Stop Letting Self-Doubt Control Your Life | Transform Your Mindset

80% of our inner dialogue is negative, and 95% of those thoughts are the same thoughts that we had yesterday. We are beating ourselves up. We are telling ourselves that we can't do things. It's not even our friends and family, people around us telling us that we suck.

It's us.

It's ourselves. We tell ourselves we're not good enough, we can't do this, we're not strong enough, smart enough, we're from the wrong country, we look the wrong way, you know, we're too young, we're too old, whatever it is. 80% of our thoughts are negative, and then 95% of those negative thoughts are the exact same negative thoughts that we had yesterday, it's no wonder why we stay small. It's no wonder why we stay stuck, because we've created this reinforcing loop of negativity. This is why I think the world's biggest problem is lack of belief. I'm on a mission every day, wake up, trying to make content, trying to spread the message to help people believe in themselves more. I think lack of belief is the single biggest problem in the world.

Wanna soar? Get a mentor. Hey, it's Nina Carmichael, and we made these videos probably because you're the most ambitious person in your circle, but you know you're capable of more, and you get that push by surrounding yourself with the best. So today, let's learn from one of the best, my husband Evan Carmichael, and 80% of your mind is negative, and here's how you change that. Enjoy.

And I also believe that everybody has Michael Jordan-level genius at something. Like, you are the greatest. You're the greatest in the world at something, and it's not what you went to school for, and it's not what your parents did for a living, probably. It's something completely different, and you have to have the courage to go off and chase it and find it and, and do it. Because the woman who solves cancer should have already solved it by now, but she never believed in herself enough to go to medical school. And now she's a manager in an accounting firm, which isn't like her life, right? I mean, this is, this is where most of us are stuck. Most people wake up and they drive to a job that, that we don't like. Most people are stuck and barely hanging on. And do not like their life and feel like they're not contributing, they're not, they're not making any kind of difference, they're not doing anything meaningful or impactful at all in the world. That's most people. Like, imagine waking up and that's your daily reality. That may be you, or that may have been who you were, and you're still discovering and trying to improve and get better. But if 80% of those thoughts that come through your head, conscious or unconscious, are negative— I think a lot of conscious thoughts are negative too, not just the subconscious, the conscious thoughts are negative. You telling yourself that you can't do something and you're not good enough. And then 95% are the same as yesterday, that we've just created this, this loop, this negative thinking loop.

So how do we break it?

How do we break free? How do we solve that problem? Well, that's, that's the billion-dollar question, and that's what I wake up every day trying to fix. And I can give you a couple things that I've worked on that I found helpful and hopefully helps move the needle. They don't have all the answers, but, but some of these might help. The first one is to change your environment. The environment makes such a huge difference for who you are and your daily habits and what you believe about yourself. And the environment is not just the people who are around you, although that definitely helps. You know, if you've got negative friends or family around you, you want to eliminate them completely or spend a lot less time with them because it's really, really, really hard to have a beautiful plant grow when it's just with toxic waste being poured on top of them. Doable, but really, really, really difficult. And so changing that can really help. And one of the best ways I found to do it is content.

It's content.

