In this 16‑minute travel vlog, entrepreneur and speaker Evan Carmichael documents his journey from the airport to a Talentsoft event in Paris, weaving together personal travel experiences, health‑focused routines, and his perspective on the role of HR in digital leadership. He describes flying business class, navigating airport lounges, managing a calorie‑restricted diet, and dealing with allergies, then details his arrival, hotel stay, and exploration of Parisian landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and Champs‑Élysées. Throughout, Evan reflects on the importance of HR professionals believing in themselves, the need for HR leaders to have greater impact, and the value of strong B2B relationships that can carry opportunities across companies. He prepares and tailors his presentation for the Talentsoft audience, emphasizing the need for HR to become a source of leadership and innovation rather than a support function. Personal anecdotes about missing his partner Nina, interactions with friends like Javier, and his habit of testing local fast‑food offerings add a human touch. The vlog ends with Evan reviewing his speech, adjusting his content based on audience insights, and committing to deliver value at the upcoming event.
Chapters
I don't want to say the level of disrespect, but I believe that HR people need to believe in themselves more and have a bigger impact. Look at this guy, what? Right there, that's the Eiffel Tower. He's not taking us. France, not the best place to travel to when you are on a calorie restriction. What's up, Believe Nation? Happy weekend. I am on my way to Paris and I'm taking you guys with me. Not us. He's not taking us. Not Nina. Or me. Or the dog. Not Hayden. Or Evan. But you guys get to count. So I'm going to be speaking at an event in Paris for a company called Talentsoft and talking about the role of digital and Leadership for the human resource industry, which is great. It came as a result of somebody I worked with at Sage who left Sage and went off to go to Talentsoft. And this happens a lot in B2B businesses. If you're selling to business, you want to make sure you have a great relationship with everybody involved because it's so often that people will jump from one company to another. And if you had a great relationship, they're gonna bring you with them. So I'm excited to go. I haven't been to Paris for, I wanna say, 5 or 6 years. Last time I went was with Nina. And so I'm at the airport a little bit early, gonna check in. Fighting some allergies, so hopefully those go away, and I'm ready to have a great time. It's one of the benefits about flying business class, which I do for my corporate stuff, you get to go to the airport lounges before taking off. So I gotta find mine, relax, do a little bit of work, say hi to Nina, and then hop on the flight. So if you notice from my food, eating pretty light. I'm on a special new diet that my personal trainer put me on. Whew, allergies. And I have to track calories on a daily basis. So a lot of the stuff in there I had no idea what it was. So I'm going to go find myself a Booster Juice downstairs. France, not the best place to travel to when you are on a calorie restriction. We'll see how it goes and I'll try to guess as best I can. Alright, got my bananas away. Oh, that's good stuff. 370 calories gives me like 600-something left for the flight. Fingers crossed. I got a little bit of extra time before I check in, so I'm gonna do some social media. I love answering people's questions on my phone. I'm on Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat at airports, flying. It's a great way to kill time and add some value to the community. I was, uh, forgot to check in. I was the last to check in. I flew in business class, so I get the middle seat, but this is going to be pretty comfortable. I got good news. The guys next to me are traveling together. So I don't have to sit in the middle anymore. Alright, landed in Paris. Ooh, these chairs are cool. Check this out. Those lie-down chairs in the plane were awesome. Couldn't sleep though. Mix of congestion and a guy coughing nonstop. I feel bad for him. For 7 hours straight. Must be rough. Anyway, happy to be here in Paris. Gonna go find my Uber driver, I guess, or some driver picking me up. Head to the hotel and try to get a little bit of sleep. It is 7 in the morning Paris time, and I'm looking forward to starting this day off. This crazy line is the exit. I guess customs I'm not gonna find my grandpa in time to see him. So I'm standing in that crazy line, which gives me a chance to answer some messages on social media. Alright, finally got out. That took at least an hour. That was crazy. Just got a message that my driver is here waiting for me, worried that I'm not showing up. So we gotta go find him. Very excited. Get to the hotel. Sleep. Alright, I'm all checked in. Number 6083, ready to go up, check out my room. So people like Javier who set me up here, my client, my friend, asked me how my flight was. So on the one hand, the flight wasn't that great. You know, no Wi-Fi, the TV system went down and lost my spot in the movie. I couldn't sleep because of my allergies. I couldn't sleep because this guy was coughing. Ahead of me the whole night. So, you know, not the best experience. But on the other hand, the food was great. I got to sit on the aisle because that guy wanted to sit with his friend. You know, I got those awesome seats that reclined. Overall, it was a good experience. And so, was it a good flight? Was it a bad flight? Well, it was both. It really just depends on what side of the coin you look at it. I think that applies to most other things in our lives. It's 10:30. I got here at 7:00. It's been 3.5 hours through security and everything else to get here, and I'm grateful. I'm happy. I'm ready to sleep, but I'm happy to be in the hotel. I have a place to go. And so with every situation, there's always something you can find that's negative, and there's always something you can find that's positive. Is it a good flight or a bad flight? Is that thing you're facing right now good or bad too? Just depends on your outlook. Try to look on the positive side. I think it may help. I think I'm here. 6082. Look at these doors. Hahaha. Alright. Look at this. Bathroom with— that's pretty funky to have in a shower. Got a nice bathroom. Look at that guy. What? Let's go in. Oh, I got two little beds. That's cool. Maybe I can squish them together. Got my TV, get some CNN on. Look at those lamps. That's pretty cool. Oh, these are those showers that are— it's kind of a little bit see-through. You can't actually see through, but the light gets through. Look at this view. Buddy, je suis arrivé. Je suis arrivé? J'ai arrivé? J'ai arrivé? Oh man, my French. My French has to come back. Alright, so I'm going