If I Started From 0 Subscribers in 2026, This Is What I Would Do to Get 1 Million

If you think YouTube is too crowded, that is a lie that you are telling yourself to avoid doing the hard work. Yeah, YouTube is saturated with content nobody wants to watch. The platform is crowded with boring copycats, but there is always unlimited space for someone who shares their true struggles. And if you let the fear of competition stop you from hitting publish, you will spend the rest of your life working a job that you hate. So press record right now and get started because there's a massive wave of opportunity as it pertains to YouTube and you don't want to miss it. When I first started my YouTube channel, I was so shy and bad on camera. I literally had to make 350 videos before I could watch myself back without feeling completely embarrassed. My name is Evan Carmichael. My name is Evan Carmichael. Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. My name is Evan Carmichael. Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael, and welcome to another edition of Modeling the Masters. It took me 5 full years just to cross a couple thousand subscribers, but I did not quit. I kept hitting publish because I wanted to help entrepreneurs feel less alone in the struggles. Now, you might be thinking that this year is completely different and that the algorithm only rewards big channels with huge budgets, but the truth is the platform is actually starving for real human connection right now. People are bored of the over-edited robotic content. They want your real personality. And if you follow the exact strategies I'm going to share today, you can bypass the noise and build a million subscriber channel faster than you ever thought possible. If you've been here before, drop a hashtag #believe in the comments below so I can feature you here in a future video. And if you're new, welcome to Believe Nation, the only channel that helps you believe in yourself daily, one video at a time. Believe. Stop chasing viral trends and serve your audience of one. You probably look at your YouTube dashboard and feel depressed when you see 10 views. You think 10 views, it's a massive failure. You want to quit. And you feel this way because you're focused on the wrong metric. You're focusing on vanity instead of impact. And I want to completely shift your focus to service. You're built to serve. Think about the hardest moment in your entire life. Think about the deep pain that you went through. Now think about the fact that you survived it. You figured out solutions, and millions of people are currently stuck in that exact same pain right now. They are crying themselves asleep because they do not have the answer. You have the answer, and I think you have a moral obligation to share your solution with them. So when you make a video, don't make it for a computer algorithm. Make it for the version of you from 5 or 10 years ago. Talk directly to that person. Tell them exactly what they need to hear to get unstuck. And when you do this, your content it stops feeling generic and it starts becoming highly specific and deeply emotional. The people watching will feel like you are reading their mind. They will trust you. A study by the Harvard Business Review found that increasing customer retention rates by just 5% increases overall profits by 25 to 95%. The exact same rule applies to your audience on YouTube. Deep loyalty is vastly more powerful than a million random clicks. Focus on changing one life at a time. If you get 10 views, imagine 10 real human beings standing in your living room asking for your advice. You'd be pretty thrilled to help them. Treat your small audience with that level of extreme respect. They will become your greatest advocates and share your message with the world. You have to realize that every massive creator started exactly where you are today. They stared at a screen with zero views. They felt the exact same doubt. The difference is they did not let the lack of immediate validation stop them. They focused on the work. You can adopt this mindset. So think about the specific questions that your ideal viewer is typing into the search bar. Answer those questions directly. Give them practical, actionable advice that they can use the second the video ends. Expect to suck and force yourself to build momentum. The biggest reason your subscriber count is stuck at zero is that you're trying to be perfect. You have a great idea for a channel, you spend months planning, you buy a fancy camera, you buy expensive lights, you plan the perfect script, and then you sit down to record and— You freeze, right? You feel awkward. You hate how you sound. You hate how you look. So you delete the footage and you tell yourself you'll just try it again next week. Next week never comes. You're using perfectionism as a shield to hide from the world, and you have to stop that immediately. The American Psychological Association, they published a massive study showing that perfectionism is a leading cause of severe burnout and depression. You will burn out before you even launch it if you demand perfection. And I need you to completely lower your standards for your first video. Just expect to suck. It's a brand new skill. You do not expect to play piano perfectly on your first day. You should not expect to be a natural on camera either. When I started my channel, I was terrified. I couldn't even look at the lens, right? I talked about recording 350 public videos before I could watch myself without feeling completely embarrassed, and then it took me 700 videos before I actually started to inspire myself, like, oh, I'm starting to get good at this. You don't need to wait that long, but you do need momentum. Momentum is the single most important thing that you are missing right now. So make a promise to yourself. Promise that you will upload one new video every single week, no matter how bad you think it is. Use your phone, sit in the car, just hit record and talk. Focus on taking action, not getting it right. Perfectionism is a disease. It is a brilliant disguise for procrastination. You tell yourself that you are researching, right? You tell yourself that you're just waiting for the right moment, the perfect moment. It doesn't exist. It will never exist. If you wait until you feel completely ready, you will wait for the rest of your life. So embrace the concept of the 2% difference. Just make your next video 2% better than your last one. Maybe today you just focus on speaking a little bit louder. Maybe next week you focus on removing some filler words. You build your skills incrementally. You do not try to master everything on day one. And once you build momentum, the fear disappears. Master the satisfaction engine. YouTube algorithm has completely changed. If you use the strategies from years ago, your channel will die. Back then, creators use sneaky thumbnails, misleading titles. They just want to trick you into clicking. They focus entirely on just the click-through rates, and that era is completely over. The YouTube system now is driven by highly advanced artificial intelligence. It is no longer just a search engine. It is a satisfaction engine. The algorithm tracks complex data to figure out if a viewer actually felt fulfilled by watching your video. It measures the watch time. It measures emotional resonance. A recent Report on digital trends by Cisco showed that video will account for 82% of all internet traffic. Because there is so much noise, the platform only rewards content that truly changes how people feel. So you have to master the satisfaction engine. And to do this, you must deliver on the promise of your title immediately. So do not waste the first 2 minutes talking about your weekend, right? Do not welcome people back to the channel. The viewer clicked because they have a specific problem. Give them the solution in the very first sentence. Respect their time. Structure your videos clearly. Give a powerful hook. Tell a relevant story. Provide a concrete step-by-step action plan that they can use to fix that problem today. When viewers finish your video, they should feel more energized. They should feel smarter. When someone clicks on your video, they are giving you a massive amount of trust, right? They're giving you their most valuable asset, which is their time right now. If you abuse that trust by rambling or hiding the answer, they will leave immediately. And YouTube, they track this. They track how long someone watches. They track what they do after they watch. Do they watch another video from you? Do they close the app completely? If your video genuinely satisfies them, then they want to