PAVE Your Own PATH to Success | Create Your Unique Journey

Paving your own path.

Path paved by me.

Create your own path.

Take your own path.

Finding your own path.

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan Carmichael. My one word is believe. I believe in you, and I want to see that special thing you've got inside you unleashed onto the world. And so to help you on your journey today, we're going to learn how you can pave your own path to success. And as always, guys, as you're watching, if you hear something that really resonates with you, please leave it down in the comments below. Put quotes around it so others can be inspired. And when you write it down, it's much more likely to stick for yourself as well.

Enjoy.

Now, if you're an artist or a filmmaker or a content creator in general, do you feel like you shouldn't even go mainstream towards TV or towards film or towards working with a music label, or should you focus on creating it all yourself, because it still helps a lot of people who don't know how to do the online stuff.

[Speaker] Yeah, I mean, look, there's no answer to that question. I think that it's one thing that everybody but the successful people fail to realize about any creative industry is that there is absolutely no defined path. There isn't one, so it's about paving your own path. And now for me, my path meant mainstream just didn't work, and new media did work. And for other people, it's entirely antithetical to that, where mainstream is exactly the right place for them. So there is no formula that's right or wrong. I'm just much better versed in my own—

Sure.

—the trajectory that I followed myself. And that includes really running away from the establishment into whatever the most forward-thinking space is.

I want you all to stay true to the most real, most sincere, most authentic parts of yourselves. I want you to ask those basic questions. Who do you want to be? What inspires you? How do you want to give back? And then, I want you to take a deep breath and trust yourselves to chart your own course and make your mark on the world. Maybe it feels like you're supposed to go to law school, but what you really want to do is teach little kids. Maybe your parents are expecting you to come back home after you graduate, but you're feeling a pull to travel the world. I want you to listen to those thoughts. I want you to act with both your mind but also your heart. And no matter what path you choose, I want you to make sure it's you choosing it and not someone else. But see, what is the choice?

That you walk a path like everyone else, dressed in suits, go to work and come back and never have a legacy? Or you swim upstream like a trout against norm. And then whatever little you achieve is only yours. It's not like everyone else. And I'd rather have something that is my path paved by me, something that is my legacy, my own self, my own achievement, than being one of the many successful people in the world.

As a kid, I was just mad about the original King Kong. I loved all the stop frame animation, Ray Harryhausen pictures and horror and fantasy, you know, I loved all the black and white Universal films, I still do. When I realized, I think I saw a documentary on the Disneyland Show, which it was called then, where you saw Clarence Nash recording the voice of Donald Duck. I don't know if I was 6, 7, but it suddenly occurred to me, these things don't just emerge full-blown. Somebody goes to work and actually makes a Daffy Duck cartoon. And I thought, "I want to do that!" I mean, I wasn't sure I wanted to be an actor. I thought I could— I didn't know what I wanted to be, but I certainly wanted to be in the business of going to work and having a colossal ape carry a woman up the Empire State Building. I thought, you know, it was just mind-boggling to me, you know, that somebody got to do that for their profession.

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 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 wanna do this, or I wanna do this, or I wanna 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 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 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.

I'm a writer, so I'm kind of curious, what type of scripts do you get coming your way that you're tired of?

Originality. I know that's a very, uh, but without it being aware that it's being original. A lot of scripts are trying to be very original and they're so self-aware. I think we're living nowadays in a meta-society and we can't help ourselves in that. And I think a lot of it manifests a lot in scripts that I read. Like, they're— Charlie Kaufman, for example, he came into this world and he wrote those movies and since Charlie, people have tried to be like Charlie's movies, you know, they've sort of followed, tried to follow that form, but it's not their own, it's Charlie's. And, uh, so sort of follow your own, take your own path, write what's true to you and no one else, and then it'll be wholly original. Um, that's what I look for.

So what inspired you to be an actor in the first place?

Um, lack of options and laziness. No, no, it was a— I didn't really know what I was going to do when I was 17. I was at school, and then this guy that was a former pupil at the school had went to drama school, and he came back. And he started doing these workshops. And I just went to them, and I just really sort of got hooked after that. And then sort of realized then that that's what I was gonna sort of go on and do.