It's why I make so much content for these channels that hopefully you wake up today and there's a piece of content there waiting for you, whether it's me or showcasing somebody else across all my channels. We're making multiple pieces of content every single day to try to hit it in the right way. Maybe today's message with the right voice is the one that makes a difference for you. And if you can shift the amount of entertainment you're doing or just shutting off the world, some of the content that you consume just helps you shut off the world and escape versus educational content that helps you learn, improve, get better, and solve the problem, right? Entertainment is let's forget about the problem and just laugh at something else. Education is let's learn to actually fix the problem that is happening in our life. Right? I want to lean in on that a lot more. It doesn't mean entertainment doesn't exist in your life. It's not only education, but if you can shift the needle towards education, to be around the people who inspire you, even if you've never met them, it can really move the needle for your, your inner dialogue and your self-confidence. So the thing that saved me in my first business in doing this was modeling Bill Gates from Microsoft. When I quit on my business partner, I struggled, I didn't know, you know, I felt worthless, nothing was working. I was working every day and just no results. And in looking at Bill Gates' story, that changed my life. It saved my business. It allowed me to keep going because now I had a little bit of hope that, hmm, if Bill Gates could do it, maybe I could too. And the more you surround yourself with those people, the more you'll feel like you can do it too. So do an audit. How many people in your life, the actual humans that you know and also just the people that you subscribe to, that you follow, how many of them make you feel better about yourself? Too many people, it's not enough, you know? Look at who you follow on YouTube, look at who you subscribe to, look at who you're connecting with on Instagram. You know, if you're loading your phone, you're going through Instagram, or you're watching YouTube videos, how many times have you gone through it and all of a sudden an hour has gone by and you were mindlessly watching videos? Or even worse, made you feel worse about yourself. You ever felt that? You watch a video and then you feel worse about yourself afterwards, or you're following somebody and it makes you feel worse about yourself. You have a choice to unfollow those people. This is not Instagram's fault or YouTube's fault. You can take accountability here. You have a choice to unfollow those people and then a choice to follow the people who make you feel better about yourself. That's my aim with all these videos. I want to leave you with strategies, but also more belief in yourself at the end of every video. And if I do that, awesome. You want more belief in your life? Come back. You know, another shot of espresso tomorrow morning. We're here. And if I don't do that, cool, thank you for giving it a shot and don't quit on that. Go find somebody else who gives you the motivation, inspiration that you need. And so you can make a conscious choice because it's so easy to stay stuck. It's so easy to stay small. It's so easy to be the one that pours into other people and not have anybody pour into us. And you need to make a conscious choice to raise your environment, to change your environment. And it doesn't mean you have to go move to a different country or move to a fancier house or anything else. You start by just changing who you associate with, even at a mass scale, right? I've learned a lot from Steve Jobs. I've been inspired by Oprah Winfrey. My favorite entrepreneur of all time is A.P. Giannini, who started Bank of America. These are people who I've never met, you know, and in the case of Jobs and Giannini, I never, you know, will meet because they've passed. But I've been inspired by them and they've made me better and they've taught me and I've learned from them and they've inspired me and I get courage from them because I've consumed their content. And you can do that too. It's just being intentional about it so that when you raise your environment, you raise your life. The second thing is try not to do it alone. It's really hard to go after a goal to change your mindset to accomplish big things when you're doing it all by yourself. You know, it— this is why a lot of people quit, because you might have one, one amazing day, or you watch the right video, you have the right experience, and it's like, that I want. This is, this is the life I want. You ever had that, right? Like, this is the life that I want. This is who I want to be. This is, this is where I could go. You have a glimpse of a potential future that you could be. It's like, I want that. And you actually feel in your heart that you can be that, you can accomplish that, right? Has that happened to you? And then what happens? The next day you wake up and it's kind of gone, and then the next day it's completely gone, and then you're back to your old life and the limiting beliefs and the habits, and, and, you know, you gain back the 20 pounds and like, how did I end up back here? I thought I fixed this, right? Has that ever happened to you? A lot of it is because you're doing it alone, and this took me a long time to figure out. As an introverted person, as a shy person, as somebody who doesn't like asking for help, as someone who's afraid of disappointing people, being a part of a community is not— it just sounds super scary to me. We just did our 7-day challenge for Built to Serve, and a bunch of people joined Movement Makers. I had almost 100 people join Movement Makers. At the end of it. And it's people who want to be thought leaders and want to be speakers and authors and coaches and course creators and membership creators and all of this stuff. There's a big impact to spread your message. And I was giving people a lot of, uh, not just encouragement but respect. Like the people who ended up joining, I just had incredible respect for because I wouldn't have done it. If I go back to 19-year-old Evan when I started my first business, I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have had the courage to do it. I wouldn't have joined the group. We had people sharing their videos, like, tell us about your, your who, your why, your how, your methodology from the book, but make a video, you know, sharing your purpose and your biggest pain of all time and some of these, you know, kind of deep things that you have to record and share. And I mean, it was optional. Not everybody did it. But in doing that, for a lot of people, it was their first video that they've ever done. For a lot of people, it was the first time they've even shared their story to anybody. They were sharing things in the group that they hadn't told their spouse, you know, or their family or their best friend. And now they're making a video in their car sharing their story, and you see them become liberated. You see them, you see them start super scared and afraid and unsure and fixing their hair and, you know, apologizing for the lighting not being good and then being in the car and not knowing what they're doing, to then just seeing the transformation of somebody going through the cocoon, you know, being a caterpillar and turn into a butterfly and sharing their story for the first time. And I was in awe because I, I couldn't imagine me doing that at 19 when I started my first business. I was too afraid to join a community. I was too afraid of being judged. I was too afraid of being not good enough. And that kept me small. It kept my growth really slow. Fortunately, I kept going. You know, if you've seen my, my, my chart on my website where I show how much I've grown every year over year over year over year, where I've been— took 5 years to get to 7,000 subscribers or something like that, and I just kept going. And the one thing that I've got was just tenacity and drive, and I will just keep going in the face of adversity. But I made it just incredibly hard on myself being alone, not being open to sharing with my friends what I was struggling with, and never joining a community. So I think that can really help you. You know, I think, I think trying to go and change your mindset and accomplish big things that nobody around you has done yet, and there are some days that you feel incredibly inspired and motivated and powerful. Like, yeah, I can do this, but you're probably not living there most of the time.

What if you did?

Or what if you live kind of close to that most of the time? And point number 1 of raising your environment can definitely help, but point number 2 is just don't try to do it alone. Even if it's one person, you don't have to join Movement Makers, you don't have to join a group, but even just one person one person who you can talk to, you can connect with, who you can, you know, share your stories with. Not just complain to, not, not talk about how hard everything is and just have somebody to vent to, but somebody who supports you. If you had a group of people who supported you, where you felt welcome, where you felt like you weren't alone on this journey, where you felt like people understood you, and we're actually genuinely cheering you on to go, you know, become the person that you want to be, everything changes. So raise your environment, get a community, and watch your impact happen.

Rule number 2: Fix your thinking.

How you think about the problem is the problem. Most people are locked into losing thinking, finding all the reasons why you won't win. If you're the ant, think about how you can kill the elephant. If you're the elephant, think about how you can kill the ant. The problem is not the problem. How you think about the problem is the problem. So I used to think that introverts couldn't win. I used to think that to be a good speaker, to have a YouTube channel, to, to be an entrepreneur, that introverts can't win. And for the longest time, I hid behind the faces on my websites. So before even starting YouTube, I started on my website. It was called evancarmichael.com.

I didn't have a better name at the time.

And I profiled different successful entrepreneurs. Basically what I do on YouTube, but on my website because I wanted to share the stories. Modeling success saved my business and I wanted to make it easier for other people to be able to get success on their own as well. So learn who's done it, apply those strategies, make it work for you, and let's go. And so I always hid behind the faces. I remember my first banner, I had Howard Hughes, a big Howard Hughes, Oprah Winfrey, and a couple of people. And people kept asking me, well, where's Evan Carmichael? You know, the website's off your name. You're putting this together. What's your story? And I thought, well, who cares about my story? I mean, sure, I built and sold my first business, but it's nothing compared to Howard Hughes and Oprah Winfrey, these people who've done great things. And it kept coming up over and over and over again. Translate that to my YouTube channel. Evan Carmichael was still the number one requested top 10. And when I first started doing top 10s, we did Kanye West, shout out to Kanye there on the wall, and then a bunch of other people. People kept asking for mine. I'm like, well, why do you want mine?

