The Ultimate Business Playbook | Master the Laws of Success and Wealth

There is a simple reason some people build wealth faster than others. They play a different game. They understand how to pick the right businesses, how to price with confidence, and how to talk in a way that creates trust and action. This video breaks down the core rules behind success, money, and growth in a way that anyone can apply. You will see why effort alone is not enough and what actually separates struggling entrepreneurs from consistent winners. If you are tired of working hard without seeing real results, this is your reset point. If you've been here before, drop a hashtag #believe in the comments below so I can feature you here in a future video. And if you're new, welcome to Believe Nation, the only channel that helps you believe in yourself daily, one video at a time. Imagine this, you're a consultant or coach who hasn't signed a new client in months. Revenue swings wildly, one month $10K, the next month $35K. Then nothing. In desperation, you consider launching cheap courses or ebooks, hoping a low price offer will bring quick cash. Stop right there. This spray and pray approach is actually a trap driven by fear, and you're not alone. Studies show that fear makes people choose safe diversification that don't create real value. In this video, I'm gonna share a focused strategy to break outta that feast or famine cycle and consistently land high ticket clients. You'll learn how to leverage 2 tactical content plays, a biz dev interview show and buyer breakthrough videos to generate $30K+ deals backed by data and real examples. No chasing vanity metrics, no endless low-ticket hustle, just actionable steps to grow your business. Let's do this. Don't let fear derail your strategy. Keep the main thing the main thing. When business dries up, fear kicks in and whispers, lower your prices, create a cheap offer, cast a wider net. It feels safe, but it can sabotage your success. Research confirms that fear-based decisions often lead to conservative moves that don't actually drive growth. In our case, it's like abandoning your premium service, the real solution you offer, to chase a low-ticket product you think more people will buy. Creating low-price offers is not easier for an expert like you. You'd need to sell hundreds or thousands of cheap units to match just a few high-ticket clients. High-ticket programs lets you focus. One industry expert explains that high-ticket offers bring significant income per customer, so you don't need a huge audience or tons of leads to hit high revenue goals. Fewer clients, less complexity, but higher value delivered to each. That's a winning formula for a small team or solo business. You can pour your energy into what you do best instead of juggling funnels and ads and support issues for a low-price product. As another As Evan Carmichael, the coach, puts it, high-ticket success isn't about luck. It comes from clarity and connection, whereas low-ticket ventures often devolve into endless tech tweaks and refund headaches. That's the not-so-glamorous side of selling at scale. High-ticket beats low-ticket. Here's the proof. Still on the fence about focusing on high-ticket? Let's back it up with some evidence. High-ticket services are not just anecdotal wins. They're economically smarter for many experts. Consider profitably selling a $30,000 consulting package once can net more profit than selling a $300 course 100 times. In fact, business strategists observe that just 5 high-paying clients can outperform 100 low-paying customers in revenue with far less stress on you and your team. High-ticket models often mean higher profit margins per sale, a smaller or no team, and simpler delivery. Meanwhile, low-ticket models rely on sheer volume and complex funnels. One sales expert bluntly calls low-ticket offers a hamster wheel hustle, that drains your energy and steals your time. Ouch, but true. Think about it. With low-priced products, you'd need robust marketing to reach masses of buyers. If you're not already an online marketing whiz with a huge audience, that's an uphill battle. As entrepreneur and friend of the channel Jenna Kutcher noted, to make $50,000 from a $50 product, my marketing would have needed to be a lot broader, meaning a big ad budget, affiliates, or viral content. That's essentially building an entire marketing machine— webinars, email sequences, customer support for all those buyers, maybe even and handling refunds. Do you really want to manage all that? Probably not. And you likely don't have to. Now, on the flip side, high-ticket consulting or coaching lets you laser target a handful of ideal clients. Your marketing can be more personal and direct. In fact, many high-ticket service providers stay fully booked just from referrals. No flashy marketing at all. You can deliver great results to a few clients and generate case studies and word of mouth that bring the next clients in. It's the classic quality over quantity play, but Here's the key to sell high ticket consistently. You must build trust and relationships. High-paying clients rarely buy impulsively or from a random click on an ad. They buy when they trust you. As a business coach on Medium put it, high-ticket clients don't buy on impulse. They buy from trust. So how do we quickly build that trust with the right people? Let's dive into the first big tactic. The Biz Dev Show. Turn content into relationships and clients. One of the fastest ways to build trust with high-value prospects is what I call the Biz Dev Show strategy. Here's how it works. Instead of chasing clients through cold calls or generic ads or hoping a video goes viral, you invite your ideal clients or key referral partners to be interviewed on a content-rich show. The magic is in the format. You're giving them a platform to share their expertise, not a sales pitch. It's disarming, it's flattering, and it starts with a genuine relationship. Why is it so powerful? Because referrals