If THIS is You Every MORNING, Then You Need to CHANGE! | Evan Carmichael | Top 50 Rules

When I was growing up, I used to have a lot of nervous tics. Some of them were really embarrassing. I used to blink a lot constantly. I used to do this with my neck and then have to adjust with my shoulder. When I was walking, I used to always have to step on the lines or completely avoid the lines on the sidewalk. I was also getting into a lot of fights at my school. So seeing this, my parents were really worried and it took me to go see a child psychologist. I didn't know she was a psychologist. My parents just said I was going to go play games with somebody and we had some games together and she showed me these inkblots and told me, what do you see in these pictures? And she asked me a bunch of questions. The immediate recommendation was that I switch schools right away. And so in grade 5, I transferred to a new school called Crescent and ended up staying there from grade 5 all the way to graduating high school. And the tics got better. For the most part, they went away completely. To this day, I still have a few minor ones where if I'm thinking or if I'm stressed or if I'm tired, you could see my ears move. But other than that, they're gone. What it really made me think about was the importance of your environment. So your environment is either something that builds you up, that lifts your spirits, that helps you go chase your dreams, or it's something that squashes you down. So think about the people that you surround yourself with. Think about the TV shows you're watching. And the media that you're consuming and the place that you go to work. Does your environment build you up or squash you down? Changing my environment had a dramatic impact on the quality of my life and the contribution to my success as an entrepreneur, and changing yours can have the same impact for you. Rule number 2: Add more value. Add more value. If you want to be able to charge what you're worth, if you want to be able to build a successful company, you need to add a ton of value. The amount of money that you make will be directly related to how much value you're providing for your customers, how much you're helping them out. It's a pretty simple equation. Executing it is difficult, but the concept is simple to understand. If you want to make more money, add more value and stop competing on price. When you compete on price alone, it's a loser's game. You're not going to bring on ideal clients. You're constantly going to be struggling to get by. You're not going to be able to hire great people for your team. You have to stop competing on price. Stop— start adding more value, and you're going to love your business more. You're going to have more fun. You're going to attract much better clients. You want to work with people who understand the value you provide and not just cater to the guys who have no budget, who are barely paying you a tiny profit for what you're doing. Rule number 3, find your one word. I believe everybody has one word that they stand for, and when you figure out what that one word is, your life and your business will change. And it's not just for marketing, it's not just how you promote yourself, but it's who you surround yourself with, the team that you attract yourself to, the products and services that you launch. When I accompanied and embraced believe as my one word, my business started to take off. My videos started doing insanely better. I started attracting the right people into my team. I started launching products that made sense for people and people really embraced. And so I'm a huge believer in it. And I'm going to give you a quick method to how to figure out your one word. The first step is you think about what makes you happy. What are the things that make you come alive? What are the things that you love doing? And just don't even think about what your one word is yet. Just think about all the things that you love doing, things you could do all day long, the things that fill fill your life with joy, write those things down. And this isn't just a business thing. This is you personally, because you want to make this personal for your business to be successful. The second thing is then look at what connects them. What are all the things that connect those things that make you happy? What's the connective tissue? And try to figure out, is there one word that can bring all those things together? So think about what your favorite movie is, your favorite book, your favorite, your best friend growing up, what you love about your parents. You know, what businesses you've been attracted to, the hobbies that you love doing, what connects them all together. For me, it's believe. You know, I love Seabiscuit as a movie, which is about this underdog horse and underdog jockey and underdog trainer and underdog owner and how they all work together to then win a whole bunch of races. The songs I listen to are always the uplifting, believe kind of positive ones. Those are the ones that I gravitate towards. What I love about my parents is that they always believed in me and told me that I was a Castrilli Carmichael, and I could do anything that I wanted. Even if they didn't give me the ideas of how to start a business, they always believed that whatever I did, I would be successful at and taught me to believe in myself. And so it's really important. And so all of those things that I've done across my life have been about believe. And when I encompass that, it allowed me to start living my life on purpose with direction instead of just being reacting to it. Rule number 4: Be unique. The thing is, in every industry, it's competitive, right? Every industry is competitive. And the key is you got to be you. The key thing that's going to make you stand out from everybody else is you. I'm trying to cross the street as I'm saying this. That's a differentiator. That's your market advantage. And so you've got to figure out, yes, you can model success. Yes, you can look at people who are big in the beauty industry and look at how they rose. And those are great examples. You got to take what worked for them and then make it your own. You've got to find a way to make this your business and people will be attracted to your personality. Not everybody, but a certain group of people. And what I found the best way to do it is to combine your passions. So if you love beauty, that's amazing, that's awesome. What else do you love? And how can you mix those two things? So for example, say you love dancing, right? You love dancing, that's your passion besides beauty. Be the beauty person for dancers, right? The next time they're doing a photo shoot, the next time they're getting ready for a performance, the next time they're out there getting into a movie— I almost got run over by that guy. Holy cow. They're gonna call you. Right? You're making videos, you're writing blog posts, you're tweeting about makeup and beauty and dancing. And so that's the key. That's how you do it. A couple examples that I've used before in the video: one, you know, if you like being a photographer, photographers are super competitive too. But say you love bowling, then you can be the photographer for bowlers. And you're going to be the default person they go to because they need people to be able to take pictures and they want somebody who's passionate about bowling. If you love dancing, they need people who can do makeup, but they want people who are passionate about dancing as well. Can speak both languages. That's the key. I got a buddy of mine, I've used this example before, named Steve, who's a financial planner. I mean, a financial planner, how many financial planners are there out there? Tons. But he has a passion for hockey. He loves hockey, he obsesses over it, he watches it, you know, as much as he can, watches the same replay 20 times. He could just watch hockey day in, day out. He became the financial planner for hockey players. And so when he's talking to hockey players now, he can speak their language, he can talk about hockey, he can talk about investments, and he's one of them, right? A lot of these hockey players, you know, the The goal in financial planning is to target the high net worth individuals, right? The people who have a lot of money. Those are the people you want to work with. And so he's able to do that by combining his passions. And so make it your own, right? Find a way to be able to tie whatever other passions you have into the beauty business, and that's how you're going to stand out. I want to see more Lisa. I want to see your passion. I want to see your personality, your character, what you believe in, all of that. That's got to be real. It's got to be you. It's got to be human. And that connection to you and everything that you stand for and believe in is what's going to make me want to come to you as a as everybody else. That's how you stand out. 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 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: Follow your flow. One of the most important lessons that I've learned in business, and I guess in life, is you need to follow your flow. And sometimes there are external pressures and that force you into following your flow. You may get a big media opportunity, you may get a new partnership, you may get a new— a big customer that kind of is a huge big opportunity for your business. And sometimes following your flow I find comes from internal reasons, internal pressures. Maybe you wake up one day and you really want to go try something out, or you're on a walk, or you're in the shower and a new thing comes to your mind. And I found that By following my flow and by following that idea, it's always in my best interest. One, because probably magic is going to happen. If magic is going to happen, it's going to come from a source of inspiration, not just being, you know, doing your day-to-day-to-day-to-day. And two, I didn't want to live with regret, you know? Don't want to have this big list of to-dos, this big list of ideas that just builds and builds and builds, and this Evernote file that just keeps growing and I never actually take action on stuff, right? You have an idea, you want to try something? Go and take action on it. So yesterday— this relates to my book— yesterday I had a full day planned. Monday is my busy day. I'm recording this on Tuesdays. Mondays are my busiest day of the week and I had a full day planned and then I just— it all exploded on me from an external source, from 50 Cent. So I made a video and 50 Cent saw it and he called it good shit. And he posted on his Facebook page, and he posted it to his Twitter account. He posted a blog about it. He kind of went crazy promoting this, and as a result, the traffic exploded on my video. Comments were coming out of everywhere. People were tweeting me. They're signing up for my newsletter. They're engaging with the video. It was just insane, and I had a choice of, hey, I can either go with this, right? Or I could just do all the work that I had planned for the day, and I chose to go with it. On top of it, it was pretty cool, right? 50 Cent likes my stuff and is sharing it. And I spent a good amount of time just with my team, just having fun in the moment, looking at the numbers, seeing where it was being shared. It's kind of a big celebration and a win for everybody on the team. So we're all kind of super pumped and excited. And I spent the day responding to everybody, and as a result, got nothing done that I was supposed to get done for the day. Rule #6: Expect to suck. Hello, Believe Nation! I've talked a lot about on this channel how when you're first starting something, you're going to suck at it, right? Any new skill that you're trying to pick up, You're going to suck whether it's learning a language, picking up a new sport, picking up a new skill, learning a video game, trying to understand marketing or accounting, whatever it is you're trying to understand, you will suck at the start. And a story I've told a couple times on these videos is look back on my channel, look back on my old videos and see the progress, right? 2,500 videos later, you can see how I've grown and I've gotten better and I sucked at the start and hopefully suck a little bit less now. But one thing that, that struck me as I was watching through my channel was the Entpresso series. I started that a couple months ago, and the first one that I did was of Dame Dash, and it was a selfish project for me because I wanted something in the morning to kind of get me excited, get me inspired, make me think bigger. But when I started it, I didn't have it all planned out, and I think this is something that's really critical for a lot of you on entrepreneurs is you want to not overplan and expect to suck at the start. And it's okay because you're going to get better and better and better and better. Rule number 7: Model the masters. I remember when I had my first company, I really struggled at the beginning. I was making $300 a month, not enough to survive. Almost gave up repeatedly and was willing to try anything. I felt like I tried everything and, and nothing was working out. I had a great product and I couldn't understand why this was so hard because the books I read and the websites I visited and the shows I watched, everything seemed to be so easy. Like, follow these 8 steps and you'll be successful. Well, I followed those 8 steps a million times and I wasn't successful. And one of the big breakthroughs for me came when I realized that I wasn't the first guy to try to do this before. My first company was a software company and I had no background in software before. apart from using, you know, a computer, but I wasn't a software designer. And the breakthrough moment came when I did realize that I'm not the first guy to try to sell software before, and I went and I modeled some of the largest and most successful software companies in the world. And one in particular was Microsoft. And again, I don't care how Bill Gates makes money now, but how did he go from nothing, from that idea, to getting his first customer? What did he do? What did he say? What were his actions? What was his mindset? Who did he need to connect with? And I took those strategies and applied them to my business, and I finally started to see results. For him, it was through partnerships. So he made partnerships. He had software, he partnered with hardware companies. His big deal came with IBM, was a $7 million deal, that first one with IBM that really put the company on the map. But before that, he still made partnerships with other hardware companies and they sold their, their products as a bundle. And so I applied that strategy and within the first month I closed my first partnership deal and I made $13,500. Now that may not seem like a lot of money to you, $13K, but to me, I'm making $300 a month, this was, this was like eureka! Oh my god, I struck it rich! This is amazing! Somebody actually believes in what I'm doing. I'm seeing some positive momentum finally after all this failure and struggling. And it just kept copying that again, and I applied it again and again and again and closed more partnerships and more partnerships and continued to grow my business. And eventually I got acquired by someone who was a potential partner. They loved us so much that they wanted to buy my business. And I wish I had discovered it earlier. I wish I discovered the strategy so much earlier because I almost shut down. Like, I almost quit my business and thought maybe I should listen to my friends and go back and get a job. And I'm so grateful that I didn't, but I came close many times to having to do that. And so if you're struggling with your business right now, if you don't have a lot of experience in, in the field and it's a first-time thing for you, you can't get this thing off the ground, model success. Find someone who has done it, who's had success in your field. Look at the cosmetic lines company, see how they did it. Learn from their mistakes so you don't have to make all the mistakes yourself, and you crunch down your learning curve. So instead of it taking you years and years and years to achieve success, you can do it a lot faster because you're modeling things that work. Rule number 8: Have passion. That's the test. You know, when you are excited by something, when you are passionate about something, when you're willing to set an alarm for something and then wake up even before that alarm goes off that tells you that you're on the right path. Because too many people try to plan it all out, right? Try to make it make sense up here in your head, right? It's got to make total logical sense before I launch. And your assumptions are always going to be wrong, and it's never going to work out like you think it will. And you spend so much time planning that you don't spend any time doing. And what you need to do is follow your passion even when it sounds crazy. You know, I don't know how this business is going to work out. I don't know if it's going to be with videos. I don't know if it's going to be through an agency, through tournaments, through representing players. I don't know what it's going to be. But what I do know is if I don't do anything, nothing's going to happen. And so by following my passion and by waking up early and setting that alarm clock and getting excited about something, we'll explore, we'll try, we'll fail, we'll make mistakes, and we'll get better and we'll find our path. And you need to do the same thing too. If there's something that you are excited about, something that you want to try, then start. Start even if it doesn't make any sense, because by trying and making mistakes and figuring it out, you'll land on the perfect business model to help you explode and grow when everybody else thought you were crazy. Rule number 9: Impact