How to Stay Consistent When You Feel Behind and Want to Quit

What is it you've seen people do to turn up the heat, to take things to the next level? So I'd say two things. The first is just staying consistent on the thing. I don't know how many times it took you to make a video before your channel started to take off. For me, it was a lot. 5 years to get to 2,000 subscribers or something like that. It's just the only thing I had going for me was I just kept going. I wasn't very good on camera. I didn't have any strategy. I didn't really know what I was doing. I felt insecure all the time. I was introverted and shy and like not a natural entertainer. Painter, but I just kept going. And so a lot of times the answer is just keep going, just stay consistent, just make another one, just make another one. And I think if you, if you're always focused on the next one you're making and not so worried about, oh, my last one didn't do as well, or wasn't as good a thumbnail, or whatever, like, okay, just like, you sucked it, perfect, make the next one, keep going. There's always another one that you're going to keep doing. That's the only thing that I had going for me in the early days. Hey, it's Evan Carmichael, and I watch these videos every day because I need them for motivation. Being around successful entrepreneurs every morning helps me believe that I can do great things too. It's like your morning coffee, but for your goals, kickstarting your day with a blast of positivity. So here is a challenge for you. Try watching one video every morning for the next 30 days, and let's find out together if they help you do great things too. If you're in, leave a hashtag #believe in the comments below so I can celebrate with you. So today, let's learn from me and my team's take on my top 10 rules of success. Enjoy. A lot of times it really is just continuing to show up because in the showing up you will slowly get better. You might be naturally talented, amazing, but you will, even if you suck, you will get better. You will slowly get better at the skill and opportunities will come to you if you're in the game. But like, you don't get opportunities if you're just sitting thinking about the game. You got to be there in the game. And a lot of times we feel like we're just striking out and striking out and striking out. But it's like, it's another at-bat. and then eventually you get a hit, you know, and then you keep striking out and you get another hit, and you slowly get better. You can play forever, right? I mean, it's like you can keep doing this. It's not like in a year YouTube's gonna go away and now you're not gonna be able to make it. So just showing up consistently, and for me, it's having a calendar and videos have to go up. So this is something I talk to creators about all the time is for us it's a daily calendar. For somebody else it might be a weekly or monthly calendar, but A video has to go up every day. Even now, how many years later, 15 years later, whatever it is, I still don't 100% love any video that we release. Right? Like I look at it like, oh, we could tweak that and we could change that. That's such a huge point. Yeah, it's like there's always something that we can tweak and fix. And if you give me infinite time with it, I'll keep working and keep working and keep working and keep working on it. But a video has to go up today. And a video has to go up tomorrow. So we do the best that we have with what we've got, and then tomorrow we release another video. And so nothing gets in the way of the release schedule. So we haven't missed a video upload in over a decade. I don't know, you can go on the channel, I guess, see when the last time we didn't have a day of making videos. Rule number 2 is believe. I think at the start I was very shy, introverted, still am, man, still an introvert. But 11 years later, 6,000 videos later, here we are. And belief is the core. But I think, so I mean, I guess maybe lesson for your audience or a tidbit is, yes, is belief in yourself and your abilities to close and to help and to serve and to do a good job. And, but also I think belief that what you're selling will actually help the client. Yeah. Like I think that's what really helps move the needle forward is you know that this thing, you know that these people are struggling with an issue and that your product or service can help them, then it becomes your duty, your obligation to persuade, to influence, to help because it's of service to them. It's not just you trying to get the commission, right? You gotta hit that number for the end of the month, which is important. But then that when it's selfishly motivated like that, it can be hard to still have that belief all the time. And it's easy for the customer to kind of see through it. Where if you're actually thinking of them in their own best interest and you know that your product or service can help them solve that problem, it makes you way more persuasive and convincing to actually get those numbers for yourself. Rule number 3 is build relationships. Especially for your business, referrals are so critical. I mean, I don't have to tell you that, but you know, for people watching too, thinking about who could be good referral partners. If you're taking Canadians and then taking them to Europe, the lawyers who are experts in moving businesses over, the accountants who are experts in Italy or Greece or wherever you're going to go and send people to. Those are great relationships to start to build now. And then that sets you up because they could help refer clients into you as well. It's like, oh, okay, well, we already have clients who are moving here and we're helping them with the legal. We need somebody to help them figure out their finances. Talk to Sarah. She's the guy. So building those relationships is the fastest way to start getting that business off the ground. Now, how do you do that with— you're talking YouTube content or Instagram content. I guess I could call them and say, hey, you want to do YouTube together with— and interview them and say, hey, what do you see about people coming over to whatever, Italy, and what are the things? That's the show. So the show, because of all the compliance and because of the kind of timeline that you're working on, the show is not actually for for the consumer, the show is having people on who are your potential referral partners. It's a business development show. So lawyers never get asked to do interviews on anything. Yeah? So if you go in and say, hey, do you want to be a potential partner for me and maybe refer business to each other? They're getting hit up all the time with business opportunities, and you're just another financial advisor that they have to kind of swat away and decide if they actually want to do something with you. But if you say, hey, I'd love to interview you, for my YouTube channel that's going to talk about how Canadians can either invest if it's a Canadian market or how Canadians can move overseas. This is what my channel is all dedicated towards. Like, really? You got a channel for that? Sure. I'd be happy to come on. And then you spend an hour with them interviewing them. Now you build the relationship and now they're asking, hey, Serge, what do you do? Like, you're the financial guy, huh? We might have some clients for you. So it almost doesn't matter how well that video does. The point is to not reach consumers, but to connect with potential referral partners, so it's business development for you. Rule number 4 is follow your heart. You need to start with the heart. And our brain often will tell— our brain is designed to keep us small, keep us safe, keep us protected. And it doesn't agree with the things your heart wants to do. Like, come to Toronto and do this thing with Evan. Yeah, but this is stupid. All of the reasons why it's stupid. I lost my voice. I should cancel the flight. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's not gonna work. Yeah, right? And that all makes logical sense. And like, your brain keeps you safe where your heart wants to create something brand new. And so you need both. But the big decisions are with the heart and the starting point is with the heart. That's where creativity is born. And then as you get going, you can use your brain to figure out, do I, do I keep doing this? How do I build? How do I inject the science into it? So top 10 profiles. Yeah, I love that all day. Let's get smarter at it. Dance challenges, one and done. Right, right. But I guess back to the story, like it didn't start with science. It didn't start with target market. It didn't start with knowing your audience. It didn't start with creating an avatar, right? It started with, I'm going to do a toy review. I don't know, there's this dinosaur here. Let me do this toy review. And whatever sparked the seed after that, whether the video did well or you got a couple of comments or it was just fun to do or like, I could do more of this. Then you brought the science in and that's how you blew up, you know, a channel to having a billion views. Right. But it starts with the seed of creativity that you just said yes to and followed. 