and relationships drive business. Approximately 65% of all new business comes from referrals and recommendations, and a staggering 84% of B2B decision-makers say their buying process starts with a referral. Not a Google search, not a cold email, but a referral. By hosting a biz dev show, you're essentially manufacturing referrals and warm introductions at scale. You spend 30 to 60 minutes talking one-on-one with someone who could either hire you or or refer you all under the friendly pretense of content creation. It's networking on steroids. Now, a few pointers to make this work effectively for you. Number 1, target the right guests. These should be people who either are your ideal client or have access to many of your ideal clients. For example, a VP in a company that could use your consulting or well-connected individual in your industry. We call them your Money 50. Make a list of 50 high-impact people you'd love to build a relationship with. Next, keep topics safe and valuable. If your guests are C-suite executives, or experts with sensitive information, don't ask them to spill company secrets. Instead, discuss general but insightful topics around their leadership, their vision, industry trends. For example, if you're talking to VP Sales, ask, what's your philosophy on building visionary teams? These kinds of questions let them shine without any NDA worries. They'll appreciate that you're highlighting their expertise and you sidestep any confidentiality issues. Remember, the interview is about them, not you. You're showcasing them as an expert. Next, build rapport and listen. During the interview, be genuinely curious. People can tell if you're just waiting to pounce with a sales pitch. Instead, actually enjoy the conversation. Compliment their insights. Dig deeper into their stories. This is where your trust is formed through authentic human connection. By the end of the 30-minute conversation, you'll be amazed how much goodwill you can earn by simply listening to people well. Next, sneak in one strategic question about your domain. This is a pro tip. Midway through the interview, ask a question that relates to the problem that you solve. For instance, for that VP of sales, you can say, I often help companies develop their next generation of leaders. In your experience, what's a common challenge in grooming new leaders? The guest answer will likely reveal a pain point, or at least get them thinking about that need, and it suddenly establishes your expertise. You mentioned that you help companies in that area after all. Next, the off-air ask. Once the recording is over and you've thanked them, don't just say goodbye. This is the crucial moment. Transition to a casual conversation. About the topic they touched on that intersects with your services. So, for example, you mentioned struggling to groom new leaders. That's exactly what I specialize in. I'd love to offer a few ideas or even hop on another call to discuss how we could tackle that if you're open to it. It's a soft invitation framed as a helpful follow-up, not a hard sell. Since you've spent time providing them value and showcasing them, you've earned the right to ask. Often they'll be receptive either to explore your services or to introduce you to the right person at their company. Next, ignore The vanity of views. This strategy is about quality, not quantity. Maybe only 10 people watch the interview on YouTube. It doesn't matter. The one person who mattered was your guest, and now you have a warm lead. Plus, you can repurpose the interview clips for social proof or marketing later. But that's the cherry on top. As a general rule, don't obsess over likes and views at this stage. They are vanity metrics that can distract you from your real goals. As one marketing expert put it, every minute and dollar spent on chasing vanity metrics is a missed opportunity to focus on metrics that matter. In our case, the metric that matters is how many genuine conversations you're having with potential $30K+ clients, not how many random people liked your YouTube video. Now, if you're worried, won't a longer interview bore people? Shouldn't I make it super short? Think again. When the content is valuable to the right person, they will absolutely engage even if it's long. Podcasts are a great example. 93% of people who start listening to a podcast episode stick with most of it or all of it. These can be 30, 60, 90 minutes long. It's not about the length, it's about relevance. If your interview is insightful, your guest and any genuinely interested viewers will be hooked. So don't cut a great interview short just for the sake of making it snackable. The more time you spend building rapport, the stronger the relationship will be. By the way, doing this weekly, say one interview per week, means 52 warm connections a year with exactly the people who can grow your So ask yourself, what's the likelihood that yields at least a few high-ticket clients or deals? If you're still hesitant, remember that referrals and personal connections outrank any other lead source in closing big deals. You're engineering those connections systematically. Many consultants running high-ticket businesses rely on exactly this method, and we've taught many of them. It works because it's human and it's direct, and because trust is the currency of high-ticket sales, you're essentially printing money by investing time in relationships. Buyer breakthrough videos, content that converts, not just content for content's sake. Now, while you're executing the biz dev interview for proactive outreach, there's a second tactic that covers the inbound side. I call these buyer breakthrough videos, BBVs. Think of BBVs as your on-demand sales assistant. These are focused videos that answer key questions and objections your high-ticket buyers have before before they hop on a call with you or your team. They break through the mental barriers that might stop someone from contacting or hiring you. Here's why buyer breakthrough videos