You mean again?

What have I done compared to Kanye West? And I always hid behind the fact that I was an introvert. And so I don't want to share my story. Nobody's interested. I'm shy. I'm the wallflower. I don't go off and try to make myself the center of attention. I don't like, you know, hanging out with people. And so I had this story that introverts can't win. It wasn't until I reframed it and thought, you know what, introverts can win in communications because we're better listeners. I'm a great listener. As much as you might think I love talking and making these videos and seeing the speeches that I do, what I love doing more than that is listening. And I think that's how you win as an introvert because it's not about you just sharing, sharing, sharing, talk, talk, talk, look at me. It's you're trying to help. And I've met some amazing introverts who are on a huge mission and want to have a big impact and have to fight with themselves to get out of their comfort zone and have the spotlight on them instead of just being behind the scenes. But they're all great listeners. They become great communicators because they're great listeners. And so the problem wasn't that I'm an introvert. The problem is how I thought about the problem of being an introvert. So how can you fix your thinking about the problems in your life? I'm going to give you a 3-step process that I think will help. Step number 1 is ask yourself, what is the single biggest problem you're facing right now? Right now, in your life, in your business, what do you think is the number 1 problem that is holding you back? Either write it down or hold it in your mind. What is that big problem? For me, I thought it's because I am an introvert. What's yours? The second thing is, how will you change your thinking? So you have that problem. Guess what? Lots of people have that same problem and are off crushing it. The only reason why you're not is the story that you're telling yourself. And so what is the change in thinking that you want to make? So for me, is that being an introvert, I can win because I'll be a better listener, and that's how I'll leverage being an introvert to be a good communicator. How are you going to change your thinking? And then step number 3 is have play bigger triggers. Play bigger triggers is a term I came up with to describe things that are in your environment that make you play bigger. So putting this on makes me play bigger. Having the Doritos here— damn the Doritos.

Makes me play bigger.

The people behind me, right? Kanye over there and all these people makes me play bigger. The awards down there and the neck brace on the cabinet and the videos that I make, they're all play bigger triggers. What it means is you set something up once and then it reminds you consistently every day that you're supposed to be playing at a higher level. So that change that you want to make, you have the problem that you have, you have the change that you want to make. What are the play bigger triggers that you want to create? So that you can set them up once. Physical environment, screens on your desktop and, and cell phone, and habits and routines that you're going to do daily so that you don't have to remind yourself all the time like, oh yeah, I'm trying to do this. You have elements in your environment that are hitting you with it every single day, showing you that it's possible and making you play bigger. Also, to make sure you're actually taking action after watching this video, I've designed a special free worksheet just for this video. The worksheet will highlight all the lessons learned in this video, as well as pull out our 3 favorite learnings and quotes that will inspire you to actually do something. The worksheet will also give you space to write down what your key takeaways are and your specific plan of action to make sure you're getting results. If you want the worksheet designed specifically for this video, absolutely for free, there's a link in the description below.

Go click on it and start building the momentum in your life and your business.

I'll see you there.

Rule number 3: Get excuses out of your way.

Most people focus on the problem instead of the solution, and that is why they fail. I like to say that there are a million reasons why your ideas will never work out and only 8 why they will. Either way, you're right. So it's better to focus on the 8. Your heroes. The people that you look up to, the people that you love and want to be like, right? Your heroes all succeeded with less than what you currently have right now. If they can all do it, so can you. The only thing in your way are your excuses. So one of the things that I love most about both my wife and my team is that they're always willing to find a way. One of the things that Nina loves most about herself— I had her fill out this form a form maybe 2 years ago of like, what do you love most about yourself? And at the top was she's a fast learner. She loves learning new things. She loves taking on new challenges. And I love that. I love that about her, and I love that in people. I think you should be a fast learner. I think you should love learning. I think you should always be taking on new opportunities. Right now, my YouTube channel, I've split up my channel into 8 or 9 different channels, and then just recently I split them up again where we launched a top 10 channel. Just for the top 10 videos. So the top 10 videos aren't on my main channel anymore. And then we're doing an everything channel where if you just want all the content, it's all on one spot. So it's chaos. It's crazy. My whole team has to be restructured and everybody's taking on new projects and responsibilities. And we were supposed to have a 1-month transition phase to do it. That was the recommendation. That was, that was the aggressive recommendation, is to have a 1-month transition period. And for me, 1 month just says death. It's just death. I mean, I said, okay, great, one month. But then as I'm into it on the Tuesday of like the first week, like, guys, we need to launch like this weekend. We need to launch this weekend. Let's go, right? And there's so many reasons why it's not going to work and there's so many problems. And yes, we're going to make so many mistakes and people aren't trained properly and there's more work and we need to, you know, we figure out who wants to do what and how— so many issues. Awesome, let's go. I think about Ray, for example, on my team who has been doing all these thumbnails. So I have a set design for my top 10 rules thumbnails that people love, and it's been going like that for years. And I've always been on my team to say, I don't care that everybody thinks our thumbnails are great, they can be better. How do we make them better? And so finally, finally, after years of testing, we finally found the format that would win. That would beat our original thumbnails. And there's minor differences. We zoom in on the face, we got rid of the second logo, make the text bigger, minor differences. And then Ray's been going back and updating split tests doing against our old videos. We have 1,300, 1,400 different split tests on our videos. It's crazy. I think I split test more than anybody on YouTube. So he's going back and updating all the old thumbnails and trying to prove a winner each time. And he's maybe, I don't know, halfway through.

