In this motivational video, Evan Carmichael presents a three‑step framework for taking personal responsibility for one’s happiness and success, interwoven with clips from Will Smith, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Jay Shetty. Will Smith shares a personal anecdote about realizing that happiness cannot be given by another and must be owned individually. Gary Vaynerchuk emphasizes that true success is feeling happy each morning, not merely achieving financial milestones. Jay Shetty calls for redefining success in terms of inner fulfillment rather than external possessions. Evan then outlines his actionable process: (1) the “mirror test” – repeatedly asking oneself why unhappiness or lack of success exists until the answer points to personal behavior or mindset; (2) creating a 254‑day habit loop – immersing oneself daily in the knowledge, people, or practices that address the identified gap; and (3) taking immediate action – committing to a concrete step within 24 hours to build momentum. Throughout, Evan urges viewers to adopt this routine, join his daily 254‑series, and comment on the immediate change they will make, positioning the channel as a daily education‑focused community for personal growth.
Chapters
It's kind of unrealistic and can be destructive to place the responsibility for your happiness on anybody other than yourself.
It's Nina's fault that I'm not happy. Where are you, Nina? Blame yourself.
Success completely misunderstood.
Rise and shine, it's espresso time. What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. I believe in you, and this channel is designed to be part of your daily success routine. So let's start your day off right together. Grab your coffee and sip on today's message: Take responsibility for your happiness. Over to you, Will Smith. Also, if you want to know what Will Smith has to say about confidence and excellence, check out my 254 series where every day for the next 254 days, I will send you a morning video for free to help you build your confidence. The links to join are in the description below.
I was excited about taking a shot. The fact that it was so strange, you know, as an artist, it was fun to get out on that limb and hoping it doesn't break under your feet. It takes such a desperate, obsessive focus to excel on the level that I want to make movies. So me and Jada was reflecting about love, and I asked her, I said, what did she think was, you know, one of the biggest revelations that she had had about love? She said that you cannot make a person happy. And I thought that was a real deep idea. You can make a person smile, you can make a person feel good, you can make a person laugh, But whether or not a person is happy is deeply and totally and utterly out of your control. I remember the day I retired. I literally said to Jada, that's it. I retire. I retire from trying to make you happy. I need you to go make yourself happy and just prove to me that it's even possible. And after we cracked the hell up, um, we started talking about— we came into this false romantic concept that somehow when we got married that we would become one. And what we realized is that we were two completely separate people on two completely separate individual journeys. And that we were choosing to walk our separate journeys together. But her happiness was her responsibility and my happiness was my responsibility. And we decided that we were going to find our individual, uh, internal, private, separate joy. And then we were going to present ourselves to the relationship and to each other already happy, not coming to each other, uh, begging with our empty cups out, uh, demanding that she fill my cup and demanding that she meet my needs. Unfair, and it's kind of unrealistic and can be destructive to place the responsibility for your happiness on anybody other than yourself.
Your entire life changes when you decide to take responsibility for where you're at. For your happiness, for your success, for where you're at in life. When you decide that I am responsible, everything changes. We don't want to because it's easier to blame somebody else. It's easier to blame somebody else. We don't want to blame the person in the mirror. We don't blame ourselves. It's somebody else's fault, right? It's Nina's fault that I'm not happy. Where are you, Nina? Blame yourself. It's Nina's fault that I'm not happy, right? It's so good to put the blame on somebody else because that means I don't have to do anything. But when you take the personal responsibility, when I say it's my fault that I'm not happy, it's my fault that I'm not more successful, it's not my team's fault that my company's not blowing up as big as I wanted to, it's my fault. I need to get better. It's not my trainer's fault that I'm not getting results in the gym. It's my fault, right? I got to eat better. I got to work out more. It's my fault. It's your fault. You are where you are because of you. And when you accept that, then you choose to now live a life of being able to make progress. Most people don't want to do that. Most people would rather consume entertainment instead of education. Most people would rather consume entertainment and sit down and watch Netflix and forget about their crappy life than try to fix it. Most channels on YouTube that blow up are not education-related, they're entertainment because people want to shut off their life, shut off their brain, and just be entertained instead of trying to actually fix the problem. If you're a subscriber here, you're probably on the education side. But are you the kind of person who's going to take responsibility and fix your life? Or just shut up the world, blame, complain, wait till you can't have that next vacation, you can't wait till that next weekend or the evenings are coming up because your life sucks? Your life sucks. Is it your fault or somebody else's? When you take ownership, that's when life starts to change. And so how do you do it? Great. Take ownership. Take responsibility. How do you do it? How do you get happier? How do you get more success? What are the steps? What do I have to do? I'll give you a 3-step process. Follow this, it'll change your life. Step number 1, take the mirror test. You go up to a mirror. Go up to a mirror, go in your bathroom, kitchen, living room. Kitchen's kind of weird. Do we have a mirror in our kitchen? No. Living room, bathroom, closet. Find a mirror and ask yourself, why are you not happy? Why are you not more happy? Why are you not more successful? Why are you not whatever? Whatever the biggest negative in your life, why? If the answer comes back that it's somebody else, you need to fix it. You have to keep asking the question. Okay, it's not my wife's fault, it's not my friend's fault, it's not my parents' fault, it's not the president's fault, it's not the government's fault, it's not my school teacher's fault. Why? And it has to be something here. It's got to be something with you. You're not happy because of something you are thinking, because of the story in your head, because of your mindset, your actions, you. Keep asking the question why you