matter. Potential clients are likely checking out your website or YouTube, quietly doing their homework on you. When they land on your site and see generic buzzwords like innovative solutions or a list of services with fancy names, they might think, huh, I'm not exactly sure what that means. If they're confused or unsure, they leave, right? Bye-bye lead. We don't want that. We want to capture and convert that interest while we have it. Here's a quick stat for you. Adding a video to your landing page can boost conversions by 86% on average. Why? Because video engages visitors and makes your message clear and memorable. Viewers retain about 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to just 10% when reading text. So if you need to explain a complex service or build trust, Video is your best friend. To create buyer breakthrough videos, follow these simple steps. Number 1, identify your buyer's top questions or hesitations. Think about the past sales calls or client meetings that you had. What did people ask? What did they need clarified? Maybe it's, how exactly does your process work? Uh, what kind of results have you achieved? Or what does whatever jargon word really mean in practice? Also look at your website services or programs page. Every bullet or term there is a candidate for a buyer breakthrough video if it's not self-explanatory. For example, if you list Knowledge Accelerator Program as an offering, you must have a video that says what that is in plain language and why it's awesome. Don't assume a clever name just speaks for itself. Next, keep each video focused. You're not doing a full webinar or giving away the secret sauce. The goal is to educate and intrigue the viewer enough that they think, this person really knows their stuff and I understand how they can help me. Maybe I should talk to them. For instance, a consultant could record a video called How to Smooth Out Volatile Monthly Revenue. Where you explain common causes of feast and famine income. If that's the pain your prospect has, you've just hooked them. Next, place these videos where your warm prospects will see them. Your website is number one. Embed the relevant video next to the text about that service or the topic. If someone's reading about your leadership coaching program, have a video of you describing the program's approach and outcomes. Also, consider sending buyer breakthrough videos directly to leads. Let's say someone downloads your PDF or inquires by email. In your follow-up, include a link. By the way, I made a video answering this common question. I think you'll find it useful. It feels personal and adds a human touch. Next, leverage YouTube strategically. Upload these buyer breakthrough videos to YouTube as well. The reason is you can easily embed them on your website and share links, and you can start building a content library. Over time, some will get discovered by people searching for that exact question. Bringing you bonus organic leads. But again, view counts here are not the goal. Conversion is. If a video only gets 300 views, but 10 of those viewers schedule a call with you, that's a huge win. Let me give you a real example to illustrate the impact. I reviewed a consultant's website for our Movement Makers program. Link to check it out in the description below. And he listed services like Knowledge Accelerators as a bullet point. Impressive term, but to a new visitor, they'd be scratching their head. What does that mean? So we recommended he turn each of those concepts into a video explanation. Why? Because if a potential client spends even 5 minutes watching him clearly explain his unique approach, that client is far more likely to trust him and reach out. Right now with just text, people were likely bouncing off the page confused. We're losing money every time a qualified prospect leaves the site unsure about what we offer. A video fixes that. It's like having a mini consultation with every site visitor 24/7. and it can dramatically increase your lead-to-client conversion. The data already told us videos make people convert more. And beyond just the stats, it just makes sense. People feel like they know you after seeing you speak on video, and that familiarity breeds trust. So brainstorm your buyer breakthrough video topics. A good rule of thumb is to have videos for the big outcome or the value prop you deliver, the key components of your methodology or services, and any major objections that you frequently hear. For objections, maybe it's, I don't have time for this. Make a video, how to get ROI from leadership coaching even if you're busy, or is it worth the investment? Maybe a video, why high-level leadership coaching pays for itself with some data or examples. You get the idea. One more thing, quality. Do you need fancy production? No. Use a decent webcam or smartphone, ensure good lighting and clear audio. Speak as if you're talking to one client, not reading off of some script robotically. Authenticity and clarity matter more than your slick production. In fact, conversational tone can build more trust than a perfectly polished corporate video because it feels personal. As long as you address the question head-on and show you understand their problem and how to solve it, your job is done. Focus on what counts and avoid the shiny objects. By now you can see a theme: focus. Focus on your best clients. Focus on building relationships. Focus on content that directly leads to sales. In practice, this means tuning out a lot of noise and vanity that can sidetrack entrepreneurs. Don't obsess over social media followers, viral videos, or posting every day. These are nice-to-haves eventually, not need-to-haves to land high-ticket clients. Case in point, many consultants quietly making 7 figures have tiny online followers. They're not TikTok stars or YouTube celebs, and they don't need to be. They double down on direct relationships and targeted value. Remember, referrals built the business world long before likes