These are—

think about how many videos we have on the channel. We've got 6,000 videos. A lot of them are top 10s. Now with this change, I found a new format. We found a new format, a new thumbnail, different color scheme, different text, different pictures, different logo, new thumbnail format, and we found that it's working. And so I said, "Ray, I know you just changed all the thumbnails. We gotta do it again." He's like, this is so exciting, let's go! Like, I love this guy so much, right? Where most people, what are they— they're gonna complain. They're gonna say, I just did all this work on this other thing, right? You don't want to be around people like that, and you definitely don't want to be that. For too many people, the problem is, for so many people, that's you. That's not even people around you, that's you. You're thinking about all the sunk costs that you put into something. You're thinking about, I invested so much into this thing, and, and now you want me to shift Everything? Yep. You need to be on the yep side now. You need to adopt that kind of mindset, that kind of personality, that just because it worked before doesn't mean it's going to keep working. You find something new, it's better, let's go! This is what the whole game is about. So how do you do it? How do you be more resourceful? I'm going to give you a 3-step process that I think will help. Step number 1 is focus on the 8. So I said at the beginning, there are a million reasons why it's not going to work out, and if you talk to your friends and family and social media, they'll find a million more reasons why it's not going to it's not going to work out.

Great.

There's a million reasons why it's not going to work out. Now there's 2 million and there's 8 while it will. Only focus on the 8. Focus on the 8. Be rigid. Be disciplined. Stop thinking about— those negative things are still there. Awesome. Those reasons, sure, are awesome. Great. I'm only focused on the 8. I don't care about all the reasons why it's not going to work out. That's where most of the world lives. That's the land of negativity. I'm here. And it's a small lane. It's easier. There's only 8 reasons why I'm going to win. I'm just going to pick those 8 and focus on that. That's it. Choose. It's a choice. You're right either way, right? You are right if you say I'm not going to win because I don't have the education and the resources and the money and the parents. And you're right. You've already decided you're right. Yes, absolutely. You're right. But people with less resources, less connections, less ideas, less talent, less than you. They've done it. You're just full of excuses. If you want to believe the excuses, then you have already lost. If you want to buy into the 8 reasons why you're going to win and surround yourself with your heroes who have done it, and that's a daily source of inspiration for you to keep going off and doing it, then you will win. Focus on the 8, not the million. Number 2 is model success. This is what really helped me. I mean, now I have, I have all these channels and we're modeling success all day long, and I've built an entire business around this, but but this is the thing that saved my business from the first start, right? Like Bill Gates, how he built Microsoft saved my company, right? Learning from his story made me finally start to have some success in my business. And then from there, every morning I would read a little bit about a successful entrepreneur. Now I'd much rather watch a video than read, but hack your own learning style. Maybe you prefer to listen to podcasts. I listen to zero podcasts because I'm not an auditory learner. Learner. Learning how to model success, finding people who've done the thing that you want to do, does two things. One, it gives you hope. Seeing what they came from, like go look at Oprah's story, see what she came from. And then for you to say that you have less resources, less available to you than Oprah did at the time that she was growing up is ludicrous, is crazy. You're way more equipped just because you have the internet than Oprah ever did when she was getting started. But maybe you hate Oprah. Awesome, great. Who do you want to learn from? Jeff Bezos? Awesome, go look at his story. Look at the people who you look up to, your heroes. Study them. Not how they make an extra million dollars now, but Zero to One. How did they get started? What did they have to go through? Learn from them, study them, and it gives you inspiration to know that it's possible, and it gives you strategies because chances are what worked for them could also work for you. It won't work for you 100%. It's like trying on this cowboy hat that's just a little bit too oversized, and you gotta, you gotta tweak it and take in some of the sides, maybe add a little bit more stitching somewhere so that it fits. But modeling success takes you 80% of the way. You don't have to come up with all the genius ideas yourself. The model's been proven. Go out, copy it, apply it to yourself, and start winning. And step number 3 is tell yourself this is just a warm-up. I love this strategy. I think this is one of the greatest things you can ever do for your self-confidence, self-love, self-respect is whenever it's difficult, whenever it's hard, whenever you, you're at your breaking point, whenever you're like, I don't know if I can keep going, you tell yourself, this is just the warm-up. This is just a warm-up. I'm capable of way more than this. And what it does is it actually tricks your brain a little bit to believe in it. And now you've just broken through a comfort zone. Now you've broken through to another level of excellence. You've just raised your standards a little bit higher. It's extremely powerful. So let's think about it. If that thing that is all-consuming, all-encompassing, is all you're capable of doing right now, that's a problem. That means you're never going to grow beyond this thing, right? You're never going to scale and become something bigger because this is the max that you're capable of doing. And I remember talking to Alex, who helps me run Toronto Dance Salsa, and what he was stressing out about. And we have big ambitions for this business. We have, we have big ambitions for where Toronto Dance Salsa needs to be, and Alex needs to be the guy to lead it. If this little thing that, that feels all-encompassing, right? But if this little thing owns you, you're never going to get here. So tell yourself, this is just a warm-up. I'm capable of way more than this. Way more than this. This is the beginning. This is baby steps. I'm way stronger than this. Tell yourself that. Say it out loud. Tell yourself it's just a warm-up.

Like that.