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 inspire 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 model success. I make the content for me because I want Grant in my ear and Steve Jobs in my ear and all these people who've done amazing things. And when you're around it every day, then all of a sudden, like, this is no big deal compared to what all these other people have done. And so it makes you feel like it's possible. And that all of those successful people that are profiled on the channel, their first answer is not just, okay, I guess, I guess we quit. It's like, no, no, we'll find another way, or at least let me try to find another way. And so the more you have that being poured into you, from entrepreneurs, from athletes, from musicians, the people who have accomplished, then it just makes you start to shift your perspective and mindset. The people you've had on your show and this show, this podcast, it's always encouraging people. It's always hopeful. It's always giving people optimism and that they don't have to stay where they are right now. They're not happy where they've accomplished a lot to be here. That's why they listen to Josh. But you don't have to stay there. You could be way further. You could be out here. And you're bringing on guests to kind of help make that path happen. And so the more you feed your mind with it, the more you start to become it and think that way. Because chances are the people listening to this show, your audience, they're already the most ambitious people that they know. Like, you're the one pouring in other people. You're the one for your community encouraging other people saying, you should do this. Go and— you're the one from your high school who's already accomplished the most. Probably. And that's great. Like, continue to pour into other people. But who pours into you? And the more successful you become, the fewer there are who can pour into you. And so it's not— that's not to say don't go off and get mentors and join groups and connect with people. It's super important. But you can get a lot from virtual mentors. So you can learn a lot from guys like Grant and Steve Jobs and whoever your heroes are, even if you never meet them. And it forces you to become a better version of you. Rule number 6 is build a morning routine. You have to remind yourself of the things that make you feel bold, confident, powerful, alive, and then put that into your morning routine because it's a daily thing. You might have the greatest day of all time today and feel like you're unstoppable and you're the king of the world and you can do anything, and then you wake up tomorrow and that feeling's gone. Yeah, it's a daily thing. So whatever the thing is that made you feel bold, powerful, confident, alive, put that into your morning routine. You know, if listening to Jake is the thing, great. Jake's got a bunch of episodes. Go listen to one every morning. Like, start your day with Jake, right? If it's my YouTube videos or if it's somebody else's podcast or reading a book, something, whatever the thing is that gets you feeling amazing. This is one of the biggest things that people don't recognize about high achievement. People expect, uh, you know, Tony Robbins or Brendon Burchard or Evan Carmichael, whoever, wake up and go Yes, Thursday, let's go crush today, right? Like, that doesn't happen for anybody. Yeah, not for me, not for Jake, not for Tony Robbins, not for Michael Jordan, not for anybody, right? The difference is successful people, high achievers, have a set of excellence for themselves. They have a routine that they demand that excellence from themselves on a daily basis. So if you wake up and don't feel motivated, welcome to being a human being. Jordan didn't feel motivated either, but he did things every morning to help him get to that spot. That's the only thing that's missing. You have to figure out what is your routine going to be to get you feeling bold, powerful, confident, alive, which is why I like having the office environment. 'Cause I don't even have to do anything. I just have to walk in and that gives me an instant hit already. Rule number 7 is overcome your fears. Whether you're an introvert or not, achieving your big scary dream will come on the other side of all of these fears. So for me, I was massively afraid to, if you hit me up 10 years ago, I would have been terrified to come and do this show. I still get terrified when I'm going and doing speeches on big stages. For you, even before we started recording, you said you were nervous and scared to do this interview, right? Like all of, and maybe even in messaging me or making that video, you were, nervous or scared to do it. All of the great things that you want in life are on the other side of your fears. And if you tap into the fact that I'm not even doing this for me, I'm doing this to serve, I'm doing this to help, like you're doing this, sure, it helps your show, but it's to reach more people, it's to spread a message, you want to help other people. Anytime I tap into service, it reduces the fear, it takes away that fear for me. And I remind myself, stop being selfish. Like, you're here to try to help people, so go off and try to do that. Rule number 8 is learn to monetize. The book without marketing is not gonna generate more business for you. Okay. So I would love to see you start making more money, and then you can afford to hire whoever you need to to do whatever else you need to, right? So people tend to default to more like, okay, oh, I need to write a blog or I need to write a book or I need to like just create more. But creating more doesn't mean that you're going to get more clients and get paid more. So if you're a coach, having a book, does it add some credibility? Maybe, you know, like these days it doesn't really matter that much if you have a book or not. If it's with a publisher, maybe it's in a bookstore, maybe. But are you still buying books in bookstores? You know, I don't know. It's not what it used to be. The reason I write a book is because you want to birth it into the world. You got a big message. And for my books, like, this is better in a book than it is in a series of videos. But I didn't need this book to immediately generate business for me. If I was you, I would focus on how do I grow my coaching business. You might have big ambitions and huge things you want to do, and maybe you start your own publishing company. I don't know. You got lots of things that you want to work on. But what's the fastest path to start making some money inside of your big mission? And if you're self-coaching, the fastest path is coaching. So what's going to help you generate coaching clients? Your two best bets are coaching content. It's like a book isn't coaching content. A book is you being a thought leader again, right? So coaching content, ideally videos where you're showing, right? And any potential partnerships, like who are they, who are people going to when they need a reset? So for example, you mentioned divorce. Cool. Go talk to the top 50 divorce attorneys in Calgary and say, here's what I do. Rule number 9 is be more confident. Whoever's more confident wins, right? So you need to feel confident before you ever pick up the phone. And that starts with, you know, morning routine rituals, but also the environment that you're in, the clothes that you wear, all of it really matters to your confidence. So, I want to create an environment of belief whenever I walk into my office. So, to, you know, what Jake's talking about, I've got 5 canvases up on my wall. The first one you can't actually see on this angle, it's a Steve Jobs picture kind of staring me down. Then we got A.P. Giannini, who's my favorite entrepreneur of all time. Then my parents, and this is me, I'm about 8 years old here, my parents, and then Howard Schultz, and then Kanye West. Kanye West, yeah. I'm in Calabasas. That's awesome. And this is, you know, these people are staring me down every time I come to my office. And the great thing about setting up your environment is you only have to do it once. Like, I set this up with intention once, and then I show up every day, and I got these people staring me down, giving me belief, you know, every day. And so, it's a super powerful hack to think, What makes you have that confidence, have that self-belief? And then whether it's your computer background, your cell phone background, the art on your walls, how you dress and show up, even if you're working from home, will make an impact on your mental. And when your mental is strong, that converts super easy to your customers wanting to buy from you and feeling like you're speaking the truth. And rule number 10, the last one before some very special bonus clips, is pray for wisdom. Stop getting pulled in a thousand different directions that other people want you to do, because you know what feels true to you. So that has to come from a real place. I don't think you can just pick one and say, that's what I'm going to be. It has to come from inside. I would encourage more prayer. Pray. I think people often pray for help. Like, please help me with this, please take away this problem from me, as opposed to praying for wisdom. Yeah, pray for wisdom, pray for guidance, pray for helping and figuring out what your core value is. Yeah, right. Pray properly, right? Don't pray to win the lottery. Pray for guidance on how to figure out your most important core value. And I think if you open yourself up to that and create that channel, um, you're much more likely to be able to find it. I think people should pray for wisdom more. How you can model success. This is what saved my business when I wanted to quit at my company, my first software company. And then I realized that, you know what, I'm not the first guy to try to sell software before. Like, somebody has figured this out. If I just learn from that person, I can apply those strategies to my business. And so I modeled Bill Gates, who started Microsoft. I've never met Bill Gates, but he saved my company. I looked at the strategies of how did he start Microsoft, not how does Microsoft grow now. Who cares? It's a huge company. Start. How did he start? Zero to one. That's what I wanted to do. I modeled him and I applied that to my business and we started to grow. Whatever dreams, whatever goals, whatever business you have, somebody's already figured it out. It may not be exactly what you want to do, and that's good