existed. If 84% of big B2B purchases start with referrals, your energy is better spent cultivating referrals through biz dev conversations and stellar results than chasing internet fame. Next, phase 1 versus phase 2 mindset. I often tell clients in our Movement Maker program to separate what I call phase 1 and phase 2 in their growth plan. Phase 1 is all about getting revenue, getting that consistent $30K, $50K, $100K per month coming in. These tactics we've, we're discussing biz dev interviews, Buy breakthrough videos focused on conversion. Those are phase 1 tactics. They might not make you internet famous, but they will make you money and build a foundation. Phase 2 can be the broader thought leadership, starting a big YouTube channel, launching that online course, scaling to a much wider audience, right? Being the face of your industry. Those are great goals, but only tackle them after phase 1 is stable. Trying to do both at once usually means doing both poorly. As the saying goes, chase 2 rabbits and catch none. It's okay to say no to certain projects right now. You're not killing your dream. You're sequencing it for maximum effectiveness. Next, track meaningful metrics. Since we're being tactical, here's what I suggest you actually measure in this strategy. 1, how many biz dev interviews are you doing per month? 2, how many of those turn into follow-up sales conversations or proposals? And 3, your close rate on those. Also track 4, how many buyer breakthrough videos have you created? And 5, any uptick in inquiries or conversion rates on your website after adding them. These are metrics that matter. If you see your number of meaningful conversations going up, that's a clear leading indicator your revenue will follow. Vanity metrics like website hits or video views are often misleading. 10,000 views from random people in the wrong niche and wrong country mean nothing on a video. 10 views by CEOs who need your service means everything. Keep that perspective and you won't get discouraged by the wrong numbers. Finally, quick note on mindset. Don't let fear creep back in during execution. Fear might show up as a, maybe I should also do a $100 course for those who can't afford me, or I got a low response on my video. Maybe this isn't working. Remember the research. Fear makes us pull right back when we need to push forward, leading to half measures that don't create actual value. Commit to this path for a few months and give it a chance to bear fruit. Plant enough seeds and the garden will grow. High ticket growth simplified and supercharged. So here's a quick recap of your game plan to land high-ticket clients consistently. Number 1, focus on your core high-ticket offer. Don't dilute your value out of panic. As data and experience shows, a handful of big clients can out-revenue a heap of small ones, and it's a path that preserves your sanity and your impact. Next, build relationships through a biz dev interview series. Position yourself as a peer and promoter of your ideal clients. It's the fastest way to create trust, and trust is what makes high-ticket deals happen. Aim for one quality conversation a week. Over a year, this network effect is enormous. Next, create buyer breakthrough videos to convert lurking prospects. Capture those visiting your site or checking you out by answering their burning questions via videos. This can dramatically increase your lead conversion. Remember, video can boost landing page conversion by 80%, and people do watch content that educates them even long content, as long as it's valuable. Next, keep it simple and metrics-driven. In phase 1, all that matters is revenue generation activity, conversations, and conversions. Drown out the siren song of vanity metrics and shiny new tactics that don't serve this immediate goal. As one article noted, every minute chasing vanity metrics is a missed opportunity to focus on what truly drives your business. So zero in on those relationships and conversion metrics. By making these shifts, you'll avoid the low-ticket hamster wheel and instead build a streamlined, high high-impact business. No more random revenue swings due to luck or referrals falling from the sky. You'll be engineering a steady pipeline of high-paying clients. How would that feel to wake up each month knowing roughly where your $30,000 or $50,000 or more is coming from, and knowing you don't have to frantically launch something new to make it happen? This approach is evergreen. It works today, it'll work 5 years from now because it's built on timeless fundamentals: solving real problems, connecting with real people, and communicating value clearly. Whether you're an executive advisor, consultant, or any expert selling high-ticket outcomes, these tactics apply. I've seen it transform businesses that were on the brink of burnout and failure into businesses that are enjoyable and profitable, and I believe it can do the same for you. Remember, high-ticket clients are not elusive unicorns. They are people with big problems that you can solve. Reach out to them strategically, show up with value, and ask for the business. You'll be amazed at how many say, yes, let's talk. You want to start a business, but you're struggling to come up with the right idea. Sound familiar? If so, you are not alone and you're in the right place. Today, I'm going to help you find a profitable business idea that not only makes money, but also ignites your passion and serves a real need. Every successful entrepreneur starts exactly where you are now, with no idea and a lot of uncertainty. The difference is they found the process to discover that golden idea and took action. In fact, millions of people are taking the leap. 5.4 million new business applications were filed in 2021 in the U.S., a record high. That means countless people decided enough waiting, I'm going to build something, and you can too. Imagine waking up excited because you're working on a business that you love, that you're good at, and that actually makes a