Do you like the disappearing, or do you like the play, or what's the—

You know, I don't know. I think I just sort of felt like it was something that felt right. Comfortable in a way that I sort of could express myself, you know, creatively. I really wanted to sort of be a guitar, lead guitar player in like a heavy metal band, you know, when I was 15. I really sort of went at that all guns blazing for a couple of years, and then I realized it just didn't sort of, you know, I didn't have the sort of, you know, the chops for it. So then I came across acting, and it just felt really, you know, I felt at home, comfortable in it.

So can you describe a little bit your path to stand-up comedy?

Like, how did you get involved in it?

Oh, how I got into it? I was— how the hell did I get into it? I think, you know what, I always liked watching it on TV, but it never seemed like something that I could do just because nobody I knew was in the performing arts. I came from a real, like, blue-collar jock kind of town, so I I just always thought if I said I wanted to do something like that, I'd get the usual blue-collar stuff like, "What are you, a fuck?" You know, "You're not funny." So I kind of kept it to myself. And then I was working in a warehouse and I ended up working with this other guy who was into stand-up the way I was. And one night we were watching Stand-Up Spotlight, which was hosted by an unknown Rosie O'Donnell at that point. Really? Yeah, it was on VH1. This is like the '80s when everybody pulled their sleeves up with it on their sport coat. And, uh, no, I think she was going down on people at that point. Women. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, kind of born that way. I think she was probably experimenting at that point, but that's another story. So, um, yeah, we were just watching it and my buddy was just going, Bill, these guys suck. They're not funny. We're, we're funnier than these guys are. We, you know, we should try it. And then all of a sudden it wasn't on TV, it was sitting next to me. And then fortunately my college had a talent contest, and I signed up before I chickened out, and I went on stage, and I only did okay. I didn't win the contest, but it was just something like— I kind of sucked at everything else at that point, you know, math, reading, anything that had to do with academics. I just stunk at it. Core classes. Yeah, but joking around and making an ass out of myself was something that, uh, it was easy for me, so I did it.

Grew up near Melbourne, Australia in an Aboriginal community, huh? I did, yeah.

I grew up in Melbourne and then moved to Northern Territory in an Aboriginal community. There were buffalo and crocodiles and it was a rather unusual childhood compared to the rest of— Sure.

Did your parents work, move you there, or—

Yeah, my parents worked on a cattle station with my auntie and uncle. I see. And so we as kids went up and just—

Well, that must have been fun as a kid. It was great, yeah.

Introduction to life, and it was as vivid and as exciting as it could have been.

How does somebody start a career like what you've accomplished in a community like that?

You know, we were back and forth. We didn't live there the whole time, but I think part of living there, you know, sparked some, you know, imagination. And my dad read, you know, many books to us as kids and always had a love for storytelling and films and fantasy. And I think that was the sort of beginning of it all. And then it wasn't until I finished school I thought, this looks like fun, I could do this maybe as a career.

And so you started acting in Australia? Yeah, I tried to.

I spent a few years on building sites and horticultural laboring and, you know, things that— sure— allowed me to take a day off if I needed to.

But then J.J. Abrams saw you as a part of Star Trek. Yeah. And brought you over. He did. Yeah.

Well, I was, I was in America at the time and I just shot a little little independent film and came back and met with J.J. It was on a Friday night in his office, across his desk, and he said— we read the scene, he said, "That's great, you start on Monday." And I was just like that. Wow. Starship Enterprise.

Finding your own path is not for the faint of heart. It's the harder path. It's easier to just, like, keep doing the same shit over and over again and then be surprised when, like, it's still the same. Same result. Somehow that's easier than just doing something different. I mean, I never feel like I'm, like, not where I'm supposed to be, you know? Because I think no matter who I'm with, I'm always still doing my own thing. Like, I can't remember the last time I was, like, in a club or somewhere and felt like, "Man, I'm not supposed to be here." And same with, you know, or like being in a theater or Like, you know, we saw Pink Floyd the other day. So, I mean, I just, and I've kind of been doing it for so long, I feel like everybody I'm friends with, everyone I know just knows I'm just all about the music.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed. I'd love to know what did you take from this video? What was the single most important message that you are going to immediately apply somehow to your life or to your business? 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 Justin Morgan, AKA New Future Builder. Justin, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and doing the review on your YouTube channel. I really, really appreciate the support, man, and I'm so glad that you enjoyed the book.

Evan Carmichael, thank you. Been waiting for this, waiting for a while for this.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever 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.