watch more. And YouTube loves this. They will reward you by promoting your content for free. Keep your pace energetic. Cut out the dead space. Remove long pauses. Every single sentence must serve a specific purpose. If a sentence does not educate or entertain, then remove it. Also, if you want to take real action after this video, I made a free worksheet just for you. It covers the top lessons from today. Gives you space to write your biggest takeaways and helps you build a simple action plan. It's 100% free. Just click the link in the description below to grab it. I'll see you there. Turn your channel into a business development machine. Now you probably think you need a massive audience to make money. You think you need to rely on ad revenue, and that's a terrible strategy for a beginner. You will starve waiting for YouTube to pay you a full-time income. You need to flip that model in your head completely. You can build a 7-figure business with only a few hundred subscribers. You do this by turning your channel into a business development machine. So stop trying to go viral. Start using your content to build high-level relationships. Figure out who your perfect client is. Figure out who could refer massive amounts of business to you. Then invite them onto your channel for an interview. Most successful people are never asked to share their personal story. They will be flattered. They will say yes. You sit down with them for an hour. You ask them brilliant questions, right? You make them feel important. You build a deep and genuine connection with them. And after the interview, you give them the video clips to share with their own audience. You're giving them free marketing. You are providing massive value upfront instead of taking. A major psychological study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology proves that giving upfront value creates a powerful feeling of reciprocity. We do this with our Movement Maker students. People have closed 8-figure deals by doing this exact strategy. You can use it too. When you help someone win, they naturally want to help you win. When they need the service you provide, they will hire you. They will not search Google for a stranger. They will hire the person who just spent an hour making them look like a hero. You just landed a massive client, and it doesn't matter if the video only got 10 views. Imagine the power of having 50 deeply connected referral partners in your city. Imagine if those partners sent you just one new client per year. Your business would absolutely explode. This is the magic of the business development show. You completely bypass the traditional algorithm. You're not waiting to get discovered by millions of strangers. You're taking direct control of your own growth. You're identifying the exact people who hold the keys to your success, and you are building a bridge directly to them. The strategy completely removed the anxiety of looking at your view count. Stop guessing and start testing like a scientist. So in the beginning, you just need to build momentum and hit publish. But once you build a solid audience, the creators who grow the fastest are the ones who treat their data as seriously as their art. You cannot rely on guessing anymore. You cannot just pick a video thumbnail because you think it looks good. You must test everything. I've run tens of thousands of split tests on my own channel. I once took a 4-year-old video that was only getting 100 views a day and brought it up to almost 15,000 views a day just by changing the thumbnail. YouTube actually saw what I was doing and they wrote a private case study on my split testing methods to share with their top creators. If you want to reach a million subscribers, your biggest growth will not come from your new uploads. It will come from fixing the old videos that are sitting dead in your back catalog. Those old videos are low-hanging fruit. If YouTube is trying to promote them but people are not clicking, you have a massive problem. And this is exactly why I built my software called Brandlytics. You can check it out at brandlytics.ai. It's a tool designed specifically to track your testing history, tell you exactly what to test next, and fix the videos that should be winning right now on your channel. Mistakes cost you momentum. Every wrong step pushes you further behind. If you want to scale to 1 million subscribers and build a massive business, you have to replace the guesswork with certainty. Use modern technology without losing your soul. So you live in an era when technology gives you literal superpowers, right? The AI tools available to creators right now are unbelievable, but you have to use them correctly. Most new creators are incredibly lazy, right? You use AI to write all your scripts. They use AI to generate fake voices. They remove their entire personality from their videos. I think this is a massive mistake. People desperately are craving human connection. If you just sound, sound like a robot reading a Wikipedia page, your channel will stay at zero subscribers forever. You need to keep your authentic voice. So you can use your technology to scale your reach, but not to replace your soul. Record your videos yourself. Pour your actual emotion into the camera, then use the software to do the heavy lifting. For example, AI localization is a massive growth lever right now. You can take your English videos and instantly translate it into Hindi or Spanish or Japanese. Research by Nimdzi Insights show that 90% of global consumers will completely ignore a product or video if it is not in their native language. So by localizing your content, you open up entirely new markets without filming the video again. Think about the massive advantage this gives you. 5 years ago, creators— I did this too. I had a team in Russia, I had a team in Argentina. You had to hire entire teams of translators to reach a global audience. It costs thousands of dollars and took weeks of work. And today you can do it from your laptop in 10 minutes. You can also use tools to automatically find your best moments and cut them into short vertical videos. You can distribute these clips across every platform to protect yourself from algorithm changes, right? And platform changes. Let the machine handle the editing and the translation and the distribution. But you must focus all of your energy on your ideas and your passion, your unique experiences, your failures, your specific worldview. They're the only things that can't be captured by software. A machine can never tell a personal story about how you struggled and overcame adversity. It can never show genuine emotion. So lean heavily into your raw, unfiltered humanity. Let your flaws show. Let your genuine excitement shine through. Use the AI to distribute that pure humanity to every corner of the globe. Design your environment to protect your belief. Your biggest enemy is not the YouTube algorithm. Your biggest enemy is the voice inside your head telling you that you are not good enough. Creating content is an intense emotional roller coaster, right? You will put your heart into a video and nobody will watch it. You will face painful rejection. You will feel completely alone. You will have to build an iron shield around your mindset, right? Your current environment is perfectly designed to keep you exactly where you are today. So if you want to achieve something massive, you have to ruthlessly protect your belief. You need to audit everything that you consume, consume into your head. Pull out your phone right now. Look at who you follow. Do those accounts make you feel inspired? Do they make you want to take action? Or do they make you feel jealous or angry or depressed? Unfollow every single person who drains your energy. Fill your feed with people who show you what is possible. You have to manufacture your own daily motivation. Every single morning before I do anything else, I get outside, I go for a walk. It's our Believe Walk Challenge. 