people. One of the things that I fundamentally believe is that entrepreneurs make the world a better place. This is We are the people that drive forward progress. We're the people that create the change. And one of the main reasons why I make these videos and I'm so passionate about helping entrepreneurs is because you guys are the ones that's going to go out and create that better future for, for my kids and for my grandkids. And so just as a reminder, if you're struggling to— I know there's like the short-term cash flow crunch and you want to make money now, you're trying to figure out how to survive. Survival is important, but the way to get to becoming a successful entrepreneur is by impacting people. And some people have a big vision like Walt Disney and want to create new cities, and other entrepreneurs have a smaller vision and all you want to do is help your local community and help your customers who are buying from you. But at the core of every successful business is a desire to do good and to make the world a better place. Rule number 10: Believe. That's what drives me. I want to, I want to have a big impact, and I know I can help people on a small scale. I know I can help you with the videos, and the videos are taking off, and everything I've done is, you know, it's growing quickly. But I want it to be bigger, right? I want it to be life-changing on a world scale. And I don't always believe that I can do it because I've never done it before, because it seems like such a big goal. And I'm writing a book right now, and it's— I want it to be an important book. I want to be one of the the top 10 most read, most valuable business books of all time. And that's an easy goal to say, right? Anybody can say, I want to have this book to be the top 10 book. Anybody can say that, but who actually believes that, right? Do I actually believe that I can write that book? Because if I don't, I'm not going to write that book. And when I'm talking to people, I'm not going to get them excited. And there's a fine line between confidence arrogance or cockiness, but that's the challenge that I'm going through right now, is believing that I can create this amazing book. And when I'm talking to Jessica Alba and saying, hey, you're, you know, you're a superhero in the movies, but you should be a superhero in real life as well. You could be a superhero for entrepreneurs and, and help them and be a model for success through your Honest Company. I have to do that with a lot of confidence. I have to do that believing that this is truth. Rule number 11: Chart your start. Number 1 is chart your start. What you do in the first 15 minutes of your day matters. Chart your start. Have a plan of action. Most people wake up like an accident. Most people wake up, they're tired. You pull out your phone, you start looking at your email, and what are you doing when you're looking at your email or looking at social media, you're responding to other people's emergencies. You wake up, you're tired, and the first thing you do is you start responding to other people's emergencies. I want you to control the first part of your day. Chart your start. Understand what it is that makes you come alive. Understand what is the action that helps you feel bold, creative, unstoppable. We've all had it. You've all had moments where you have felt bold, courageous, and unstoppable. What led to that? Reverse engineer yourself. What led to you feeling bold? Is it watching a video? Is it reading a book? Is it having a conversation? Is it doing a meditation? Is it taking your dog out for a walk? Is it cutting the grass? Like, I don't care. There's no judgment. I don't care what the thing is that makes you feel bold and courageous and unstoppable. I just want you to do it daily. I want you to start your day with intention. Most people don't start their day with intention, and that makes the difference between the people who achieve success and the ones who don't. And so chart your start. Figure out the thing that makes you come alive, that makes you feel like that big crazy idea of yours is actually possible, and put that into the first 15 minutes of every day. If you did the thing that made you feel bold, courageous, and unstoppable in the first 15 minutes of waking up every single day— not every day will be amazing, but I guarantee you that your life will look unrecognizable from where you are right now. Chart your start. Rule number 12: Focus. Your chances of success go up in direct proportion to your ability to, one, pick the right things to work on, and then two, focus on executing those things. It's so easy as an entrepreneur to get distracted. We love shiny objects, right? We love dreaming up new ideas and chasing these different projects. But if you look at a typical entrepreneur, you'll see that So many of their projects start and stop and start and stop, and you take something 10% through or 50% through or sometimes even like 80% through. But unless you're willing to take it to 100%, you're not going to get the results. You're not going to get the fruit of your labor because you're just planting a whole bunch of seeds constantly, but you're never taking care of that seed. You're never watering it, right? If you want to grow a plant, you got to plant the seed, you got to care for the soil, you got to add nutrients, you got to water it daily, it's got to have enough sunshine. You got to look after that seed where most entrepreneurs, they don't. They're starting and stopping, starting and stopping, starting and stopping, and you never actually get to where you want to go. People talk about diversification. You need to diversify, you need to diversify. And while that's really great as an investment strategy, if you don't know what you're investing into, it's good to have a big portfolio of different things so that if one thing doesn't do well, something else is doing well. But it really sucks as business advice because if you're trying to do 10 different things at once, they're all going to be mediocre. They're all going to be below average. Because you're going up against people who are doing that full-time and have their focus on it. And so it's much better as an entrepreneur to, one, pick the things that you want to focus on, right? And then two, actually focus on it. Do that work. Andrew Carnegie was once the richest person in the world, and he had a great quote saying how he likes to put all of his eggs in one basket, and then you watch that basket carefully, right? It's only a major risk if you're not watching the basket. If you, if you take your eye off the ball, you start looking elsewhere, and then something happens to your industry, right? And so being the expert, being the best at what you do, will always yield more results, more value, more money to you than being okay at 20 different things. Be the best at one thing. Focus. Rule number 13: Bring value first. This is the secret to getting ahead in business and in life. Bring value first. You want somebody to notice you? Bring value first. You want somebody to pay attention to you? Bring value first. You want somebody to buy from you, to hook you up with a partner, to talk about you in a speech on stage? Like, you want people to do stuff for you? Bring value first. Don't go to them asking for help first. Go to them with value first so that they're stumbling all over themselves to try to find a way to help you out too. Bring value first. Most people will never figure this out. Most people will constantly be begging other people be tweeting at them and DMing them and saying, please help me, please help me, please help. And I feel so— I feel so bad. I feel, I feel frustrated, and I feel so bad for these people who are just asking for help because you know that they need help, but they're going about it all wrong. By spamming people and begging for help, you're not going to get it. Instead, focus your efforts. Like, you will never get it. You will never get it this way. You're not going to get to your outcome. You're not going to solve this problem. By begging people. You'll get a little bit, like even beggars on the street get a little bit. You'll get a little bit, but you'll never get to where you want to go ever by begging. Instead, flip it and spend your time trying to figure out how you can bring value to other people first so they can't wait to help you out too. Rule number 14: Enjoy the process. If I had to give advice to somebody to have success in any field, not just entrepreneurship, in any field, you look at the people who have the most success in any field, they enjoy the process, and too many people are attached just to the outcome. If you want to make a blockbuster hit, if you want to make a successful movie, you have to enjoy the process of making movies. As an entrepreneur, if you want to have a successful product, you want to have a great service that's making a lot of money, you want to have a huge business, whatever you define as huge or successful, then you need to enjoy the process of the work work that you're doing on a day-to-day basis. And not everything is going to be amazing. You're going to have down days, but net-net, you have to enjoy what you're doing. You have to wake up and look forward to the day that is ahead. And too many entrepreneurs are spending 80 to 90% of their time doing stuff that they're not good at, that they don't want to be good at, that they hate because they feel the need to do it to grow their business, and only 10 to 20% of their time on the stuff that they can be genius level at. And you will not have success in any endeavor if you're only spending 10 to 20% of your time or less on the stuff that you have the potential to be the best in the world at and that you enjoy. If your goal is just to make a lot of money and you'll do whatever it takes just to make that amount of money, you'll never get there because you don't enjoy the work. Where the secret The secret to success is enjoying the day-to-day grind because it doesn't feel like a grind. It feels enjoyable. Rule number 15: Take ownership of your life. You already know what you want to do. You're letting the opinions of other people get in the way of you taking action. People are not afraid of failing. They're afraid of failing in front of other people. You will sing all day in the shower, but you won't get on the street corner and sing because you're embarrassed of the judgment. And what you need to do is inoculate yourself against the judgment and learn to take action on your ideas, because the alternative is a life filled with regret. You have to decide at what point are you going to take ownership for where you are in life. Like, at what point do you decide, my goals, my ideas, my dreams, my ambitions are important enough to me that I'm willing to risk failure, I'm willing to risk embarrassment. I'm willing to risk having to go tell my friends that it didn't work out because this is my path. Because otherwise I never get to do the thing that I want to do. At what point are you gonna decide to step up and say, I need to do this for me. I need to know. It may not work out. I may be embarrassed, but I need to know. I don't want the rest of my life to sit around wondering What if, what if, what if? Rule number 16: work hard and smart. If you want to succeed as an entrepreneur, you need to work both hard and smart. You need both. Everybody who's had massive success did both. Forget about trying to work a 4-hour workweek. Forget about passive income. Yes, you can make a little bit. Yes, it might be supplemental income to help you along your journey, but if you want to do something impactful, you want to have a a big change in the world, you want to really be somebody special and have a ripple effect out from you, you gotta do both. You got to work really hard. Look at whoever your heroes are, whoever it is that you look up to. They didn't get there by having things handed to them, and they didn't get there by trying to create passive income or work 4 hours a week. And I love the 4-hour workweek book. There's a lot of principles you can use in there, except the fact that when you are committed to something and you love it, you got to go all in on it. Stop being lazy. Lazy people don't change the world. Lazy people don't have a huge impact. I want you to have a huge impact. And so hard work is just your ticket in. Hard work alone is not the answer. There's lots of people who work really hard and they never rise up. They never reach their potential, right? You can work You can work really, really, really hard as a cashier, but if you're not thinking on a bigger scale, you're not working smart as well, then you'll just continue to work really, really hard as a cashier and make whatever a cashier makes, and that's where you stay. Hard work does not guarantee your success, but there is no success without hard work. Period. It doesn't exist. Show me somebody who you really look up to and really respect who hasn't put in a ton of effort, hard work, and smart work to make it happen. And so I think if you are just looking for shortcuts, if you're just looking for ways to make that passive income or ways to work 4 hours a week and then spend the rest of time lying on the beach, you're being lazy and you haven't really tapped into the thing that you love doing. Because I can tell you, you get tired of lying on the beach. You may not agree because your life sucks right now, because your work sucks right now, because you're just trying to escape. But people want to do things that have meaning. After you've escaped your life and you spent a year on the beach, you're going to get tired, you're going to get bored, you want to do something that fills you up. We want to contribute. Human beings want to contribute. We want to feel like the work that we're doing matters, and we like to work. We like to feel like the activities that we're filling up our day with mean something to somebody else. So you've got to find that, and when you do, You don't want to just work 4 hours a week. It fills you up. You want to do it a lot. It doesn't mean you're spending 24 hours a day doing it. You got to find the balance for you. But when you find the work that you love, you want to go all in on it. You want to keep going because it fills up your soul. So you've got to work hard and you've got to work smart. It's the only way to succeed as an entrepreneur. Rule number 17: get used to rejection. Rejection is part of life as an entrepreneur. You are going to get rejected over and over and over over and over again. It's just part of being an entrepreneur and being a business. The first thing you put out won't be very good. People will hate on it. People will give some constructive criticism as well. People will say no because they don't know you, trust you, like you, and so you won't get those first deals. It takes a lot of time to build up a business and make it successful. And even when you've gotten to that point where you're feeling happy and you're bringing on a team and building the business, you're still going to get rejected constantly. It's just part of life as an entrepreneur. And so if you can't handle that, it's going to be a really hard road for you to be an entrepreneur. I think the way to get through rejection— there's two ways to do it. One is to use rejection as fuel, kind of like what Jack Ma did. Like, I got rejected 10 times by Harvard. One day I'm gonna go teach there, right? One day I'm gonna go speak there. To use that as fuel, like, you turn me down, I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna beat it. I'm gonna come back and be the teacher there, right? You turn me down for this deal, I'm gonna go get a deal 10 times as big, right? So that's one. You can easily— you can use rejection as fuel to help you go off and do something bigger and in motivation to, I'm gonna prove them wrong. The second way is just to forget about it. Just get used to it. That's more what I do. I don't really use rejection as fuel. Doesn't really bother me when somebody turns me down or when a new series doesn't work. I was trying to think when I I was preparing for this video, what's a recent rejection that I have? Because there's been so many, but none really stick out as being super memorable. The one that I came up with was, I tried a new series on the weekend a while ago about the best of Kickstarter, and it was a new series that I was testing of showing different Kickstarter ideas that I thought might be helpful for you. And that video didn't do as well as I would have liked, didn't do as well as other videos, and we're probably going to kill that series. But that's okay. Like, I've killed tons of series. It happens all the time on the channel, and I couldn't even tell you all the series that I've killed because they didn't perform. You guys rejected them. It's okay. I just moved past it. And so either one, you have two strategies to go for. Use the rejection as fuel to say, I'm gonna show you how wrong you are, and prove it to them. Or just forget about it, get used to it, it's going to happen, it's just part of the game, and you move on and just think about the next thing that you can go off and build. Use either one of those strategies, but don't get stuck in the rejection. Rule number 18: Be patient. Most entrepreneurs aren't patient enough. Most entrepreneurs end up losing their business, they end up shutting down because they think it's going to happen in a couple months or even 6 months or a year, and really it's going to take them 4 years, 5 years before they hit their mark. They don't have enough patience. They don't allow enough time for momentum to build up, and they quit. And they end up going back to a crappy job that they hate and maybe never ever take a shot again at entrepreneurship because they feel it's not for them. Where really, they missed out. You missed out on