Evan Carmichael argues that unlocking your potential means copying successful people first, then deviating to create something uniquely yours. He shares how his mentee Lilly started by following his framework before finding her own message, and clips from Bruce Lee, Gene Simmons, and Conor McGregor show how they broke from convention to forge their own paths.
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Good morning, Believe Nation. My name is Evan Carmichael. My one word is believe, and I believe that entrepreneurs will solve all of the major problems of the world. So today's message is create your own art. Over to you, Bruce Lee.
I wake up every morning.
Espresso keep me going.
I wake up every morning.
In case you have missed the recent news, Jeet Kune Do, of which I am the founder, Jeet Kune Do has been elected and accepted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame in America. This marks the first time a recently developed form of martial art is nationally accepted. No, Jeet Kune Do is not thousands or even hundreds of years old. It started in around 1965 by a dedicated and intensified man called Bruce Lee. And my martial art is something that no serious martial artist can ignore.
If you want to reach your true potential, then you need to create your own art. At the beginning, you can model success, you can copy what other people are doing, you can learn from others, and you can apply it to build whatever product or service you have up. But at some point, you have to say, this is where I deviate, this is where I become me, this is where I branch off and differentiate myself from everybody else. At the beginning, it's great to model success. When I was building up my YouTube channel, I had a media coach through my agent, and my agent and her taught me every week and gave me advice on how to get better, and I would copy and paste what they gave me, and it would actually never quite work out perfectly. I always had to tweak it. I always had to change it to make it fit me. When I'm modeling a Steve Jobs or Oprah Winfrey or whoever it is, Howard Schultz, I can't do it exactly like they did it. Gotta take it and tweak it and make it fit for me. And that's what you have to do in your business. You gotta find what is the unique twist that you bring that yes, you can copy others and model others, but at the end of the day, you're switching it up in just a little bit, little tweak that is unique and special. It's why I don't care about people who copy my YouTube channel. People send me emails all the time and comments like, "This person copied your video or is doing exactly like you're doing." The best they're ever going to be is an Evan Carmichael Jr. And so I either spend my time worrying about those guys or I spend my time building something better. Like, if all you're doing is copying somebody else, you're only going to be a junior version of them. And so I don't care about those people because they can't catch up. They're always playing from behind. I want to focus on building my future forward. I look at Lilly as an example, who's in the Unlocking Lilly series. On my channel right now. I hired her away from her full-time job. She wanted to be a professional speaker, and so I'm coaching and training her on how to do it and following and documenting the journey. And hopefully you guys are learning along in the process. At the start, she's taking parallel paths. She doesn't know her message yet. She hasn't figured it out. She's researching, she's, she's watching videos, she's reading, she's trying to formulate it. And at the same time I want her out speaking to get the practice, to get the experience, to get the knowledge, to get the reps in. And so what she's doing at the start is teaching Your One Word. She's running workshops, she's doing coaching, she's doing one-on-one, she's doing seminars, she's doing calls, she's doing Hangouts, Skype sessions. She's helping people around Your One Word. And that's great, and she does bring her own little twist to it, but at the end of the day, this is my philosophy. Lily will not stay doing Your One Word forever, otherwise she won't be able to unleash her art. So she's copying and modeling what I've done to propel her path forward while at the same time figuring out her message, because at some point her thing is gonna take over. And that's what you need to do as well. It's okay to copy somebody, it's okay to model somebody who's done a lot more than you, but at some point you need to break off and say, here's where I'm different. Here's where I'm special. Here's the little magic dust that only I can bring to this new way of doing something. And when you do that and you create your own art, that's when you will reach your true potential. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, what is the unique thing that you bring that's different from everybody else in your industry? What is your unique art? I'm really curious. Leave it down in the comments below. I want to find out. I also want to give a quick shout out to Joel Wasserman. Joel, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. Really, really, really means a lot to me, man, and I hope you enjoyed the read. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of Enespresso.
I was thrown into a plumbing trade. Give a shit about plumbing. Plumbing, didn't know anything about plumbing. I just went on that site because culture told me that that's what I have to do. I'd done it for a while and then I realized this is not what I want to do. Like, this is not what I want to do, then what the fuck am I doing it for? And I walked out 18 months in, maybe. There was a concern there for us, for his mother and father. We didn't know what he was going to do, to be honest with you. Early on, obviously didn't know what it was. I couldn't look to my mother and say, hey, This Irish man done it. I'm gonna follow in his footsteps because there was no footsteps. I had to create my own footsteps and follow them. They were a little unsure at first, but they supported me and they knew I would do it. If I said I'd do it, I'd do it, so.
The question is, are we rock and roll? And I say you're goddamn right we rock and roll. See, rock and roll is not an instrument. Rock and roll is not even a style of music. Rock and roll is a spirit. It's a spirit. It's been going since the blues, jazz, bebop, soul, R&B, rock and roll, heavy metal, punk rock, and yes, hip hop. And what connects us all is that spirit. That's what connects us all, that spirit. Rock and roll is not conforming to the people who came before you, but creating your own path in music and in life. That is rock and roll. And that is us. So rock and roll is not conforming. Rock and roll is outside the box. And rock and roll is N.W.A. I want to thank everybody who helped induct us into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And I just want to tell the world, damn, that shit was dope. Thank you.
I tell our young people, I say to you right now, stop looking for employment. Why don't you position yourself differently and look for deployment? To employers, to be employed means that somebody else is benefiting from your energy. To deploy me, to deploy yourself means that you are using your own energy to be productive. So instead of waiting for someone to give you a job, create your own work. That's why I tell people there's difference between your work and your job. Your job is what they train you to do. Your work is what you were born to do. Your job is your skill, which they can fire you from at any time, but your work is your gift. No one can take that from you. Your job is where you get compensation for activity. Your work is where you get fulfillment because you love it so much. Your job you can retire from. Your work, you can never retire from your work because your work is you. So when a person discovers their work, they no longer need a job because their work makes them productive. So there are young people in this country who are full of talents, full of gifts, And I want to say this too: every problem in life is a business. All businesses are simply someone solving a problem. So the more problems that are in Kenya, the more businesses available for young people to begin. And this is what I think we are lacking. We are trained to get a job. We're not trained to start a business. We are trained to let other people employ us, not trained to deploy ourselves.