are not happy until it comes back to you, and then you're going to uncover some scary truth. You're going to uncover some story about yourself. And listen, we all have something, guys. We all have something. There's something we don't like about ourselves. It's okay, own it. This is the thing that we're going to work on. This is your path. This is your salvation. This is how you fix things. So step number 1 is take the mirror test to figure out what the heck the thing is that is making you so unhappy. or is blocking you from having success in your business? What is it? You got to get to an answer and it's got to be all about you somehow. Step number 2 is then create your own 254. So it takes up to 254 days of consecutive action to build a habit. It's why I started the 254 Confidence, Black Excellence, Writer Wisdom series, and I want to do more, but I can only do so much. You need to create your own 254. And what I mean by that is you need to now surround yourself with the kind of people, resources, knowledge, information, motivation of that thing that you need to work on. So example, if you need to work on having more belief in your life, then my channel is a great place to be. You should watch a video every single day. You will get more belief in yourself. It will just happen. You take the mirror test and the answer is, I don't believe in myself enough. That's why I'm not happy. That's why I'm not more successful. Great. I need to surround myself with belief every single day because chances are you don't have people who believe in you enough. It's just not in your environment. So you need to inject that in. You need to inject it into your daily routine. Watch a video every single day. Great. If it's something else, my channel may not be the right fit for you, but you can get it somewhere else. Whatever you need, whatever that answer is, self-care, self-love, whatever that answer is, then you need to find a way to create your own 254 around that thing where every day for the next 254 days Maybe for life. You inject it into yourself. You watch a video, you read a book, you listen to a podcast, you have an interview, you do a phone call, whatever it is. Every single day. You repeat that habit over and over and over and over again. And it will seep into you. And you will slowly lose that thing. And that thing that has been holding you back for your entire life will now allow you to move forward and actually be happy. And actually go after your success. So you take the mirror test, and then 2, you create your own 254 around the thing that you need to work on. And then step number 3 is take immediate action. Just thinking about it, just witnessing it is not enough. Action, action. Think about it for the next 24 hours. What could you do? What could you do today? You're watching this video. After this, you want to develop this skill set, this mindset, this new belief system. That's what you need to work on. You know this thing is holding you back and is limiting you. What are you going to do right now? Just start building some action and momentum towards it. Get out of your head, stop thinking, stop planning, and just do something. I call it the 2% difference. Don't worry about how you're going to get to 100% perfect. You'll never get there anyway. Don't worry about that. Don't plan, plan, plan all the way because you keep planning, tomorrow you're going to wake up and you're a different person. You're back to your old self. You need immediate momentum. You need action. So take any idea that you have. You want to be more belief person? Great. What can you do right now to believe in yourself more? What can you do? What makes your heart go like this? What are you scared of doing? What idea first comes in the mind? That idea was given to you for a reason. Do it ASAP, right now. Commit to somebody. Take that action. Not just researching, not just planning, immediate action. Build momentum. Teach yourself that you're the kind of person who now follows through, who when you get an idea, you take some action on it. Follow that 3-step process. You're unhappy in life? You want more success in life? Take the mirror test. Figure out deep inside you why you're the problem, what you're doing that's limiting yourself. 2, create your own 254 so that you are around it daily, so that when you're around successful people who have the skill, the mindset, the belief system that you need, it seeps into you because you're around it every single day. And then 3, action, momentum. Immediately, today, do something. Start showing yourself that you are capable of being that person. Accept responsibility. For your life and you will change your life dramatically for the better. Now I've got a really special bonus clip that I think you're going to enjoy. But before that, question of the day, I want to know what immediate change can you make to your life to make you happier? Let me know in the comments below.
Happiness is so fucking important. I'm so obsessed with it right now. And I hate that success and entrepreneurship and all this stuff have been put on a pedestal. Do you understand that most people think they need to make $1 million a year to be like, winning. Meanwhile, in America, one of the richest countries in the world, $440,000 is the entry into the 1%. We have, we have success completely, completely misunderstood. We have success completely misunderstood. Let me tell you what success looks like: when you wake up in the morning and you're happy.
We need to define what success means for us. We need to redefine what success means. Let's not make happiness and success success about the size of our homes, but about the size of our heart. Let's not make it about gratification, but gratitude. We speak about being healthy and our well-being, but we act more like human doings than we do like human beings. And therefore, instead of to-do lists, we need to-be lists. Instead of thinking about what you want to do, think about who you want to be. Do you want to be more self-aware? Do you want to be more conscious? Do you want to be a better person? Do you want to be a difference in the world? We need to move away from what we want to do in situations to who we want to be in situations. The 3 most common things that we forget when we're rushing out of our homes is our keys, our wallet, or our mobile phone. And it's absolutely hilarious how you run back inside, you look in all your drawers, you look in your desk, you make a mess sometimes, And then how many times have you had it that you realize it was actually in your back pocket, sometimes even in your hand? And it's funny that our experience of happiness is so similar to this. We run around trying to find it in absolutely every place, but actually when we come back home, we find out that it's within.
And if you want more Will Smith, check out the top 50 rules video that I made on him. The link is right there next to me. I think you'll enjoy it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.
You gotta take a shot. You have to live at the edge of your capabilities. You gotta live where you're almost certain you're gonna fail.
