LEARNING Alone is NOT ENOUGH... THIS is What You NEED! | Evan Carmichael and Hardy Antolis

You probably don't need more learning. You need more courage, more boldness to do the thing. And this is where a lot of people will get stuck up is like, oh, I need to learn more. There's so many people like if learning was the only thing that mattered, then university professors would all be the richest people in the world, right? I mean, it's like the most successful and they're not because learning alone is not enough. It's the doing. And so the most important part of morning routine is the feeling you get by the end of it. You can get all the strategies, but if you don't believe in yourself to be the person to do those things, you won't do the things. You know, the perfect strategy in front of you. But if you don't think that you're the guy who can do it, then you don't do it. So we're here with Hardy. He's part of the mastermind group. And as part of that, we're doing a one-on-one. So how you doing? How can I help? What's on your mind?

A lot of things on my mind. I don't even know where to start. I was thinking about this yesterday, watching some other videos and kind of thinking about what I want to ask you that will actually make the change in my business, the thing that come up is identity somehow. It's, because I'm looking back at my journey to where I am right now, it's people always know me as, oh, Hardy's the civil engineer guy. You graduated and then that's all you do for the last 25 years and now you're doing this new thing and even my family don't understand it, right? And that's kind of the challenge that in a way I'm changing my identity and try to do this new thing that people don't really get. It's tough doing this basically on my own. And that's the thing that challenges like really come out focusing on my why and why I'm doing this and doing that shift. It's not easy. I find it is really challenging. That's why I want to ask you, like, I don't know, you cannot hear your story when you started up, you have your own business, but for the first many years you're just doing this.

It took a while.

Yeah, how you kept going. I know you said I just like doing it, but it's like, it's, I don't know, it's time to get that message synced in. It's like, oh, I just have to do it, I just have to do it. But it's hard when the environment is like So who do you want to be? I want to be the best, like, metaverse. I want to be the best parents that I can be for my kids, right? And I will be the best husband for my wife and good example for my community that, you know, I'm not just doing civil engineering. I want to make a change that I want to see in the world, especially in the workforce. I don't think you know the background. Several years, I think 7 years ago now, I got my anxiety attack. First time in my life I could not sleep. I was working out of town in small town in Alberta by myself. And I just wide awake at night. It's like, I cannot sleep. What's going on? I thought I got heat stroke. I went to the doctor and he's like, oh, all good. He gave me some sleeping pill. So I start sleeping a little bit, but then I had started having these suicidal thoughts. I was like, what the heck's going on? I've been, by that time, 7 years ago, I've been doing personal development on my own for 20 years. So I said, okay, I don't want to take the pill. I know enough, like, yeah, when I start thinking about crazy things like that, stopped taking the pill and I started doing my mindfulness meditation. I went back to doing mindfulness so my head didn't go crazy and start doing my journaling, doing the positive journaling, get myself out of that. But what happened is to, I wonder how many people that not in personal development knows how to get themselves out of it. So I was lucky enough that I got myself out without the medicine. I still can feel it once in a while, but I manage it really, really well now. But that's the thing. And every time I hear about people, you know, the suicide, like 2 weeks ago, another friend's from church, their son ended up killing himself just from stress at work and things. I was like, Man, it is those kind of pressures like, I can help, guys, I can help. Let's talk to somebody, like, I'm around, like, people around, let's talk to people. And also the other thing that really pushed me off the edge is, you know, I put my kids to private school. I want them to, you know, have a good education and have a good kind of friends and stuff. And, you know, private school, Catholic school, it's not cheap. So I just get them to be in a good environment. And even in the environment, I think my son's friend, two of them, killed himself too. It's like, how is our environment, you know, in the good school? And I know they're pretty well off if they can put their kids there and still happening. Like, that's why it's like, in my head, it's like, the foundation is back to the family. If the family is not there to support the kids, then things like this can happen. That's why it's like, you know, work is work. Yeah, people have to go, you know, business or work to make money, right? But that's not the important thing. The most important thing is, you know, you go back to do your best for the family. And that's not something that I see is going on right now. That's why I was like, Hardy, you learn all this stuff and you need to get it out there and tell people about it and change, right? I believe that, you know, it's not luck that I learned all this stuff. Like, I believe that, you know, God put that in me. It's like, you do all this stuff, you have all these things, and I take it on as my own purpose to get the message out. Yeah, that's the thing. And if I can even just do a little bit of change in our workplace and, you know, families and get them back, especially to men, you know, like don't just work, you know, if that's all what you do, then, you know, let's sit down and talk. That's really what's important right now because, you know, my kids are grown up right now. They're all good. Thank God, you know, we work hard in raising them. They are the future, right? And trying to get parents, especially dad, to be, hey, you are the the head of the house, and it's not just all about work. What's important for you? Let's make work and your life, your relationship and your family actually works. It's not like one over the other. That's what happened a lot of times in our workplace. It happened to me too. My first job, I worked for this company for 11 years. Took me 6 months to quit. It's just miserable. Management didn't go well. And then I go home miserable and I tell my wife, like, why don't you just quit already? It's like, you come home miserable. It's like, why do you stick it out? I think for the people that's outside looking in, it's easy. Why don't you just quit? But for me, it's like, I have to make this work. I'm supporting the family. It's not as easy as quit and get another job at the time. But then it took me 6 months. I quit the job, went to another company and worked with them. And same thing again, like management issues. I quit again. I quit like 4 times right now. And a lot of times it's more like it didn't get managed well and it all, you know, spending a lot of times at work and I cannot be my best at home. So right now I'm okay because I see value in what I provide to the company and my friends and They know when we hire Hardy, I can vouch for him, he can work hard and he'll do his work. But a lot of people, I think, got stuck in the mentality that I cannot quit. What's gonna happen if I quit? And just stick it out even though they're unhappy and life is not working for them. So that's the thing. That's what I'm trying to change.