15 minutes outside at least. And I listen to a famous entrepreneur. I listen to Steve Jobs. I listen to Howard Schultz. I listen to Michael Jordan. I need these powerful voices in my head. I need to borrow their belief until I have enough of my own. A massive study by the University of Oxford shows that the the people you surround yourself with, even virtually, directly dictate your long-term success. You cannot afford to leave your mindset to chance. Your brain is a sponge. It absorbs the energy of whatever you put around it. If you surround yourself with people who complain, guess what? You will become a complainer. If you surround yourself with people who doubt themselves, then guess what? You will doubt yourself too. This is why you must aggressively prune your environment, build a digital fortress around your mind. Seek out the content that challenges you to play a bigger game. Study the creators who are doing exactly what you want to do. Watch their interviews, read their books, immerse yourself in their worldview. When you do this consistently, their courage will rub off on you. You will start to think like them. You will start to act like them. You will begin to ask yourself what the boldest version of you would do right now. And if you implement every single strategy that I just gave you, your channel will start to explode. You will build a much bigger audience and a deeply profitable business. But none of these tactics matter if you fail to grasp one final essential truth. Your next step to greatness. You already have everything you need inside of you right now. Stop waiting for permission to share your powerful voice with the world. The people who need your help are out there searching for you today. So keep taking action, keep serving, and never let fear win. And congratulations, you're one video closer to who you're meant to be. Believe. Now let's learn the 3 steps to dominating your niche as a beginner. Most beginners on social media won't win. You post a few times, you play it safe, you blend into the crowd. If you look like everyone else, no one will remember you. And if you are easy to ignore, you will be ignored. Think about James Dyson. For years he was broke and frustrated. Working out of a tiny workshop while everyone told him that his idea would never work. He believed vacuum cleaners were flawed, so he set out to build a better one. What most people do not know is that Dyson failed 5,126 times. Prototype after prototype did not work. Investors said no. Manufacturers laughed at him. Anyone else would have quit long before that, but he kept going. On attempt number 5127, the vacuum finally worked. That one breakthrough turned into Dyson, a global brand worth billions of dollars now. Dyson did not win because he was lucky. He won because he was willing to look foolish and persist when everyone else would have stopped. If a man can fail over 5,000 times and still win, what is your excuse as a beginner? My own journey was no different. When I started on YouTube, I sucked. I'm not afraid to admit it. It took me 350 videos before I could make one without being completely embarrassed by my content. I couldn't even watch my first videos back. I hit play and cringe at myself. And the growth was painfully slow. In the first 6 years of YouTube, I gained 9,000 subscribers. 6 years, 9,000 subscribers— that's basically nothing by today's standards. I felt like a failure many times. I struggled with self-doubt every day. But I kept going. I kept making videos. I kept improving one tiny step at a time. And then things started to happen. In the next 6 years, those 9,000 subscribers grew to over 2 million. And those breakthroughs only came after years of struggle and persistence. If I had quit in year 5 or 6 because it felt hopeless, nobody would even know my name today. Now you might be thinking, okay, but Evan, I'm a nobody online. Who's going to listen to me? I'm not a leader. Listen, every influencer that you admire, every leader that you respect, they all started with zero followers. Nobody gave them permission to lead either. They decided to lead. They stepped up, they shared their voice, and they did the work long before they had an audience. Leadership isn't a title that you are given. It's a skill that you develop. And so by showing up consistently, by serving others, if you wait until you feel like a leader, guess what? You'll never post a thing. You become a leader by acting like one before anyone believes in you. So yes, even a beginner with zero followers, you can be a leader. In fact, that's the only way that you become one. So before we get into the how, I want to give a quick shout out to Jackie Wood from my school community. Jackie asked, as a beginner in social media, What would be your top 3 suggestions to stand out as a leader in your niche? So Jackie, I love this question. This video is for you, and I promise by the end of it you'll have a clear game plan to rise up as a leader. All right, let's do it. Here are my top 3 suggestions for any beginner who wants to stand out as a leader on social media. Tip number 1, share your story and be real. The fastest way to blend in online is to fake it. The world is full of all these cookie cutter creators trying to be perfect, never showing any real part of themselves. That's exactly why you must be authentic and share your story. Nobody has your journey, your quirks, your voice. So lean into that. Be the real you, not the polished fake imitation version of somebody else. So when I say share your story, I mean the real stuff, the struggles, the awkward moments, the things that you might be afraid to put out there, because ironically, those are the things that actually make people remember you. And so here's some proof. I once went to a fancy event in Los Angeles, VIP dinner, the works. And I hated it. I'm an introvert. Small talks in big groups, it drains me. So instead of schmoozing, I snuck off to a Subway across the street, got a sandwich, and ate alone in the hotel lobby. And I pulled out my phone and I filmed a quick video confessing how out of place and introverted I felt, and that it's okay to recharge alone. I posted it to my Instagram, I think on YouTube. You know what happened? The response was overwhelming. So many people commented things like, Thank you for saying that. I thought I was the only one who felt like an imposter at those events. And by sharing my vulnerability instead of hiding it, I made a deeper connection with people. People trust you when you're real. They see a leader who's human, not some untouchable, fake plastic guru. Even science backs this up. So psychologists talk about the Pratfall effect. So basically, people actually find you more likable when you show your imperfection. One study found that authenticity and vulnerability build stronger emotional connections with an audience than trying to appear perfect, especially at the beginning. So your followers aren't looking for flawless. They're looking for relatable. So share that story about how you spilled coffee on your notes right before a big client call, or share the mistake that taught you a really hard lesson. Those moments make you stand out because everyone else is too busy hiding their cracks behind a pretty facade. When you share your story, two amazing things happen. First, you become impossible to copy, right? Competitors can steal your style or your topics, but they can't steal you, your unique life experiences. And second, you build trust. You signal, hey, I'm not here to impress you. I'm here to help you, warts and all. And trust becomes everything. People follow leaders that they trust. Remember, people don't buy from brands. They buy from humans that they trust. So show them the human side of you. Now, maybe you're still worried, won't sharing my flaws make me look weak? No, it makes you look real. It makes you look courageous. Brené Brown calls vulnerability the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change. So being real is a form of leadership. Plus, sharing your challenges lets you flip them into lessons for your audience. So as a leader, everything you've overcome is a roadmap for someone who's coming up behind you. So your story might be exactly what someone in your niche needs to hear right now. And one more thing: don't hide yourself. In my early years, I was terrified to put me front and center. I figured I'll just share famous entrepreneurs' lessons and stay behind the camera. I told my agent, I have no desire to be famous. I don't like the spotlight on me. I'm introverted. But he pushed me and finally said something that really changed my perspective. So he said, the more people know you, the more people you can serve. And that really hit me. By staying invisible, I was actually limiting the impact that I could have. I realized that if I believe in my message, I have to be willing to be seen. So I'm telling you what I had to tell myself. Don't be afraid to share you. Show your face, speak in your voice, tell your story. It's not about ego or look at me. It's about service. If you can help someone with your story, then you must. The world needs what you have. Hiding helps no one. Sharing will make you stand out because so few have the courage to do it. Number 2: Stay consistent. Want to know a secret weapon that 90% of beginners never develop? Consistency. The