Put your hand down. It's just a warm-up. Say that 3 times and see how you feel. And then get to work because you know what? It is just a warm-up and you're capable of way more. Let's go.

Rule number 4: Take control of your decisions.

Every time you say I can't, you're teaching yourself that you suck because you've quit. Because you've given up. It's not your fault that you can't do it. It's your work or your school or your family or all the other commitments that you have, but not your fault. Nope, nope, nope. Change your "I can'ts" to either "I'm going to" or "I choose not to." That's how you take back control of your decisions and your life. So I recently listened to this Chinese song and I got obsessed with with it. I got obsessed with it. I was playing it all day long and I just, I loved it. I don't know what they're saying. I don't know what the words mean. I just loved it. I loved it. I go to bed and lyrics start coming to me. Rap lyrics in full sentences, right? The first one comes in. Okay, wake up. I'm in bed. I'm lying in bed trying to sleep. You know, it's 11 o'clock, trying to sleep, trying to sleep. Idea. Rap lyric come. Okay, I write it down. Again, rap lyrics come, write it down, more, more, more, write it down until 3 in the morning. I haven't slept yet. Ideas just keep coming for this song that's like, I need to make a rap. And then what comes into my head is that, what, you can make a rap? It's easy to get locked then into I can't mode. I can't do this, I can't start that, I can't do a rap, I didn't go to school for that. I'm not that you go to school for rap, you know, I didn't rap growing up, I don't have musical talent, right? That's not what people know me for. That's not what people expect from me. I can't rap. That's where most people quit. But instead, I decided I was going to get up at 3-something in the morning, go to my computer, finish writing out my lyrics, and then I spent the day rapping. And that night, finished the video, sent it off to, uh, Christina, my editor, to put it together. And the next David released my rap video. Now maybe you love it, maybe you hate it. It's gotten some decent responses. It was tons of fun to put together, and most importantly, I taught myself in all of these things— these are all great micro moments to teach yourself that you're amazing. Whenever you say I can't and you do it, that's how you build self-confidence. That's, that's the birthplace of self-confidence, self-love, self-respect, is taking something that you think that you I can't do and just trying, not even doing it full out, because I don't expect my rap to go off and win any kind of awards, right? But I tried it.

I did it. I released it.

Expect the suck at the beginning. That's okay. It's normal. It's part of the process. But in those moments of I can't and then turning them into something that actually exists is where your genius will come. I look at my top 10 series. And it's partly why I have Kanye on my wall, because the first video that I made was on Kanye. First top 10 was on Kanye. It was 5 years into my YouTube career. I did a response to my friend Mark Drager from Phantom Media, and I said initially, I can't do this. Like, I can't make a video now on this. I have all these other commitments. I have a full day ahead of other stuff that I'm supposed to do. And said, no, I did action. I'm just gonna do it. Forget it. I'm gonna make and I didn't expect it to do well. Luckily, it actually did. And then that became this whole thing of making— I don't know how many top tens, hundreds, maybe a thousand. I don't know how many top 10s— how many top 10s have I done? I have no idea. But it started off as just idea. Trust your ideas. Know that they're amazing. Stop saying I can't to yourself. This is where you need to take control of your head and your heart. You have to make decisions with your heart and then use your head to figure out how to do it. Anytime you're doing something new, super important, anytime you're doing something new, I'm making it, I'm gonna make a rap, I'm gonna make a top 10 video, I'm gonna do anything outside my normal thing, right? Same for you. Anytime you're doing something new, it doesn't make sense because it's new. What is brand new doesn't make sense. You're creating something new, and so your head, your logical brain that's designed to keep you safe, doesn't understand it. Its job is to protect you and says, "Don't do that. You can't do that because one, it's never been done, and because we have all these reasons why it's not possible for you, not just anybody else, for you. You can't do it because you haven't done it before." That's what your head says. Your heart can create something new. Your heart creates art. Your heart makes up a world that hasn't existed before. And so at the very beginning of many projects, your head and your heart are against each other. Your heart's saying, "I want to make this." Your head's saying, "You can't make this." And so you end up staying stuck in limbo with all these ideas never taking momentum because your head and your heart are fighting. You've got your foot on the gas and the brake at the same time, never moving, knowing that you're capable of more. And so you make the big decisions in your life with your heart, and then you rally your head to say, "Okay, we're doing this. I'm making the rap video. I'm making the top 10." You're gonna do your crazy idea, and then your head says, "Ooh, okay, they're serious. Let's figure out how not to die doing this, right? Let's figure out how to actually make it work." So you make the big decisions in life with the heart, and then you use your head to figure out how to go out and accomplish it. So how do you stop saying I can't and turn your ideas into action? I'm gonna give you a 3-step process that I think will help. Step number 1 is say, "I can't," and then have a blank. And then fill in that blank. Like, what can't you do right now? I can't— and not some stupid thing like, I can't fly, I can't jump off a building. Okay, great. Like, what are your actual goals? What do you want to accomplish in your life, accomplish with your business? What do you want to have happen? Within that context, what are you telling yourself that I can't do? So when you say I can't and you leave a space there, what's the person that comes to your mind? If you need help, if you're not getting it, go Go look in the mirror. Seriously, pause this video, go to the mirror, look at yourself in the eyes and say, "I can't," and then see what comes up. Whether you actually say it out loud or it's just in your head, that little voice inside your head that is oh so powerful, what is it saying that you cannot do? Write it down. Step number 2 is you're going to do it. Do it. Whatever the thing is, do it. You can't rap? Rap. You can't make a top 10? Make a top 10. You can't whatever? Do it. Like the smallest possible way. If it's make a rap, I don't expect a fully polished amazing video, right? The 2% difference. Take that idea that you have and instead of planning to get to 100%, the 2% difference is figure out what is the first 2% of that idea and just do it. You say you can't do it?