difference while making money. That's the goal. And we're going to get you there with a step-by-step breakdown, mixing motivational fire with practical strategies backed by real stats, expert frameworks, and inspiring examples. Let's do this. Step number 1 is start with your passion and skills. The first place to look for a great business idea is within you. Why? Because building a business takes hard work and persistence, and it's a lot easier if you care deeply about what you're doing. So start by examining your passions and skills. What do you love doing? What are you really good at? These are the seeds of a strong business idea. Think about it. If you start a business just because it seems lucrative, but you have zero interest in it, will you still be excited to do it a year from now? 5 years from now? Probably not. Your passion is the fuel that keeps you going when things get tough. And trust me, in business, things will get tough. Likewise, your skills and talents give you an edge. Maybe you're great at graphic design or coding or cooking or teaching, whatever your gifts are, they can form the basis of a business. A powerful tool to connect passion and skill with a viable idea is the Ikigai framework from Japan. Ikigai means reason for being, and it's often visualized as 4 overlapping circles. What you're good at, your skills and your strengths. What you love, your passions, those activities that light you up. What the world needs. These are the problems you can solve or ways you can serve others. And what you can be paid for. So these are things that people would actually pay you to do. Ask yourself these 4 questions and find the intersection. The sweet spot in the middle is your ikigai, where a meaningful, potentially profitable business idea can emerge. For example, say you love fitness and you're good at teaching. The world needs healthier lifestyles, and people are willing to pay for personal training. Right in the intersection could be a business idea of launching a personal training service or an online fitness coaching program. Time. See how that works? When you align what drives you with what helps others and what makes money, you've got the foundation of a winning idea. Take a moment after this video or pause now to jot down your skills and passions. Look for patterns or combinations you might have overlooked. Your unique background or hobby might be the source of a great business. Love baking and good at art? Maybe a custom cake bakery. Good with numbers and love kids? Maybe a financial literacy app for students. Brainstorm freely here. Let your imaginations go wild connecting things you love and excel at. This is how many iconic businesses started. Someone took a personal interest or talent and turned it into a product or service the world didn't know it needed. Number 2, identify real problems to solve. All right, so you've looked inward. Now it's time to look outward. A business only succeeds if it solves a problem or fulfills a need for customers. This is absolutely crucial. Profitable ideas are ones that serve others in a meaningful way. As venture capitalist Paul Graham put it, the way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself. In other words, find a pain point, something people struggle with or want improved, and solve it. Why is focusing on a real problem so important? Because if your idea doesn't address a genuine need, it won't matter how passionate or skilled you are. it's likely to flop. In fact, studies have shown that 42% of startups fail simply because there was no market need for what they built. Think about that. Nearly half of those entrepreneurs poured time and money into something that people ultimately didn't want enough to pay for. Ouch. We do not want you in that 42% category. The cure is to start with a problem, not the product. So look around your life and the lives of others. What annoying problems do you see? What service do you wish existed because it would make your life easier? Maybe your coworkers are always complaining about a certain inefficiency at work. Maybe as a parent, you've noticed a lack of affordable tutoring options. Maybe you see small businesses in your town struggle with social media and you know how to help. Opportunities are everywhere once you start looking for problems. A great exercise is to keep a problem journal for a week. Literally write down every time you or someone you observe says, "Ah, I wish this was easier," or "Why hasn't someone figured this out?" Those complaints are business idea gold. The bigger or more frequent the pain, the more valuable the solution will be. Entrepreneurs often talk about painkillers versus vitamins. When it comes to products, a painkiller business solves an urgent pain. Customers need it. Whereas a vitamin business is nice to have. Customers might want it. Painkillers are easier to sell, so aim to be a painkiller. Solve a real problem that causes pain or frustration. Now, if you can match a problem that needs solving with something you're passionate about and good at, you're on the right track. Let's say you're passionate about the environment and skilled in engineering. You identify that people want to reduce plastic waste. That's the problem, but find it hard to do in daily life. You might come up with a business idea to create biodegradable packaging or a convenient recycling service. See how the problem, which was plastic waste, drives the idea, and your passion or your skill, which is sustainability and engineering, shapes the solution? That's the synergy that we're looking for. Step number 3: Brainstorm broadly. Mix and match your ideas, your products, your services, online and offline. At this point, you have the ingredients of you, your passion, your skills, and the market, the real problems and the needs. Now it's time to cook up some specific ideas. Brainstorm as many ideas as possible that lie at the intersection of what excites you and what could help others. Don't filter yourself too much