You know George Foreman?

Yeah.

What do you know about George Foreman?

George Foreman, I didn't watch the movie yet. I saw the movie is out.

Is there a movie out? I didn't know that.

Yeah, they have a movie out about him. I haven't watched it yet.

When I say George Foreman, what do you think?

Oh, it's a big guy.

Yeah.

He is the boxer champion and I watched the trailer of the movie so I kind of know a little bit what what he's about, like he's trying to get his message out about things, right?

Okay. So I mean, I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know what's in there, but a lot of people think of George Foreman as the grill guy, like the George Foreman grill. And did you ever see his infomercials with the George Foreman grill? He's smiling and he's happy and he's like this super cheerful guy and buy the grill. But for people who are old school who know George Foreman from boxing, he was the bad guy. When he started in boxing, he was the bad guy. He was like the guy everybody hated. He leaned into the bad boy personality. Like he was the bad guy of boxing. And why I bring it up is you talk about identity where now, unless you're OG hardcore, like boxing aficionado, you don't know any of that stuff. You just see him as this happy grandfatherly kind of guy selling his grill. And so when you say that your background was, you know, civil engineer, I don't know you as a civil engineer. You know, the more that you develop this new identity, the less the people who, like, there's some people who currently know you as a civil engineer guy. But as you start to break out, the new people you meet, they don't know you as Hardy the civil engineer guy. So a complete identity shift. Is possible, not just for you and your mindset and how you see yourself, but also just how the world sees you. Because when you're coming here, I'm not saying, oh, okay, Hardy's going to come teach me some civil engineering.

They're going to see him building the road out there.

Right? So I think in terms of developing, because you can get all the strategies and we talk about a lot of the ideas of moviemakers, but if you don't believe in yourself to be the person to do those things, you won't do the things. You know, the perfect strategy in front of you. But if you don't think that you're the guy who can do it, then you don't do it, right? Or it's like this start and stop and start and stop and little tiny progress and then nothing. And it's like, okay, I'm going to film a video. Like, oh, that was stupid. Who am I? And then, you know.

