Evan Carmichael names A.P. Giannini, Steve Jobs, and Gary Vaynerchuk as his greatest mentors. Giannini lent to underdogs after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake on handshakes alone. Jobs obsessed over product and marketing impact over profit. Vaynerchuk mastered social media and authentic audience connection.
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Who are my greatest mentors? So I got a great question from one of my YouTube viewers, love you guys, David, who wrote in to say, who are some of your greatest mentors, Evan? Any other industry leaders you know personally and recommend us following? This is a great question, and I believe in modeling success, so I love looking at what people have already done and modeling what worked for them and bringing it to my business. It helped save my business when I was first starting out. And too many entrepreneurs try to just do everything themselves and figure everything out themselves, where if you understand that you're not the first person trying to solve whatever problem you're going through in your business or personal life, that other people have gone through the same thing and they found solutions, the easiest way to accomplish your goal is to find someone who's already done it, understand how they did it, and make it work for you, maybe with a few tweaks along the way. So I love my own success. I have a lot of mentors. On the business and personal side. I'm assuming David wants to know about the business ones, and so here are my top 3 for you. The first is A.P. Giannini, and A.P. Giannini is the founder of Bank of America. And you may be thinking, a banker? What, Evan, really? A banker is your favorite entrepreneur? But what I learned from him is to stand up for the little guy. That's what I love doing, right? He believed— he was a believer, and he believed in people and I believe in entrepreneurs. When he first started in the banking industry, he was a director at a bank. He wasn't in the banking industry, he had a different business, he sold it, became a director at a bank. And he said, you know what guys, we need to be offering loans to immigrants who are hardworking and entrepreneurs. We need to give them money too. They deserve a chance to succeed. And the bank said no. Lend to immigrants? Lend to startup entrepreneurs? Are you kidding me? We're not gonna— that's too risky. We're not gonna do that. So he left that bank, set up shop across the street, created his own bank, and he started lending money to people who were in need, who were hardworking, who believed they could pay it back, who were too high-risk for the other banks to pay attention to. One of my favorite stories, though, is when there was this huge earthquake in San Francisco where he was from. There was a big fire and it devastated the whole city. And people's buildings were just totally gone, and a lot of the banks burned down too. And Abhi Janini's bank burned down. And this was a time when people needed their money, right? You need your money, you got to rebuild your life, you need to buy food to live. And most of the banks, they closed down because they didn't have a building anymore. How can they be in operation? And what Abhi Janini did was, his bank had burned down, but whatever, he took 2 barrels took a plank across it, brought out a wheelbarrow which had money in it, and started lending people money on the street. And he would make a loan based on a handshake and a look in the person's eye and trusted that they would repay him. Are you kidding me? Who does that? It's crazy. No banker would do that, but Ippigenini did that, and that's how he was able to build up one of the biggest companies in the world. Now, obviously he's way past, you know, living, but those are the roots. He lent money to Walt Disney to create motion pictures and to create Disneyland when, when people said, you're crazy, a full-feature cartoon, a, a, a huge theme park, this is a stupid idea. He lent the money to create the Golden Gate Bridge when when people thought it was a ridiculous venture. He believed in the little guy. He believed in entrepreneurs. And so that's why I love him and his story, even though most people have never even heard of him. And Bank of America, quite honestly, does such a terrible job now of recalling their own history and sharing this great story with people. My number 2 mentor is Steve Jobs. And Steve Jobs recently passed away, and He had a tremendous impact on me in how I saw my business and how I market myself and standing for something important. You know, Steve Jobs didn't want to just create computers, he wanted to make a dent in the universe. And I want to help a billion entrepreneurs, and I want that to be not just about making money but about having a real impact, right? Steve Jobs was a multimillionaire in his 20s. He could have done anything he wanted. But he worked till the day he died building Apple, and it became the most valuable company in the world, even though he didn't— his goal wasn't money. His goal wasn't money, and Apple became the number one most valuable company in the world. And there's one video in particular that left a lasting mark on me, and I still watch it at least once a week. It's that great a video for me, at least. It's on my channel. If you search my channel, Steve Jobs and marketing, you'll find it. I think every entrepreneur needs to see this. Every student who's in school and is learning about marketing needs to see it. It had a tremendous impact on me, really changed my life and how I think about my business in particular. And so he's, he's a mentor and I love checking out his stuff. So both of them are past, you know, they passed away. My number 3 mentor is still living, still kicking up a storm and is on the upswing, and that's Gary Vaynerchuk. And Gary is He has his own company, he's an entrepreneur, he's a speaker, he's a social media expert, and I love watching Gary's keynote presentations. One, selfishly, because I want to become a better speaker. And so again, whatever you want to get better at, find somebody who's one of the best in the world at it and model what works for them. Learn from their success. So Gary, in my view, is one of the best speakers in the world, and I love watching his stuff every time there's a new presentation, I'll consume it and I'll learn something from it. He teaches me about being passionate and bringing that to your presentations and really connecting with the audience. On top of that, he's also a social media guy, you know, he's written a couple books on it, considered a worldwide expert on it, and the lessons that he teaches there are really making it personal, connecting with people one-on-one, answering them, being responsive and not just trying to automate your social media campaigns and hope that something great is going to come. And that's something I believe in as well. So those are my 3 professional business mentors: A.P. Giannini, Steve Jobs, Gary Vaynerchuk. I hope you guys will go check them out and be inspired just like I am. Believe. For those of you watching and like this video, you can support me by clicking on the link in the description. You can leave a comment. Let me know who your mentors are. Let me know if they're dead or alive and why you like them. I would love to hear from you. And don't forget, click on my face, subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.
