Stop being BORING! - #EvansBook ep. 54

Stop being boring. I have a real aversion towards boring. I hate boring. I hate things that are boring. And I hate looking at people's products that are boring and business cards that are boring and websites that are boring and marketing is boring and the way they tell their story is boring. Chances are a lot of this stuff for you and your business is boring too. But it doesn't have to be. Your story doesn't have to be boring. Your website doesn't have to be boring. Your product doesn't have to be boring. It's just what it is now, and you can make it that much better. But a lot of people are afraid, right? You're too afraid to take a risk and do something that people might not accept, might not like, might not enjoy. So it's safer just to take the boring path that everybody else is taking. And I would much rather risk doing something that I'm passionate about and creative and expressive in and it not working than just stick to doing the same old boring thing over and over and over and over again. And you box yourself in and you stay in that box for the rest of your life, and you're too afraid to come out of it because you're afraid of what will happen. So tying this to the book, giving you guys an update, we're in the final stages of getting the book all together, all the kind of dotted i's and crossed the t's. And my publisher asked me for what I wanted to put in my acknowledgments section. And I looked at most authors and what's in their acknowledgments section, and it's so boring. And I do not want to have a boring acknowledgments section. If I'm going to write it, if I'm going to have an acknowledgments section at all, it's got to be something that is not boring. Because I can't have this amazing book and then lead with a really boring acknowledgments section. It's got to be different. It's got to be creative. It's got to be unique. And so I'm trying to think, and I'm sitting at the coffee shop thinking, what do I want to write? Like, what's different? What's unique? What's an expression of myself? How can I inject insane emotion and belief into something something that most people wouldn't care so much about. It's one page, it's in the acknowledgements section, right? It's not a big deal. But I don't want to have boring in my book, period. I don't want to have boring in my life. And this is a microcosm, this is one example, right? If you settle for boring once, you'll keep settling, settling, settling, settling. And so I came up with a couple ideas, I sent it off to my publisher, haven't heard back, we'll see what happens. But regardless, even if that doesn't work, or even if I decide to change my mind next week, I'm glad that I took that chance and I took the risk, and what I will end up with is not just some boring acknowledgment section that everybody else has. So take a good look at everything that you're doing. Look at your website and your marketing and your product and how you talk to customers and your email signature and, you know, how you start a YouTube— everything! Look at everything and inject a little bit of creativity. There's a lack of creativity in every field. And this is your chance to rise it up and do something special and stop being boring in your business. I'm excited today. I don't have a lot of time, but let's pump into a couple of questions because you guys took the time to ask them, so I want to at least answer a few of them for you. First up is New Future Builder. Love the endless value here. Thanks, bro. Appreciate that. After the book, perhaps you do these videos occasionally for your journey of growing TDS. I think as an entrepreneur, it's amazing to hear what challenges other business owners face as they work through them. So he's referring to Toronto Dance Salsa. It's a business that I was an investor in and acquired at the beginning of this year and became the sole owner of. It's interesting. I see that eventually becoming its own show and having like a professional camera crew come in and follow it along as a reality show, but as a positive reality show. The thing that's held me back at least for now, is exposing and exposing the team and getting them ready for it. I know it's possible to do it in a way that is positive and uplifting. I just need to get people used to being on camera and having it seen as a positive. But I agree, I think there is a lot that we can tell with the story. I try to incorporate some of the things that are happening in my espresso and some of the videos that I'm doing, but I could see it becoming its own series. I have had Alex, who helps me run the business on the channel a number of times. But, uh, I'm glad that that opportunity came up. I'm glad you're thinking along those lines because I am too. It's probably coming. It's mulling. It's mulling. It's sitting in here. Something's going to happen. It's probably coming, but I'll keep you guys posted and I appreciate the suggestion. Next up is Alec. Evan, as a young entrepreneur, my friends and even people I meet sometimes ask me questions on how to be successful or anything along the lines of entrepreneurship. Currently, I don't think that I'm that far enough in the process to answer each question. How do you feel in this situation? I'm sure you had this problem as you evolved in business as well. So I don't think I have the answer to every single question, but I believe that I can answer many questions, and it's just from my own experience, right? If somebody asks me about something that I don't know anything about, then I will say how I would tackle it, right? If somebody asked me, how do I start a painting business. I've never started a painting business. I don't have a lot of contacts around the painting industry, but I can give advice based on how I would start a painting business and how I would try to model success and who I would try to partner up with. And I believe that that's valuable, helpful, interesting for that entrepreneur. If you're talking to me about something that I have tangible, practical, how-to knowledge on, like how do I start a YouTube channel, how do I create videos, or how do I build a software company, or how do I raise capital, things that I've had experience with that I can go a little bit deeper on those topics. If you don't know the answer, then say you don't know. Like, I try to answer the questions that I feel like I can provide some value and some context around, but if somebody asks me, you know, a legal question or an accounting question that I don't know the answer to, say, I'm not a lawyer or an accountant. I think it's probably better for you to go talk to the expert. That being said, I think that if people are asking you the questions, then they see you as being further ahead than they are, and there is probably more that you can offer than you currently are. So let me break that down a little bit. I think a lot of people discount their value, they discount their story, they feel like I'm not far enough ahead, they feel like, you know, I'm here but I want to be up here. And so because there's that big gap, you feel like you're not successful. But remember, even though there is this gap, you're here, and there's people who are here, there's people who haven't haven't even thought about their business idea yet, who have a lot of fear, who, you know, they look up to your story and they can learn something from you. And even though you're not way up here, you're still ahead of them. And this is a big gap that you can help fill with the answers. So I think it's, if you're getting questions, one, try to help, right? You want to give back, you want to see people follow their journey. If you know the answer, great, offer it to them. If you don't, then you can give them the honest feedback that, hey, like, don't pretend to answer a question that you don't have the knowledge on. But I think that you could probably add value to people's lives and help them more than you think you can. Don't discount your value. Don't discount the path that you've already taken and how much that has helped you and how that can be an inspiration to other people as well. I get this a lot when people are telling their story and they're trying to make their story relevant and helpful and informational for potential customers, and they feel like, I haven't done much yet, like, my story's not interesting. And it's not about you, it's about the connection to you. It's about me feeling like you care about this business. It's about me feeling like you've done a lot of research and you've done your homework and you're super passionate about it. That's why I'm going to go with you over some big company that, you know, has the brand name and reputation, or I'm just going to beat you down on price because I feel like you're connected to the business. I feel like you really deeply meaningfully care about what you're doing. Then I'm going to go and buy from you. Don't discount what you've done so far. It may not be where you want to be, but it's ahead of a lot of other people, and you can be an inspiration to them. Next up is Jonathan. How do you make the videos pop into a smaller video? I'm trying to do the same thing in my videos at the end for a call to action for newsletter opt-in, but I'm having trouble figuring this out. Evan, do you have suggestions, or does anyone else have an answer? Thanks. So Jonathan, I am not a video editor. Back to that last question of answer the questions that you know. When I first started my channel, I did everything myself, but the videos were not amazingly edited, and I didn't know how to put a video inside another video. Now I've hired a team of people to help me, and at the core of the editing side is Christina and her husband Sam. So Christina, I don't know if you have any advice to give to Jonathan on how to add a video inside another video. You can link it up.