Yeah, that's the thing. It's this thing's like, oh, it has to be perfect because it has to be this, it has to be that. And not until I start investing heavily into this, right? The Movement Makers and Mastermind is like, screw all that stuff, you know, got to make this work. So yeah, it's still challenging. Not going to say it's not. I keep on telling myself like it's uncomfortable because it's unfamiliar. It's not because I cannot do it. It's just I haven't done it before and now there's a new thing.

So a couple of things that can help and see then what sticks because you looked at my journey and my goal is for people to get there faster. Than me, right? It took me a long time to build momentum and traction. And so all of us, when we learn something, we want to then teach the next generation to not have to struggle and suffer as much as we did, right? So like, how can we shortcut that path so it doesn't have to take so many years? A couple ideas I think can help. The first is why I asked you like, who do you want to be? If you think about who your role models or heroes are and just trying to be around them more, whether it's virtually or in person. I mean, you're here, you know, learning from me, learning from the group, um, but virtually too. Who are the people who help push you to be the version of Hardy that you're really proud of? You know, like the ultimate version of Hardy. Uh, for me, that's why I still make the videos on my channel. Like the top 10 videos I make for me, because in the morning I want Oprah in my ear and Elon Musk in my ear and Steve Jobs in my ear. Because no matter how great a day that I had, it's still starting up every day. Like, today's great. Today is like, okay, we got Mastermind, we got a film. It's easy to get up for today, right? I barely slept last night. I'm just so excited to come in here and be with you guys. But on a normal day, it's like you're waking up and there's nobody telling you what to do and there's no kind of boss over your shoulder. And sometimes it's hard to connect to the big mission. And so having something, you mentioned environment, having something that you feed into yourself that makes you want to step up and play a bigger game. So for me, it's going for a walk and watching one of my videos, not of me talking, but of Steve Jobs or whoever else, right? From my own channel. So I would still make the videos even if nobody else cared or liked them because I want them for me so that by the end of my walk, I'm coming back thinking, okay, like, let's go. We got to do something here, right? Now it's not just a normal day and a normal walk. It's something that's pushing you beyond your comfort zone and getting excited for the thing that's ahead, right? Coming here, you're flying here to Toronto. It's great, right? You're going to get energy. The next couple of days will be full of energy. You go home and have more energy. But then, you know, a week later, 2 weeks later, it has a half-life and starts to dip. So how do you, how do you maintain that energy level? Well, it's okay. What else feeds you? So if it's my videos, if it's somebody else's videos, if it's a, if it's a podcast, if it's books, if it's whatever it is, that is a daily habit. If it's, if it's a connection to God and it's like prayer, then, but it's a daily habit that makes you want to go off and do something more bold and more courageous.

Yeah, it's the same with the job too, right? Like, obviously my job is like started at, I leave the home around 6, come home around like 6, 7 and start shifting and doing this kind of things. It's setting up that environment, like mentally, I think like my job, like mentally it's tiring and trying to to, I guess, how do I say, consciously, I guess, shift it. Okay, after work's done, I go home and then start getting myself into the rhythm.

How long of a time do you have between work and when you get home?

40 minutes driving.

So what do you do in those 40 minutes?

Lately, for the last month, been listening to our training call. Okay, great. It's always on.

What were you doing before that?

So in the morning I have another program that I listen to. So driving to work, I have the other program to talk about a book. Usually they unpack a book and what's the lesson from the book. So they got me through the work and then to the job. And then when I leave the work, then a lot of times right now it's our training, the Wooner Makers training.

Okay.

And then at home, obviously, you know, have dinner and then family time and try to work around, you know, just sit around, you know, the living room with the family and then working. A lot of times I'm working on something.

Okay, so you come home and you have dinner with the family and then you're working on your business afterwards?

Yeah.

So those transition moments like really, really matter. So first off, it's great that you already have some kind of—

Yeah, that's routine right now.

The thing, the question with routine though is like, are you getting the feeling that you need?

The feeling is there. I think so. I'm trying to shift myself to more action-oriented right now because I got a lot of learning in there.