because you're different. You're an entrepreneur. You're going to put your own twist on it. But people have already figured it out, and so understanding what they did and trying to break down their success can be really helpful so that if you're hustling and grinding, you're spending your time on the right things that will help you as opposed to the things that aren't leading to success. Mm-hmm. So when you say model after them, you mean like you don't necessarily have to meet this person. You can just read their books or watch their interviews. Is that how you learned from Bill Gates, for example? Yeah, so there's two kinds of mentors. There's the regular mentors that people think about where you go for coffee and they're they're local, you can go meet them and they break down your business. I never had that. My parents taught me so much about life and being a human being, but never about business. Nobody in my family was an entrepreneur, and so I had nobody to go and have coffee with. I went to my banker and said, "Hey, can you help me with my business?" He's like, "Well, do you need a loan?" Like, no, I don't know. Do I need a loan? I don't know. He's like, "Yeah, you're not really in the right place." I didn't know anybody. I look to what I call aspirational mentors. These are people who you aspire to be like or aspire to learn from. Some people may have already passed on and you'll never meet them. I have Steve Jobs up on my wall. I'm never going to meet him, obviously. A lot of people behind me, some I may meet one day or some have passed on. I look at two kinds of what I call aspirational mentors. The first are in your industry. Whatever you want to do, somebody has done it. You want to be a successful YouTuber? There's lots of people who've done it. Go and model them. See what they did. The more successful they are, the more information there is on them, whether it's interviews or books or magazine articles. Their story is somewhere. Again, look to how they got started as opposed to what they're doing now because it's a different scale. Then the second kind are just the people who you look up to. If I love Oprah Winfrey, I can learn something from her even if I don't want to have my own talk show. If you love Michael Jordan, you could learn from him even if you never want to be a basketball player. The way that he works and his hustle and effort, and he's in the gym, you can apply that to your life and to your business even if you never go on to try to become an NBA player. Those two things, the people who have done what you want to do, and maybe you hate them, but you can still learn from their success and just do it your way. Then the people who you just really look up to and really admire and say, "One day I want to have that kind of impact." again, understanding how they got started and modeling their success to help you get your breakthrough. The first person I hired was not in this YouTube business, but, but way back in my first company. And it was for 1 hour a day. And I hired him to do 1 hour of work a day, because it freed up about an hour and a half of my time per day. And I think honestly, as soon as you can, you you want to get somebody to help out. It does a couple things. One, it, it, it really helps to not be doing this alone. Like, it really sucks to do everything all by yourself. Just the emotional— I mean, you guys have each other, which is great. It's like, join a group, join a community, don't be alone, because it's really, really, really hard to be an entrepreneur and do it all on your own when all of those insecurities and fears and doubts and like, I'm not good enough, and I was so dumb for starting this and what was I thinking? And right. So it's, it's nice to have somebody who's doing this with you as opposed to you doing it all by yourself. Plus, it's just smart in that you don't have to do all the work, that you can delegate some of the tasks away to focus on whatever is, you know, more inside of your passion and what you love and what you can charge more for as well to build your company. Why is it necessary? That's one word for branding your business. So I think it comes in two forms. I think it starts with you. I think it gives you the clear perspective on what your brand is all about. I think a lot of times when people are coming up with a brand, they don't know, they're picking something because it looks nice or it sounds good, but it's not coming from a really deep place of meaning. And the brand needs to mean something first to you. Like, you need to be proud of everything that you're creating and it has to have a heartbeat. Everything you make has to have a heartbeat, whether that's creating content or creating a service like you do coaching, you do consulting. That has to— you have to help people thrive in, in those sessions or you're not going to be, you know, happy about that. Um, and so it, it gives you a frame of reference for yourself first, and then that flows through everything, flows into your entire business, how you operate your company. Uh, you know, you want to bring on people to your team who believe in similar things as you do. If you're hiring a video editor, you know, my video editor wanted to tattoo Believe on her arm before she even met me. Oh, she, she, you know, she believes in the same thing. And so you want to bring people on who have the skill set but also believe the same thing that you believe. And if you don't know what you believe, then you'll attract anybody. But if you're really specific on what you believe, then it's easy to bring people in who are on the same mission. That's an internal brand. And most people look at the external, which we can get to, but I guess the internal brand, you need the internal compass. Because if the external is one thing and the internal is something else, you're not going to be happy. You're going to feel like a fake. You're going to feel like you're always having to live up to something that you're not. The external then is what people perceive it as. What people see your, your content and people see your product or service, your branding, your, your Instagram and YouTube and all of that. What do they think? What do they feel? If it's too complicated, you know, they won't be able to share it. People, people could love your stuff, but if they can't articulate it clearly to their friends and their colleagues, they're not going to share it. I think of corporations that have their 13 core values that nobody actually knows. Nobody shares it because it's too complicated. Like, if you need me to remember 5 things about you to share it, I'm not going to. It's just, even if I love you, like, I'd have to love you insanely a lot to remember those 5 things. But if it's one thing and people know me for believe, they want more believe in their life, it's, you should talk to Evan, you should go watch his YouTube channel, you should subscribe to him, you should check out what he's doing. It's just easy to remember because people have busy lives. It's not that they don't want to talk about you, you're just making it too complicated. You're introducing too much friction to them. Share with us some of your tips for creating superfans. Yeah, I think it starts with figuring out what is your message? What do you stand for? What's the one word that defines you? I want to talk about my first book, but what, why should I follow you? Like for me, I'm about belief. So if you want a shot in the arm of belief, you want to believe in yourself more, you're going to enjoy everything that I put out. You're going to enjoy this interview. You're going to enjoy my YouTube videos. You're going to enjoy my, my up and coming IG account. You're going to enjoy all that stuff. If you don't like belief, you're not going to like me. You're not going to, you're going to tune out. You've already shut off this podcast. You know, you don't, you're not going to like what I have to say. And so it's figuring out what is your message? What is so important and different about you? Like, why are you doing the thing that you're doing? And then people who like that message will follow along. Most people don't have a message that they really believe in. Most people are just trying to be like somebody else. And that's hard to get. Like, why am I going to be your super fan? I'm going to be that person's super fan. You're trying to just be like, Logan, I'm going to follow Logan. Why am I going to follow you? What's so different? And so it's figuring out what that thing is that's different about you, what your message is that's super clear. And so then I think whenever I need an injection of, like, if you're Mr. Inspiration, whenever I need inspiration, whenever I need energy, like, I'm going to come to you. I'm going to listen to your podcast. Otherwise, what's the reason? If I can't, if I can't tell somebody why they need to listen to your podcast or buy your book or check out your channel, then you're sunk. Like you need people talking about you and the message that you have. Um, now not every message is a positive one. You know, some people make their name off of tabloids and making fun of people. And that's, that's, that's escapism. So it's either like, people want to either escape the life that they hate, or they want to go and build a better life for themselves. So you're either playing on the comedy or on the making fun of somebody else. It's all escaping the life that you don't have to think about your life. You don't have to think about growth. You just want to shut off your brain and be entertained. Or you want to solve the problems and you want to build a better life. And so that's where you get the inspiration and the motivation and practical content. So just figuring out where you lie on that path and then being consistent about it. And