yet. The goal is to generate a wide range of possibilities. Think of it like a creative brainstorm where no idea is too crazy to write down. Often your first few ideas might be obvious or already well known, but as you keep pushing, you'll hit more original notes. One technique is to take one of your interests or skills and list out every business model you can apply to it. For example, suppose you love pets. You could sell a product like homemade organic pet treats, provide a service— pet grooming, dog walking— build an online platform, a blog, a YouTube channel with pet training tips monetized by ads, or a premium course. Start an offline business, open a pet daycare center, offer consulting or coaching service to help new pet owners via one-on-one sessions, and so on. See how one passion, which was pets, can spawn multiple types of business Don't get stuck thinking there's only one way to turn an interest into an income. In fact, let's systematically explore different types of business models so you can cover all of the angles. Here's a list to spark some ideas. Product-based businesses. Here you're creating or selling a tangible product. So example, you're designing a new gadget, a new fashion item. You're manufacturing eco-friendly household product. You're selling handmade crafts on Etsy or even developing a mobile app, which is a digital product. Then you have service-based businesses. Here you're providing the service, so you're using your time, your expertise to help clients. So examples, you're starting a consulting agency, you're freelancing your design or your programming skills, you're launching a cleaning or landscaping business, you're offering tutoring or coaching, you're a fitness coach, a career coach, etc., or a home repair service. Next is online businesses. So here you're leveraging the internet to reach customers. So examples, you have an e-commerce store, you're selling products on Shopify, Amazon, Your content creation, you're doing a YouTube channel, podcast, blog that you monetize through ads or subscriptions. You have online courses or membership sites. You have software as a service. You have products or an app-based service like a delivery or booking app. Next, you have offline. These are brick-and-mortar businesses. That's a traditional route of a physical location or local service. So examples, you're opening a cafe or food truck, a retail boutique, a gym, a yoga studio, car wash, a mobile phone repair kiosk, a food catering business. These can still leverage online marketing, but the core is face-to-face service. Next is trending industries. So think about what's hot right now. New trends create new business opportunities. Some examples are AI and machine learning services, very hot right now. Sustainable products and green tech. People are increasingly becoming eco-conscious. Remote work solutions, anything that supports work-from-home culture. Blockchain, Web3, if you have expertise there. Personalized nutrition or health tech, etc. Trends can be great because demand is rising, but be careful. You still need to offer real value, not just hype. Then we can go to timeless needs. These are businesses that never go out of style because they meet basic enduring needs. So example: food and beverage, healthcare, education, housing, transportation, personal finance, management, cleaning, repairs, childcare. A boring business that reliably fixes a common problem can be very profitable. Don't dismiss it because it's not the latest fad. Timeless can equal stable. So go through each category and ask, could I see myself doing this? Does it overlap with with a passion or skill and solve a problem, this exercise expands your thinking. For instance, maybe you hadn't considered an online content business, but you really love writing, and there's a need for easy how-to articles in a hobby niche you care about. Boom! That's a potential idea. Start a niche blog and monetize it. Or you realize an offline service like mobile car detailing in your town could do well because you love cars and people always, always, always need convenient car care. By exploring the full mix of models, you ensure you're not leaving any stone unturned. Here's a pro tip for you. Look at where trends and timeless needs intersect. For example, the rise of remote work as a trend meets the timeless need for better communication that spawned ideas like Zoom and Slack. Now, maybe you won't create the next Zoom, but you might create a specialized solution for remote teachers or remote fitness training. Another example, health and wellness is timeless. And technology is a trend. Together, they opened up ideas like health tracking apps or online therapy services. Brainstorm combinations like this to see if something clicks with you. At this stage, quantity is your friend. Write down 10, 20, or even 50 idea snippets. They won't all be good. That's okay. You're looking for a few gems that excite you and have potential to explore further. Once you have a nice list of ideas, we can move on to evaluating and refining them. Step number 4: Research the market and competition to validate the need. Now that you have some candidate ideas, it's time to put on your detective hat and research. This step separates wishful thinking from reality. A business idea might sound awesome in your head, but you need to verify that real customers actually want it and will pay for it. So how do you research effectively? Start with understanding the market size and demand. Use Google to see how many people are searching for solutions related to your idea. Check forums, social media, Reddit communities where your potential customers hang out. What are they talking about? What questions do they ask? This can give you insight into the demand and specific pain points. For example, if you are considering a healthy snack product, see if people are blogging or tweeting about wanting low-sugar on-the-go snacks. If you find a lot of chatter or searches, that's a good sign the interest