Great, do it.

The difference between doing something And not doing something is doing something. So just go do it. Show yourself. This could be the greatest day of your life. If you take something, this is what you want to train yourself. Like if you say, "I can't do that." If you're in the habit of saying, "I can't, I can't, I can't," you need to flip that. That's not, again, some monumental thing, some giant event that happens. It's in the daily. It's a daily battle with yourself. Confidence comes from the daily battle with yourself. A flippant "I can't" to showing yourself that you can try, that you will, you're gonna do it. So do it. Whatever that "I can't" is, go do it. Find some small way and just do it. And then step number 3 is expect to suck. Expect to suck. Don't expect to be great. If you say, "I can't make videos," and then you go do one, expect it to suck. That's okay. That doesn't mean, "See, I can't do it. Look, it sucked." No, no, no, no, no. You're tying your self-worth to the looking for the results is a losing game. It's the process. You started. All that's missing now is a skill set. How do you get a skill set? Practice. Practice. If I suck at making rap, but every day I worked at my rap skills, I would be better. I may not win a Grammy, but I could spit out some fire rap.

I just believe it.

And I want you to believe that too, that whatever this thing— you might think, that's ridiculous that Evan Carmichael thinks he could be a rapper. That's what I want for you. Because everybody's saying that you are ridiculous for thinking that you can become an ex. And worse than that, you are saying that it's ridiculous for you to become an ex. You can be an ex. Practice, dedication, hard work. It's just a skill set. The thing that's missing is momentum. Momentum comes from the belief that it's possible. So you can't what? You can't X? Do it and expect to suck and prove to yourself that you're capable of starting, you're capable of building momentum, and that now the only thing missing is a skill set. And just like any other skill, you can pick it up through practice.

Rule number 5, the last one before our very special bonus clip: lose the scarcity mindset.