that's why the journey is important too. Like if you're saying, hey, I love— I'm about inspiration. I want to inspire people and everything I do, I want to be an inspiration. So I have my clothing line and I have my books. I have my foundation and I'm starting my podcast. And if you want to be inspired, listen to my podcast every week. And then even when you're booking guests, right, you're booking guests who are going to inspire people. Right? So like once you get that identity down, then it makes every decision a lot easier. And you give super fans, you give fans a reason to subscribe and then become super fans. Humans are built to serve. Cause if you're not happy right now, it's cause you're not serving. And that's, that's hardwired into us, serving others, helping others hits the same part of your brain as having food and having sex. So it's literally hardwired into you that you want to, you feel good by serving other people. So if you're not happy right now, you mentioned the word depression. If you're depressed and you're not happy, you're not serving either the world, maybe you have a big mission or big vision, or the 25 closest people to you. You don't have to have some giant mission, but you have to feel like you're serving the people who are closest to you. Either one, if you're not happy, it's because you're not serving. And so the good news is you can always figure out a way to serve. Exactly. And you can serve on a, on a really deep level, which is what the book gets into of how to figure out how to, how to serve exactly. But even just doing an act of kindness, even just doing one nice thing for somebody else will, will make you feel better. Ultimately, what I want people to do is if you woke up and you felt like today mattered, like you woke up this morning and you felt like today mattered, you're going to make something today that matters. You're gonna create something today, whether that's a song or a video or artwork, you're creating. When you're creating something that has the potential to impact somebody else's life, if you did that every day, you're on a path to happiness. Perfectionism is really just fear. You know, you're just afraid. And so I try, I mean, of course I'm still afraid of many things, but if I can catch it, I try not to be or do the thing that makes me scared. Scared. But to the kill your darlings, yeah, one of my greatest fears earlier on in my career was being an aging rock star. And so, one of the things that for some reason really bothered me was you look at these rock stars who were big in like the '70s or '80s or '90s or whatever and they still go on tour. And you're like, "Wow, they're still on tour. It's amazing that they're still on tour." but they're still singing the songs they were singing like decades ago. Yes. Where is the new stuff? Have you had nothing new to say in 30 years since you recorded the thing? Right. Anytime you're judgmental of somebody else, it's self-reflection. It's like it's your own. You're worried about yourself, not about Aerosmith or whatever. It doesn't care about me or my opinion. And I don't really hate on Aerosmith. So it's like if you are criticizing somebody else, it's like, well, look inside because you have that same thing that you're criticizing. And I realized it was my fear that I don't want to be that. I don't want to be Evan, 30 years later, still making videos, yay, but telling the war stories of back in 2023 when I was down with Sean talking about Tom Brady. I want to make new stuff. I want to make new stuff. I think I've overcome that one. I only bring up the past when people ask me questions about the past. But that was a big thing. That was a big fear of mine early on getting started. I didn't want to just hold on to my darlings and sing the same songs over and over and over again. I think one of the biggest mistakes I made early on when I had any money was I I just tried to invest it and put it into the stock market, and I remember like, I had $2,000, like, okay, I'm gonna put it in the stock market, it's gonna grow. I was like, oh, it's like taking so long to grow, it's only $2,000. Where Jeremy actually made a much smarter call. Like, I think at the beginning, you invest in your skills, and you invest in your network, because that $2,500 investment that Jeremy made now has a mid-six-figure, or high-six-figure business every year, because he came to that event. But if he just put it into the stock market, sure, it would grow. But I think at the beginning, you need to invest in yourself to get the skills that you need to be able to then create the network and create value for other people. And when entrepreneurs, any entrepreneur here watching, you're thinking about starting your business, the easiest way to start making money is to provide a high-value business or service to people who have money to pay you. And so, getting into YouTube consulting is great because there's not a ton of people into it. Yeah, right. It hasn't been around for 40 years. If you're going to get into tax accounting, that's a great business to be into, but you have to have years of experience to know what you're doing, right? I did, um, I did an interview with Tom on his channel. Like, that guy's an expert. Yeah, he's a genius. So if you're going to go and compete with Tom, it's going to take you so many years to even catch up to baseline. Level of knowledge. But in YouTube consulting, it's easier because there is nobody really who's been doing this for 40 years, right? Or you're a ChatGPT consultant and you're helping use AI for people in the corporate— who is the expert on that? Like, there's nobody because it's still so brand new. So this is the area where it's super high value for clients, but there aren't a lot of experts at it. So for you to spend 6 months becoming great at it, you could be now in the top 1% of all people who know how to use that thing and then start charging for your services on top of it. The point of the podcast is to help people be unstuck. If it's in relationships, if it's in business, if it's in the idea that they've always had that they want to do, something they want to achieve, it's to unlock that potential. Cool. So you're in a fortunate position in that you, you're starting it from scratch, but you're not, you're not starting from scratch, right? You, you have You have some contacts in the industry, you know some people, you, you can pull sweaters as an analogy an old mentor used to give me where like you're pulling sweaters to get to the head of the line. Sure. You know enough people that you can get to people and you can get to bigger and bigger and bigger people, right? So, you know, there's people who've used your service, you've gone to events, you have connections, even, you know, after this interview goes up, you can see who follows me. An easy hack is like, current guests, see who, who follows them on Instagram, and then reach out to them. Oh, so after this interview goes live, see who follows me on Instagram, and then you can reach out to them and say, hey, I had Evan Carmichael on my show, I'd love to have you on too. Wow. My name may mean nothing to many people, but it means something to a few people. It allows you to do, you know, outreach. Okay, but so you can, you can work your way up, and you can get, you can get guests on your show at a faster clip than most people who are just starting off a podcast. Cool. To what end? Like, how can I bring you value? How can other people come on and bring Justin value, audience value? Because that's, I guess, the work of the, uh, that's the brand. Like, what are we trying to create here? So unlimited potential. Okay, awesome. I love it. I mean, I'm all about believe, so that's great, right? I love it. Is it the guest? Is it the format? Is it people coming on and coaching you? Is it like, what are we going to do different on this podcast compared to all the other podcasts out there that, you know, have the same purpose as you? You don't have to have it all figured out either. I, you know, on this, on this call right now, but that becomes the, uh, the ongoing factor. Why would somebody subscribe to the channel? Why would they watch what you're doing? You can get guests, which is, again, you, you're not starting from scratch. But if I'm coming on your show, how does this become a different interview show than the other ones that other people are on, that I've gone on other people's channels and had, you know, similar conversations. I mean, I talk about belief in potential all the time. So how does it become different? Is it about my potential story? Is it about your potential story? Is it about diving into a specific— like, and it all comes from your heart. Like, what do you actually want to create? The ability to both recruit team and recruit clients based not just off the performance but the story. So in your willingness to share what you've been through and the mission that you're on, I think it actually attracts the right people to you, both clients and team, which then that can parlay into something much bigger. If you look at, you know, Ed Mylett came from the financial world, Patrick Bedavid came from the financial world. Now doing things outside the financial world in a big way. I follow them daily. Yeah, that's their background. It's still, you know, kind of heavy ties to the business, but you— they don't talk much about it. You don't hear Ed and Patrick talking about that business too much. A little bit. But if you were to see their show, you wouldn't think, oh, this is the insurance guy. Right. But it becomes a vehicle to get to the next step. You know, if you took the same courage that you talk about Ali and Sanders in and bring that to your business and your content and your messaging. And like upfront, it's not just that you're