is there. Next, look at the competition. Are there other businesses that are already doing what you plan to do or something similar? Don't be discouraged if there are. Competition is actually validation that the problem exists and money is being spent. Your job is to study those competitors and identify how you can differentiate. More on that will come up in a future section. Make a list of, say, the top 5 competitors or alternatives in your space. Visit their websites, read their customer reviews, note their pricing. This research will help you answer key questions. How hard will it be to stand out? What are they doing well and what are they not doing well? What gaps could you fill? Also, pay attention to the trends in the industry. Is the market growing or shrinking? You can find industry reports or news articles for data. If you discover that the market for your idea is exploding, like, for example, the e-learning market booming during the pandemic, that's a tailwind for you. If it's declining, say you wanted to open a DVD rental store. Probably not a great idea in the age of streaming. You might reconsider or pivot your focus. Importantly, talk to potential customers if you can. This doesn't have to be formal. Even chatting with people in your target market can provide insights. For instance, if your idea is a service for busy moms, go talk to some moms. Ask if they face the problem you think they have and how they solve it now. You might discover new info. Maybe they don't need what you thought, or maybe they desperately need it, but current options are too expensive. Those insights are pure gold and can save you from building something flawed. Entrepreneur Steve Blank famously said, there are no facts inside the building, so get the heck outside. Meaning don't just sit in your room theorizing. Get out there and learn from real people. Let's say one of your ideas is an app to help people find last-minute fitness classes. You'd research how many people search for fitness classes, see if apps like ClassPass or Mindbody cover that. And perhaps survey some gym-goers or instructors about their needs. You might discover that people want to do spontaneous fitness options, but they care more about price or location. That intel helps you refine your idea. Maybe your twist is focusing on discounted last-minute spots, like a Hotwire for fitness classes. This research phase is where you turn a rough idea into a more concrete concept backed by evidence. Step number 5 is carve out your unique value and differentiate with a blue ocean strategy. So by now you should have a much clearer picture of your top idea or couple of ideas and what the market looks like. Now ask yourself, what will make my business unique? Why will customers choose you over the competition? This is your unique value proposition, or UVP, the special sauce that sets you apart. It could be a niche focus, a better feature, a more convenient delivery method, a lower price, a higher quality, a brand that resonates more, etc. But you need something that makes you stand out. One powerful way to think about this is using the Blue Ocean Strategy framework. The concept popularized by the book Blue Ocean Strategy is that most businesses fight in red oceans crowded with competitors, all biting at the same customers. A blue ocean is where you create a new uncontested market space, making the competition irrelevant. In plain terms, find an angle that none of your competitors are addressing and sail there. This might mean targeting a different customer segment or offering a completely new combination of benefits. So for example, think about Cirque du Soleil. They took a blue ocean by blending circus with theater, attracting adults willing to pay theater prices while other circuses were stuck competing for kids' attention with animals and clowns. Cirque du Soleil's unique value is a sophisticated, story-driven circus experience. The result? They tapped into a whole new audience and made competition beside the point. Now, you don't have to revolutionize an entire industry like they did, but you can apply the same idea on a smaller scale. So ask yourself, what can I do differently or better than anyone in my space? Maybe your research revealed a gap. Perhaps all the existing products are expensive, so you aim to be affordable, or they're all cheap and low quality, so you become the premium high-quality choice. Perhaps competitors serve a general audience, so you niche down. For instance, instead of a generic marketing agency, you specialize in marketing for sustainable fashion brands, becoming the go-to expert for that niche. That niche focus can be your unique edge. Here's another angle. Combine things in a novel way. Maybe you notice no one is bundling two services together. That makes sense. Think of how some car wash businesses now offer oil changes while you wash. They combine services to stand out or use a different channel. If competitors only sell in-store, you dominate online or vice versa. Blue Ocean thinking encourages creativity. Instead of trying to beat someone else at their game, you change the game. Even if your idea is in a crowded field, a unique value prop can make it feel brand new. For instance, lots of people sold coffee, but Starbucks made a blue ocean by selling an experience and a community. The third place between home and work. Lots of people made phones, but Apple differentiated with design and an ecosystem that locked customers in. So define your differentiator. Write down a simple sentence. My business is the only one that— and then fill in the blank. If you can't, you need to refine your idea further until you can. Maybe it's the only one that can offer onsite yoga classes specifically for tech companies. Or the only one that uses AI to personalize meal prep for users in seconds. The point is to have a clear, compelling answer when a customer asks, why should I choose you? If you nail that, you're way ahead of most new businesses. Step number 6 