So it's like you probably don't need more learning. You need more courage, more boldness to do the thing. And this is where a lot of people will get stuck up is like, oh, I need to learn more. I need to learn more. I need to learn more. I need to learn more. There's so many people. Like if learning was the only thing that mattered, then university professors would all be the richest people in the world, right? I mean, it's like, and the most successful, but they're not because learning alone is not enough. It's the doing. And so the most important part of morning routine is the feeling you get by the end of it. If you're thinking about how you even started, I asked who you want to be. You said, I want to be, you started with, I want to be a great father. Then you said, I want to be a great husband. Then you said, I want to be a role model for my community. Right. So that's actually the order of priorities. If I'm you, I look at if you just went and you work this job that, you know, you don't like and you're trying to figure out a way kind of to transition out of, how do you make sure you show up at home to be the best husband and the best father? It's probably not listening to movement makers, Jamie. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know if we talk much about that.

It could help, but it's a different thing.

Do you get the vibe? Right. So on the way home, maybe it's actually better to listen to something else, a parenting podcast. Maybe don't meditate on the way home if you're driving, but something that makes you want to be a better father and a better husband. But you don't even need action steps. You don't need to necessarily listen to a podcast to say, Here are the 8 ways to be a better husband. If you just felt like walking in the door, I've put my work behind me for now and I want to be a great husband. You'll come up with ideas of what to do and you'll just be a better husband as opposed to having to learn how to be a better husband, huh? Or learn how to be a better father. Like, could you get more ideas? Sure. Of course, but you probably already know enough. All that's missing is the intention in walking in the door that I want to be a great father right now. So from whatever, 5 o'clock to 7 o'clock while I'm home having dinner with the kids, everything else, whatever that time frame is, I want to be a great father. I want to be a great husband, even if it's only for an hour. It's not about the quantity of time that you spend. It's the, it's the quality. Right. You can spend 3 hours bingeing Netflix and lying on the couch with your wife. Doesn't mean it's quality time together, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So I have so much going on. I have my business, I have my family, I have my job. Great. But it's not about quantity of time, it's the quality of time. So it's the mindset going into the next task ahead. So if you're coming home, what's the transition to come home? And of course, you know, I want you to listen to Movement Makers training. It's great. But at the same time, like, if the goal coming home is I want to be a great husband and a great father, well, what do you need to feed into your mind to help make sure that that happens? And maybe it's nothing. Yeah, maybe you just have a picture on the— what's the thing that you fold down, the black delight? Like, maybe it's just a picture of them in the car.

It's actually a good idea.

And you spend 40 minutes just thinking about them on the way home.

Yeah, because the thing is, in my head, it's like, there's all the time I have, you know, I have to work to do the business at the weekend.

But you can still do work. Like, it's, you know, it's like 4 to 7 or 5 to 7 or even 6 to 7, whatever it is. And then you still have an hour or 2 hours later on to go work on your business. But then that, that, that hour, if you're going to work from, you know, 7 to 9 on your business or whatever it is, or 8 to 9, you only have 1 hour. So making sure that that's Hyper-focused. And then what's the transition out from family time into work mode?

You know, and then move, listen to move.

Well, you may not have as much time, right? I mean, again, it's less about the to-dos and more about the feeling. Because if you went into, you have a list of to-dos for your business, right? You know what you need to do. So you don't, you don't mean I have it all figured out, but like you have to-dos that you need to get done in your business. So the last thing that you need is more training of what to do, right? So I don't know what the morning program is or the Movie Maker program. Like you may not need more training now if you only have an hour a day to work on this thing. It's how do I show up and be a courageous leader in my business? What do I need to do? What am I afraid to do that I need to do? That you're overthinking and over in your head and overplanning and over, over, over, over everything that if you just showed up with the Hardy that needs to show up, you'll just do the work. So it's less about to-dos. You have so many to-dos. You don't need more to-dos. You need to do the to-dos. So why are you not doing the to-dos? It's the the mindset going in. So what do you need to do in the morning to set yourself up for a great day at work? Or maybe even get, if you work in 8 hours, get it done in 6 and work on your lunch break. It's like whatever you need to do in the morning to have a great day at work. Then on the way home, I want to be there for my kids and my wife. So what do I need to do? It honestly might just be silence and just looking at a picture of them.