a winner and you can help them get the deal. It's also the story behind it. Why would I pick you over somebody else? You have the track record, but other people have the track record. You know, is your track record that much better than somebody else's? You know, maybe compared to startup for sure, but there's other people who have more experience than you do. But they don't have your story. And that combination is where you start to bring on the right people. I think it's a really hard road to become an entrepreneur. How did you find your mentor? Because that's, that's really hard for a lot of people. Yeah. The trick is when you, when you find somebody who you like, who you think they're ahead of you and you think they might have something to contribute, like just you have to find a way to get closer to them. So I'll give you two stories. The first with me and Steve. I met Steve through one of his clients. So one of his clients was in Toronto, same city as me, and we met at a coffee shop, and he had this idea to pitch on a YouTube video. And he said that his agent came up with this idea. I was like, agent? Like, what do you mean agent? How do you have an agent? You're like a business guy, or like a YouTuber. How do you have an agent? Because I thought agents were only for sports stars or musicians. Like, how do you— it's like, yeah, I have an agent. He represents like thought leaders. I was like, "Ah, okay, can I meet him?" And so he introduced me to Steve. I hopped on a call. Steve made me feel very uncomfortable, you know, in all the right ways. And that led to me wanting to do more with him, even though I didn't fit the typical mold. So it's following the curiosity, right? If I never— I met this guy in Toronto, his name was Sean. And if I never asked Sean about the agent, I wouldn't have had that conversation. Fast forward a couple years ago, there was a guy, Jeremy, who came to one of my events, and he paid like $2,500 or something to come to this event. He's 18, 19 years old. He is working as a grocery store clerk. Like hates his life, doesn't wanna work grocery store, doesn't know what he really wants to do, likes my energy, saw my YouTube videos, come to the event. It's a 3-day event. At the end of the event, He messages me, he says, "Hey Evan, I just wanna, like, how do I spend more time with you? I don't have any skills yet, but I'll walk your dog, I'll clean your car, I'll mow your lawn. Like, I just wanna spend more time with you." And I messaged him back, said, "That's super amazing, Jeremy, but I don't, like, I don't need somebody to walk my dog or clean my car, but thank you." A couple months later, I was driving on my tour, and I'm driving through this desert in Texas, And I think of Jeremy, and I thought, huh, maybe I could teach Jeremy YouTube. Like, I wonder, people keep asking me about YouTube and they want me to do work on their channel, and I don't, I don't want to do that as a business, but maybe I could teach Jeremy how to do it. And so we got Jeremy on the phone that moment. He took a little break from his grocery store, you know, job, and said, Jeremy, I want to teach you YouTube. We'll start a business together. And I'm away for the next 2 months on the road, so I need you to watch all of these videos and learn everything you can about YouTube. And when I come back, if you've done that, I'll help you build a YouTube consulting business. Wow. And we did. And now he's got a high 6-figure YouTube business consulting. He made 6 figures in the first 6 months or so of having his business. And that's from being a grocery store clerk, right? But if he didn't do that outreach to me, I wouldn't have taken a shot on him either. It's just the heart and the energy and the care. And he's just, I'll wash your car and I'll clean, you know, hang out with your dog. I just love the energy. And even though nothing came up in the moment, he was in the back of my mind to say, okay, maybe I should do something with Jeremy. And so it's trying to be in a room where you get to talk to them, but then it's almost uncomfortable, like next, ask and showing your hunger and your commitment level. And then the key thing is when you get that is you ask one question to the mentor. 'Cause successful people actually love mentoring, but they also hate wasting time. Like time is the most valuable asset and they love mentoring, but they hate wasting time. And a lot of mentees waste time. Yeah. 'Cause they don't do the work. So the best thing you can do if you want, if you're trying to get into a mentorship relationship, you ask one question. Like, what's the one question? If you got to ask Robert Kiyosaki one question, like, what's the one question that you want to ask him, right? And then don't ask another question, 'cause that's what people will do. They'll come back and say, oh, what about this? And then what about that? It's like, no, no, no, like, do the work on the first question that he gave you an answer for. And then go home and actually do the work. And if you get a result, then you can come back and ask the second question. Hey, I asked you this, I did this. Now I've got 5 apartments, man, thank you, from your advice. Now I'm struggling with this. He's much more likely to give you a second answer because of the work you did on the first one. Or if the advice didn't work, make sure that you tried it 100 times, right? It wasn't just you tried, you made one phone call and it didn't work, and so the advice sucked, right? Because if you tried it 100 times and you showed the effort, then he's willing to answer a second question. What is the entrepreneurial mindset? How do they think? Wow, I think it roots from a dissatisfaction with the world around us. Entrepreneurs are the crazy ones who see a better future, are upset about something, and then we want to make a change. Where I think anybody can pick out something that they don't like in their world, but the entrepreneurs are the solution providers. They're the ones who want to find a way to solve it and to make the world a better place somehow. And I think most of our global problems could be solved by entrepreneurs if they're given the opportunity. A feeling that I have the power to be able to make a change. Where I think a lot of people who might be inside a corporation or an organization, they see a problem with how their organization is run. If you're, you know, you work at a library, you see tons of problems with the library, but then you feel, oh, I can't do this because I don't have the power, it's not my position, it's not my job title. Where the entrepreneurial mindset is, I'm gonna find a way to make a difference, I'm gonna find a way to make a change. If I don't like something at this library, I'm gonna step up and do something even though it's not my position. Position. And so I think adopting that mindset and just that ability to feel like I'm empowering myself, I don't need permission from somebody else to say what I can and cannot do, I'm going to do something to try to make a positive impact. And one, for the individuals in the organization to feel like they can go and take that leap, and then two, for the leaders of those organizations to empower their team to take risks and do something different and not say you can only do what's inside this box? I think everybody can lean in and learn whatever they want to learn. I had the good fortune of having some great parents. They're on the wall behind me here. I'm 8 or 9 years old, and those are my parents there. And they would always tell me, "Hey, you're Evan Carmichael. You can do anything you believe that you can." And so, they helped instill that in me. I think the whole, you know, to Gary Vee's point about Are you born with it? Well, what were you doing at 7 years old? Were you doing lemonade stands and garage sales and taking some initiative? But if you weren't, don't feel like, "Oh my gosh, now I can't be an entrepreneur." It's so much easier now than ever to start your own business or to lean in on the thing for sure. I believe everybody's got Michael Jordan-level genius at something. You're the greatest in the world at something. You just don't believe that you are, and you don't believe in your dreams enough to go chase them down. But you can, whether it's being an entrepreneur and believing in your business, whether it's believing in your health journey and that it's possible, whether it's climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or losing 100 pounds or whatever the thing is that you'd love to do. It's possible. People like you have done it. And that's where a lot of people get stuck is like, well, it's possible. Somebody else has done it, but I can't do it. Because I'm whatever. And my story early with the YouTube stuff was I'm an introvert, I'm shy, so I'm not going to make it, you know, but I'll keep making content because I'm serving, but I'm never going to be the big name because I'm too introverted and too shy. And I still am, by the way. It just doesn't come out when I'm doing shows like this. But you can, you know, you can. Whatever, whatever that story is in your head, it's totally fixable. And other people, you know, like you have done it. And it just comes down to starting to change what you put into your head. I think that's the biggest thing of all. That's why I make so much content. Because if somebody felt like their health journey was impossible, it's like, Jay, you don't understand, it was impossible. It's like, Jay, you don't understand, I've been like this and my family has been like this and it's just not possible. And I've tried a million things and just nothing works. And it's It's never going to happen, Jay. That's, that's who I am, right? If they spent a month with you, you know, because you're more confident in their ability to get healthy