internet is littered with abandoned accounts and dead channels. The truth is, most creators quit before they even break through. Over 90% of YouTube channels never reach 10,000 subscribers, not because they aren't talented, but because they give up too soon. They post a few videos, they don't get the results that they hope for, they get discouraged, and then they just vanish. They disappear. Consistency is rare, which is exactly why it'll make you stand out. So if you simply keep showing up while others are fading away, you'll already be in the top echelon. So show up for one year and you'll be shocked at where you end up. If you show up every day for the next year, you won't recognize your life a year from now. But you have to last that long first. The first year is brutal for almost everyone. Slow growth, little to no money. The algorithm plays games with your sanity. It's basically a hazing process to get started. It's supposed to be hard. It's like a test to see who actually wants it and who's going to quit. Most people fail that test, but not you. Not now, right? You're here. You're listening to this. So I know you're serious. So I'm telling you now, decide that you will not quit no matter how slow it feels. Commit to consistency. Post that podcast every week. Drop a video every Tuesday, whatever your schedule is. Stick to it religiously. When your competition falls off in month 3 or 6, your consistency will make you shine. Remember my story? 350 terrible videos. 5 to 6 years of almost no audience. I could have said, this isn't working, I should stop. That's probably the logical, sane thing to do. I felt that way many times. But the difference between the people in the social media graveyard and the leaders you look up to that are still standing is that the leaders kept going when everyone else gave up. It's not about never getting tired or never doubting yourself. It's about continuing despite that. It's about being stubborn on your mission, but flexible on your methods. If one video flops, make the next one better. If you go 3 months and there's no growth, learn and adapt, but don't disappear. Most creators burn out because they try to sprint what is a marathon. They post like crazy for a short time and then exhaust themselves. Pace yourself, but stay in the game. So here's a pro tip: expect to suck at the start. It's okay. Give permission to yourself to be bad while you're getting better. I didn't want to accept that at first. I wanted my first videos to be great from day one. And when they weren't, I beat myself up. I've since learned to embrace the process. You heard the stats, right, from me? 350 videos until I made one that I could watch without cringing, and 700 until I actually made myself proud of my content. That's the reality behind anyone you see killing it online. There's a mountain of unseen, unimpressive work that came before. So don't compare your first steps to somebody else's medal. Your job is to just keep taking those steps. You are on the cusp of something great. Just Just a little more patience, a little more effort, and you'll get there. And it's true, the ones who win are the ones who outlast. Be the tortoise, not the hare. Slow and steady, consistently improving will beat the flashy sprinter who quits halfway. And one more thing on consistency. Make sure you actually enjoy something about what you're doing. Leaders have passion. You rarely see someone win long-term at something that they hate. If you despise making videos, maybe writing blogs or doing podcasts is more your style. So do that. Find a format and a topic that you love enough to stick with it when it's not giving you rewards yet. Passion is what fuels persistence. If you love the process, you can endure the pain. If you don't, you'll find excuses to stop. So create content around something that actually energizes you, that you care deeply about. That energy is infectious and it will keep you going. So for me, I'm a visual learner and I love modeling success. That's why I chose YouTube and profiling famous entrepreneurs. Because I genuinely find it fun and inspiring 16 years later. It gave me energy even when the numbers were small. So figure out what aspect of creating that you enjoy and lean into that. It will make consistency so much easier for you. Number 3, serve your audience no matter how small. Leadership isn't about you. It's about them, right? The people you serve. If you want to stand out as a leader on social media, focus obsessively on providing value and helping your audience win. Too many beginners chase clout or vanity metrics. They ask, how can I get more views? How can I look like an expert? So just switch that mindset a bit. How can I make a real difference for every person who watches my content? When you approach content like that, you immediately separate yourself from 99% of the newbies. You're not just another person shouting for attention. You're someone who actually genuinely cares, and that becomes magnetic. It doesn't matter if you have 10 followers or 10,000. Serve those 10 like they're the most important people in the world, because to you as a leader, they should be. Don't get obsessed with who's not following you. Focus on who is in the room, no matter how few. I remember getting 50 views on a video and feeling discouraged. 50 views, that's nothing, right? But then I just mentally reframed it. If I was given a talk at a library and 50 people showed up to hear, I'd be thrilled, right? That's a packed room for a newbie speaker. Those are 50 human beings who gave me their time. And that shift in perspective changed everything. I stopped seeing only 50 and started feeling grateful for every single viewer. So then I doubled down on serving those people, responding to comments and answering questions like this one. This is a, this is a question and answer video, making content that addresses their struggles. And guess what? More people came slowly at first, but they came because people feel it when you care. They tell their friends, they stick around. Loyalty is built one person at a time. So Evan from 20 years ago didn't understand this. I thought success was all about the numbers, and I was so ashamed when the numbers weren't there. I even hid my struggles. I was too embarrassed and too ashamed to tell my friends that I was failing and that I was broke. I put on a fake smile and I'm living the entrepreneur dream while quietly stressing out about how I would survive. I thought I had to appear successful, but I was wrong. What I needed was to ask for help, to be honest, and to focus on the impact, not my fragile ego at the time. And eventually I learned impact over ego. Forget looking cool. Just create value. Solve real problems. Encourage people. Share knowledge generously. Do it even when few people are listening and you'll earn a reputation as someone who cares and who delivers. That is leadership. Also, don't be afraid to engage and build community, right? Leadership on social isn't just a one-way broadcast. It can be a conversation. Reply to that one comment that you got. Thank people for watching the video. Shout out a community member like we're doing for Jackie right here. Make your followers feel seen. People, they crave connection. If you give them that, they will remember you. They'll see you as a leader with them, not just above them. So one of my favorite things to do is to feature members of Believe Nation, you guys, in the videos, at the start of all the videos, right? There's a leave a hashtag #believe and we'll feature you here in a future video. We rise together. So even if your community is 5 people right now, Engage those 5 like they're friends and allies. Service also means constantly asking, how can I help my audience more? So maybe that's through your content. Uh, maybe it's through a free resource, like the worksheet that I mentioned here in the description below. Maybe it's just by listening to their struggles. When you focus on serving, 2 really important things happen. First, you never run out of content ideas because their needs and questions give you an endless supply of what to work on. And second, you position yourself as the go-to leader in your niche because people can tell you're in it for them, not just for yourself. The leaders who last are mission-driven. And so what I try to remind myself of is your purpose comes from your pain. The struggles that you've overcome equip you to help other people. I started my channel to serve the 19-year-old version of me who felt lost and had no guidance. I knew exactly what that kid was going through, and I was obsessed with trying to help him and others struggling like