Never Give Up: Evan Carmichael’s Guide to Resilience and Perseverance

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe in your potential, and I want to see that thing that you have inside here come out and explode into the world to make it a better place. And so to help you on your journey today, we're going to learn how to be resilient. And as always, guys, as you're watching, if you hear something that really resonates with you, please leave it in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can learn and be inspired. And when you write it down, it's much more likely to stick with yourself as well. Well, enjoy.

You know, it wasn't so long ago that, you know, I was a student and, you know, sitting in a seat in an auditorium like you guys are here today listening to I remember very specifically this time when Bill Gates came to talk at Harvard, and I'm just like, "Wow, how do you do that?" And— but, you know, the trick is that the media likes to sensationalize this as if you have some eureka moment or you are some singular person who build something on your own, and that's just not how the world works. You know, when I was in school, I built a lot of stuff that I just liked building. There was not a single moment when I had some revelation that Facebook was gonna be awesome. That's not maybe how the media or movies or whatever would like to portray things. It's not— it's much less exciting. The reality is I think most services in the world that reach the scale that Facebook has, you start off building something that you care about. And you don't necessarily think it's gonna be that big. I didn't. I built Facebook, the first version of Facebook, for my college community because I wanted to be able to connect with the people at my school. I remember very clearly talking to my friends at the time and saying, you know, it's— how cool is it that we have built this community for our school? You know, one day it's going to be awesome when somebody else builds this for the world, because something like this needs to exist for the world. But it didn't even occur to me that, you know, my friends and I might be able to play a role in doing that, right? Because we were college students, right? I mean, we didn't have any, you know, engineers to work with servers or resources or anything like that. And, you know, there are these huge companies that deliver products for hundreds of millions of people, right? There's— I always assumed that it was gonna be like Microsoft or Google or someone would build this for the world. And what basically just happened is, um, at each step along the way, we just kind of kept doing the next thing and growing from there. And, you know, there were teams inside these other companies that— that thought social media was important and were working on it. But there were all these different memes and narratives in the world. You know, people would say, oh, well, you know, this is just a fad. People are going to use it, but then they're going to stop. So, you know, so a lot of the teams who were working on it didn't take it that seriously, or, you know, the higher-ups in those companies didn't care, so they didn't get resources, and we just kept going and going. And then people would say, all right, well, all right, fine, so maybe people are using it, but It's never going to make any money, right? I mean, social media doesn't make any money. And we just kind of kept going and going. And then pretty soon we had a service that was bigger than any of these other ones. And that kind of is how we are here where we are. There's no magic. A lot of times I think people just get afraid because, you know, often your dream is— it seems like it's so, so far off. But, but But if you just kind of focus on building stuff that you think is good, and you keep on going at each step along the way, and don't let people deter you from that, and you just really care about what you're doing, and kind of don't give up at each step along the way, then, you know, I think that's how you build something good.

A lot of people come to me and they say, "Well, I want to be an entrepreneur." And I go, "Oh, that's great. What's your idea?" And they go, "Well, I don't have one yet." And I say, "Well, I think you should go get a job as a busboy or something until you find something you're really passionate about." It's a lot of work, and I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard. You pour so much of your life into this thing. There are such rough moments in time that most people give up. I don't blame them. It's really tough, and it consumes your life. I mean, if you've got a family and you're in the early days of a company, it's— I can't I can't imagine how one could do it. I'm sure it's been done, but it's rough because it's pretty much an 18-hour-a-day job, 7 days a week for a while. So unless you have a lot of passion about this, you're going to not survive. You're going to give it up. So you've got to have an idea or a problem or a wrong that you want to right that you're passionate about. Otherwise, you're not going to have the perseverance to stick it through. And I think that's half the battle right there. It's hard to remember how bad it was, you know, in the early '80s with IBM taking over the world with the PC, with DOS out there. It was far worse than the Apple II. They tried to copy the Apple II and they'd done a pretty bad job, and you needed to know a lot. And so things were kind of slipping backwards, and Macintosh was— you saw the 1984 commercial, I hope you have that in your archives. You know, Macintosh was basically this relatively small company, you know, in Cupertino, California, taking on the goliath IBM and saying, wait a minute, your way is wrong. This is not the way we want computers to go. This is not the legacy we want to leave. This is not what we want our kids to be learning. This is wrong, and we are going to show you the right way to do it. And here it is, it's called Macintosh, and this is so much better that it's gonna beat you. And we are gonna do it. And that's what Apple stood for.

But Detroit's close to your heart, isn't it, in every single way?

And yet it's a city in America that's going through one of the toughest times, and that must be kind of hard too, man, you know? The place where you grew up is, you know, it's in a bad place, it's in a bad way.