your destiny. You missed on creating something amazing because you just didn't have enough patience. Now, I believe in patience in the macro. I believe in patience and knowing it's going to take a long time. I also think impatience can serve you greatly, but that's in the micro, that's in the daily. The impatience of, did I do my best today? Did I do my best today? Can I do better? Can I drive more? Can I drive harder? And knowing that even if I give my best every single day, it's still going to take time. It's still going to take a number of years for something to happen. I want it to happen as soon as possible. I'm going to drive and be impatient as crazy to get it going. But I know it's gonna take time too. It's embracing both. That's when you start to win. I look at my, my YouTube, my Instagram, my social media strategy. YouTube, 7,000 subscribers 4 years ago, 1.2 million subscribers now. 4 years by making videos every day, every day, and I'm impatient as anything because I want it to be amazing. I want to make every video better than the last and looking for all the hacks and SEO and thumbnail strategy and title strategies and all of this stuff that we're supposed to do, right? I'm on top of it, and I know that it's going to take me 4 years to get there. I know it's going to take me a while to get to my next $2 million, $5 million, $10 million. I look at Instagram— follow me on my Instagram journey. I'm starting from nothing. You can see how to build it up from zero. I had 8,000 followers. Many of you already have more followers than I do on Instagram, but I'm gonna win. I'm gonna pass people. I'm gonna get mine because I'm gonna make daily consistent content 3 to 4 times a day for 4 years. I'm gonna be impatient as anything, and that the post today has to be amazing, has to be something that I want to show my grandkids, right? That's the intent every time I create anything. I want my grandkids to watch this video. I want my grandkids to watch the next Instagram thing that I put up. It's the best that I can come up with in the moment, and I know it's gonna take me 4 years, maybe 3 years, maybe 2 years, but it's not gonna take me it's going to take working hard and working smart together. Always. Rule number 19: Make no excuses. Successful people don't make excuses. Successful people don't complain. If you look at whoever you want to look up to, look at the most successful people in the world in any industry, look at the top and look at how much they complain. They don't complain. When you complain, when you blame something else, when it's the government's fault or interest rates' fault or the bad economy's fault or your partner who screwed you over or the customers who don't care. As long as you can blame somebody else, right? The education system, your parents, your friends, your upbringing. There's always somebody else to blame. And when you blame somebody else, when you're in that mindset, then you never grow. You're making things easy on yourself. It allows you to coast. It allows you to play life super safe because It's not your fault that you're not more successful. Of course it's not your fault. That would be difficult. That would be hard. It's somebody else's fault. So you can just stay where you are because people are holding you back from accomplishing the thing that you want to accomplish. Where successful people take responsibility for where they are in life and they say, I don't care about the government. I don't care who's president. I don't care about regulations that you have or things that you're holding me back on, I will still go out and get mine. And of course there are other factors. Of course the country you come from matters. Of course the education you had and the connections you had growing up, of course it matters. But so what? You have to play the hand that you were dealt. You have these cards. You have to play those cards and you can have success. One of the things I love looking at and this is why I do all these profiles of successful famous entrepreneurs. There is always somebody who has done way more than you have done with way fewer resources than you already have. So no matter what terrible situation that you have, and I'm empathetic, maybe you come from a broken home, maybe you have a really severe disability that's physically holding you back from doing some of the things you want to do, you know, maybe there's a lot of pressure on you, maybe you have some disease, maybe you have zero money in your bank account. These are real pressures and I'm empathetic to that, but so what? The longer you believe that those things are gonna hold you where you are, then they will. There are people who have worse conditions, less money, are in worse situations, and they came out of it and accomplished amazing things because they believed that they could. And if somebody looks like you has gone on and accomplished big things, then you can too. And it only happens when you accept responsibility for where you are in life. Rule number 20: Stop using weak language. You have the power to control your world, how you think, how you act, your mindset with the words that you speak. When you use weak language, you signal to yourself that you are weak. You signal to yourself that your goals aren't important. You signal to yourself that you are not worth it. You lose respect for yourself, and the people around you don't respect you either. We need to stop using weak language and pay attention to the words that you're speaking to others and to yourself. Now, this is not an easy task because most of the words that you're using, the way that you talk to others and to yourself, you're on autopilot, you're on cruise control. It just happens. You've been doing this for years or decades. And so switching it is not going to happen overnight, but if you pay attention to the next 3 things that I'm going to share with you, it can have a dramatic impact on your self-confidence, on the goals that you have for yourself, and on the outcomes you create for yourself in the world. Let's do it. Number 1: I can't, I'm not, I don't. What you say after those 3 things shapes your identity. It speaks to how you think and speak about yourself. So I can't. I can't be an entrepreneur. I can't be a leader. I can't be a YouTuber. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't. Especially this one. When you say I can't, pay very, very, very, very, very, very close attention to what follows and try and try and try to shift it from I can't to either I choose not to or I can't yet. I'm not I'm not a good salesperson. I'm not funny. I'm not the kind of person who follows through. Again, pay close attention and try to shift it to not yet. I don't. I don't program. I don't know how to make money. I don't think like that. Switch I don't to I don't yet. I can't, I'm not, I don't. Those statements are final. Those statements don't allow for growth. Those statements are how you feel about yourself and don't They don't allow for the stretch. They don't allow you to get better. And so either eliminate them from your vocabulary or change them to "yet." Number 2 is catch your cruise control. The way that you have been speaking about yourself, the way that you have been talking to yourself has been happening using the same words for years, maybe even decades. It's so automatic for you. You are on cruise control. You are on autopilot. You think small and talk negatively about yourself without even thinking about it. You need to catch your cruise control. And listen, don't be too hard on yourself. This is so ingrained. These patterns have been around for so long. You are just auto-defaulting to cruise control that most of these times you will not even catch it. You will not catch 99% of these moments, of these words, of these languages that you're using for yourself. But if you have the awareness, If you have the intention, if you have the desire, every now and then you will catch it. Another quick hack is to enlist a friend, enlist the people around you, your wife, your husband, your team, your kids. Kids especially. My son Hayden loves calling me out on things. Enlist their help. Tell them, this is where I want to play a bigger game. This is where I'm frustrated with myself. This is where I keep talking badly about myself and putting myself down. These are the words, the language that need to change And every time you hear me talking this way, I need you to bring it to my awareness and let me know, because I want to catch my cruise control. For me personally, it's around complaining. Anytime I complain, I want my wife, I want my team, I want my son, I want the people around me to say, Evan, you are complaining right there. That was a complaint. Eat it, right? I'm happy for them to hug me with it, to yell at me with it. I just want them to let me know. Now, when I told everybody, they said Chris, you barely complain. You're like the least complaining person that we know. Awesome, thank you, I'm humbled. But I still complain, and I probably complain a lot, and a lot of the times I'm missing it. And so please, please, please, please, please, please, please, even if you think I'm great at it, if you catch me complaining, I want you to call me out on it. So enlisting your friends can be really helpful because you will likely not catch most of them yourself, but it's imperative that you start working on catching your cruise control. Step number 3 is manual override. You have caught your cruise control, you have found the autopilot, it's about to happen again. This negative talk that you're about to speak out into the world about yourself or your ideas, you putting yourself down, is about to come out again or has just come out. What do you do about it? Because this is really important. If you catch yourself playing small or talking negatively about yourself, if you catch it and you don't do anything, it actually makes it worse. It's better that you don't even catch it at all. If you catch it and you recognize, I am playing small right now, and you ignore it and you don't change your behavior, you are building that identity for yourself that you are somebody who is playing small. You are consciously building that identity for yourself, and you need to stop it. It makes it worse. Where when you do catch it, when you find yourself falling into those patterns, those behaviors that you don't want anymore, whether you find it yourself or somebody's calling you out on it, what do you do? You need to kick your manual override into action and take the action that you want, because that starts building the positive habit. That starts building the positive respect. This is how you build respect for yourself. This This is how you start building the muscle. This isn't just a zero-sum game. This isn't just we go back to neutral. When you catch it, you either go sliding down or you go propelling up. The choice is yours. When you catch yourself playing small, when you catch yourself coming off of cruise control, you have to do the thing that builds the self-respect up and speak positively about yourself. Do the thing that you are scared to do. Rule number 21: Work the hardest. The people who win work the hardest because they love what they do. They put in the hours and the hours and the hours and the hours for days and days and days and weeks and weeks and weeks and months and months and months, years and years and years, because they love it, because it's not work for them. The only way you're gonna be willing to put in the work that is necessary to win, to be the best in your industry, the only way you're gonna put in that amount of work is because you love what you're doing. And if you don't, you're gonna, you're gonna lose, because there's gonna be somebody who will love it, who loves it more than you, and will crush you. And you'll be not even a number 2, you'll be mediocre, because there's lots of people who love what they do, and there's lots of people grinding it and working hard. If you are looking at your calendar, like open up your calendar, look what you're gonna do today, or look what doing tomorrow? What's on the schedule? If you're looking at it and you're like, oh, I gotta do all these things— if that's your reaction, you might be in the wrong business. Now, if it's a one-off thing, if there's a one day, you know, you got to deal with the government or something, fine. But if that's daily, if that's consistent, if that's always happening, if you continue to look at your calendar and you're upset and the depressed and angry, you're in the wrong business. The work should feel like something exciting to go and do. Where other people might jump into your schedule and say, that's crazy, I could never do that— that's great, that's why you're not crushing it like I am. Like, go, go crush it in your field, go do your thing. Rule number 22: create your own path. I think too many people are trying to live someone else's path. You're trying to follow your parents' path, you're trying to be the next Michael Jordan or the next Wayne Gretzky or the next Steve Jobs, you're trying to be the next somebody else, where if your goal is to be the next somebody else, you're always gonna fall short. You can't out-Steve Steve. It's not happening. It's not gonna be possible. So you will always fall short if you are trying to follow somebody else's path. The key is to create your own unique path. That's where you're gonna stand out, and that's where the magic is gonna happen. You already are unique. You already are the first and only version of you. You that will ever walk this planet. That has already happened. But you're not the best you yet. You're the unique you, you're the first you, but you're not the best you yet. And that's where you can pull from people. You can pull from Jobs, you can pull from Gates, and you can pull from Winfrey, and you can pull from LeBron. You can pull from all these people to make you the best version of you and help you go off on your path. And it starts by understanding what your one word is. Living your life on purpose, knowing what your values are, and having the self-awareness to create something that is important. And then by embracing the genius of the ant, where the unique talents that you have get mashed up together in a way that nobody else can execute on. And it often comes by, I want to do this, or I want to do this, or I want to do this, and you've got 2 or 3 or 4 things that you don't know which direction to take. And the real answer is to smash Mash all of those things together because that's the unique thing that only you can do. Anybody can be a banker, anybody can be a salsa dancer, anybody can be a gamer, anybody can be a fill-in-the-blank. But when you start combining those things together and then combine it with your one word, which is your value system, that's something that nobody else can do. It's something nobody else can touch. Now you're off creating your own own path and being the best version of you. And that's where your ultimate success, happiness, wealth, and impact will come. Create your own path. Rule number 23: build self-discipline. The mind is getting in your own way. If you want to lose weight, you know how to do it. You got to eat less, you got to work out more, you will lose weight. Why are you not doing it? Self-discipline. Your mind is getting in your way. But I see self-discipline as a positive. I, I I think self-discipline has a really negative connotation a lot of times. I think in a lot of the messages that people are putting out, it comes across as this really negative thing. Like, you have to force yourself to do all of the stuff that you really hate, and it's gonna suck, but you have to keep going. You got to do it. You got to be disciplined. If you're not disciplined, you suck. Everything's terrible. It just comes across as this really negative forcing yourself to do stuff that doesn't resonate with me. I see self-discipline as a really positive thing. I think it's really helpful. I think it's amazing and beautiful and golden. Let's look at weight as an example. I am the lowest weight that I've been all year. I'm on a routine. It's working. The specific strategies that don't really matter: 1, intermittent fasting. So I'll only have water and a coffee until noon, and then after that I'll start eating. I do that 7 days a week. I run for 30 minutes, usually at night while I'm watching a show with my wife. 7 days a week. And then 6 days a week, I'll restrict my calories, not really forcing myself not to eat food, just not eating Doritos and not eating junk, right? Eating healthy food 6 days a week, and then Saturdays I get to do what I want. 6 days a week. Those are the strategies that I use. It may seem like torture, but it's not. And the thing that helps me get through it is the mindset, because the positive of all of this is I'm losing weight. I'm feeling great. I'm making progress. I'm super pumped that I'm getting closer to my goal. I feel amazing about myself. So I think self-discipline, usually it seems to focus just on the actions that you just have to grind your way through it without enough focus on the mission of what you're trying to accomplish and how beautiful and wonderful that is. And so yes, some of it might suck, right? But you're moving towards something amazing and beautiful. So I think people just focus too much on the negative part of it. And if you force yourself to do something that you hate, you can only do it for so long before you give up. If you can't tie it into the bigger picture of what you're trying to accomplish, then you will give up and you will quit and you will feel terrible. And then I think having other people yell at you about how you need to have self-discipline doesn't actually help. I think it actually makes it worse because you develop the identity for yourself of, I don't have any self-discipline. You