than they are in their inability to get healthy. And same thing with me. If somebody's hanging out with me for an extended period of time, if we were hanging out together, I'm going to get a lot healthier, probably. And you're going to be making more YouTube videos, man. We're going to get you on there and crushing it. Because whoever is more confident wins. And so the problem is we're surrounded by people who don't believe in our dreams, who tell us that it's not possible. And we're also feeding our mind with things that keep us stuck where we are. And if you want to change something, it's totally possible, but it starts with actually changing that environment so that you have a— you have the crutch, like, to get going, to get you out of the starting gate. You have to do the work that you don't see as work. Jerry Seinfeld calls it the torture that you can endure. It's like, for a lot of people, what you're doing, staying up till 3 in the morning just to do a YouTube interview, people are like, dude, that's crazy, that's torture, I would never do that, right? For people jumping into my schedule, like to make 3 YouTube videos every day, they would think that that's torture. For me, it's fun, I enjoy the process. If you only have a goal and you don't like the process, you'll never hit that goal. You have to enjoy the actual work. Like if you're gonna interview people, you have to enjoy interviewing people. If you don't, you're never going to have a good interview channel. Like other guys who love that will crush you. And so if you're just starting out, I think people easily get tricked into looking at what are the hottest industries for this year and what's the next big opportunity. Let's go all in on Bitcoin. Meanwhile, you know nothing about Bitcoin. Yeah. You know, and then that's, that's the fastest way to lose your money. So you have to do the thing that you love. It's so easy to complain and it's a default mode. It's nice to think that it's the president's fault that you're not successful. Or your mom's fault or the school system's fault or you don't have enough money or whatever. It's nice to think that that's the reason. What that does is by blaming somebody else, it puts you in an unresourceful state. It means it's not your fault, so you don't have to fix it. It's your mom's fault. It's the president's fault, right? It's their fault, so I'm going to complain and be angry about it, but I don't have to do anything about it because it's not my fault. So it's when you say, okay, this is actually my responsibility. It may not be your fault, but it's your responsibility to fix it. I can get out of this. What that does at the start is, well, that sucks because it's so nice to be able to blame somebody. Now this sucks that it's on me to go off and fix it. But then it's also the ultimate power in that you can change your circumstances. You could change your situation. You can make it better just by saying it's on me to fix it. There's no cavalry coming. By kicking the president out of office, it doesn't change your situation. So stop waiting for something else to happen. You are in charge. So for any spot in life, you are where you are because of you. I have a test that I call the mirror test where you walk in the mirror, go in the bathroom or wherever you have a mirror, and ask yourself, why am I not more successful? Why haven't I hit my goals? Whatever the first thing that comes back, when you look in the mirror, those are the excuses that you need to bust through. Because something's going to come up that's an excuse. It's a story you're holding on to. I don't have the right parents, or I didn't go to the right school, or I don't know how to be charismatic, or whatever. It's always some excuse. That's the one that you need to work on immediately to fix so you can go build that better life for yourself. Failure is a really interesting topic, and it's something that we see as a bad thing for some reason. Where failure is really feedback. Failure is a learning experience. Failure is only really failure if you don't take anything and learn from it. And again, you don't have to jump in and go all in and be the risky entrepreneur. I think everybody fails in their path to success. Everybody fails. Not just entrepreneurs. Anybody in any— anytime you're trying to learn something, you will fail at the start. You will suck at the start, right? You want to learn French? You're going to fail along the way to learning French, right? You want to get up on a snowboard? You're not going You're not gonna ace it the first time down. You're gonna fall, fall, fall, fall, fall, and eventually you make it up, right? And so the notion that you would start a business or start any project and have instant success is crazy. And people try something out for the first time where they're not successful at it, and a lot of them will then say, "Yeah, I'm not an entrepreneur. That's not for me. I can't do this." And they go back to their life that they hate, where that's just a learning experience, right? The key, I think, is to make small failures. Like, fail small, fail small. Don't go crazy and bet the house and your mortgage and put your entire family at risk. Exactly. That's where it gets dangerous. But in terms of teaching small failures, I think we kind of already do through our upbringing and our school system and a lot of things that we do. But I think just showcasing that failure is not this really negative thing that we want to run away from. Because if you have no failures, it means you're playing life so safe that you've never taken any risk at anything, any shot at anything, right? You have a dream to accomplish something, you're gonna fail a lot to get there. And I just see failure as feedback, not as something that is a negative thing. I don't enjoy being the center of attention. It doesn't do anything for me. But where it started to shift was, well, I still wanna serve. I still want to feel like what I do matters to people and that I wake up and I'm having a meaningful impact. Whereas I've had to learn to harness the power of the introvert and figure this stuff out as I go, but also learn from other introverts in that, okay, so I don't like networking meetings. I hate small talk. I don't talk to the guy next to me on the airplane, all of that stuff. But I love meaningful conversations. And I can get like, I see Patty Anne in my calendar, like, this is gonna be amazing, let's go. And so how, how do, how do you show up with that energy? Well, I don't know. I'm not— I think introverts still want to serve. Introverts still want to have meaningful connections. Introverts still want to feel like what they do matters. And the more I can tap into that, then, then my energy and enthusiasm that is in everybody comes out. So it's just, it was, but that's, that was years of— I wish I knew you 10 years ago, like things would have been so much better. I expect to fail all the time. I expect everything I do, especially at the beginning, to not work right. If I'm launching something new, I just don't expect it to do well at the beginning because it's— because creativity is messy and people put this label perfection on it. I want it to be perfect, but you don't even know how to make it yet. So just get it out there. I value the momentum more than the perfection. And so I don't— if you're looking to believe that it's going to work out, that's a big picture macro concept that any video that I make on my YouTube channel may not work. And if it's a brand new thing, I expect it not to work. But it's the belief that if I keep going, it will eventually work, that I'll figure it out, that I'll adjust, that I'll learn something, and I'll improve the next one. So I think people need to give themselves permission to fail at the beginning, for it not to work out, and to not take that personally. It doesn't mean that you suck just because your first song didn't hit it big. It just means you learned a little bit and keep going. And if you keep making new songs and every day you're practicing and trying to get better, eventually it will work out. And I just fully believe that I can do it, that you can do it, that everybody watching and listening can do it. People just quit too soon and they're trying to be too perfect until they never get to where they need to be. What is the importance of video influencers watching, maybe thinking about focusing their branding and their messaging? Yeah, I think if you're a human being, you have a core value. There's something inside of you that is the most most important value in the world, something that you place higher than money. And when you figure out what that is, and then you bring that not just to your business but to your life, the people you hang out with, but in the context of creating a YouTube channel, the content— like, how do you stand out if you are another family vlogger, another gamer, another entrepreneur, and there's tons of competition? How do you do it? It's based off of what is the single most important core value that you want people to feel. Because I want people to feel an emotion when they watch my videos, when they watch these interviews. I want you to feel an emotion and not just get content. Got it. So your one word is believe, right? It is. What's the story behind that? How'd you come up with that? Uh, it came from my parents. They always taught me that I was Evan Carmichael and I could do anything that I wanted. And it's a message I still pass on to my son. And they just made me feel like whatever I wanted to do, it was possible, and to believe believe in myself to do it. And it's, it's come through my entire life. My favorite movie is Seabiscuit. It's about this horse that is too small and a jockey that's too big and an owner that had no money. They come together, it's this underdog story. And so anything around believe, just, I feel better about. Now translate that to a YouTube world. When I had my channel, I saw my channel, but like my first video that took off, that did well, was this video. Took me a year to get 100,000 views on it. And I was like, I was so happy. 