him, right? Not struggle as much as I did. And I wasn't thinking about the fame or the money. I was thinking, how can I make the journey easier for someone else. When that's your driving force, you stand out. People can feel the difference between a leader who genuinely cares and a selfish content creator just looking for clout. And hey, if you have the ability, then you have the responsibility. That's what my mom always said, to use it. If you can help, then you must. And that mindset will set you apart. Most people hold back their best advice or dilute their message because they're just trying to sell something or they're afraid of giving too much. But not you, right? Not now. You're going to Give massive value upfront. You're going to share your best ideas freely. Why? Because you actually want to see people win. And what it does is build trust and positions you as a leader that people want to follow. The world needs what you have. Don't ever forget that. There are people out there right now who are praying for the solutions and encouragement and empowerment that you have locked in your head or your heart. So go give it to them. That's how you lead. That's how you stand out. So let me recap the 3 suggestions real quick. Be authentic. Share your story, your flaws and all. Be consistent. Show up relentlessly when others won't. And be service-driven. Focus on helping your audience, not boosting your ego. You do those 3 and you will absolutely stand out as a leader in your niche, no matter if you're starting at zero today. I know it's not easy. None of this is easy, but it's worth it. You have something special to offer, and the beginning is always the hardest. Remember, the leader you admire A pro is just a beginner who refused to quit. Keep going. I believe in you, but more importantly, I want you to believe in yourself. And congratulations, you're one video closer to who you're meant to be. Believe. Now let's learn about the one tool every YouTube creator needs after 100,000 subscribers. If you have under 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, using YouTube Studio's A/B testing tool is a great choice. It's free, it's accurate, and it's a good starter tool you should be leveraging. If you're over 100,000 subscribers, then it's time to take your split testing more seriously and you need a professional tool like Brandlytics. Now I'm a split testing nerd. I've personally completed tens of thousands of split tests on my own YouTube channel. And when I showed YouTube what I was doing, they decided to write a case study on me. At the time, they were shocked that I took a video that was 4 years old and getting 100 views per day and took it to almost 15,000 views per day just by changing the thumbnail. Over the years, I've helped thousands of small and big creators grow their YouTube channels. And once you cross 100,000 subscribers, the channels that grow exponentially do so because they focus on their data as much as their art. They match the art of creating videos with the science of the algorithm. That's where Brandlytics comes in. I developed it myself just for my own channel because I needed a way to A/B test at scale. Evan Carmichael. Then some of my big name friends wanted to use it and it was their secret weapon too. And I didn't know if I was ever going to make it publicly available to everyone or just keep it for us, but I decided to open it up, at least for now. When we help smaller creators, the most important things are usually figuring out their content strategy, scripts, brand design, and hooks. When we help larger creators, the fastest way to generate growth usually isn't in new videos. It's by fixing the library of content. If you have over 100,000 subscribers and hundreds of videos, adding one more video won't move the needle as much as fixing your old videos that should be performing better. You have gold in your library of videos that YouTube is trying to recommend right now, but people aren't clicking because you have a bad title and thumbnail combination. So how do you find those low-hanging fruit videos? How do you set up tests, track your data, manage your team, see your results, and continue to dominate? That's where Brandlytics comes in. For people who use YouTube Studio A/B testing, they usually do it at video launch. It's actually great for that. Set up your 3 variations and see what performs the best. With Brandlytics, we don't even let you run a split test on a video that is less than 7 days old because the data is too variable. But what do most people do next? They just leave the thumbnail that won in Studio up and focus on the next video launch. That's crazy. Like, very, very crazy. First of all, the audience that watches the video in the first 7 days is is nothing like the audience that watches afterwards. How your core audience reacts to a video is often very different to how a colder audience reacts. Your videos live forever on YouTube and can bring in views forever. So if you want to take your channel seriously, you need to test forever. Just testing at launch isn't good enough anymore. How do you know what videos to test? How can you tell which videos are underperforming because of a bad thumbnail-title combination? YouTube Studio won't tell But Brandlytics will. Here's what we do. We sort your entire channel by the videos that are getting high impressions but have an underperforming click-through rate. This means YouTube is trying to promote your video because they think it's a good video, but people aren't clicking on it because your thumbnail and title suck. That's great news. It's much easier to fix a thumbnail and title than record a killer video that has great retention. Now, what makes for a good click-through rate? That's probably one of the most frequent questions I get asked. And the answer is it depends on how many impressions a video is getting. If the video only has 4 impressions and 3 of them are from your mom who clicked each time, that gives you a 75% click-through rate. By contrast, if you have a video with 1 million impressions and a 5% click-through rate, it doesn't mean that the CTR sucks because 5% is less than 75%. What it means is that as your video reaches more people, it goes to a broader and broader audience. which means the click-through rate will drop. The number 1 video on a channel usually has a below average CTR for that channel. That is normal. It's reaching new people and those people won't click as much as your hardcore subscribers. So what makes a good CTR? How can you tell if a video has an underperforming click-through rate? You compare similar videos with similar impressions and see which ones consistently get lower CTRs. That's what Brandlytics does automatically for you. It runs through your entire channel. Looks at the past 28 days of data and gives you the videos that right now should be getting more views but aren't because the click-through rate is too low. Those are the videos you fix right now with a better thumbnail or title. YouTube Studio's A/B testing is a great tool for beginners, but once you start taking your data seriously, there's no comparison. How do you know what to test? The next question I then get asked is, okay, so I know I need to run a split test, but what do I test? A thumbnail or the title or both? First of all, we don't allow users to test both the title and thumbnail at the same time. You need to be able to isolate why a test wins or loses. If you're trying a new thumbnail and title at the same time, you don't know which is the reason why it wins or loses. Next, Brandlytics will also recommend what to test next. After you load in your channel, we will give you guidance not just on what videos to fix, but whether you should update the thumbnail or title. You can ignore the guidance if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it. Let's talk about your testing history. This might sound super boring, but it's actually super important. If you want to run a follow-up test on a video in YouTube Studio, you have to delete all the data from the first test. What? How are you supposed to know what you've tested before? There are videos on my channel that we've run over 20 tests on. If a video is underperforming, we run an A/B test. If it loses and the video is still underperforming, what do we do? Run another test and then another. And then another and then another and then another until it's not underperforming anymore. For anyone who runs ads, this is normal practice. You keep running tests and always try to beat your best. When do you stop testing? Never. But if you have to delete a test on YouTube Studio to run a new test, how do you know what you've already