can build it. It's not that difficult. To do. In my perspective, in my view, all you need to do is make sure that you have a really strong why. Make sure that you have an outcome that you are really looking forward to and you love doing. And then the process itself— how do you make the process as enjoyable as possible? How do you make the process just not absolutely suck every single day going in, right? If you figure that out, then you win. Rule number 24: don't focus on the money. If you just focus on the money, you're never going to get it. This is what so many entrepreneurs do and why so many entrepreneurs fail. Is their number one goal is money. Now, money is important. If you're running a business, money is important. You know, even if you're running a charity, money is still important. Money is important. It's just not the number one thing. It's number two or three. There has to be something more important than money for you to have success, ultimate success as an entrepreneur. Sure, you can make a few bucks, but if you look at the people who are the top in any field, money was never the number one goal. Look at the people who are self-made Millionaires and billionaires and read their biographies and read their story and understand why they started their companies. Watch the top 10 videos on all of them. It's never been about the money. It's always been about making a profound change to the way something is done in their industry, having a deep passion for their craft that they needed to bring this thing out into creation. You know, when George Lucas created Star Wars, he thought it would be a flop. He thought it would only be for a select few geeks who really loved that genre. He never expected it to be this huge thing that turned him into a billionaire. But he loved making the video and he poured every ounce of creativity he had into making that movie. And that's a story over and over and over and over and over again. Successful entrepreneurs love their craft. They want to do the work. And as a result of creating something valuable because they they put so much love into it, then they start making money. Rule number 25: Start now. There is no perfect first step. There is no perfect plan. There is no perfect time to get started. A lot of people are so held up on finding what the perfect first thing is to do that they do nothing. And that's the ultimate failure. The ultimate failure is doing nothing and just sitting on this idea and never taking any kind of action for it because you're worried about making you're worried about making a mistake, you're worried that it's not perfect. Your perfectionism is killing you. It's preventing you from doing amazing things in your life and with the business. You take any step. You have a vision. Here's what I want to accomplish. Here's my goal. I want to write a book. I want to start a company. I want to— whatever it is, whatever first step comes to mind, go out and do that. And then adjust, adjust, adjust, adjust. You can have the best plan in the world, right? And I'm all for business planning. It's not just, I'm just going to throw an idea out there and see what happens, right? You can plan, you can model success, you can look at what has worked for people, but you have to go out and do it because the best plan is obsolete as soon as you start executing on it. And this is what almost killed my first business. This is how I learned the lesson because I was that guy. I was the perfectionist. I didn't want to do anything until I had it all figured out. And you only later realize that what you think you figured out, you have no idea what you're talking about because you haven't gone out and done anything yet. I lost a $40 million deal in my first company. I was making $300 a month sucking in my company, turned it around, started making an income, and had an opportunity to sell my business for $40 million, and I lost it to my biggest competitor because I had to have the perfect plan, because I spent an entire summer working on the perfect plan, and I was too late to the table. I was looking the wrong way. What made great sense on paper wasn't actually what was gonna happen in the market, and I lost a $40 million deal because of it. That kills. That sucks. I was 22 years old. It's a It's important to plan what you need to do. And don't get so hung up on having the perfect step. Don't worry what the first step is. People write in and say, "What's my first step?" It doesn't matter. Something. Do something and then do something again tomorrow and do something again the next day. And every day you get a little bit better. Start taking massive action. That's how you're going to get that idea out of your head finally and out into the world so you can start reaping the benefits and having a big impact on this world like you are meant to do. Rule number 26: find mentors. I'm a big believer in mentorship, one in terms of, you know, face-to-face people that you can go and learn from, and two, from what I call aspirational mentors— people who've done a lot more than you, who you may never meet, who may have passed on, but you can still learn from their success. It comes from the core understanding that whatever challenge you have in front of you right now, somebody else has already solved it. Whatever big problem you're facing in your life or in your business, somebody has already solved it, and you don't need to come up with every ingenious solution yourself. This is one of the things that saved my first business. One of the two most important lessons that I've ever learned in my life was whenever I don't know what to do, whenever I have a big problem, I don't have the answer, I look for somebody who has already solved it, and I try to learn from their lessons. In my first business, I had a software company. I was struggling, you know, making $300 a month, barely able to survive. And I was just trying to come up with all these ideas myself, like, okay, how about we do this? How do we do this? And nothing was working. And I told my partner I quit, and it was the worst day of my life. And when I woke up the next day, I realized I didn't want to quit. I just couldn't keep going the way I was going. And the light bulb moment was I realized I'm not the first guy to try to sell software before. Maybe our specific kind of software, yes, but in general, other people have figured out how to sell software and make lots of money and target lots of customers. How did they do it? And I looked at Bill Gates and how he got started, and that started the process to me being able to build a real company. And that lesson that I learned at 19 years old has stayed true for the past almost 20 years. Years where every time I don't know what to do, I look at who can I model. It's, it's why the name of this channel is Modeling the Masters. It's why I try to showcase lots of different successful people from all walks of life, because you can learn from them. I'm learning from them. Rule number 27: Dream big. It can be hard to keep perspective when you hit a rough patch. It can be hard to stay sane and stay motivated and stay optimistic when you fall on tough times, when something doesn't go go right, when the market slows down, when you lose a big customer. And that's part of the game of being an entrepreneur. We're going to have these highs and lows, but hopefully we're moving forward in a positive direction. And part of winning as an entrepreneur is just sticking with it. It's just staying on the path. It's just every day getting up and being consistent and moving forward. You only really lose if you give up, right? And so you can lose little battles, but if you keep going, you're going to win the war. I think what really helps you keep consistent and keep motivated and keep on every day getting up and fighting is remembering the whys, remembering your big dream, the big goal, what you're trying to accomplish. And so for me, I think about untapped potential. You know, I think the biggest problem in the world is untapped human potential. I think if we can solve that, we solve all the major problems of the world. And I think the way to help untap tap people, help to unlock them, help bring out that potential is through the environment, right? You may not have that with your friends and your family, your parents, the people around you, but you can get that from the books and videos and the resources that you watch and consume. And so it's why I created this YouTube channel. Like, what keeps me motivated on a daily basis is thinking about that big problem. The biggest problem the world is facing is untapped human potential. And if I can create content that slowly moves people forward, slowly helps unlock a little bit of potential— if you keep hearing the same message multiple times from different people, slowly it starts to seep in, right? The more time you spend around successful people, the more you want to become successful, the more you adopt their mindset and positivity. And the more you hang around people who are not accomplishing things, who are complaining and who are negative, the more you're going to be like those people. And so my solution is to create that for you, for myself. I want to be around uber successful people and have their mindset seep into me. Rule number 28: Make the most of every opportunity. You need to hustle while you wait. If you can embody this advice and apply it to your business on a day-to-day basis, this will be the biggest momentum shift in your company. This will move you so close to your goals at an incredible pace that is unbelievable. Just most people don't do it. Hustle while you wait. Listen, with every goal that you have, it relies on other people. You need other people to be a part of your process, right? If you're selling to customers, you need the customer to say yes. They have to make their decision. There's a bunch of back and forth. If you're waiting on a product to come, you're waiting on your supplier to come forward. There's There's always things that are outside your control that you're waiting on other people for. And yes, when it comes to you, you want to get it done as soon as possible. If a customer is asking for a quote, you want to get it off your plate ASAP. You should not be the bottleneck in momentum happening in your business. That's a whole other problem. As soon as something comes to you, it's getting taken care of and you're building momentum. But you're still, even at the most peak efficiency, waiting for other people people to take action. That's gonna happen. So what do you do in those moments? You hustle. You build new momentum. You build new clients. You build new relationships. You maintain the existing ones and get everything done as soon as possible. And then in the downtime, while you're waiting for a decision, you're not just twiddling your thumbs. You're not just sitting on the couch. You're not watching Netflix. You're off hustling new business. Quick example: I was doing a photo shoot with Richard. This guy's a celebrity photographer, he's done Lady Gaga, done a whole bunch of rappers. He came over and we did a photo shoot together, and in between his shots he's got to set up lights, he's got to get his fog machine going, he's got to get the right angles, he's got to set up the green screen. And so when he needs me, I'm there, I'm ready, I'm posing, I'm in action, I'm ready to go. But there's a lot of I don't have setup in between shots. And so what am I doing? I'm pulling out my phone and I'm responding to you guys. I'm making videos. I'm doing responses. I'm getting on Twitter, on Instagram. I'm doing it on Snapchat. I'm sending out video responses to you guys. I'm working. I'm hustling. On my downtime while I'm waiting for Rich for this project, I am hustling, connecting with you guys. And that's the approach that you need to take. People say, well, how do I find the time? Time to respond to people on social media. I probably have way bigger accounts than you guys do, and I find the time because I make the time in between the other things that I'm doing. This is so critical. People are losing so much time. The answer is not to wake up 2 hours earlier and think that's going to solve your problem. The answer is you're losing time every single day. You are leaking valuable time from your daily schedule. And so I highly, highly, highly encourage encourage you to take this message home. While you are working, while people are waiting on you for stuff, you are doing your best to deliver as soon as possible so that you are not the bottleneck in your business. But then while you are waiting on other people, you get your hustle on. You continue to build momentum. It is such a hack to get you closer to achieving the goals that you have for yourself. Stop sleeping while you're waiting for other people to get back to you. Hustle while you wait. Rule number 29: Always be positive. I love the idea of reframing a negative situation into a positive one. It can really serve you. It reminds me of what Tony Robbins said, of you look at the worst thing that's ever happened to your life and ask yourself, how can this worst thing ever be the best thing ever? How do you reframe it so that the most negative situation ever in your in your life becomes your biggest strength, becomes your mission, helps you follow something that then has a bigger impact. I really think that for people who get through a negative situation, it makes them a lot stronger just as a human being. And quite often the mission that we have in our lives, the things that we want to contribute and give back, is so that other people don't have to face the same consequences, the same suffering that we faced. So for me, I love helping entrepreneurs. I love it. It fuels me. It drives me. What's the big reason for it? Well, it's because I struggled so much as an entrepreneur that I want to make it easier for other people who are like me. And if you're looking for your mission, just go back to previous pain that you've dealt with and how you've gotten through it. Quite often what you want to do is it is then make it easier for people to not have to suffer through the same pain. Figure out what you stand for. Figure out what your one word is. Figure out what's at at the core of you, figure out what your mission is, and then any negative situation that happens, you can reframe it to one that's empowering for you, the one that serves you, the ones that builds you up and can inspire others around you as well. Rule number 30, do not be afraid of failure. If you want to succeed, then you need to adjust how you see failure. Failure is going to happen. If you look at the most successful people in the world, we've studied them, they're in the book, they're all over the channel, they failed the most. The most successful person you look up to, that you're like, wow, that person is so successful, I can't believe it. They have failed way more than you've even tried. Not everything works out. Most of the series that I put out on this channel don't work out. We test constantly, and most of them never go anywhere. They just don't get enough traction. It was an experiment, we failed, we move on to the next one. We have failed more than most people even try, and that's why we succeed. And that's a consistent habit around people who are winning. They win because they tried so So many other things, and a certain percentage make their way through. And most people are so afraid to fail that they don't even try. And that's the biggest failure of all. They're so afraid of it not working out, of it not being the big hit, that they just sit on their idea and then they watch somebody else make tons of money, have a huge impact from it. Get it out there. It may not be the biggest version of what you're trying to do, but start. Start small. Build momentum. See if you still even like this thing. See if you can get some people interested in it or not, and expect to fail. Failure is not the enemy. Failure is normal. Failure is welcome, right? You're going to learn from it. You're going to build on it. You're going to make it better. If you are not failing, if you're winning every time, think about it. Like, if you're winning every time, everything you touch wins, that means you're playing a tiny game. It means you're racing against 3-year-olds. Great. Congratulations. You won every single race because you're running against race 3-year-olds. If you want to be the best, you want to have an impact, you want to make your business a success, you want to make money, you want to reach people, you're going to have to race against people who are a little more skilled and talented. You're going to have to risk losing. You're not going to win every race, but the good news is you don't have to. You don't have to win every race to succeed. You just have to win one. You could You can run 100 races, you just need to win one. And then they call you an overnight success. Rule #31: Develop valuable skills. Most of the skills that you need to succeed are not taught in school. That's because these skills cannot be taught from a textbook. They need to be learned by doing. They involve other people. So today I'm going to give you the 3 most important skills that I developed that if you can get out there and start learning will transform your business. Business and your life. Skill number 1 is learn to add value. If you want to have success in business or in any relationship, you need to learn to add value. You need to learn how to understand what the people that you're working with, what they want, what their goals are. You want to be their chief goal officer. Be everybody's chief goal officer. You need to understand not just what you want, but what do they want? What are they trying to accomplish? How can you bring value to them? How can you help them get through whatever problem is in front