How many have ever made the fatal mistake of going to Disneyland or Disney World, and while you're there, made the fatal mistake of going to a ride called It's a Small World After All? What happens for about a week after you're out of that damn place? You're still singing this thing in your head in 24 languages, right? Well, let me tell you something. How many of you have things when you want to go achieve them, and this part of your voice goes, "Oh, it's not going to happen," or, "Forget it"? How many got a voice that sometimes interrupts that good pattern? Say "I." I. What you want to do is train a new one. So starting when I was 17, I started doing incantations. Incantations, not affirmations. Affirmation, you go, "I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy." What's the problem? You haven't changed your what? Your what? Physiology. If you don't change your physiology, you won't get anything. So an incantation is not only you speak it, but you embody what you're saying with all the intensity you can. And you do it with enough repetitions that it sticks in your head. Like "It's a Small World," now the conversation in your head is always the same and it gives you what you you want. So use your body and your voice. So 17 years ago, I started doing things. I was working for Jim Rohn, this speaker. I was 17 years old. I had long hair, minestrone soup acne on my face. I was trying to call on Bear Stearns type of people and convince them why they should go to this man's seminar and be more successful. I was driving a 1968 Volkswagen that I had earned at $40 a week as a janitor. The only way I did it was park far from the building And then go in, and I love people, and I believe, but I put myself in state, and I was able to influence people that were far more successful than I was at the time. I would do something that I still do backstage and have done for 23 years, because I don't hope I'm going to be in a good state, I demand it. So I do an incantation using my whole body. I'd say, "I now command my subconscious mind to direct me in helping as many people as possible live today to better their lives by giving me the strength, the emotion, the persuasion, the humor, the brevity, whatever." Whatever it takes to show these people and get these people to change their lives now. I would do that, literally driving in my Volkswagen to a meeting in LA on the freeway for 40 minutes. People are looking at me, I'm screaming at the top of my lungs. They're going, "I know he's a serial killer. I know he is." But by the time I entered that room, when two people meet, if there's rapport, the person who's most certain will always influence the other person. And I was totally certain, and they were trying to get revved up to certainty. Do you agree with this? Yes or no? I do another one because I was poor. I changed my mindset. I kept doing things, but I never got beyond it. I'd say, God's wealth is circulating in my life. His wealth flows to me in avalanches of abundance. All my needs, desires, and goals are met instantaneously by infinite intelligence, for I'm one with God, and God is everything. And I would imagine the abundance in my life, and I would feel so grateful. And a year later I went from making $38,000 a year to making $1 million a year in one year.
I've started, and I'm still not great at this either, these are always works in progress when it's not the thing that comes most natural to you, but I think what I've been doing well lately is I've been giving more honest, critical, direct-to-people's-face feedback. I tend to be a little bit softer, I'm much more of a honey over vinegar guy, but between our former managing director Kelly and AJ, the very straight shooter operators, They've moved me along. I've definitely evolved in that category. I'm definitely better at it. I still wanna deal with a ton of empathy and heart and soul, but shooting it straight is bringing more value to me, and it's just speeding up the process of victory. Can't have a CEO, I wouldn't say I'm not, I'm very decisive, but boy, delivering bad news does not come natural to me, and I don't love it, and so building infrastructure around me and then doing it myself has been an important evolution that I've done much better at VaynerMedia than I've done at Wine Library, and what that's given me is the thing that a lot of you know that I value, which is speed. Those two.
Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because Imani Injar asked me to. If there's a topic you'd like me to cover in the next edition of Believe Life, please leave it down in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know what did you learn from this video? What was the most important takeaway that you're going to apply to your life or your business immediately now that you saw this this clip, please leave it down in the comments below. If you have anything you'd like to add, a tip, a suggestion for other people to be more successful, habits that you feel maybe we missed, leave it down again in the comments. I'm really curious to see what you have to say. Finally, I want to give a quick shout out to Esteban Serrano. Thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. Really, really, really, really means a lot to me, and I hope you're enjoying the read. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever whatever your one word is. Much love, have an amazing day, and I'll see you soon.