tested? What thumbnails have you already tried? What title combinations have you already tried? You have no idea, or you have to create a complicated system on your own to keep track. This is one of the main reasons why I built Brandlytics. When you click to run a test, it will show you all of the previous tests that you've already done on that video so you can avoid making the same test again and continue to learn from what works. Again, it's just about taking your data and the science of YouTube seriously. If you're only going to run a few split tests per month or only at video launch, then use YouTube Studio. When you're ready to turbocharge your back catalog and your channel growth, Brandlytics is the obvious answer. What else does Brandlytics do? Now, there are a lot more features we've got and are developing, but I don't want to make this video incredibly long. A lot of them, you don't even realize how important they are until you start trying to A/B test at scale. Brandlytics was specifically designed for people who want to scale. Can it work for smaller channels? Yes. I'd say the data starts being really valuable for channels with 10,000+ subscribers, but it turbo unlocks when you have 100,000 to millions of subscribers. The more videos and data you have, the more impactful it is. If your channel is smaller or new, I'd suggest using YouTube Studio's A/B testing because it's free and your path to growth is usually again more on content strategy, scripts, brand designs, and hooks, not A/B testing. One more thing. I can't finish this video though without also talking about the training that we do. I've coached thousands of creators at this point with their channels from pure startup to 8 figures in subscribers. And as a special bonus for Brandlytics clients, I go live every 2 weeks for 85 minutes to guide you on your growth. Usually We start each session with a channel breakdown. When you sign up for Brandlytics, you can ask our team to get on the list for channel breakdowns. I'll break down one channel with the channel owner, go through their YouTube Studio backend as well as their Brandlytics results, and guide them on how to grow the channel to the next level. That's the first half of the call, and you get to sit in on the consultation. The second half of the call is dedicated to your questions. I'll bring people up on stage in our Zoom room. You ask your question and I'll do my best to help. I've helped scale my channel to millions of subscribers, as well as some of the biggest names in entrepreneurship to millions of subscribers. And it's one of my favorite things to do. The session alone is worth the price. So you can think of it as getting the software for free or getting the sessions for free. But I want to see Brandlytics clients win. So it's a fun way to give more value twice a month. So I think that's good for now. Brandlytics definitely isn't for everyone yet, but if you got some traction already and are now ready to take your YouTube growth seriously, then Brandlytics is for you. I can't wait to help you out. Believe. Now let's overcome the fear that you may not achieve everything that you set out to. You are not behind in life. You are just stuck in fear. Fear tells you that you're not good enough or fast enough, but the only way you actually fall behind is if you stand still. If you refuse to move, your fear becomes your reality. And I don't want that for you. Think about the old story of the Tortoise and the Hare. The hare sprinted ahead, cocky and fast. Tortoise plodded slowly, feeling miles behind. Yet who won in the end? Tortoise. Slow and steady beat quick and overconfident. Why? Because the tortoise kept moving forward while the hare got complacent. If you keep moving forward, you can still win your race. Right now, you might feel like that tortoise watching everyone zoom past you. Your friends launching businesses, hitting milestones, living your dreams while you are stuck in molasses and thinking they're so far ahead and I'm crawling, I'll never catch up. Then that pressure is real and it can crush you. I felt it too. Let me tell you a quick story. For years I played it small. I had, as I call it, the opposite of an ego. I was so afraid of disappointing people that I wouldn't even get in the game. I literally wouldn't sign up to be on a team because I was scared of letting people down. Can you imagine? I idolized success. I had big dreams, but I was too paralyzed to even try. If anything, I realized I needed more ego, more boldness, more self-belief, because I was nowhere close to my potential playing that small. And so the fear of failing and falling behind made me hold myself back. I finally pushed through that fear, and when I did, I learned something that was life-changing, something that I want for you to learn right now. The fear of falling behind doesn't protect you. It poisons you. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you let it stop you from acting, you guarantee that you stay stuck. But Evan, what if I am too far behind? What if it is too late for me? Listen, that doubt in your head is just another lie. And sure, maybe someone you know jumped out to an early lead. They got the fancy job and the funding and the car, the followers. There are a few steps ahead right now, but success isn't a straight line, and it's not a specifically timed lap. It's First out of the gate wins. In fact, people who follow a safe preset path might look ahead in the beginning, but the ones who take their time to explore and find their own path often surge ahead in the long run. History is full of late bloomers, those who wander a bit at the beginning but who dare to try different things and carve their own path. Those people end up winning when you zoom out and look at the big picture. Why? Because they build exponential growth on their terms while the early sprinters plateau. Success is not a zero-sum race. Everyone is climbing a different mountain. Just because someone else reaches their peak doesn't mean that you can't reach yours. I remember being invited to a private mastermind hosted by my friend Brendan Burchard. In that room were people that I looked up to, absolute superstars. I walked in and immediately felt like I didn't belong. I thought, oh my God, what am I even doing here? These guys are legends. I'm nobody next to them. And I shrank in my seat, convinced that I was way behind everyone else, but Brendan noticed. He pulled me aside and he essentially said, you give so much to people. You gotta make sure that you come up with an ask. In other words, stop comparing your value to theirs. Focus on what you bring to the table and don't be afraid to ask for help where you need it. That actually hit me really hard. I realized I was so busy feeling inferior that I was blind to my own strengths and opportunities. I was measuring myself against others. When I should have been looking in the mirror and asking, hey, what unique value do I offer and how can I use it to move forward? The moment that I embrace that mindset, I stop feeling behind and started seeing myself as an equal on my own path. Now, this entire video topic comes from one of our subscribers, from you guys. Ruby040 reached out and said, I have fear that I may not achieve everything that I have been wishing for. It feels like everyone is going forward, but I am stuck in my situation. Honestly don't know how to overcome it because I overthink a lot and it breaks my heart because I know so many of you feel exactly this way. So today I'm going to help you overcome that fear. We're going to destroy the illusion of falling behind and get you unstuck. I'm going to talk about the 4 steps to overcoming the fear of falling behind and start building the life that you want. Number 1, the real reason why you feel stuck and what science says. If you feel stuck and left behind, it's not because you're lazy or you're incapable. It's because fear has put your feet in concrete. The real reason you're stuck is that fear is sabotaging your ability to act. Psychologists have found that fear can serve as a powerful emotional brake, a deterrent that makes you avoid the very actions that would move you forward. For example, if you're afraid you'll fail at starting that business or writing that book, you procrastinate. You tell yourself you'll do it later. But later never really comes, right? Sound familiar? Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of being perfect. These fears trigger procrastination as a coping mechanism. Your brain thinks, if I don't start, I can't fail. So you do nothing, and doing nothing becomes the habit. The crazy part is avoiding action might protect your ego in the short term. You can't fail if you never try, right? But it absolutely wrecks your future. It traps you in a loop of frustration. You feel guilty for not moving, ashamed for not progressing, and that makes you even more afraid to start. It becomes this vicious cycle. So let's break that cycle right now by exposing it. Think about it. Every time you see an opportunity and you hesitate, maybe you don't apply for that program. Uh, you don't reach out to that potential client. You don't post that video online. Ask yourself why. 9 times out of 10, the root reason is fear. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of others laughing at you. Fear that you'll put in effort and still fail. That fear is your enemy. It's the real villain keeping you stuck in place. Now, I confessed earlier how I used to avoid even trying because I feared disappointing people. I was that kid who wouldn't swing the bat because striking out felt scarier than never taking a swing. Maybe you're doing the grown-up version of that right now. Maybe you're not sending out your business business plan, you're not launching your website, you're not asking for the raise, all because deep down you're terrified of hearing no or looking stupid. I get it. But hear me, you cannot win if you don't play. The only guarantee is that if you never take action, you will stay behind. So what do we do? We rip off fear's mask. Start by identifying exactly what you're afraid of. Name it. Is it the fear of failure? Fear of what people will say? Fear that you're not ready or you're not worthy? Shine a light on that fear. Because when you do, it starts to lose its power. Realize that these fears, they're common. We all have them, and they are beatable. I still feel fear all the time, but I've learned to dance with it instead of letting it paralyze me. Number 2: How overthinking is killing your motion and how to break the cycle. Do you know what happens when you combine fear with a busy mind? Overthinking. And it's a dream killer. Overthinking is like your brain tying itself in knots. You play out a million different scenarios. What if this goes wrong? What if that goes wrong? Maybe I should wait until I'm 100% sure. And in the end, you've done nothing except exhaust yourself. Psychologists have a term for this: analysis paralysis, a form of overthinking where you literally can't make a decision because you're obsessing over every detail and possibility. You overanalyze so much that you become frozen. It's like, um, It's like revving, revving a car engine when you're in neutral. Lots of noise, but you're not moving. Sound familiar? You tell yourself you're doing research, you're planning, but really you're just stuck in your head. Overthinking often comes from that fear of doing the wrong thing. You're so afraid of making a mistake that you make no move at all. It's actually a documented problem. People with an intense fear of making the wrong choice end up avoiding choices altogether. And guess what? The avoidance is the biggest mistake of all because it keeps you parked on the sidelines. So let me share how I deal with this, because I'm not immune to overthinking either. I'm a strategy guy. I love planning, which can be dangerous. My solution is something I call motion over mastery. It means I value action more than I value getting it perfect. I force myself to just move, even if it might be messy. For example, uh, whenever a new platform or trend comes out, my rule is jump in it, give it a shot. I always tell people, expect to suck at first. I actually get excited about being a beginner because because it means that I'm learning something new. I literally say, all right, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm probably going to be terrible. Let's go. Why? Because doing things teaches you way more than thinking about things. The point is motion over mastery. Get in the game, get some momentum, and you can refine as you go. You can't steer a parked car, right? You've got to start driving, even if you're swerving all over the place at first. So how do you break that cycle of overthinking? Here are some quick, practical tips to force yourself out of your head and into action mode. Let's start with this. Set a short deadline for decisions. Give yourself 30 minutes or 30 seconds if it's minor to make a choice and then commit. When you impose a time limit, you cut off endless deliberation. For example, if you're deciding on a business name or logo, set a timer and pick one before it rings. Done is better than perfect. Next, break it down to one small step. Overthinking often happens when we stare at a huge huge goal and get overwhelmed. Instead, ask, what's the next tiny step I can take right now? Do that and nothing else. Send one email, write one page, sign up for one class. Action shrinks your anxiety. Next, embrace imperfection. This is key. Give yourself permission to be imperfect. Your first YouTube video, your first blog, your first sales call— they might be awkward or rough. That's okay. Expect to suck at the beginning, right? That's what I remind myself. You can't think your way into confidence. You have to act your way into it. Every imperfect action is a victory because it means you're moving forward while others are stuck. The moment you start moving, you'll notice something amazing. The overthinking voice, it gets quieter. It's drowned out by real-world feedback and progress. You'll start to feel momentum. And momentum, my friends, is powerful. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. Once you break that initial inertia, you'll wonder why you tortured yourself by overthinking for so long. So start now. Do something imperfect today. You will thank yourself tomorrow. Number 3: What to do when others are passing you by. Escaping the comparison trap. All right, let's tackle one of the biggest sources of that falling behind fear. Other people. You look around and it seems like everyone else is sprinting ahead in life. Your old classmates are buying homes or getting promotions. Hitting 100,000 followers, whatever, and you feel like you're eating their dust. This comparison trap will destroy you if you let it. So how do you escape it? How do we deal with seeing others pass us by? First, you need to understand something: social comparison is a biased, losing game. We almost never compare fairly. Studies show that when we compare ourselves, we tend to focus on those who seem ahead of us and ignore the vast majority who might be behind or on on a similar level. It's like climbing a ladder and only looking up at the people on higher rungs. Of course you'll feel behind. You've mentally erased all the people on the lower rungs. On top of that, you're comparing your messy reality to an image of someone else's perfect life. Thanks to social media, we are bombarded every day with curated highlight reels. You'll see your friend's business doing 7 figures, but you don't see their 16-hour workdays or the anxiety attacks. You see someone traveling the world on Instagram, but not their credit card debt or their loneliness. We compare our behind the scenes with the other's highlight reels, and it's completely false. So it's no wonder that we feel inadequate. It's all an illusion. Even people you think have it all fall into the same trap. Even billionaires wake up and feel poor or unsuccessful because they're comparing themselves to other billionaires who have more than them. Can you imagine? You've got a yacht and you're sad because the other guy's yacht is 10 feet longer. It sounds absurd, but it's human nature. If you focus on those who are ahead of you, you'll always feel behind. There's always someone seemingly doing better than you. And realizing this was a huge wake-up call for me. The chase of comparison never ends. It never yields happiness. So we have to step off that treadmill completely. So here's what you can do when you catch yourself feeling left behind by others. Start with this: remind yourself it's not a race, it's a journey. Everyone has their own path and everyone's timing is completely different. Life is not a one-lane track where one person's lead means that you lost. Success is not a zero-sum game. Everyone is climbing a different mountain. When someone achieves something, hey, good for them. It doesn't take away from what you can achieve. You have to internalize that you're on your own timeline, not theirs. Some people take off at 22 and fizzle out by 30. Others don't find their stride until 50, and then they go off and change the world. There's no rule that says you have to accomplish XYZ by a certain age or you're done. The only thing that matters is that you keep climbing