of them right now? And the more you add value, the more money you're going to make, the more partnerships you're going to make, the more people are going to want to work with you, talk about you, be around you, because you are bringing everybody else up. Skill number 2 is hustle while you wait. This is so important for success. You will find this in every single entrepreneur who has success. You hustle while you wait. There's a lot of waiting in business. There's a lot of waiting for someone to get back to you. There's a lot of waiting for someone to sign a contract. There's a lot of waiting, a lot of waiting, a lot of waiting. You know, on Christmas Day you might be working making videos while other people are waiting. Like, you're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting. So what do you do while you wait? You hustle. You go work on other things. You start building momentum somewhere else. If you spend your life waiting on other people and you're not doing anything in the meantime, you will fail. Here's a quick example. Yesterday Alex came over. Yesterday was supposed to be my mentoring day. I train Alex, I work with him, I spend a couple hours with him, helping him grow Toronto Dance Salsa. He couldn't make it in time because he had to go to a walk-in clinic for a foot issue. Great. What would most people do? Most people, when something gets canceled, what do you do? Do you go watch Netflix? Do you go check out Facebook? Do you go consume content? You just take it as a break. That's what most people do. Somebody cancels on you, what do you do? You take a break. I deserve a break. I've been working really hard. I deserve a break. What did I do yesterday when Alex cancelled? I went to work. I started getting ahead on YouTube Day. I started getting ahead on my research. I started getting ahead what I had to do today. That's the key. You send something out, you're waiting for a response. What are you doing while you're waiting for a response? You're hustling against 10 other people. You're growing. You're building momentum. You're planning for the future. You're doing, you're grinding, you're getting out there. And so that's one of the most important skills that you can develop. While you are waiting for somebody to get back to you, while you're waiting for yes or no, or your partner to do something, you are hustling on something else. You need to learn to hustle while you wait. And skill number 3 is put your goals ahead of your convenience. Guys, this is important. Your goals will not be convenient for you. You going off and doing that thing that is different, that is outside the norm, that most people don't have success with— you want to— you have the audacity to go say, I I want to be successful here, you're waiting for it to be convenient for you. It will not be convenient. You will have to do things that you are uncomfortable with. You will have to grow in ways that you'd never imagine you growing, because you have to get outside. You have to go and chase things that are not going to be convenient for you. And so I look at my, my tour coming up as an example. Probably the most common comment that I get from people who are learning about the tour is, when are you going to come to my city? When are you going to come When are you going to come to London? When are you going to come to New York? When are you going to come to my city? I'm not, I'm not coming on this tour. I'm not. Maybe I come next year, maybe I never come. If you're waiting for me to come to your city for you to get the information you need, you're going to lose. And it's not just me, it's anybody else. You're waiting for Tony Robbins to come to your city, you're waiting for somebody else to come to your city. Don't. Stop it. You're going to lose. You have to go out and put your goals ahead of your convenience. You're waiting for it to be convenient for you. You're waiting for it to come to you. It's not. You have to go out and claim it. You have to go out and make it happen. Rule #32: Love the climb. If you have to get motivated every single day, then you are in the wrong business. If you are in your business because you thought it was a hot opportunity or a path to make some quick money, get out immediately. Shut it all down. You can't sustain motivation for that business. Don't start a podcast if you don't love talking or interviewing with people. Don't become an influencer if you have nothing to say. Don't start a daycare if you don't love kids. It's not worth it and you're never going to win. The work itself needs to be motivating. Most days you're gonna wake up and have a pile of crap to deal with, and if you don't love dealing with that crap, you will get crushed by someone one who does enjoy dealing with that crap. The trick is you need to do work that you love that other people think is crap. That's the secret. So looking at my channel as an example, this YouTube channel has grown from 7,000 followers, subscribers, to 1.7 million in a matter of 4 and a half years. And I love the climb, and I love passing people on the way, and I love the competitive spirit of it. And I know there's still still so much room to grow, but sometimes I secretly hope that the whole thing goes away so just so that I could start and do it again. I'm just short of sabotaging myself, although I have taken some, some risks recently. If you look at my channel last month or 2 months ago, I did some major changes that did not work. I bet everything on going down the Premiere direction just because, just because I wanted to have some variety, just because I I wanted to take a big bet and it tanked hard and it was my worst subscriber gain in, in years. And I love it. I love it. I mean, I don't love that I lost, but I love, I love pushing. I love trying to get better. I love climbing. I love trying to find a new way to be able to go and build and get better. And I think you have to love the climb. I'm just short of massively sabotaging myself and closing on the whole thing just to start over. But I love the climb that much. It's why I love Instagram. I'm going hardcore on Instagram right now. Halfway through the year, I had 6 or 7 or 8, something like that, thousand followers. And now, now I'm at almost 80,000 followers by still posting 6 times a day and by going live 5 times a week and by making 3 to 8 to 20 stories a day and doing IGTV and all that stuff. I love the climb. I love it. I love when people look at my YouTube channel and say, you have 1.7 million subscribers but you only have 6,000 followers on Instagram, like, what are you doing? You're a joke. I love it, I love it, I love it. I love looking at everybody who's ahead and, and having the ladder to climb up again. I love it. All the people who, who I passed on YouTube are all crushing me on Instagram, and I love it so much. And it's not doing it only to beat somebody else, it's just a competition. I I like the competition. I like figuring things out. I like, I like the hustle and the grind to try to win. I don't like being number one. I like chasing down number one. Rule number 33: Take responsibility. I don't think people take enough responsibility for where they are in life. I think it's too easy to blame other people. It's too easy to blame your government or blame your family for not having the right connections or blame your bank for not giving you the money or, you know, blame your circumstances. It's too easy. The thing that you need to do, the taking responsibility, is painful. It's painful. It's way easier to say, well, I'm not successful because of this person or this person or this person. It's not because of you. No, of course not. It's because of your president. That's why you're not successful. And it's not until you actually look yourself in the mirror and realize that there is no cavalry coming to save the day for you. You know, there's no fairy godmother coming down to grant your every wish. It's on you, and you are responsible for where you are right now. You, you may not be responsible for, you know, where you're born, but once you become an adult, you know, you're responsible for your life. You can only blame your parents and blame your upbringing for so long, where if you want to make a dramatic change in your life, you have the power to do it. And there's tons of people who've done it, and there's tons of people who, who started with way less. Look at most successful famous entrepreneurs, people that you look up to, people you think now are living the big life. Look at where they started, look at where they came from. Chances are they had way less in terms of money, in terms of education, in terms of resources, in terms of connections than what you already have right now. The difference is their mindset. The difference The difference is that they took responsibility for where they're at. The difference is they said, if I'm gonna get to where I need to go, nobody's gonna hand it to me. I need to do this myself. And so if you look yourself in the mirror and you're saying, why am I not successful? And you're coming back with excuses, then that's what you need to change and recognize that as soon as you understand that this is on you to change your life, It's on you to build your business and nobody's coming to save you and that you can do it. Once you accept responsibility, things start to change. Rule number 34: Develop willpower. Willpower comes from setting goals and keeping those commitments to yourself. When you set a goal and you complete it, you build more willpower. You are teaching yourself, you're training yourself that you are the kind of person who sets goals and sees them through. Finishes them, which gives you greater willpower to go off and take on bigger and bigger and bigger goals. But when you set a goal for yourself and you don't follow through, you don't complete it, you're teaching yourself, you're wiring your brain that you are the kind of person who doesn't have a lot of willpower. You're training yourself that you are the kind of person who does not follow through, who quits when it gets tough. So that's why it's so important that you are very careful about the goals goals that you set for yourself, because once you set a goal, you have to finish it. You have to follow through, because that will change your perspective of yourself. If you finish it and you do it, willpower grows. If you don't finish it and you quit, willpower drops. So here's a quick example from my life. I was driving to Boston. I drove there with, with my wife, with my film team. We decided we'd go for the weekend. It was a long drive to get to Boston. How long was it, Nina? 8 hours? 10 hours? How long was the drive? Something like 8 hours. It was late. We got in super late. We got in at what, 2 in the morning? 1 in the morning? Something crazy. After an entire day of me driving. I'm not sleeping in the car. I'm driving. I'm doing the whole leg myself, driving the team. I arrived super late. Everybody's going to bed. And I had set a goal for myself that I was going to run for 30 minutes a day. I was going to run for 30 minutes every day. That was my goal. That was my commitment to myself. Now, we get there, it's late, everybody's going to sleep. It would have been very easy for me to go to sleep. It would have been very easy for me to let myself off the hook and say, it's okay, it's late, you know, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do double tomorrow, it's late, it's no problem. It's very easy for the people around me to say, don't worry about it, Evan, like, it's late, you could, you could do it tomorrow. Everybody will let you off the hook. When everybody else will let you off the hook, and you want to let yourself off the hook, that, that moment exactly, precisely, is where you develop or lose your willpower. Because when it's easy, when your calendar is perfect, when there's no interruptions, when you have all the time in the world to do something, then you do it. It's easy. It doesn't build your willpower. You don't feel great about yourself. You— if you win a race against 3-year-olds, you don't feel great. You're not cheering that victory. But when it's hard, when you don't think you can do it, when everybody's saying don't worry about it, when you feel like you're at your, your wit's end, when there's every excuse and every reason in the world why you shouldn't do it, and then you still do it, that's when you build willpower. It's when it's difficult and you do it that you build willpower. And so I did my run at 1 in the morning or whatever time it was, and it was a brutal run. It was not my best best run. I did not burn a lot of calories. It was not my peak. I'm, I'm tired. I'm gassed. I'm doing my run. And even though I didn't get a fantastic physical benefit from it, and even though the next day I woke up and was more tired compared to the people on my team because I slept less, I'm giving myself pats on the back. I'm giving myself high fives like crazy. I've just built my willpower. I've just built my credibility with myself. I've just built my respect and confidence internally because I did the thing that I promised that I would do when it got hard. That's the difference. That's how you build willpower. Rule number 35: Don't care what others think. I think it's really important for entrepreneurs to understand where your threshold is of how much crap you could take from other people, how much negativity, how much feedback and criticism that you could take without it impacting your psyche or your self-worth. I think in general, as an entrepreneur, you need to be prepared to get a lot of crap, a lot of negativity, a lot of stuff thrown at you. And yes, it's easy to say don't care what other people think, but understanding what your tolerance level is and where you kind of fit on that spectrum can really help you design the rules so that they're in your favor. So as an example, there's a guy on my team who doesn't handle criticism as well. You know, I'm a lot more comfortable in the uncomfortable, where he can bounce around a lot more. He'll be on top of the world, like, this is great, and then a negative feedback comes in and it really impacts him hardly, and then the positive one comes in and he jumps back up. And so for someone like him, you can't design as much risk, as much negativity or potential negativity, so you got to take a safe path up. Where for me, I'm more comfortable in the uncomfortable. I know that eventually something's gonna work out, and I know that at the beginning of any project it's gonna be rough, that it may not work out, that we're gonna get some criticism. And so I'm more willing to jump all in and play in that field even though it's painful at the moment, because I know the faster I get through that pain, the faster we're gonna come out the other side. I want that feedback. Feedback and criticism and negativity as soon as possible so that I can make it better. Better for you, better for me, better for everybody. And so understanding what your tolerance level is of emotional stability, how much you can take from your friends and your family and your customers and your audience and the people watching you before you break, and then be able to play just below that limit. Because you can't just play super safe because that's not going to make you happy as an entrepreneur. But knowing what your limit is and playing just below it so that it's uncomfortable, it's painful, but you're still going to be able to get through it, I think is really important. That self-awareness, I think, is really important as an entrepreneur. Rule number 36: master your craft. People put too much faith in the tools. It's not about the tools. It's not about the tools that you're using. It's not about the suit that you're wearing. It's not about the car that you're driving. It's about you. At the end of the day, it comes down to you. I was asked to do a roundup of different entrepreneurs of what your favorite tool was to help you build your business. And they asked me and they asked 30 other people, what is the tool that you love most that helps drive your business forward? And I was the only one who didn't want to give a tool. Everybody listed their tools, and I was at the end of the day, I was posted at the very bottom. The tools don't matter. Stop blaming the tools. And tools are important, don't get me wrong. I love using tools. I think YouTube's a great tool. I think cameras are a great tool. I use tools every single day in my business to help spread my message and help my company grow, but it's not the reliance on the tools. This is where I think a lot of people fall down. I had an entrepreneur friend of mine come to me, says, what tools do you use for your calendar? How do you keep track of your to-dos? Because she had tried using a notebook and using Evernote and using OneNote and using all sorts of different tools, using her phone, everything. And nothing was working. You know what? The problem is not the tools. The problem is you, right? The tools can help you go faster, but if you don't have the mindset, if you don't have the ambition, if you don't have the drive, if you're not putting in the work, then the tools will never save you. And I think people have an overreliance on the tools, and that's my biggest problem with it. The tools can help you do that last 20%, but it's 80% you. It's 80% the hustle and the hard work to get really good at the thing, and the tool can help you go further. I see tools as like pouring gasoline on a fire. You need to have a spark, you need to have a fire to get something going, and then the tool, the gasoline, can help it explode. But if you just pour gasoline on wood, nothing's gonna happen. I think the same thing about suits and cars. I think a lot of people think you wear a suit, now you're gonna be successful. Suit doesn't mean anything. Clothing is an expression of