Hey Jonathan, picture-in-picture is pretty simple to do. Take a look. In every editing software, you have at least few tracks for video. So main video or some graphic or picture you should put on the bottom. And then on the top, just add video you want to be smaller. After that, just use scale tool. You can drop shadow and add some motion to make it look better.

Next up, Amir. Really excited for the audiobook. Thank you. There seems to be a ton of momentum and energy around the audiobook, which is interesting and surprising. At the start, I wasn't sure we were even going to get an audiobook, and now obviously that's been confirmed. I mentioned that in an old episode of the book series. I'm curious how many of you guys are looking forward to the audiobook version and not so much the written one, and why do you love audiobooks so much? I don't listen to any audiobooks. I don't listen to podcasts, mostly because I don't— I feel like it's because I don't have a commute, and when I'm at home or when I'm working, I would much rather have a YouTube video on where there's a visual than just listen in the background. So if I'm listening to The School of Greatness, which I love, from Lewis Howes, I'll watch the video, I won't listen to the podcast. But I'm curious how you consume audiobooks and why there's so much momentum and energy. Just your own personal experience, leave that in the comments. And last question from Paul: Always in hustle mode. December 6th is fate of the publication. Thanks. It seems like it's so far away when I first started this journey. It's crazy how long it takes. To get a book not just written, but all the stuff that has to happen to get it out and marketed and published. And as an entrepreneur, that's tough because we want things now, right? I don't have patience, man. I want something to happen immediately. When I get working on something, I will will it into existence and it will happen. I build up massive momentum, and I think that's what entrepreneurs do. I'm sure that's what a lot of you guys do. It's not like, yeah, I want to, uh, Update my whatever page on my website, I'll do it next month or something. As soon as you have a pain, you want to go and solve it. So it's frustrating that it takes so long to get the book out, but it's nice to have a final date. It's nice to have something that we're working towards. And so even though we are in June now, thinking December is so far away, but it's not compared to where we started. And so I'm really excited and I thank you guys you guys for the support and following me on this journey. And I'm looking forward to future updates and keeping you posted. It's been a fun experience making this video series too, to help it kind of expose what goes into making a deal with a large publisher. And, um, yeah, I'll keep you posted and super excited. So thank you guys so much for watching. If you have a question for me about not being boring, which was the topic of the day, if you have a question about my book or the book writing process, Leave it in the comments below and I will answer you in next week's video. Thank you guys so much for watching. Your support means a lot to me. I can't tell you how much. Continue to believe and I'll see you soon.