your mountain. Next, use inspiration, not comparison. When you see someone do something amazing and you feel that little pang of envy or panic, reframe it. Instead of saying, they're ahead of me, I suck, tell yourself, they show me what's possible. Let them inspire you. Jealousy is a directional signal. If they're in your field, study their success. I always say success leaves clues. Rather than resenting someone's achievement, get curious about how they did it and what you can learn. That way, their win gives you motivation instead of discouraging you. For example, if your friend's startup is taking off, sit down with them and ask about their strategies. Learn from them. Admire it. Don't envy. Next, limit the comparison triggers. This is practical. If scrolling Instagram or LinkedIn makes you feel like crap because you're bombarded with other people's highlight reels, Hey, set boundaries with it. I do this myself. I curate my feed heavily. I don't follow people who make me feel like I'm not enough. Sometimes it's not even their fault, it's just my reaction. So I limit exposure until I'm in a stronger headspace. Think about taking a break from social media or unfollowing accounts that make you feel a toxic sort of comparison. Out of sight, out of mind really helps when you build up your own confidence. Instead, fill your environment with content that inspires you and educates you without making you feel less than. Let me bring you back to my experience of that high-profile mind. Remember how I felt unworthy to be there, like everyone was beyond me? In that moment, I was deep in the comparison trap. I nearly let it shut me down. But after Brendan told me, focus on what I bring to the table, I made a shift. I went from feeling intimidated by those people to feeling energized by them. I thought, wow, if I can access their knowledge, I can grow faster too. I started asking questions. I openly admitted where I needed help instead of hiding in shame. And you know what? Instead of judging me, those people helped me. They respected me more for being real. I walked out of that room not only with new knowledge and connections, but with a new mindset for myself— that other people's success can either be your excuse to quit or your reason to keep going. I chose to let it motivate me. I want you to choose the same. And one more thing: when you feel like others are passing you by, it can make you desperate, like you need to rush to catch up right now. Resist that panic. Think. Stick to your strategy. Stick to your values. Don't make reactive decisions just to one-up someone else. Stay true to yourself. Remember, you might be seeing their chapter 10 while you're on chapter 2. Their journey is not your journey. Keep your eyes on your own paper, as they say in school. You'll get to chapter 10 in time, and it will be your story. Number 4: The only two things that matter— belief and momentum. At the end of the day, overcoming the fear of falling behind comes down to two fundamental things. If you lock in just these two things, nothing can stop you: belief and momentum. So let's start with belief. Everything starts here. You have to believe in yourself, in your mission, your abilities, your destiny, even when you feel behind. In fact, especially when you feel behind. I built my entire brand and life philosophy on one word: belief. It's at the core of everything that I do. Why? Because I've lived the opposite. I felt the crushing self-doubt. I've been the 19-year-old entrepreneur who was ready to quit on his dream because I didn't think I had what it takes. That was my lowest moment, and also the moment that gave birth to my purpose. I realized that my mission in life is to help people not feel that pain, to help them believe in themselves too. Believe became my one word, my value, my motto. And I'll be honest with you, believing in myself is still a work in progress. I often say my biggest problem— mine is Evan Carmichael's biggest problem— is I don't believe in myself enough to do the next thing. Yes, even now, after years of accomplishments, that little voice of doubt still appears, but I've learned to recognize it and override it. How? By remembering my why. Remembering that your purpose comes from your pain. Every time I doubt, I think back to that young Evan who felt worthless, and I refuse to let him down. I believe because I know no one succeeds by accident. They succeed because at some point they chose to bet on themselves. And you need to bet on yourself. Cultivate the belief that you can figure this out, that you can grow, that you will win in the long run. Even if today you're behind, you can still picture yourself catching up and surpassing your goals. Oral belief from me if you have to. I have enough for both of us, and I truly believe in you. But you must internalize that belief and use it like motivation. It's a motivation that will keep you going when things get tough. And then it's momentum. If belief is the fuel, momentum is the engine. Momentum means you're in motion. You're making progress, however small, every single day. Nothing conquers fear better than action. When you have momentum, even tiny little wins, you stop feeling behind because you can see yourself gaining ground. You stop thinking and you start experiencing. So let me share a quick story of momentum in action. I did a crazy experiment. I wrote a full book in only 5 days. It was insane, even by my standards. How did I pull that off? Momentum. I got inspired with an idea for a book called Momentum, fittingly, and I started writing. Day 1, I wrote 5,000 words. Did I have spare time? No, I was squeezing writing into every gap in my schedule. An hour here, 90 minutes there, between meetings and filming. One Thursday, 2 of my interviews, they got canceled, and instead of taking a break, I said, okay, I got an hour, let me write. I seized every tiny opening to keep the flow going. I turned what would normally be busy time into creation time, and once I had the momentum, It became unstoppable. Even a major life surprise didn't derail me. Halfway through that week, my wife found a lump in her chest and we had a cancer scare. She's okay, but I was emotionally wrecked that day. But I got right back to writing the next day. In fact, I channeled that scare into my book's message about pushing through real-life pressure. I finished the manuscript in 5 days flat. That is the power of momentum. When you're moving, when you have that fire, you become almost immune to distraction and discouragement. Fear is in the backseat because you're too busy actually doing. So ask yourself this: what can you do today to create momentum? It could be as simple as committing to 30 minutes every morning to your dream project. No excuses. When you consistently invest in yourself like that, the results, they start to compound. 30 minutes a day becomes 3.5 hours a week, which becomes 14 hours a month, which is 168 hours. Over 168 100 hours a year spent on your goal, that's equal to over 4 full work weeks devoted to what matters to you. Imagine what you could accomplish with that kind of time, even if it's broken into small daily chunks. That's momentum. And here's the beautiful thing: when you have belief and momentum, you stop worrying about falling behind because you're too busy building your own path. You develop tunnel vision, you got the blinders on to focus on your mission. You wake up with more purpose, you go to bed with more satisfaction. You might look at others and cheer them on, but you no longer feel that big gap between you and them. You're in your own lane and you're motivated and you're moving forward. You trust that as long as you keep that up, your time will come and it will. So you are not falling behind. You are on your way. Every step you take, no matter how small, is progress for you. Every day you choose belief over doubt and action over excuses. You are closing that gap between the life you have and the life you want. So I want you to remember something. The tortoise only wins because it never stops walking. So keep walking. Your pace might be different. Your journey's gonna be unique, but you will get to where you're meant to go as long as you keep moving and keep believing. If you wanna learn why quitting the toxic job might be the best decision you ever make, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe and I'll see you there. Quitting your toxic job might be the smartest decision of your life. I know that might sound radical. Most of us grew up being told, don't be a quitter, and to just be grateful that you have a job. But staying in a poisonous work environment is far more dangerous than walking away.