self, not a place where you get your self-worth. Somebody with no suit on could go in and close a sale because they are who they are. They are confident they can close that sale, where somebody who's only deriving confidence from their suit will never win. And so yes, tools are important, but stop relying on the tools. Get so darn good at the thing that you're doing that you cannot be ignored, and then use the tools to help you take it to the next level. Rule number 37: Take your shot. When I was 20 years old, I missed my shot because I was scared, and I vowed never to do it again. I was in Paris, I was on vacation, I was in university, and I'm sitting here with my map outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and a girl comes up and asks me for directions. But she was a French girl, and it didn't twig until later that why would a French girl be asking me for directions? Interactions in English didn't really make sense, right? And then I thought, you know what, I should ask her out. I should see what she's doing tonight. I should take her to, you know, ask her out for coffee or dinner or something, see what she's up to. But I was afraid. I was afraid to do it. I was afraid to do it, and I let her walk away because really I was afraid of rejection. And as she's walking away, the Notre Dame is on a river, and I'm on one side of the river. She crosses over to the other side of the river, And I was so upset at myself. I was so upset that I didn't take my shot. I was so upset that I didn't try, at least try. And what I did was end up taking a picture, and as I took the picture, she actually walked behind one of the market stalls, and I didn't actually get her picture. It's fine. So I had this beautiful picture of this French, you know, riverside. And what I did when I got home, I was still upset about it, so I blew the picture up and and I put it on my wall. I was actually trying to find the picture to show you guys, but I couldn't find it anywhere in my files. I blew it up though and I put it on my wall. So I'm in university, I blow it up and put it on my wall. Everybody who walks in asks me about the picture. And it just looks like a nice, beautiful French scene, but I didn't tell anybody what it really represented to me, why it was really so important. And I looked at that picture every day because the next time that I had I had to take my shot. I wanted to go out and do it. I didn't want to be afraid. I wanted to conquer my fear and say yes. And this served me really well a year or so later when I had to make the really tough decision: do I take this job that I always wanted? I had these high-paying job opportunities, $80,000 to $100,000 starting salary with the companies that I really wanted to go at, or continue do with my startup that was failing, that was making $300 a month? The logical, practical, safe, easy thing to do would have been to take the job. It's what I thought I always wanted. It's what my friends want. It's what you're supposed to do coming out of university. I didn't want to live with the regret of not knowing what happened with my business. And looking at that picture daily reminded me to take my shot the next time it comes around. And so I gave myself a year to say, I'm going to push off those jobs. They'll still be there in a year. Even if it's not those jobs, it's some other job. I'm going to give this a shot. I can deal with the failure. I can deal with the rejection. I can deal with that not working out, even though that's a really kind of short-term intense pain. What I can't deal with is the regret of not knowing, because that's not some short-term minimal pain. That's forever. If I chose not to focus on my business and I took that job, I would forever look back on that moment and think, what if? What if I just tried a little bit harder? What if I gave it a little bit more? Yeah, you know, but it wasn't working. I wasn't getting results. But what if I gave it a little bit more? I did not I did not want to live with that regret. And I'm sure you've had moments in your life too when you didn't take the shot, when you had an opportunity right in front of you and you didn't go for it. Like Eminem says, if you had one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted, would you take it? And that picture on the wall helped me take my shot. And I hope sincerely that the next time you get your chance at something, that you don't shrink down, that you don't say no out of fear, that you don't say no because you find some practical reason why you can't do it, that you take your shot. And if you've had those moments that you regret where you wanted to take your shot and you didn't, give yourself a visual reminder like I did in my room to say, this is not happening in again. Next time, I'm going to take my shot. I hope you take yours. Rule number 38: Don't quit. So I love the story of Colonel Sanders. He's one of my favorite stories and examples to give of an older entrepreneur. This guy didn't really start franchising his business, KFC, until he was in his 60s and didn't really become an icon or someone super well-known until he was in his 70s. How many Many people quit too soon on their business. I can't tell you how many people come up to me and say, Evan, I'm 25 years old. Is it too late to get started? Like, what are you talking about? And really just comes down to just your belief system. Here was a guy who was 62 years old when he was franchising KFC, where a lot of people would be saying, I'm getting ready to retire, I'm getting ready to slow down, I'm getting ready to wind things up, you know, ease into the rest of my life. And there's a guy who said, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna crush it. I'm just getting started. I want to build an empire, right? And this really comes down to whether you believe it can happen or can't happen. You're right. If you believe at 62 years old that you're too old to get started on something new, then you're right, and you won't take action. But if you believe that age is just a number and 62 means you've got lots of experience and you're ready to go crush some new project, then you're right as well. And so you have to be really careful to pay attention to the story that you're telling yourself, because a lot of times we're holding ourselves back with these excuses of we're too old, we're too young, we come from the wrong country, we don't have the right education, you don't have the right parents, on and on and on. And as long as you believe that reinforcing story, then it's going to continue to perpetuate. Now, in terms of don't quitting, There's a lot of advice saying don't quit, don't quit, don't quit, don't quit. You should not quit when it's your dream. When this is something that you really, really, really, really want to do, then you can't quit on it. But if it's something that you've lost the passion for, you don't feel energized by it anymore, it feels like work to show up, then that's when you quit. And so when people ask me, should I quit this thing or not? Well, is it still your dream? Are you still passionate about it? Are you still excited about it? Because if you are, then you enjoy the process. And yes, you want to get the results, and yes, you want to win, and yes, you want to make the money, and yes, you want to have that impact, but you still enjoy the process. I like making YouTube videos. This is fun for me. It's enjoyable for me. I'm growing through it. And even if I wasn't on the path to hitting a million subscribers, I would still be doing it because I love doing it. And if I was on the path to hitting a million subscribers and I stopped liking it, then I would leave. I would sell it. I would go to go do something else because you cannot do great things when you don't love what you do. And so as long as it's still your passion, as long as it's still your dream, you have to keep going or you're going to live the rest of your life in regret. But if you've lost that passion, then get out immediately and go do something else that does bring you excitement, joy, energy, and fulfillment. Rule #39: Act despite fear. Fear is normal. It's part of what makes you human. You would not be human or you'd have some crazy condition if you never felt fear. I think the people who say don't be afraid aren't giving you practical advice. It's be afraid, feel the fear, and then step into it and do it anyway. And the more you get used to taking on those fearful projects that you're scared of, the stronger you'll get, the more resistance you'll get, the higher tolerance you'll get to do bigger, better, bolder, badder things. I think the trick though is spotting the fear. Here's what I think happened happens to most people. There's some opportunity that comes along, there's some moment that comes along, whether it's with a client or meeting somebody or an event, something comes along that you're afraid of. You're afraid of doing it. It's going to stretch you beyond what you've ever done before. And then what you do is you rationalize saying no. I don't have the money to go to that event. I'm too busy to go and do that thing right now. You find the reason why you can't go you rationalize it, but really deep down the reason is you're just afraid. And until you spot the fear, until you understand that it's really just the fear, then you're never going to solve the problem. So step 1 is understanding when there is fear. Step 2 is then stepping into it and doing it anyway. And a lot of this stuff is just so subconscious. You know, we as human beings are kind of trained to to when we're afraid something's going to go wrong and to be safe. And so it's trying to catch that subconscious action and proactively change it. So as an example, for me, when I was starting my YouTube channel, my agent would tell me, you have to go out and do videos in public. I want you to go out on the street and make a video in public. My natural reaction was fear, but I didn't catch Initially, it was the gear won't be as good in public, you know, I can't control the light settings, I'm gonna be bouncing around with the camera, it's not gonna be a great experience for the people watching, why would I do that? I'm rationalizing a reason why I don't have to do it, where really I'm just afraid, right? You could solve all those problems. And he told me, stop being afraid and just go out and do it. He cut through it. And let me see my own fear. And so I did it. And when I first went out and filmed in public, I took out— it was my phone or my camera, I don't remember— and I'm walking down the street, and then the postman is there. And so as soon as I see the postman, I quiet down. I can put the camera away, just walking normally. And then when the postman leaves, I'm back to filming. And that time I noticed, like, I'm doing it because I'm afraid. And I got pissed. Okay, next time I gotta speak up. Next time I gotta do better. And so I went out and forced myself to go and do it again. And I was walking past and there were these construction workers, and instantly again the panic sets in, like, people are watching, the construction workers. Like, I know they don't really even care about me and what I'm saying, what's happening on the street, but I forced myself I just put myself through it. It was awkward, it wasn't great. I think I had to redo it again anyway, but I took the step. I got better at it. I recognized the fear and I jumped into it. And now it's to the point where I'll make videos walking down the hall, I'll make videos when I'm at Disneyland, Disney World, you know, I'll make videos in the streets of anywhere. And there's still a moment, even now after how many videos I've done, there's still a moment of, who's watching? I think it's natural and normal. It's not as strong as it used to be, and more importantly, it doesn't limit me from doing the things that I want to do. And so spotting the fear and not rationalizing it away and not just doing what your subconscious always does that keeps you down where you are is so important. Being truthful that the reason why you said no or you're not taking this opportunity is just because you're afraid. And the answer to saying no should never be because I'm afraid. You want to rejig your system. So whenever that's the answer, because I'm afraid to do it, now you have to do it. Rule #40: Serve others. If you are not happy in life, it's because you're not serving enough. I believe that humans are good. 99.999% of humans are good. There's a tiny little fraction of a percent of people who enjoy giving harm and hurting others because they have some chemical imbalance. But apart from that, people are good and we are connected to each other. Your highest purpose in life will come from helping others. But the next question becomes, how? How do I do it? How do I find my higher purpose? How do I know what I'm supposed to do? How do I get direction? I'm going to give you the 3-step process that I call the Purpose Planner that will give you the clarity that you're looking for. I break it down into your who, your why, and your how. Let's start with the who. Your who is your one-word most important core value. Everybody has a core value. If you're a human being, you have a core value that you believe in more than anything else. And when you understand who you are, when you understand your single most important core value, then you're less likely to be swayed by other people. You're less likely to live somebody else's version of your life because they have clarity and you don't. When you do not have clarity, you end up chasing everybody else's clarity. You end up doing their version because they have certainty and you have no idea what you're doing. It's like you're walking on quicksand and you're constantly sinking and you know there's something greater for you. Your one word, your most important core value, is the rock that you stand on when the rest of the world is crumbling around you. So for me, it's belief. My one word is belief. That's what I stand on. If you love belief, you're gonna be a huge fan of this channel because I talk about it in some form in every video. Every video should ooze belief. If you hate belief, believe, you're probably gone by now. You hate my channel and that's okay. Go, go do your thing somewhere else. You need to figure out your who. You need to figure out what your one word most important core value is that becomes the lens through which you see your entire world and attracts the goodness into your life. Step number 2 is your why. Why do you do what you do? Now I'm a big believer that your purpose comes from your pain. That whatever your most painful moment was in life, whatever you struggled with the most growing in life, whatever moment in life you felt the most worthless as a human being, your highest purpose, your greatest joy and satisfaction will come from helping people who are currently feeling the way that you felt, who are currently facing that situation that you were in that you hated, the thing that you would never wish upon anybody else in the world. Lots of people are going through that thing, and if you can step in and help help those people, that's going to be so filling up your soul, I can't even explain it to you. For me, my one word is believe. That's my who. My why is I struggled so much as an entrepreneur. I hated my life. I was struggling. I was making $300 a month. I felt worthless as a human. I felt like I was bringing no value to the world, and that was massively frustrating. I felt alone and I didn't know what to do. That's why I love helping entrepreneurs. I love believing in entrepreneurs. Why entrepreneurs? Could be anybody. I could believe in anybody. Believe is at the core of who I am. It's my one-word most important core value, but I could be believing in anybody, and I do, and I love it. But entrepreneurs hold that special spot for me, and the startup entrepreneurs, not the ones who are already making tons of money. I love them too, but I resonate so much more with the startup entrepreneurs because I remember what it's like eating at McDonald's and only being able to afford french fries instead of an entire meal. So your why, your purpose, comes from your pain. Figure out what that most painful what that most painful moment was for you. And it's hard because entrepreneurs, we like looking and being optimistic and looking forward and being positive. But it's in that pain that your answer actually is. Find out what that most painful moment was. Your why, your highest purpose will come from helping people who are currently facing that right now. And then step 3 is the how. So how are you going to do it? There's a lot of ways you can help people who are in that situation. So for me, break it down. The who is my one word, is believe. The why is helping entrepreneurs. Purpose comes from my pain. How do I help entrepreneurs? How do I believe in entrepreneurs? There's a ton of ways that I could be believing in entrepreneurs. So the example I use is if you are moving your office and you need my help to rent a moving truck and to help you carry your desks and all of that stuff, I love the end result of it. I love that now you have this great office where you can build a business and have it flourish, and I'll probably say yes to helping you do that, especially if you're a close friend. But I don't love the process of moving. I don't love the process of packing up boxes. I don't love the process of setting up cables and wires and putting together an office. I don't love that process. I love the result because I'm believing in entrepreneurs, but I don't love the process. And so if you write down, you make a list of all the things that you do, the activities that you have done that you've enjoyed the result, make a list of 10 to 15 times you've helped somebody with that same pain that you had growing up. You've helped them