"The Correlation Between Sobriety and Success as an Entrepreneur"

Does drinking hold you back as a business owner? In this video, I'm going to dig deep and explain it. Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. I believe in entrepreneurs, and I recently got asked a question from one of my newsletter readers, Chad— love you guys— who wrote in to say, "Hey Evan, my name is Chad and I'm a Toronto photographer." Toronto, eh, city. "Trying to make it big. I recently found you on YouTube and I'm already a huge fan." Thanks, man. "Your videos are really inspiring and have helped me shape up and keep focused. One of the biggest things I've realized after watching videos is that drinking has really held me back from achieving the things I want in life. It's costly, makes me unhealthy, makes it impossible to wake up early, and so I've quit drinking altogether and I feel great because of it. This got me thinking, do all successful people avoid booze? If so, I was wondering if you could make a video showing the correlation between sobriety and success. Thanks again for posting your videos, you're a true inspiration. Your friend, Chad. So Chad, this is an interesting question and one that I haven't been asked before, what the correlation between drinking and success as an entrepreneur is. I can tell you that I don't have any data. I don't have stats. I haven't done the study. I don't know if anybody has, but I don't have that information. What I can tell you is my story and my experiences. So personally, I'm not a drinker. I grew up in a family where alcohol was always available. I'm half Italian, and so it's customary to have your own wine. My dad makes his own wine. It was always available whenever I wanted it, but I never took to it. You know, my friends were never huge drinkers. I'm not naturally a drinker. I never drink by myself. And, you know, my wife is more of a drinker. And if somebody brings it up, you know, if I'm at a party or my wife wants to have a drink, I'll always join in. I'm not afraid to do it. It's just not something that I never get the feeling, "Oh, I wish I had a beer right now," or, "I could really use," you know, whatever drink, right? It's not in me. It wasn't part of my growing up. That being said, I honestly don't think there's a high correlation between being sober and being a successful entrepreneur. I also don't think there's a high correlation between being drunk all the time and being a successful entrepreneur. I think if you're looking at entrepreneurship, it's really going to come down to doing something that you believe in and that you're passionate about. That's the, that's the biggest thing that leads to success as an entrepreneur. Everything else almost doesn't matter. It's almost like saying to be successful as an entrepreneur, you need to be outgoing. Well, it's not the case. You don't need to be outgoing. Or you need to be a vegan. Well, you don't need to be a vegan, right? Or you need to do XYZ. None of those things really matter. Matter. The only thing that really matters is having that passion and really believing in what you're doing. I think what's more important, more interesting to look at is the environment. And I'm a big believer that the environment that you're in holds you where you are. And if you want to break free and achieve the next level of success, you need to create a new environment for you. So does your current environment allow you to be great, or is it holding you back to where you are? And I think in your case, You know, anything that's debilitating, anything that's holding you back, anything that is a negative in your life, you want to try to remove it, right? Because as long as that's there, you're not going to be able to go here. So by you removing alcohol from your life, that allows you to focus more, that allows you to spend more time on your craft, grow your business. I think that's great. There may be other things in your environment too. If you look at the friends and the videos you watch and your family and the books you read and the media consumption and all that stuff. Things I keep talking about, removing those things and changing them and putting in new habits and new structures and new friends and new people into your life and new inspiration will help you become more and more great. So the more you surround yourself with greatness, the more likely you are going to be great. So I think if alcohol is a problem for you, if alcohol is something that's preventing you from doing some amazing things, then yes, removing it from your life will help you stay more focused and help you accomplish your goals. I think if alcohol is something that you do socially and is not a huge must-have in your life, then removing it probably wouldn't have a huge impact on you either way. So I'd encourage entrepreneurs to, one, again, follow their passion, make sure you love what you're doing, and then create an environment and a structure around you that supports you to accomplish your big goals and your big dreams. Believe. So that's my quick take on it. Thank you, Chatty, for the question. Never been asked that before. Before, so you made me think a little bit. For those of you watching, I'd love to know what you think. Does being sober help make you be a better entrepreneur? Leave your thoughts below, I'd love to hear from you. And if you like this video and you want to see more, don't forget to subscribe to the channel and the newsletter. Thank you so much for watching, I'll see you soon.