to set up, have a quick nap, see how much time I have left afterwards and practice my speech. Go see Javier if I have a little bit of time. Go check out some of the scenes around here. Take you guys with me. Alright, so got about 5 hours nap there. Wanted to sleep more, but I had to get up because if I had a huge sleep, then I wouldn't sleep tonight, and tomorrow is an important day. Presentation day. So I've got a couple hours before meeting Javier and going to dinner, which is interesting because it's like 10 o'clock in the morning for me. So I'm going to head on into town, practice what I'm going to be thinking about for my speech, take in some of the sights, and have some fun. So figuring out the French subway system has been fun. I made a couple of wrong turns, but I think I finally know where I'm going, and I'm heading to the Champs-Élysées, the most famous street in France, and I'm going to check out the, what's it called, Arc de Triomphe. The Arch of Triumph. So just behind me, oh, this side, right there, that's the Eiffel Tower. And seeing it back there makes me miss Nina. Last time we came here, it was a big surprise. We are off to Paris, France. No. What? And we're on the way to the airport right now. Are you serious? Yeah. Oh my God, are you serious? No way. I just showed up at her work. I booked an extra day off of her work, and we went for the weekend came. It was Nina's first time to Paris, and, uh, I'm missing her right now. I hope she's doing okay. I gotta bring her back now. It's a sign. I gotta bring her back. Nina, I gotta bring you back here. I gotta bring you back here. Love you. So they've really beefed up security since I've been here last night. You can't even get in around the tower without passing through security, getting to the gates. They never used to be gated off like this. People could pay to kind of go up to the various levels of the Eiffel Tower, but now you can't even get inside or anywhere close to it without going through security and being scanned for all the things you're not allowed to bring in. It's a little sad. It's a little sad that it's kind of come to that. Hopefully that's a temporary thing. But yeah, it's not I'm just gonna go in. I don't have time to stand in line. I gotta get back. Gotta have a shower and then meet up with Javier. I remember when I came here with Nina. I'm still at the Eiffel Tower. There it is. There were these flowers here. And Nina wanted to stop and look at them. And just appreciate them. And that's what Nina loves doing. She loves appreciating nature and appreciating the flowers. One of these bushes, I think it's this bush actually. You know, when I travel for business, I don't really I don't really do a lot of the touristy things. I don't really need to. I'm not like, "Oh my God, it's the Eiffel Tower!" But I've been here a number of times already too, so that's probably it. I'm a mix so far when I'm doing this stuff of one, just focusing on my talk, what I'm going to say. You know, I'm missing 4 days for this, so I better deliver some serious value tomorrow at my speech or I wasted my time here. And I always put that pressure on myself. So I got one side there, but the other side I'm just missing Nina a lot. I mean, I knew I'd miss her, but I'm missing her a lot more than I expected. I guess because of the history that we have here in this city and how I brought her here and the fun times we had. Don't want to travel without Nina. I'm missing her a lot. Anyway, gonna hop on the subway, head back to the hotel and, uh, have a quick shower, meet up with Javier and go for dinner. There's a McDonald's over there. One of the things that I always used to do— I wouldn't really care about food. Cities until Nina. I still don't really care that much, just every time I travel and now I need to book food in because Nina loves trying the local stuff. I would much rather just go and just kill the city, see as much stuff as possible, and stopping in a restaurant seemed to be like a waste of time. I'm still not a huge fan, but we do it for Nina. But anyway, McDonald's used to always be my home when I traveled because in, out, try something kind kind of local. I was always curious to see what they had that was different. McDonald's and Starbucks. So they had a blue cheese bacon burger. I hate blue cheese, but even just thinking— it's what I always used to do, go to McDonald's and check out what's new and different and try that and take off. But I made it back. I've got 10 minutes to go, and I'm excited. All right, had a great shower. Relaxed a little bit, thought about what I was going to say tomorrow, refine my speech, change my shirt, totally different shirt, look at that amazing shirt, and now I'm going to meet Javier in the lobby. There he is, Mr. Javier, how you doing? Hi, everybody. Boom. How you doing, man? I'm here on the Champs-Élysées with the founders of Talentsoft. There's one, we've got more in the back behind. We're going to go have some Dinner, have some good talk. I'm excited. Now I want to see the level of disrespect, but I believe that HR people need to believe in themselves more and have a bigger impact. I'm frustrated that more CEOs don't come from HR positions, you know, especially in North America at least, doesn't come from HR. And I believe that we shouldn't just be complaining about it, we should be the leaders and be the change. Tomorrow I'm going to go over some new ideas that I have that may help you guys on your path. It's an honor to be here, and I've had some great discussions, and I see a lot of talent, a lot of leadership in this room, and I hope that you'll take the information that you learn tomorrow back home to your companies and really do something to make a mark on your industry. Thank you very much, Evan Carmichael. Great group, great dinner, some really awesome conversations actually. Top people. Handshake, push people to do bigger, bolder things, you know, usual belief kind of stuff. It's— I don't know what time it is. I want to say 11 o'clock Paris time. Ooh, I also got some macaroons. Look at this, some yummy French macaroons. I probably destroyed my calorie intake for the day. I'm gonna head back to the hotel, probably practice my speech. One more time, go through based on the new information I kind of got today. I love really tailoring the content that I'm putting out depending on the people, depending on the audience. So it's always great to be able to connect with the audience a little bit in advance to just feel them out, hear what their challenges are, and you can create something much better than just the standard thing that you might deliver at an event. So that was good. So I'm going to rejig it a little bit. Bit, practice, see if I can get a hold of Nina, what she's up to, head to bed, wake up tomorrow morning, and let's go crush it.