You are staying small because you're afraid. You're afraid of the worst-case scenario coming true. Losing, having no money, and being embarrassed. But you know you're capable of more. You know the way that you're going about doing things right now is nothing compared to what you're capable of. Unless you lose that scarcity mindset, you're always going to stay small, knowing that you are capable of more. Today I'm going to show you how. So one of the easiest ways to get out of your scarcity mindset is to go from idea to action. As soon as you get an idea, you do something about it. And sometimes that idea, often that idea is going to be too big, too scary, too crazy. You can't do it. Who are you to do this? You don't have the money, resources, time, connections, energy, right? All of that, all of the excuses that come into your head. I like to teach myself that as soon as I get an idea, I go do something. It may not work, but you have genius ideas, trust them, go do something. So this is great. This is a grant video because when I did my tour, In 2019, that's January to April, we hit 23 different cities over 90 days. And at the beginning, I was trying to find different sponsors that would help out with travel accommodations because it was me, Nina, my film guy Danny, and, and all of our gear. It was mostly Danny's gear, lighting, and we had speakers and camera gear and all of this stuff. And we ended up renting a Suburban and driving across America. But before doing that, I emailed Grant and I said, "Hey Grant, can I use your plane for 90 days for my tour?" And to his credit, the email that he wrote back was, "What's the upside?" Not, "No." Not, "Forget about it." Not, "Do you know how much it costs in just jet fuel?" and, you know, my pilot, and then I can't use my plane for 3 months. He said, what's the upside? I said, well, listen, I'm gonna let everybody in my audience know about you. And listen, we didn't get a deal, we didn't make it happen, but it's that, it's that idea of going from idea to action, right? And I still do a lot with Grant, right? Making this video, helping promote all the stuff that he's up to. We're looking at doing something together when I go to Miami next. And so that one exchange didn't ruin the relationship, and I'm happy to share it publicly. Maybe that's embarrassing for some people, right? But the idea of trusting your ideas— you get an idea, you go do something. It may be too big, it may be, it may be scary. You might have people say no, even if the most likely answer is no, right? The most likely answer might be no. The most likely answer To me, asking Grant that question is no, right? It's a no. But if I don't ask, it's a no 100%. Don't take the no away from somebody else. It might be 99.999% no, but there's still a little chance maybe there's a yes somewhere in there. Trust your ideas. Do something. I did, and so continue to do. And that's how you escape scarcity mindset. That's how you escape playing small and actually go down and chase the life you want to live. So let's get more specific. I'm going to give you a 3-step process that I think will help. Step number 1 is idea to action. So as soon as you get that idea, you don't judge it, you don't think about it, you don't say, "Why me?" You just go and you do something. Find the smallest possible way to just get started, right? So you just trust that the idea came to you. I believe that ideas flow through you. You got that idea for a reason. Why are you thinking about it? Don't worry about why you're thinking about it. Just go do something about it. Find the smallest possible way to just go do something about it. You are a genius, therefore you come up with genius ideas. Not all of them work out. Maybe the timing was wrong, maybe the execution was wrong, but it's still a great idea because you came up with it. Therefore, it is a great idea and you have to go do something about it. So trust your ideas and go from idea to action. Step number 2 is what I call the 2% difference. Here's what happens most of the time when people come up with an idea, you default into to planning mode, planning, strategy, thinking, researching, and then you wake up the next day and you're back to square one, you're back to normal. Like the energy that you got, the boldness, the courage that you had is gone because you woke up the next day. So you've wasted your best time, your best momentum, that peak in energy on planning, where what I want you to do is use that for action. So the 2% difference is, Instead of planning to get to 100%, which is what most of us will do, you come up with an idea, then plan how it's gonna happen, 100%, it's a finish line. You don't even know what the finish line is gonna be. Stop thinking you even know where it's gonna be. Instead of worrying about the 100%, focus on the first 2%. The first 2%. I have this idea, what can I do right now, right now, that will get me 2% of the way? Right? You wanna make a YouTube video, great, pull out your phone, start recording. That's 2%. You want to remind yourself to breathe. This is one thing we have on our, on our door. Every time I leave the door, every time I leave my condo, there's a sign that says breathe, right? Because I want to remind myself to breathe, take, take, practice my Wim Hof, take 30 breaths in, in and out as I walk outside my condo. Every time I put that there as a play bigger trigger for myself. But it's easy to think, well, if I'm going to put a sign on my door, then I need it to be a certain size, and I need to be the perfect picture, and I need it to be framed, and you make it bigger, and then you don't do anything. That's the biggest problem. You just don't have momentum. You're not doing enough. And so step number 1, the 2% difference, is I took out a sticky note and I just wrote breathe, and I stuck it on my door, and it's a reminder every day to breathe. It doesn't mean that you can't go back and plan. It doesn't mean that you can't replace it with something nicer, bigger, better. Yes, of course Of course, planning has its role, but not as a first step. Your first step is action. If your first step is planning, you're losing. If your first step is planning, that's why you're a perfectionist. That's why you don't have momentum happening against your ideas. Your first step: idea into the first 2%. And then step number 3 is tie your self-worth to the effort, not the result. This is where, again, so many entrepreneurs will fail, is because you tied your self-worth to the outcome of you accomplishing that thing. If you woke up and you only did things that you knew you were going to win at, you're going to play small for life. You're only doing things inside your comfort zone because you know you're going to win at them, right? Or a very high degree chance you're going to win. If that's all you ever take on, you play small for life. But if you're going outside your comfort zone, taking on new projects, growing as a human, learning, getting better, taking on new challenges that are bigger and beyond you, most days you're actually going to wake up and fail. Because you're doing something new. But if you woke up every day and were proud of the effort you were putting in, you're proud of yourself for the effort, you're putting in your max effort, you're trying to make the best video you can, you're trying to make the best product or service you can, you're proud of yourself for the effort every single day, you're going to create amazing things way beyond what you thought you're capable of and way more than the person who just sits inside their bubble doing things that they know they're going to win at. Tie your self-worth to the effort, not the results. Why do you get depressed after you accomplish a goal? You celebrate a goal for 5 minutes and then you're sad. Why is that? It's because you had the wrong goal. Your goal should not be to climb to the top of the mountain because the only spot left is to go down. Your goal should be to climb forever. You never stop climbing. You're on a mission. You're trying to save the world. Stop asking, when can I stop? You don't, you don't want to. You want to climb forever. You don't want to stop. Not now, not ever, because you are on a mission. So one of my biggest fears is the aging rock star. I look at some of these rock stars who made it big when they're in their 20s or 30s, and then as they get into their 40s, 50s, sometimes even 60s. They're still playing, which is great. They're still on tour, which is awesome. But what are the songs that they're singing? The songs that they're singing are still the ones that they came up with when they're in their 20s or 30s. And I can't imagine that. I can't imagine coming up with a video in my 20s that I— was I on YouTube in my 20s? I was 10 years ago, right? April 2009, I was on— 9? Wow, I'm getting old. April 2009, yes. April 2009, so I was 29 when my first video went up. Great. If I'm still showing that video all the time, if I'm still showing my 40th video, then that's the one that hit. I just feel like it's such a letdown. I mean, it's great that you're still on tour, it's great that you're still being asked to get on stage, but to sing the same songs over and over and over again— for me, I'm not trying to judge or say that they suck. For me, I'm terrified of that. I don't want that to be me. I don't want to think of the video that I made last year is my best video ever and all I'm gonna do for the rest of my life is just play that same video over and over and over and over again. I want to climb forever. I want to challenge myself to come up with new stories each time whenever possible making these kind of videos. I want to always push the envelope. I want to always discover new formats. I want to always look at splitting up my channel or bringing them all back together or launching a course. Always, always something new. Always climbing. I don't see it as this mountaintop. There is no mountaintop. You're on the staircase and you're climbing forever and you're never gonna get to the top. You don't want to get to the top. That's, that's sadness. That's despair. When you've accomplished everything there is to accomplish, you hate your life. That sucks. You celebrate. This is what happens for high achievers, right? You celebrate for 5 minutes like, man, we did it, and then It's a big letdown. When I crossed 2 million subscribers on my YouTube channel, a million subscribers, I didn't want to celebrate. It's like, because the day-to-day is a celebration. Because this is— I'd rather— this is celebration. This, making this video right here, this is my celebration moment. The process, the actual part of climbing, right? I'm trying to get better every single time. 6,000 videos later, still going. When do I stop? I don't. I want to make 6 million videos, right? My goal of hitting a billion entrepreneurs, I don't actually want to hit a billion entrepreneurs. I want to have a goal so big that I never do it. And so I don't want to be that aging rock star. I hope that when I'm 95 years old, I may, you know, not have my mind totally there, my body might be giving up on me, but I'm hoping, I'm hoping that I'm still trying to push the envelope, still trying to do more, do my best, and maybe If I get lazy, complacent, slow, if I start complaining, you catch me complaining when I'm 95 years old, show me this video back. Show me this video and say, look, look, you've become what you said you didn't want to become, right? Hold me accountable. I think as soon as you stop growing, you're dying. And I think that's why so many people are unhappy, because they've actually stopped growing a long time ago. And so don't be the aging rock star. I don't want it for I don't want it for you either. So how do you do it? How do you stay active? How do you stay growing? I'm going to give you 3 steps that I think will help. Step number 1 is have an environment of excellence. How do you get out of complacency? Have an environment of excellence, right? Think about the people that are around you, your physical environment. This, right? I walk into this, I walk into this. These all mean something to me, right? This, this bag of Doritos means something to me. No, they're not a sponsor. These people all mean something to me. They may not mean anything to you, but they mean something to me. What's on the background of your cell phone? What's on the background of your desktop? Right? Your environment, you set it up once. A physical environment, you set it up once and then it reminds you. It reminds you every day when you walk into it that I need to continue to stamp out complacency. That I need to, no matter how big a game I think I'm playing, I'm sitting here working, right? I got Steve Jobs eyeing me down right here. I got E.P. Giannini eyeing me down right here. Every time I walk away, I got my parents looking at me, right? Howard Schultz, Kanye West. It's impossible to stay complacent because these people are staring me down, right? Think about the people in your life, the people who you're hanging out with. A lot of the friends that you have often will let you off the hook because they have lower standards than you do. They'll say, it's okay, don't go off and do that thing. It's okay, you deserve a break, you deserve a rest. And maybe it is, maybe you do, maybe you're too tired, right? There are points like when I broke my neck, I couldn't do some things.