100,000 views, for a lot of you watching, that may be more than what you have right now. I was so pumped. I made a video around believe, which was my one word, and we hit 100,000 views in a month. And that video now has over 2 million views. And now believe oozes out of everything that I create. So I'm trying to give you the content that you can use to grow your business, but I want you to feel out of every piece of content that you can go off and do whatever your main big goal is. I want you to feel belief out of everything that I create. I'm writing a new book about finding your purpose and turning it into a business. And then I included the last chapter on how to make money because I think a lot of people feel icky or nasty about trying to— well, I just love helping these people, so I can't charge for this. I think it actually is selfish not to charge for it. I think it becomes your obligation that you have to charge for it. Not to everybody, I think there'll always be a percentage, if it's 10% or 20% of people who get in for free because they can't afford it. But if you don't learn how to make money from your purpose, then it will always be a hobby, and you'll always have to do a full-time job to then support your hobby. Where if you actually made it a business and learned how to make money using it doing it, serving people in an ethical, life-changing, positive way, then you can reach more people. You can build a team. You can scale up. Now, instead of maybe as a hobby, you can hit 10 women a month. Wow. But if you have a business and now you're building a team of amazing women who all want the same thing, maybe now you're reaching millions of women. Wow. So I think it's your responsibility. To turn that into something that then can create a ripple effect greater than just a hobby on the side. Whoever it is that you look up to, like who's done the thing that you want to do. If you love Kanye, if you love Steve Jobs or Elon Musk or Oprah or whoever it is that you look up to, look at their story, look at how they got started. It'll do two things for you. One, it'll give you the tactics, like what did this person do to become successful? And two, it'll give you the motivation because chances are The people who you look up to started off with a lot less than what you currently have right now. Uh, one of the people I love looking up to is Oprah. She, you know, was sexually abused growing up. She didn't grow up with her parents. Uh, her grandmother raised her. She was so poor that she, her grandmother bought bags of potatoes and used the potatoes to then sew it into a dress. And Oprah went to school in potato bags. It's like, just imagine showing up in school in a potato bag as a dress. You know, it's crazy. And so it's hard to imagine that whatever situation you think is so terrible in your life right now, that Oprah had it, you know, way worse than what you're going through, and look at what she was able to do. And so people have done it. So getting out of the excuses in your head of why, what resources you feel you don't have, or what circumstances life has thrown against you, people with a lot less have done a lot more. And so model their success and go after it. We know what we sell. Perfect. Let's use social media to help us sell more of our stuff. Like the, the big reason why people quit is because you feel like you're wasting time making content and it's not generating any sales for you. And I'm mission first, purpose first. If anybody is familiar with my content, what I do, it's like purpose first and you have to make money. Because if you're not making money, you're going to quit on the thing. So how can we make money inside our purpose instead of having to have some job that's outside our purpose, right? So the next thing to think about, if you know what you're selling or what you are looking to sell, right? Next is who are referral partners for us? So actually, Karmz, if you look at your business, like, who are the types of people who refer clients to you? How do you come up with your video ideas to keep your community engaged? That's a combination of what do I want to make with what are people asking for? And I think that's at the success of any, any successful business, not just a YouTube channel, not just a podcast or a show. It's like, what do you love doing with where is there demand? If you take something that you just love doing, but nobody cares, you have a hobby, right? It could be a really fulfilling hobby, but it's just a hobby. And if you take something that everybody wants, but you don't really care about, you're never going to win because you're doing work that you hate. And there's somebody else out there who loves doing that thing. And so don't spend your time doing work that you hate. So it's in that combination of like, what do I love doing with what do people actually want, that every business can become successful. So for me, we get a lot of feedback from the audience. People leave comments like, hey, I'd love to see a video on blank. And maybe I know how to do that. And maybe I really resonate with that. Or maybe I don't, and, and then we don't. Or just starts with me saying, I think this could be a cool idea. And then I try to make that video and put it out there. And sometimes they take off and they do well and we do a lot more and sometimes it completely flops. It's like, okay, cool. Well, nobody liked that. Move on to the next idea. I think the key though, within all of that is we're not so attached to this thing having to work. A lot of times people, when they're first launching their YouTube channel, their business, their podcast, whatever. We put so much pressure on the, on the launch being perfect. And then if it doesn't work out, we feel like a failure. Where for me, it's just, okay, we're going to try that. And we're going to try this. I'm going to try that. And something's going to work. And if that, that thing yesterday didn't work, cool. I've got 18 more ideas I'm going to try until I find the thing that does work. So I start out the book around mediocrity and it gets, it gets, it gets pretty angry, I think, and pretty, pretty, pretty aggressive. I wanted to start the book off strong. I think, you know, ultimately I think everybody has the ability to be great. I think everybody has Michael Jordan-level talent, or like whoever your favorite entrepreneur or person, or like somebody who you think is just amazing at what they do. I think everybody has that. I think everybody has that ability. You might not be able to play basketball better than Michael Jordan, but you can be Michael Jordan of something. Yes, I agree. Yes, Michael Jordan is special, but he's not that special at the same time. Like everything I've done on YouTube is special, but I'm not— I'm just like everybody else. I'm not that special. Like, you could do what I'm doing. You could do it better than what I'm doing in your own thing. Don't, don't, don't come after me and do Believe in Top 10s. I'll crush you on that. But like, you could do your own thing, right? Like, people watching, you could do your own thing. And so most people settle for just a mediocre life. It's just okay. You're just paying your bills. You're, you know, you, you may not hate your life totally, but it's, it's just okay. And, and I want, I want to shake people out of that. I want you to feel like You have an ability to be a genius. You already are a genius. We got to untap that. The best way that I know how to start is through self-awareness. I think it begins with core values. It begins with your one word. Even if you think the whole thing doesn't make sense, just understanding that you could be the Michael Jordan of something and you should be allergic to mediocrity, that it's not acceptable for you to not live the life that you want to go off and live. How could someone like take their business and evolve it with them? What kind of things could they do? Just think about what is it that you want to create? So for example, I had a successful website. It was off my name. We had lots of successful people writing for it, making money off advertising, coming to the site. I was getting restless. And so I said, I'm going to try something new. I want to go to YouTube. I'm going to try that. And I tried a whole bunch of stuff. Like you try things. You don't know at the beginning it was gonna work out or not. So I tried YouTube as one of many things, and I liked it, and so I kept doing it, and then I kept doing it, and I evolved my business. A lot of people don't even know me from my website. They only know me from my YouTube channel. Yeah. Right? 