Will Smith uses a Buddhist metaphor about emptying the ocean with a ladle to describe daily self-improvement: set an impossible vision, then take small consistent actions. Evan Carmichael expands this to his mission of helping people believe in themselves through YouTube videos, emails, and speaking.
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Rise and shine, it's Enespresso time! Good morning, Believe Nation, it's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe in that amazing gift you have inside you that needs to be shared with the world. So let's start the day off right together. Grab your cup of coffee and sip on today's message: improve yourself. Over to you, Will Smith.
The concept of improving lives runs through the center of everything I do, and then I realized that the way to improve lives is to continually improve yourself, right? So with that, every morning when I get out of the bed, you know, I haven't fixed everything in the world yet, so there's always something to do. And in this film I read an interesting quote. Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, he said that good people have to get out of the bed every day and try to empty the ocean with a ladle, right? And I thought that was, you know, I knew that was profound and I paused for a second and I said, all right, What the hell is a ladle?
Right?
Right? So then, you know, I just, I touched it on my iPad. It's ladle. Oh, it's like a big spoon. A big spoon. Okay. It's like a soup spoon.
Yeah.
It's like a soup spoon. I was like, why are you using a soup spoon? So trying to empty the ocean with a soup spoon, you know, as the mentality of how you wake up every day to try to do good in the world. So for me, I'm really driven by, continually trying to elevate my mind and elevate my spirit and care for my body and to be able to love as many people as effectively as possible with this mystery of life that I've been given.
I love this message. I saw this clip not too long ago, and ever since I've used it as an example in a number of my speeches, a number of my conversations. I just love the idea of taking on such a big project, such an impossible thing, that it will never happen, and that you still get up every day and try to make it happen. I recently switched what my big mission, my big vision was from trying to help a billion entrepreneurs to trying to solve the world's biggest problem, which is untapped human potential. That's what I want to do. I want to believe in people, help them believe in themselves so they can go off and do amazing things. I can't do a lot of things. I can't build the car of the future. I have no interest in engineering or that kind of technology, but I can help believe in that person, make them believe in themselves to go off and do it, because otherwise they're a cashier at McDonald's, right? I want to help her do that. And it's an impossible thing. This mission never ends. When have you reached full human potential? And I love that. You need to have, I think, some big inspiring, mission-critical vision that you want to go off and create that never gets done. Your life's work is never over. And so at the beginning, that may be intimidating, you know, going in and trying to empty the ocean with a ladle. It's intimidating. You want to be able to feel like you can achieve your goals, right? Like SMART goals, realistic goals. But I just love that concept of thinking big and then still acting small. Thinking big, I want to drain the ocean. How am I going to do that? With a ladle, one thing at a time, one scoop at a time. I'm just going to keep going and keep doing it. I think that represents entrepreneurship so well. You have a big dream, you have a big mission, your guiding mission, you know, should be based around your one word, the most important core value. Your guiding mission should be this big, all-encompassing, powerful thing that never happens. And then you still get up every day and you get your ladle and you go to work. The ladle for me is I make YouTube videos, I respond to emails, I post content on social media, I invest in companies, I speak at events. All of those things have an impact. I'm trying to increase the size of my ladle, right? As you get more efficient, better, more productive, more talented, more skilled, you can increase the size of your ladle, but you're never going to drain the ocean. It's just too big of a problem. I think that's great. I think if you can redefine your business, redefine your mission, your personal mission, what you're off trying to do and make it this impossible thing that will never happen, and that gets you excited. I think when you get to that point, that's when you start to lose things like the fear of failure. Like, of course I've set out to fail. Like, this will never happen. Of course I'm gonna fail. Do I sound crazy? Is this making sense? Like, of course I'm gonna fail. Will I hit 100 million subscribers on YouTube?
I don't know.
Will I hit 10 million? I think so. But will I accomplish that big thing? No, never. So if I fail, it's okay. I'm failing on my way to try to create something amazing for myself, for my community, for my family, for the world. And so the question today is, I'm curious, what is your ocean that you want to empty? What is the big mission that you are trying to attack every day that will never happen? Leave in the comments below. I want to be inspired. Let's see what you guys got. I also want to give a quick shout out to Charlie Funk. Charlie, thank you so much for picking up 2 of my t-shirts and posting those online. I love seeing pictures. Thank you so much for your support and keep rocking the gear. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you and I hope you continue to believe in yourself in whatever your one word is. I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso. How easy is it when you go practicing now to have— what's your mindset? Is it to improve, or is it just to keep winning? Or— because it's— yeah, personally I found it very difficult at some point.
Yeah, no, for me it's always to improve, and I've had some tough losses this year, um, But those losses, I think, were necessary, and they helped me to work on my game. It forced me to see that I need to get better at this, I need to get better at this and this, and now I've gotten better at it, so yeah.
To me, I feel like I have a long way to go as a songwriter, and I have a long way to go in terms of learning how sound works and how arrangements can be— can achieve something in the listener, and My goal really is trying to evoke emotional response from the listener, whether it be happiness or dread or anger or goosebumps, whatever that means to people. But by no means do I feel like I know how to do that really well. I feel like I've got a lot to learn, so I try to keep pushing myself into getting better at things.
Raise your standard.
Apple at the core Its core value is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.
Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me. I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.
Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to see my all-time favorite top 10 rules of success, I have a very special secret video for you. These are the individual clips that I have personally learned the most from and applied to my life and my business. Check the link in the description for details.