Absolutely. But I think that it's the, it's kind of, you know, the Detroit mentality to, we're kind of the underdog. I feel like we've always been the underdog and that's kind of how, you know, I've always taken that, kept that with me. You know what I'm saying? That, I wanna say, fighting spirit that Detroit has. You know, because Detroit, you know, is so resilient. You know, like, I feel like our— like, people there, we have this, you know, kind of Detroit versus everybody mentality because I feel like people— the way that people look at us, they always count us out. You know what I'm saying?

So—

I know that that attitude is displayed a lot in my music, but I think that that's where it comes from, is just from, you know, just feeling like being— like we're being counted out.

Now, it's of utmost importance. Like, I mean, I was such a diehard fan, Laker fan growing up, man. And just my personality, like, for me to ask for a trade or to go play someplace else to try to chase a championship, that's not me, man. That's not what my career has been about. That's not who I am, man. I stay with it. Stuff that I've been through in my life and been through in my career, if it's taught me anything, it's the fact that you'll have good moments, you'll have bad moments, you'll have great moments, you'll have horrible moments. You just keep going through all of them, and then things work themselves out.

Failing is never failing. It's always a learning experience. So the thing about business is how deep your pocket is. I always say that. Like, if you got a lot of money, you can sustain these losses until they turn into gains. But if you have short paper, if your money's not long, or if you don't have enough, You have to make sure that those losses don't kill and compromise your pocket. And at that point, you got to get creative. But when you do anything, you get better at it the more you do it. And the first time you do anything, you usually don't do it correct. So it's not failure, it's learning experience. If you would get up and— it's like in a fight, the first round you might get knocked out, but by the last round, you get up and knock that person out. Who won? You might have lost the round, but you win the whole fight. You got to lose some rounds in business, but at the end of the day, you want that unanimous decision. You got to keep going. You got to finish the fight. The question is, do you have the stamina to finish?

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 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, this comes down to just your belief system. Here was a guy who was 62 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, just ease into the rest of my life. And it was 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 it 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, we 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 1 million subscribers, I would still be doing it because I love doing it. And if I was on the path to hitting 1 million subscribers and I stopped liking it, then I would leave. I would sell it. I would 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. Alan asks, "As we've seen, you hate wasting time, but how do you adjust on days nothing is going right?" Well, there's no such thing.

Luckily, no, I mean, there's no, I mean, I don't remember a day where nothing went right. I mean, first and foremost, the way I really deal with it, if we want to get zen about this, and a lot of you know this, is as long as everybody's healthy, everything went right. I always quantify. When business doesn't go well, I default quickly to, Oh, business is bullshit, it's all about life. You know, like when my kids, look how cute my kids are, look how, thank God my parents are alive. Like, I quickly switch from, I don't dwell. You know, I'm not good at dwelling. I love speed, and I don't like wasting time. Dwelling, complaining, wishing, hoping, you know, pondering how you wish it was, is the single biggest waste of time in life, and in business. Like, the bottom line is, we all wish things. I wish I was 6'4", the single best looking guy in the world, and the quarterback of the New York Jets that has won 19 straight Super Bowls. I wish that. I mean, I wish that. I mean, I just wish that. I wish that. And in the same way that that's funny is the same way to wish that, like, that deal went through, or that employee took the job, or that person didn't quit, or that, concept didn't work out. I mean, I've had multiple divisions, multiple strategies here at Wine Library, at VaynerMedia, that haven't worked in the last 12 months, yet we're dismantling it. And so much like anything else, you just, it's like the next, it's the next play. Using artistic stuff, like if you're doing a Broadway play, what are you gonna mess up a line and just stop? And just cry on stage? You just gotta go to the next line. I mean, you just gotta keep moving forward, and so, how do I handle it? Easily, I'm a fucking champ on this issue. I'm a champion. I am an absolute champion on this issue. Meaning like, I'm prepared for the punches in the face. I expect things not to go well. It's kind of the way I prep for a Jets game. Saturday night, nobody likes being around me, 'cause I'm just devastated, it's all bad. We're gonna lose, this is what's gonna happen, we're gonna lose. You know, like, I'm subconsciously like that, but Unlike the Jets, where I say that outwardly, these guys can tell you, I'm only on winning and offense at all times.

You were a sort of a comics comic, that the people—

Yeah, the comics liked me.

Well, no, I mean, it's like being a writer's writer.

Yeah, the audience did not like me. I can tell you that. They did not like me. I would be doing it, I would hear the vile, vicious comments that— It's unbelievable, the disrespect. I didn't expect. It was startling to see what people would do with a couple of drinks in them, what they would call out, what they would say. And I'm a sensitive, vulnerable guy. I couldn't take it. I couldn't stand it. So, you know, stuff like, oh, you're so much funnier than him. Why don't you go up, you know, talking to their friend. So it was rough. It was rough. But there would be some, some really good ones interspersed with the awful ones. But there were many, many awful ones.