'Cause we've blown up there, but if I get bored of YouTube, like the minute that, like, I like talking to you, this is great. Michael's doing an interview, I love it, let's get on board. The minute this feels like work, like, oh man, I gotta talk, you gotta do another interview, this sucks, I need to quit. I need to do something else because you will never win doing work that you hate. Okay, and so the minute that this feels like a job, I need to stop and go off and do something else. What is it something else? You know, like, just ask yourself, what would I do? What do I want to do? What do I want to work on? Yeah, you may not have the perfect vision yet for like the final goal, but find some small thing to get started on. Something you say that I love is that you can't out Evan Evan. I want to know what you mean by that. Yeah, I think a lot of times we have role models, we have mentors, and there's nothing wrong with that. I love— I learned a lot from the people in my life and people I profiled on my channel, but it's easy to turn into imposter syndrome to feel like, well, I'm never going to be as good as Whoever, like you're here starting this podcast and you might look at Joe Rogan or Tim Ferriss or whoever, whoever you think is the best podcaster interviewer out there. But the goal is never to be Joe Rogan. The goal is to be the best Samuel possible. And that is an evolution. And even at the beginning, if you start asking Joe Rogan questions, that's fine. As a, as a, you know, you're tasting and testing and getting started, but we're always so worried about chasing our competition where really the goal should be to be the best us. And so nobody can out Evan Evan, nobody can out Samuel Samuel. And so when people will often share videos with me to say, oh, look, this person copied your style, this person is doing exactly what you're doing. It's like, that's cool. You're not going to out-me me. So if you're just going to be an Elvers impersonator, great, keep doing you. But Ultimately, everybody needs to find their own path. So I think so many times we're worried about the rearview mirror and what's happening behind us as opposed to forging our own path to say, okay, how am I going to be unique? What do I love doing that other people don't? And going all in on that thing. The more that you can make choices that build self-respect and build character, the more you're capable of making more choices like that. People think of it as some giant thing, like whatever your goals are, I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs, so they want to start their business. But whatever your goals are, your personal, your health goals, your fitness, your relationship, your business goals, whatever they are, it's not just some one thing, one giant goal that you chase. It's the daily minor decisions that you have to make. It's every day you have this choice to, am I going to do the thing I said I was going to do, or am I going to not do it? You know, like, am I going to let myself down again here? Am I going to do the thing that makes me proud? And it's in, in these minor decisions that we have every day, that ultimately leads to you building your character. So when you started your show, it's great, amazing. A lot of people would love to start a show like you did. A lot of people would love to have guests on their show as well, and they immediately had that insecurity in their head come to say, well, who's going to listen to me, and what am I going to talk about, and which guest is going to want to come on my show when they've been on other shows? How am I better? How am I different? And my show when they've been on other shows. How am I better? How am I different? And what that does is shut down your action to go and create the show. And the more you listen to that voice, the less action you do, and the more you teach yourself that you suck. Do it. You're training yourself to not do it again the next time and not doing it because this becomes your identity. Like, I'm the person who has great ideas but never follows through. And that is something that we have to start to consciously destroy on the health journey. Well, I'm just a fat person and I can't stick to a diet and I can't do anything. I can't run more than a mile. I can't like— and we've created this identity. But all of those things are fixable. But it's not one giant leap, right? You don't just get healthy by going to the gym one day. It's the everyday consistency that you train yourself for. I think the ultimate resource is your ability to be resourceful. The line that comes to mind is from Steve Wozniak who co-founded Apple, who said, "Stop thinking about all the things that you don't have and instead think about what you can do with what you do have." I think that's an important line for any entrepreneur. It's easy to look at the million reasons why you're not going to win. There's a million reasons why you will not win. Gary and I can sit down and brainstorm a million more reasons why you're not going to win, but there's like 8 why you will. All I do is focus on those 8 and be as resourceful as possible on those 8. Even now, if I'm trying to build my business, I have 24 people on my team. I've had success with what I'm doing, but I don't have 1,000 people on my team. I can sit and complain around how I don't have 1,000 people, or I can say, "Well, I have 24. What can I do with my 24?" That's always the mindset. Think about what you can do with what you do have and understand that whoever your heroes are, whoever you look up to. Whoever your role models are in life, whoever's had massive success, chances are they started with less than what you already have right now. Whether you're looking at Oprah or Richard Branson or whoever it is, they started with less than what you already have right now. And so if they could do it, you can too. The only difference is your willingness to be resourceful. Believing in ourselves is being true to ourselves. We're not changing who we are to serve others. We're serving others as we are, right? And that's critical— the authenticity, the genuineness. How, how did you segue that to salsa dancing? So I never learned to dance growing up. I always felt kind of awkward at a club or whatever, dancing. And, uh, in university, I decided, okay, I'm gonna— I want to learn how to dance. And so there was a, there was a ballroom class that I took with my then-girlfriend, not Nina, And we signed up and took the class and she never really liked it. We went a couple lessons, maybe a semester, and then she didn't want to do it anymore. And it was the kind of class where you have to go with a partner. And so I didn't have a partner and I didn't want to ask another girl to be my partner when I'm in a relationship. It didn't feel right. Yeah, you could get in a lot of trouble doing that, Evan, just saying. Yeah, yeah. So it's okay. So that's the end of that. Whatever, fine. You know, there's other things to do. But then when we ended up breaking up, one of the things I said was, well, I can go dancing again. Like, why don't I go learn some dancing? And salsa dancing is the easiest dance to be able to pick up as a solo person. So what I mean by that is when you're dancing, it's part of the culture to switch partners all the time. So even if you come as a married couple, it would still be normal to dance with other guys for you and other women for me, which is part of the cult. Now, some people stay together, but for the most part, the culture is very interchangeable. It's part of the energy, I would imagine. Yes. And ballroom is very specific. It's like you've got your one partner. Salsa is more of a street dance. And I just fell in love with it. Now, on paper, I'm too tall, I take big steps, I don't speak Spanish, I didn't learn this growing up. All of the things that we could say are logical reasons why you shouldn't do it. And I think a lot of us live in the world of, "Well, I can't do that and I shouldn't do that," without ever even trying. And I wasn't even very good at the beginning either because a lot of those reasons, but I just loved it. There's something about it. I was like, "This is amazing." I signed up for two different schools to go learn because I was a slow learner at it, but just to pick it up. And I loved meeting people. I love the connection. I love— I love, I think also learning a new skill that you thought was too difficult also is how you build belief in yourself to say, oh, I couldn't, I can't do that. But then you see that you can, raises your belief level to do other things. So that made me a better entrepreneur. Do you feel like some people are just, that entrepreneurs are born? I know you say that everybody has it in us to serve, but do you think there's some people that are just more prone or, more gifted or more capable when it comes to achieving entrepreneurship? So I think, I think everybody has what I call Michael Jordan-level talent at something. Okay. If you go religious, you know, everybody's a child of God. You were created, you're beautiful, you should be making something amazing in the world. You are not meant to be living this small life, right? So if everybody has Michael Jordan-level talent at something, For some people, that's being an entrepreneur. For others, it might be being a teacher in the school system, right? It could be many things. How do you find it? Well, you need to explore. You need to taste. You need to test. You know, just like you found my videos. You were searching for motivation and you found them, and then you, you're like, I like this, and then you open to it. A lot of times you can't think your way through these things because chances are the thing that you should be doing is very different than what is in your family and in your circle. Most of the time, the thing that you should be doing with your life is very different than what your parents did or what your brothers or sisters or cousins or community or church people that are doing. And so it takes courage to go off and do it, right? If you're working with women who have a belief system of, well, women are supposed to be this way, but then they know that, like, I don't want to be that. I'm greater than that. I know I'm greater than that. Right? Yeah. To have the courage to chase that dream down, I think is important. And that's where I think people like you are a voice. For 10 more amazing rules from me, watch the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there. I think for the first 20 or so years, I really lived through that lens of future regret. Like whenever I didn't know how it would turn out and was afraid of doing something, I would use that model of, okay,