That's okay.

Right? There are times you need to be gentle on yourself, but more often than not, you actually need to be hard on yourself. You need to push yourself forward. When you're friends with lower standards and you let you off the hook and you want to say yes to it and you do, you've let yourself down. You need this. You need an environment of excellence, physical environment, the media you consume, the videos you watch, the people around you. That's how you stop staying complacent. Step number 2 is chart your start. So have a good morning routine. No matter how energetic I am right now, right? Like, this is amazing, I'm so excited making videos for you guys, I'm pumped up, this legit feeling of warmth, energy, gratitude to be here making this video for you. I love it. I'm gonna wake up tomorrow, I'm gonna be tired, right? I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and I gotta get my stuff done, I gotta, you know, I'm just, I'm tired. I got stuff in my eyes, I got lines in my face, I'm tired. What you do in the you up for the whole day. And so the most important part of your morning routine is the thing that makes you soar. You might have a morning routine. You might be saying, well, Evan, I already have a morning routine. Awesome, great. Chances are it's actually not working for you. Chances are the morning routine that you have right now is barely working for you. It's the crumbs of what should be working for you. The most important thing out of a morning routine is how do you feel at the end of it? How do you feel? Do you feel bold, unstoppable, energetic, confident, ready to take on the day? And if it's a yes, then you did a good job. If it's a no, then you need to go back and do it again, or you need to change something dramatically in your routine. Too many people just check the box. You're checking the box. I watched the video. Yes, I checked the box, but I was doing it while eating breakfast and washing dishes and getting my kids ready for school and whatever else you were doing. So you weren't actually paying attention. You didn't get the feeling. And so just checking the box isn't enough. You can maybe even shorten your morning routine, maybe cut it in half, but if you get the feeling attached to it, you feel bold, powerful, confident, unstoppable every morning, your life is gonna change. If you wake up every day and do the thing that makes you feel bold, powerful, unstoppable, confident every morning, your life will change, will not be the same one year from today, I promise you. Chart your start, change your morning routine. And number 3 is tell me I suck. This is one of the favorite things that I love doing. Whenever there's somebody that I want to learn from, whenever there's somebody that I think has more knowledge than me who could teach me something, I'll always go and say, tell me why I suck. Tell me why I suck. Even if I feel like I'm great at it, great, tell me why I suck. When I'm looking at my YouTube channel, anytime I go to a YouTube event, people who might have feedback for me, I say, tell me why my channel sucks. Just like destroy. Why do I suck? And, and no, it's not because I love punishment. It's because I want to give permission to people to be honest. You're talking about avoiding complacency. This is how you do it. You need honest feedback on how to get better. And so people are afraid of telling you the truth, no matter what kind of permission you're trying to set up for them. Most of the time, people are still afraid because they're not sure how you're going to react to it. Maybe your closest friends, they'll tell you. But people who you look up to, people who are experts, people who might be able to help you, if they don't know you super well, will be afraid to give you honest feedback because they don't want to hurt your feelings because they don't know who you are. But if you lead with, tell me why I suck at this, why I suck, right? What that does is gives them permission to be honest because chances are, here's what they're going to say. Well, you don't suck. I mean, you did a great job. "Here are 3 things that I think you could really work on." And chances are, if you didn't lead with something like that, to say, "Tell me why I suck," they would only tell you 1 thing out of the 3, and you're probably missing those 2. The 2 that they're afraid to tell you are the 2 that you actually need to hear. So whenever you find somebody who has something to teach you, who's going to push you outside your comfort zone, who's going to make you grow and stop being complacent, start that sentence with them with Tell Me Why I Suck. Because you made it this far in the video, I want to celebrate you. Most people start and don't finish. Most people never actually follow through.

Most people say they want something, but they don't ever do the work to actually get it. But you are different.

You are special. Believe Nation, you made it here all the way to the end, and I love you. So it's a special celebration.

If you put a hashtag #believe down in the comments below on this video, I will showcase you and celebrate you somewhere on the screen in a future video because you are awesome.

And if you want to watch Evan's top 10 rules for success, check out the video next to me. I think you can enjoy. Continue to believe. I will see you there.

It takes a giant effort effort to overcome your environment. You definitely can. It's definitely possible. Tons of people are doing it, but it takes that giant effort to say, I don't want to stay stuck.