I was working for a living. I operated a restaurant for about 25 years.

Yes.

Trying to serve the best food that I could serve to the public. That's where I developed my chicken recipe, that I wanted to have the best chicken in my restaurant than any competitor had. So I was on the highway where they go to Florida or up the Smoky Mountains, and as they went down to there, I wanted to get them as they come back. And you'd find out, surprising how long they forgot all about the price of the food before they forgot the quality. They come back again for that good food. And I was listening to Duncan Hines' Adventures of Good Eating, and that gave me a very select clientele too. I had a moral obligation to give people something good, something worthwhile, see. And I loved it. Nothing come along, surveyed this interstate system, went 7 miles back of me, left me sittin' high and dry. I was 66 years old, I couldn't afford to quit. Of course, when they were talking about it for 3 or 4 years before, looked like it was gonna be a reality, I begun to put out a guinea pig franchise because I was thinking, what can I do next? They gonna wipe out this restaurant. And I thought, well, I'll try to franchise it the chicken. So by getting 4 or 5 of these guinea pig franchises, I proved to myself that I had a product that would take with the public, profitable to the restaurant man, and also it would go. Just a matter of getting behind it and getting it put over if we could. So when they did survey the system, I was left sitting high and dry. So that wiped me out. Isn't that— you know, Here's a case where disaster really was a blessing. Something that could have destroyed you, God turned it around. Really, I think sometimes people think that, you know, instead of laying down and dying when the disaster comes, you can use it as stepping stones. It's a stepping stone for something else, there's no question about that. So my question was, what could I save out of that wreck? You see, I didn't really want to be wrecked. And the chicken was taken, it's proven it was taken with the public, and all I had to do was stay with it and get it going. I think the moral to my life is don't quit at 65. Maybe your boat hasn't come in yet. See, man?

Persevere. Nothing worthwhile is easy. No one of achievement has avoided failure, sometimes catastrophic failures. But they keep at it. They learn from mistakes. They don't quit. You know, when I first arrived on this campus, it was— we had little money, fewer options. But it was here that I tried to find my place in this world. I knew I wanted to make a difference, but it was vague how, in fact, I'd go about it. But I wanted to do my part to shape a better world. So even as I worked after graduation in a few unfulfilling jobs here in New York—I will not list them all—even as I went from motley apartment to motley apartment, I reached out. And I started to write letters to community organizations all across the country. And one day, a small group of churches on the South Side of Chicago answered, offering me work with people in neighborhoods hit hard by steel mills that were shutting down, and communities where jobs were dying away. The community had been plagued by gang violence, so once I arrived, one of the first things we tried to do was to mobilize a meeting with community leaders to deal with gangs. And I'd worked for weeks on this project. We invited the police. We made phone calls. We went to churches. We passed out flyers. The night of the meeting, we arranged rows and rows of chairs in anticipation of this crowd. And we waited. And we waited. And finally, a group of older folks walked into the hall, and they sat down. And this little old lady raised her hand and asked, "Is this where the bingo game is?" It was a disaster. Nobody showed up. My first big community meeting—nobody showed up. And later, the volunteers I worked with told me, that's it, we're quitting. They'd been doing this for 2 years even before I'd arrived. They had nothing to show for it. And I'll be honest, I felt pretty discouraged as well. I didn't know what I was doing. I thought about quitting. And as we were talking, I looked outside and I saw some young boys playing in a vacant lot across the street, and they were just throwing rocks up at a boarded building. They had nothing better to do, late at night, just throwing rocks. And I said to the volunteers, before you quit, answer one question: What will happen to those boys if you quit? Quit? Who will fight for them if we don't? Who will give them a fair shot if we leave? And one by one, the volunteers decided not to quit. And we went back to those neighborhoods and we kept at it. And we registered new voters, and we set up after-school programs, and we fought for new jobs, and helped people live lives with some measure of dignity and We sustained ourselves with those small victories. We didn't set the world on fire. Some of those communities are still very poor. There's still a lot of gangs out there. But I believe that it was those small victories that helped me win the bigger victories of my last 3 and a half years as president.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed. I'd love to know, what did you think of this video? What was the message that stuck most true to you? What are you going to immediately apply somehow to your life or to your business? Please leave it down in the comments below. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. I also want to give a quick shout out to Bite Size Lessons. Thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, making that awesome cartoon and posting it to Instagram. I really appreciate the support and I'm so glad you enjoyed the read. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.

So let me give you the one word secret to happiness.

One word.

This is all you need to be happy. The most important word ever.

If you had to think of one word that's most important to you or that sums you up or that would be kind of like a little beacon.

Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.