Yeah, I know.

Decompressing from the work and thinking, how can I be a great husband today?

Yeah.

And then you're going to do crazy. You're going to maybe crazy. You're going to like, I'm going to stop off and buy some flowers today. Yeah, I'm going to stop off and like, yeah. And you just come up with stuff because you're thinking about them and you're trying to be a great husband and a great father. So it's like less inputs and more focus.

True. I haven't looked at it that way, but no, it does make a lot of sense. Yeah.

And then the transition to work, whether it's at every night or weekend or whatever, you know, you don't have an hour transition or 45 minutes. Like if you only have an hour to work every night and it takes you 45 minutes to transition to get, right? So that's not going to work. So you need something faster to get into the thing, whatever the thing is. And for me, one of the fastest things that I do is just try to be of service somehow to somebody. So the fastest way for me is the comments. It's like Instagram comments or Instagram DMs or YouTube comments. I'm just messaging people. Like, I'll do some video messages. I probably sent you a couple video messages.

Yeah.

While I'm like walking outside or something. Hey, have I sent you something?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Okay, good.

It's always made my day. Oh, Evan sent me something.

I mean, it's nothing fancy. I'm walking outside. And I'm just making a video, but it connects me to why I do what I do.

What would you suggest if people are just starting up though? Like, I don't really have DM to respond.

So part of the doing is starting to make content.

Yeah, right.

So, and then in making content, so you have some people who follow you right now on Instagram. How many people follow you on Instagram?

Instagram? I know 100.

100 people?

100.

Perfect.

Think I got to check.

That's great.

So here's what you do. I got 1,500 in LinkedIn.

Well, LinkedIn, you can do it too. It's just a little harder, but you could still do it on LinkedIn. But for Instagram, you have 100 people. So start before you go to work. So the transition home is I'm going to think about my family and just be there for them. But then I'm going to work for an hour every night after dinner. The transition from family to work is you send a video DM to somebody who follows you. You have 100 people, now you're set for the next 100 days. And if the 100 days come up and nobody new has followed you, you go through the 100 list again.

Good idea.

Right? So I'm expecting a video, right? It should be like, hey Evan, just wanted to say thank you for following me on Instagram. Really means a lot to me. I'm trying to get my message out to the world and your support just touches me. Thank you. Send. Whatever. Like, you speak from the heart. Like, you're just trying to connect to— here's a human being who thinks that your message is valuable enough for them to follow you. So that can be— at least for me, it's a quick shift to like, this is why I do what I do. And so less learning, more feeling, which leads to more doing.

Yes. I've been trying to make that shift. It's, like I said, it's not easy because I'm feeling more comfortable, I guess, on the learning thing. But yeah, no, it's true. It's true. And trying to get, because I was in the back of my mind when I started doing, you know, the doing, it's like, I better do it right. I better do it. I only have an hour in the day here. Yeah. Get better, do it right. And then a lot of times just trying to make it right is just preventing it from actually doing it.

Just imagine you're sitting down like this and you're talking to the Hardy in 5 years and you're telling Hardy in 5 years that I haven't done anything yet, but I learned a lot. Yeah, right. You can be like, dude, you just wasted a lot. Like, what are you doing? Like 5 years, right? So that's just a shift. If you show up with courage and with courage in every aspect of the life, because you said husband, father, husband, and then service, community. If you did it every day, you should see some major gains. So homework today, right after this, is to film a thank you video to somebody who followed you. Not me. Somebody else followed you. And try to, try to feel it. Try to tap into it to really feel like this person decided to follow you and how grateful you are for them to be in your life and see how that feels.

Yeah.

All right, let's go, Artie. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. No, that's really big. That's really big. Thank you.

To watch me coach another Mastermind member one-on-one, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there. I remember talking to my dad and telling my dad as a little girl, when I grow up, I'm gonna be an actress, I'm gonna be writing. And every report card came with, she talks too much. If you don't know what I'm saying, let me explain this to you.