and you enjoyed the end result. And then circle the ones where you enjoyed the process as well. Because when you can enjoy the process and you enjoy the end result, it's a home run. Now you found your higher purpose. Now you have clarity. Now you have a plan. That's the point of the Purpose Planner. Step 1, you figure out your who, your one word most important core value. Step 2, you figure out your why. Your purpose comes from your pain, the thing that you never want anybody to ever have to experience again because it was so painful for you. And then step Step 3 is the how, the process. You need to love the process. If you go with those 3 things, you are set for life. Rule #41: Take ownership of your life. If you woke up and did the thing that made you feel bold and unstoppable and powerful and confident every single day, if you started your day with that thing, your life would look dramatically different 1 year from today compared to where you currently are right now. The problem is most people wake up like an accident. Most people, they wake up, they check their phone, and they're immediately responding to other people's emergencies and demands on your time. You're not in control. You haven't decided to take control of your day, that your day is important, that your life is important, and you are going to take ownership of it. And so you need to block off the time in the morning. It may be 5 minutes, maybe you need 15, maybe you need an hour and a half. Whatever it is, the thing that makes you feel bold, unstoppable, powerful, confident, Fill your cup every single day because other people have demands to your time and they won't fill your cup for you. You have to say, this is my ownership right here. Nobody's touching it. I'm taking charge. Now that looks different for different people. How Oprah does it is different than how I do it, is different than how Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson does it. Dwayne Johnson has to get his 4 hours of workout in every day. And when he's working on a movie set and he has to be in by 9. He'll wake up at 4 in the morning so he can go work out for 4 hours and then go back and shower and get ready for his movie. So he's only sleeping 5 hours a day when he's doing movies. I think that's crazy, but to him, that's balance. That's him filling his cup. That's him reminding himself of what he's doing. He loves working out. That's why I don't look like Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, right? There's a difference between us. I would rather sleep. I would rather do something else in the morning. And so we tend We tend to look at what we're doing against somebody else. You tend to look at Oprah and say, well, she's doing it this way, I need to do that. Dwayne's doing it this way, I need to do that. Evan's doing it this way, I need to do that. You judge yourself against other people's routines and methods of filling their cup. And I think that's actually a recipe for failure because you are not that person, because what works for them is not going to be the exact same thing that works for you. Here's the good news: you already know what fills your cup. You already know what what makes you feel bold and alive and full of momentum and confidence. You have had that happen to you in the past. You're just not living there consistently. You know what has helped you feel full, but you're living there 1% of the time, and 99% of the time you spend reacting to other people, their demands, their emergencies, their issues for your time. And so reverse engineer it for yourself. When was the last time you felt filled up? Motivated, confident, bold, excited? What happened? What were you doing? What led to that thing to happen? Were you watching a video? Were you listening to a podcast? Were you reading the book? Were you going to an event, a seminar? Were you outside? You know, I'm sitting here on a swing here outside. Were you outside? You need to get out in nature. Do you need to meditate? Do you need to have a shower? Do you need to dance to music? Like, what's the thing? Without judgment, without caring if anybody else has to do that thing. Maybe you need to wake you get up every day and pet your frog, and that's the thing that makes you feel amazing. Great, do that. Plan for it every single morning, because I guarantee you, if you did the thing that helped fill your cup, that made you feel bold and unstoppable and confident and powerful, if all you did was wake up every day and did that thing, your life would be dramatically different one year from today compared to where you are right now. You will not recognize your life. So please stop waking up like an accident and put this into your morning routine every single day. Rule number 42: Find your purpose. Finding your purpose, guys, is not that difficult. It's not that difficult. It's one of the most common questions that I get. Here's how you do it. You think about the time in your life where you felt the most worthless. Think about the time, the lowest low that you've ever experienced in your life. What was that moment? Your purpose now, where you will get the most fulfilled of all time, will be helping people who are currently going through the thing that you went through. That's it. Think about the most painful moments of your life, the thing that you would never want to experience ever again. Think about the thing you would never wish upon your worst enemy, definitely not your friends, your family, your kids. Think about that moment. You're Your greatest purpose, your greatest enjoyment, your greatest fulfillment in life will come from helping people who are currently facing that thing that you faced. That is your purpose for life. It will never get old. Helping those people will never get tiring. Rule #43: Grow and improve. Self-improvement is the answer to whatever obstacle is staring you in the face right now. The only difference between you and greatness is the willingness to grow and improve. It's not talent. It's not smarts. It's the willingness to improve yourself. The difference between you and Tony Robbins is he has spent more time constantly improving himself than most people on the planet. Here's a guy who had multiple fathers growing up, had an abusive mother, who at 17 he had to run away from home so he could become a janitor and never go to college. He then decided to be a success. He read 700 books in 7 years. He studied under mentors like Jim Rohn, and today he's the founder or owner of companies with over $6 billion in annual revenue. If Tony Robbins can go from being an abused janitor with no college education to being one of the most influential people in the world, why can't you? The difference is he made the investment to constantly improve himself and you haven't yet at that level. So I look at my channel as an example, my YouTube channel, and I've learned so much over the past number of years in confidence, in growth, in abilities, in skills by consuming the content. Because I love the Top 10 series and the Mentor Me series and the Answer vs. series. I make them for me and then I share them with you, and thankfully you guys like them too, and I can build a business off of it and keep pumping out more content. But it helps me. I've grown, I've learned. And one of the biggest moments that helped me realize how much I've learned is when I signed a 3-year deal with Sage. I was working with Stephen Kelly, who was the CEO, and every month we'd be on a call, we'd be doing a Hangout on my YouTube channel answering questions from people. And I was driving with my dad, and I remember him asking me, how do you get the confidence to be on a call with Stephen Kelly and be seen as his equal all the time? And he wasn't asking me to trying to put me down. He was asking me in genuine awe. He was so happy for me that I was playing a bigger game. And it dawned on me that he was right. The Evan of 5 years ago wouldn't have been able to do that. The Evan of 5 years ago would have felt less than. The Evan of 5 years ago would have said, there's no way I'm capable of doing that. And then when I signed the deal, I felt like, it's great. I love Steven. He's amazing. But I feel like I'm hanging out with Oprah and Kanye and Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and these super successful people, and they're infiltrating my brain on a daily basis, right? A daily basis. 3 videos every single day on this channel. And so bit by bit, it pulls me up. Now I recognize I still have a long way to go. I still have so much more to learn. I still need to believe in myself even more. And every time I consume more content, It allows me to grow my comfort zone a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit more. And the funny thing is, all of these moments are, are little tiny incremental parts of your growth. I couldn't point you to one point in my past where I said that was the moment that I changed, that was the moment that I had more confidence. But as I studied every day, every day, every day, I could look back 3 months, 6 months, a year and say, wow, I've really changed. I've really grown. I've really learned. Learned a lot. But in the daily, from today to yesterday, I'd say I didn't grow at all. And so sometimes on your journeys, you're trying to learn and get better, you may feel like the growth is really slow on a daily basis. But if you keep going, you keep investing, you keep learning, you keep seeking out mentors, you keep trying to get better and improve— not every day will be amazing, but if you try every day to get better and learn, I can guarantee you that in 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, when you look back of the person you've become compared to what you are right now, there'll be a big change. And that's because you continue to invest in yourself. Rule #44: Start small. I hate spending money until I'm making money. If you do not have money, it's because you are spending your money on things that are not making you money. This is what happens in so many entrepreneurs' businesses when you're starting. You go and you spend a whole bunch of money on different gear, equipment, samples, products, and then it doesn't work out. Instead of going out and spending money at the start, find a way to get started on the cheap, investing your energy, your hustle, your drive, your initiative, but not your money. Here's what happens. Someone wants to start a t-shirt business. Okay, great. To get the price discounts that you want so that on a per t-shirt basis it's cheaper, you have to order 5,000 t-shirts. So you go out and you spend all your money ordering 5,000 5,000 t-shirts, or worse, you go take a loan so you can get your 5,000 t-shirts. The t-shirts come in, you sell 3 of them, and then you have 4,997 t-shirts sitting in your mom's basement. That's most people. You'll spend money because you've got this ambitious dream and vision, and you see in your head how it's all gonna work out, but then when you get started, it never works out like you think it's gonna work out. When I first started on YouTube, I had a team of 8 or so people already in my other business, in my main business. And so I'm going to try this thing on the side just as a fun thing and see how it goes. I did everything myself, myself. I did everything myself. Invest my energy, my heart, my hustle, my drive, my intuition into making something happen. And once I started making some money, then I could invest into building a team, into getting gear, into building this business up. So now we've got 24 people on the team. When I first started doing my Instagram Live morning shows, it was me and my tripod and a cell phone and a guest, and we went live on Instagram every day. And then people said, hey, you should get a microphone. Okay, great. I got a quick little microphone that connected and we went. Now, this thing might be the future. That may be all I do. I might even close down YouTube and just do Instagram Lives. And if that happens, then I'll invest in a team and make making that happen. Maybe in 3 years, if I'm still doing it, there'll be 20 people in the room, from a producer and camera people and editors, and everybody's in the room guiding the show, right? That might be the future, but I don't know. I gotta start by just doing one show. You do not have money because you're spending your money on the things that are not working and generating money back for you. So stop spending money. Stop it. Stop it right now. Stop spending money on things that don't make you money. Instead, invest your energy, your hustle, your time, your drive as a default until you're making a little bit of money from that thing, a little bit of money from that thing, and then you can invest that money to make more money. Rule number 45: Love the process. If you are thinking about how many hours you're working and you're frustrated and you're complaining, I think you've lost. Like, I think if you are counting down as an entrepreneur or how many more hours to go until the day is over, until you get to go on your vacation, until the weekend is here, I think you've lost. I genuinely think you've lost. You have to love the work. If you look at all of the people that I've done profiles on across entrepreneurship, athletics, singing, everybody, they love the work. You have to love the process, not just the results. It's why you have to love it so much to put through through all the crap, all the negativity, all the burnout, all of the stuff that happens to you as an entrepreneur. You have to deal with it, and the only thing that gets you through is you love it. I love making videos. I'm here in Albuquerque. Nina's getting her nails done, Danny's getting his phone charged in the car, and I'm making videos because I love making videos, because I can't wait to make videos. I've done 6,000+ videos on my channel and I can't wait to make more. I love I love the process. I love helping entrepreneurs. I love the result and I love the process. And yes, that can cause personal issues, that can cause health breakdowns, that can cause you to get stressed out, that can cause you to push beyond your limits, that can cause you health issues. It can. Relationship issues. It can and it does for so many entrepreneurs. And yes, you need to guard for that. You need to watch for that. You need to be able to create an intentional life, not just working, working, working, working, working, working all the time and then you die. But you need to love the work. You need to love the process. It's not painful to do it. Same, pay the price. It's not painful to pay the price. For you stepping into my schedule, making 6,000 videos, you might think it's really painful. For me, it's not. Like, I love it. It's great. It's amazing. And that should be the same thing in your business. People who say it, say, "Well, I'll do whatever it takes." No, you won't. You won't do whatever it takes because as soon as it starts getting really hard, you're gonna quit. Where somebody who actually loves that thing will keep going because they love it and you don't. And whenever you're up against somebody who loves the work and you don't, they will destroy you. Even if you have more natural talent, they will destroy you because they love the work and you don't. It makes all the difference in the world. Rule number 46: Stop complaining. Your entire life changes when you decide to take responsibility for where you're at, for, for your happiness, for your success, for where you're at in life. When you decide that I am responsible, everything changes. We don't want to because it's easier to blame somebody else. It's easy to blame somebody else. We don't want to blame the person in the mirror. We don't blame ourselves. It's somebody else's fault, right? It's Nina's fault that I'm not happy. Where are you, Nina? Blame yourself. It's Nina's fault that I'm not happy, right? It's so good to put the blame on somebody else because That means I don't have to do anything. But when you take the personal responsibility, when I say it's my fault that I'm not happy, it's my fault that I'm not more successful, it's not my team's fault that my company's not blowing up as big as I want it to, it's my fault. I need to get better. It's not my trainer's fault that I'm not getting results in the gym. It's my fault, right? I got to eat better. I got to work out more. It's my fault. It's your fault. You are where you are because of you. And when you accept that, then you choose to now live a life of being able to make progress. Most people don't want to do that. Most people would rather consume entertainment instead of education. Most people would rather consume entertainment and sit down and watch Netflix and forget about their crappy life than try to fix it. Most channels on YouTube that blow up are not education related. They're entertainment because people want to shut off their life, shut shut off their brain and just be entertained instead of trying to actually fix the problem. If you're a subscriber here, you're probably on the education side. But are you the kind of person who's going to take responsibility and fix your life, or just shut up the world, blame, complain, wait till you can't have that next vacation, you can't wait till that next weekend or the evenings are coming up because your life sucks? Your life sucks. Is it your fault or somebody else's? When you take ownership, that's when life starts to change. Rule number 47: Surround yourself with success. The fastest way to grow is to be around people who are doing what you want to do, period. When you are around people who are building and growing and taking on the world and trying to accomplish their dreams, and you're in that environment and you're learning, even just being around them, it's gonna seep into you and get you motivated and pumped up and fired up to go off and chase your dreams. Most