Evan Carmichael shares how raising your standards drives growth. His friend stopped giving critical feedback once Carmichael's expectations rose above his own. In high school, Carmichael went from B/C grades to straight 90s after deciding to improve, and every major breakthrough since came from raising standards higher.
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Have high standards. So I have a personal story that I want to share today. I've had a friend of mine who's been helping me with my YouTube channel, and she's been giving me great advice on how to get better and improve and make me better on camera. And it's worked, you know, the channel has grown, we've got tons of great feedback, it's having a huge impact on people's lives. But over the past, I'd say, 2 months, She hasn't been able to give me as much feedback and constructive ideas as before, and she feels like she's more of a cheerleader now. And I think it's because I, I'm coming in saying, "I want to get better. It's got to be better. It's not good enough. The channel's good, but it's not good enough. It's got to reach more people. It's got to have a bigger impact." And she's saying, "Look at how good your channel is. It's already great. It's already reaching a lot of people." And yes, I agree. The channel is amazing, and I'm so happy. I'm so grateful for you guys watching, and I love the comments and All of that is amazing, but I still wanted to do more. I still wanted to be better. And the challenge I've discovered is we just have different standards. And her standards are here, and when I started my YouTube channel, it was down here. And she's helped me get better, and now we're catching up. And now my channel is probably even a little bit above her standards. And so she thinks everything is great, where my standards are up here. Right? That's where I want to be. I want to be at Tony Robbins level. I want to be Les Brown level. I want to, you know, I don't want to be those people, but that's the kind of impact that I want to have on the world. And I'm not good enough, me personally, as a speaker, as a YouTube creator, as somebody who's creating content. I'm not good enough yet. I'm working towards it. And so I have these high standards. I found the same thing happened in my personal life as well. When I was growing up, I was never a great student. I wasn't failing, I was like a B or C student, and both of my sisters were always A students. And I remember every year when report cards came in, I'd have to sit down with my parents to have the talk. And they always encouraged me to do better. They never punished me. I didn't get grounded, I didn't get, you know, allowance taken away. I wasn't made to feel bad. I wasn't told I wasn't threatened, it wasn't very aggressive, it was always in a positive way, it was always instilling the belief in myself, it was always, "You're Evan Carmichael, you can do this." For whatever reason, I never did. My standards were here and theirs were here. You always achieve to your standards. Whatever your standards are, that's what content, that's what product, That's what service— that's what you're going to create. That's the life you're going to create for yourself because you have limited standards. And then something tweaked for some reason in my last year of high school. My standards went from here to passing where my parents were, and I got straight 90s in my last year of high school. And I don't know what that tweak was, and my parents were ecstatic because all they wanted for me was to get A's. And because my standards exceeded theirs, I outperformed their expectations. Every major breakthrough that I've had in my life and my business has come because I've raised my standards, because I've now expected more from myself than what I expected before. And I'd encourage you to look at your life and your business and raise the standards and figure out what's not good enough anymore. What are you no longer willing to tolerate It's not acceptable anymore because now you've raised the standards. And look at the people who are surrounding you. Look at the people in your life. Do they help build you up? Do they have higher standards for you than what you have for yourself? Or do they think everything is great? You know, you need the cheerleaders, I guess. You need the people telling you just have some positive reinforcement. But you also need the people who give you constructive feedback, not the little men, not the haters, not the people who don't believe in you, the people who think you could be way more, and people who push you to become the best version of yourself. Because if you don't have that in your life, it makes it really hard. And so that's kind of a challenge I'm going through right now, where I need someone to push me more. I'm pushing myself as hard as I can because I'm not satisfied with the level of what's happening on my YouTube channel right now. And that's, that's all on me. It's all on me being better, me being better on camera, me producing better quality content. Uh, I have the team to do it. I just need to get better and I need to think of resources and ideas and people to help me get there. So I'd encourage you to think about what's holding you back in your life, in your business, and how changing your standards might help you get to that next level that you're seeking. So I'd love to know from you, in what area of your life do you have higher standards than other people who are surrounding you? I'm really curious, leave it in the comments below, where do you just have off-the-chart standards where other people think, "Ah, it's okay, you're doing great, don't worry about it." I'm really curious, leave that in the comments below, I'm gonna join in the discussion. Thank you guys so much for watching, I really appreciate from the heart everything that you guys do for me and my channel to push me to be better. Um, that's it, continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.