people have a pretty crappy environment. Most people if you're an entrepreneur, most people, they don't have a bunch of entrepreneurs in their family. Most people, when they tell their family and their friends what they're doing, they think they're crazy. They think that you shouldn't go off and do that thing. You should go and get a safe, normal, typical job. A lot of people have a lot of negativity around them. If you are constantly surrounded by negative people, people bringing you down, it's really hard to be the one person trying to go off and make a huge difference. And so if that's you, if that's your situation, then you need You need to change your environment. You need to be surrounded by people who are like-minded, who are off chasing their goals, and you need to find some mentors. Let me give you some quick tips on how to do it, because if you don't, you're never going to get to where you want to go. You won't. Staying right now where you are needs to be unacceptable, needs to be unacceptable, because you will never get to the spot that you want to be at if you stay exactly where you are with the people and the environment that you have around you. Step number 1: is limit the exposure to negativity. That may mean you cut off some friends. Just because you were friends in elementary school doesn't mean you should still be friends now. It doesn't. Doesn't mean you have to be rude to them. You've just grown apart. It's okay. It's okay. It's great. You'll get new friends. We need to limit exposure to negative, toxic people. If those are your parents, you may not want to completely eliminate them from your life, although for some people that's an important step. It may just mean cutting cutting off exposure to some topics. If you know that your friends or your parents, talking to them about your business ideas is always going to lead to a fight and negativity, just don't talk about it. Say, "I don't want to talk about that," and find something positive that you can relate to and talk about. Step 1, you have to eliminate the negativity or limit exposure to it in your life. You will not do great things if you are constantly bombarded by negativity. Step 2, now you have to fill the void. You gotta fill the void with positivity. And so that's reaching out, that's joining communities, that's going to events, that's going to groups. I'm on my tour right now. I'm in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm doing an event tonight here in Albuquerque. And when people come together who are like-minded, all the people who come to my events, they're all entrepreneurs, and they all want to go off and do something amazing. And for a lot of the people coming out, they're the only ones that they know who are off trying to do something, and now they meet local people who are also similarly minded. You need to be around similarly minded people. And so check your local city, check your local groups, see what's happening, see what's coming up, get involved, get out of the house, stop being in your regular routine. Your, your current environment is not helping you. You need to get out and meet new people. And you may go to an event and meet only one person that is potentially like-minded. Amazing. Collect people. I like collecting good people. Collect them. I'll I'll even be super awkward about it, almost intentionally, where if I really like somebody and we have a great conversation, I'll say, you know what, I really like you. That sounds weird. I'd like to find a way to spend more time together. Maybe we meet up once a month for a coffee and just talk about business. That's how you do it. You just ask. And if you had that with 4 or 5 different people, then every week you're meeting somebody on a regular on a regular basis who fills you with positivity and energy. And so you have to go out and find those people. You have to say yes and go to those events to meet, to be around the positive energy, because it will make such a big difference to you accomplishing your big goals. And then step number 3 is get more mentors. You need to get mentors. And one are aspirational mentors, and that's what I see through what I do, right? Through my content, I learn through the aspirational mentors. I learn from Kanye, I learn from Dada Nippon, I learned from Oprah Winfrey, I learned from Mel Robbins, I learned from these people. They make me better. Even though I haven't met most of the people that I profiled on my channel, I learned from them. They make me better. Being around them and their energy and their wisdom gets me fired up. Seeing people going off doing amazing things, and I get that 3 times a day on my channel, right? Like, it will shift you. It will. If you are watching content, you may never meet Dandapani, but if you're watching his content, if he inspires inspires you and you watch his content on a daily, it will shift you. 'Cause now he's a voice of positivity in your life. And then you can get real mentors as well. For those of you who are following my Path to 10 Million Subscribers series, I'm having people who I respect and look up to coach me on different things that I need to get better at. Who will watch my stuff and say, hey, here, this is where you're great, but here you suck, you gotta get better at this thing. You need to make the decision to change your environment. You need to make the decision that your life is important, that your mission is important, that being where you are right now is not acceptable, that you don't want to be here again in a year. Like, one year from today, you can't be in the same environment. You can't be around negativity and toxicity every single day. You need to follow those steps. You need to remove the negativity from your life. You need to seek out positive energy and be around people who build and lift you up, and you need to start seeking out mentors, whether they are face-to-face mentors or aspirational mentors to help you get to where you go. Your life is important. Your mission is important. You need to start treating it as so. Rule number 48: change your mindset. You're never going to accomplish anything great if you're coming from a place of negativity. If you are just complaining and negative and blaming other people, you're never going to accomplish anything. It's just not going to happen. You can't create amazing things from a negative spot. It means that you have zero resourcefulness because there's no hope. And so you need to flip it. Now I'm going to give you a wild mind trick that, that I use that maybe is a little too weird duck for you, but I want to test it on you because if, if one of you picks it up, it'll dramatically change your life. It's my philosophy of changing negative situations and doing a quick mind trick in my head to say it's the best. So whenever I'm hit with a negative situation, something that is beyond my control, something that I can't do anything about I will complain, I will be unhappy, I'll be negative for 8 to 24 seconds, and then I'll tell myself it's the best, that this is the best thing that happened to me, and then I'll figure out why it's the best. So as an example, I'm on an airplane, I'm coming from Vancouver to LA, I'm speaking at an event in LA. I'm on a flight, it's a 5-hour flight. I get on, this is really smelly dude next to me. Really smelly guy. He probably hadn't been on, you know, in a shower in a couple days, probably had multiple transfers and stopovers. And I have empathy. I'm not pissed at him, I'm pissed at the situation, right? I'm sure he's normally a nice smelling guy and takes care of himself, but in this situation he was super smelly and I had to deal with it. So what am I going to do? I got a 5-hour flight. What are my options? I can not go, you know, I could I can miss my flight and then not do my presentation. I could sit on the airplane and be upset for the next 5 hours and then be upset for the rest of the day and allow this minor situation to own me and to be better than me and ruin my entire day. Or I could say, this is the best. And that's what I did. For around 8 to 24 seconds, I'm sitting there trying to figure out my options. What options do I have? How can I do— how can I fix this? I can't fix this. There's no options. I'm screwed. And then I'm upset. You know, I'm upset. This sucks. Come on, really? This is what I have to deal with for the next 5 hours? And then this is the best. And what do I do? Yep. Breathe it in. Breathe it in. Give it to me because this is making me stronger. This is the best. This is actually the best. Why? Because it's my chance to show myself what I'm made of, that this smelly dude is not gonna own me, that I am stronger than a little bit of smell on an airplane, and that the next time I get faced with a similar situation, I'm able to handle it. It's easy. It rubs off me. I think that's how you actually build self-confidence. That's how you actually build self-esteem. Because when it's easy, it's easy. Winning a race against 3-year-olds is easy. Doesn't mean anything. You're not gonna clap You clap that up. Yay, I beat a bunch of 3-year-olds. But when it's hard and you try, that's when you actually build self-esteem. And so flip it, flip it in your mind, flip it. This is the best. Whatever negative situation is in front of you right now, tell yourself it's the best. Rule #49: Get attention. People often ask me, what is your business model, Evan? How do you make money? This is it. This is my business model. I kick up as much noise in my industry, I get as much attention as possible in my industry, and then I find ways to monetize it. That's it. When you have a lot of attention in your industry, people will find you and throw opportunities at you. My biggest challenge is trying to figure out now which opportunity to go after. I get speaking gigs because of the attention I built to my YouTube channel. I get opportunities to connect with people like Tony Robbins and have them be interviewed on my channel. I get brand deals with people wanting to partner with me. I get book deals. It's— everything has come. Because of my YouTube channel, because I built up a quarter of a billion views, because I have 1 point whatever million subscribers. I just kick up a lot of attention in my industry and then deals come to me. And that works really well for someone like me because I'm introverted, because I'm much better at marketing than I am at sales. And so instead of me spending time, which would be more wasted time, going out trying to connect with people, trying to reach people because I'm introverted, I just get to work on creating amazing content, and I have people then find me and fly me out to places and pay me to do things because I built up the marketing attention machine. And rule number 50, the last one before a very special bonus clip, is have a mission. When you have a mission, you're not for sale. When you know what you're doing, when you have a deep purpose and you are off chasing it, you are not for sale. Money is Money is really important, but if you look at the successful people, look at anybody you look up to, who you respect, who's your hero, who's your hero, who's your greatest, most famous entrepreneur of all time that you love and you would love to emulate? Money was not the most important thing to them. There was something above money. Now money is important. Money is important for every business. Money is important for every organization. If you're a charity, money is still important, but it's not number one. And you got to figure out what you would put ahead of your money. So many people are just chasing money. Money, money, money, and I get it, it's important. I had, I had a woman who was at my seminar last night here in Indianapolis who, she has 8 different side hustles and now she's trying to get into real estate to try to make money. And the problem is none of it's purpose-driven and none of it is actually making her enough money. She's making just enough, just little tiny bits from these side hustles that she can barely survive. It's the wrong path. The people who only prioritize money never make money. They never make the real money. You make just enough to survive because your will to win is for sale. You've got to figure out what your purpose is. You got to figure out who you are. You got to figure out what the mission is that you're on. When you do that, then no matter how much money is being thrown at you, you're not going to accept it because you're on a deep purpose for life. Now I've got a special bonus clip on how to strive for excellence that I really think you're going enjoy. But before that, it's time for the 3-point landing question. Let's go from just watching another video to taking action. Here we go. Question number 1: What can you just start small on today? Number 2: Where do you need to act despite fear? And number 3: How can you bring other people value first? Life isn't fair. The family you're born into, the country you're born into, your religion, your skin color, your gender. There's a lot of very real things that exist in this world, a lot of very real prejudices that hold people back. Life isn't fair. And chances are you might not have the capital or the education or the resources or the parents or the family or the connections or the right skin color or the right gender or any of these things. You might not have it all lined up for you perfectly. And so the next step is then, what do you respond to? So, yes, you're right, and then what? Are you gonna be like what most people do, is they just complain? They complain that life isn't fair, they complain that they don't have the right circumstances, and then they become a victim of those circumstances? Or are you gonna take the more difficult path, the one of taking personal responsibility, personal accountability, and choosing excellence, and saying, I'm gonna break free of this mold. I'm gonna break free of the circumstances that were placed above me. I'm gonna set my own path. I'm gonna make the world better for myself and the people around me. I'm gonna choose excellence. If you look at the people that you love, the people you look up to, the people that I profiled on this channel, whoever your heroes are, your role models, the people you aspire to be, chances are they came from nothing. Chances are they had tons of odds stacked them, and they chose excellence, and that's why they won. Look at Michelle Obama. Her father was an employee at a city water plant. Her mother was a secretary, and then once she had kids, was a stay-at-home mom. So Michelle Obama is the daughter of a city water plant employee and secretary turned stay-at-home mom. And chances are, again, whoever you look up to, they have a similar story. It's very, very, very rare and I've covered lots of these people. I may have covered more than anybody online. I've covered lots of successful people. It's very, very, very rare that the son or daughter of a great person goes on to do great things themselves. It's very rare that the kids of people who've done amazing things go on to do amazing things themselves. It's very rare. It doesn't happen that often. And you might think think that sounds crazy. These kids of super successful people have everything lined up for them, have the money, the education, the resources, all the time in the world, everything handed to them on a silver platter. It's so easy for them to win. And that's why they don't win. Because you win through the struggle. Because you win by overcoming the odds. Because that's how you develop excellence, by going after the difficult things. The people who have an easy life never win. The people who have a hard life and overcome and choose excellence and drive daily and refuse to be a victim of their circumstances, those are the people who ultimately win. And so if that's you right now, if you feel like the world is unfair, first of all, you're right. And second, there's a bunch of things that are stacked against you, then I would highly, highly, highly encourage you to surround yourself with the stories of people who have made it, with the stories of people who look like you, who have the same background as you, who have the same circumstances as you, who made it. Because if they could make it, then you can too. And most of the people that I profiled, most of the people who've done videos on, on this channel, look at their stories. Chances are they came from a worse upbringing than what you have right now. They had less than what you have right now when they started. And one of my favorite stories is Oprah Winfrey, and she was so poor growing up. You know, she grew up without parents, she grew up being abused by her family, she grew up with her grandmother who had no money and put together dresses made out of potato bags. Can you imagine going to school in a potato bag that was sewn into a dress? Like, how the ridicule would be from your classmates at school wearing a potato bag as a dress to school. Can you imagine that? And look what Oprah went on to do. Are you gonna tell me that you have a worse upbringing than what Oprah had? Or any of your heroes? Spend the time. Don't look at how Michelle Obama or Oprah Winfrey or any of these people make an extra million dollars right now. Spend the time to look at their backstory. Spend the time to understand where they came from and when they chose excellence and how it had a massive difference and change of trajectory of their life. Because if they could do it, you can too. You just have to decide that one, life isn't fair and that's okay. And two, I'm going to choose excellence. I'm going to stop being a victim of my circumstances and I decide to make things better for myself, for my community, and for the people around me. And if you want more Evan, check out his Top 50 Rules video. The link is right there next to me. Continue to believe. And we'll see you there.