is test your idea on a small scale. Validate with MVP. You've got a promising idea that fits your passion, solves a real problem, and now has a unique twist. Fantastic. Now, before you start pouring all your savings or quitting your day job, It's time for one of the most critical steps. Validate your idea with a small-scale test. In startup speak, we call this building a minimum viable product or MVP. The concept is simple. You create the simplest version of your idea necessary to prove that people want it. This way you get real feedback and evidence without a huge investment upfront. Think of it as experimenting. You're testing the market's reaction. This step can save you from disaster or give you the confidence and data to go all in. And it doesn't have to be expensive or complicated. In fact, some of the most successful companies started with super scrappy tests of their concepts. Let me share a couple of famous examples. Airbnb's MVP. So today Airbnb is a massive business, but it started extremely small. The founders, Brian and Joe, had an idea. Strangers might pay to stay in our home instead of a hotel. Crazy, right? To test it, they didn't build a fancy app or buy properties. They literally put air mattresses in their living room and created a basic web page offering a place to sleep and breakfast. They targeted a conference in town that had hotels fully booked. And guess what? 3 people took them up on their offer to air bed and breakfast. That was all the validation they needed to see that, hey, people are open to this. After only that initial test, did they start expanding? And even then, very slowly at first. The key lesson is this: they tested the core assumption. Will people pay to stay in a stranger's home with almost no money? You can do the same with your own idea in its own way. Here's Zappos' MVP. Zappos is a huge online shoe retailer now, but when Nick Swinburne had the idea in 1999, selling shoes online was unheard of. Rather than buying a ton of shoes and hoping they'd sell, which is super risky, Nick ran a clever test. He went to local shoe stores, took photos of shoes, and listed them on a simple website. When a customer ordered a pair, he'd go buy it from the store and ship it to them. Inconvenient for him? Sure. He was running around town. Profitable at that moment? Not really. He wasn't making money doing that. But as a test, it was brilliant. It proved people would buy shoes online even without trying them on. Once that was validated, he knew it was worth investing in inventory and building the real infrastructure. Zappos was born from that experiment. These examples show the power of an MVP. Keep it simple, cheap, and focused on learning. So ask yourself, what's the smallest, quickest way I can test my idea? If it's a product, maybe you make a prototype by hand or even a 3D rendering and show it to potential customers for feedback or pre-orders. If it's a service, maybe you offer it to a few people manually, even if behind the scenes you're doing things unscalably. Just to see if they'll pay and what results they get. If it's an app or website, perhaps you don't even build it fully. You just put up a landing page describing the service with a sign up or buy now button and see if people click and then say coming soon. This gauges interest. You could also run a small crowdfunding campaign to see if strangers will put money down for your idea. There are so many creative ways to test without a full launch. One very important piece of validation is to actually charge money if that's your eventual goal and see if people will pay. It's one thing for friends to say, oh, that sounds cool, I'd use that. It's another for someone to pull out their wallet and pay $50 for it. The ultimate proof of a profitable idea is, well, profit. So in your test, see if you can even get one or two actual sales or paying users. That does wonders for your confidence and gives you real customer feedback. And remember, You don't have to quit your day job to do this testing. In fact, keeping your job while you validate is often wise. There's research done by professors spanning 14 years that found entrepreneurs who kept their day jobs had 33% lower odds of failure than those who quit outright. Read that again. It means you can be prudent and hedge your bets early on. Test your ideas in the evenings or weekends. It's okay if progress is a bit slow at first. You're buying yourself runway and reducing risk. Once your idea is validated and starts gaining traction, then you can consider going full time. As the saying goes, don't burn the boats until you're sure the island has treasure. So go out and run your tests. Embrace the mindset of a scientist and an adventurer. It's actually fun. You're seeing your idea come to life in the real world for the first time. Keep your eyes wide open during this phase. Talk to your early users or customers, get their brutally honest feedback, and iterate. Maybe they'll love some parts of your idea and be lukewarm on the others. Use that information to tweak your concept. It's much better to adjust now than after you've sunk a year of work into it. Step number 7: Refine, pivot, or persevere, but stay flexible. After testing, you'll have real data in your hands. Some of it will make you happy. People love the convenience. Some might be disappointing. Only a few out of 100 people who visited my site actually signed up. This is normal. The question now is, what did you learn and what will you do about it? This stage is all about refining your idea. You might need to make small changes or sometimes a major change, a pivot to hit the sweet spot. Don't be discouraged if your initial idea wasn't a home run right away. It's rarely perfect from the get-go. In fact, many successful businesses morphed from their original idea once they got market feedback. Instagram famously started as a completely different app. It was a complex check-in app called Burbn before the founders noticed users only really liked one feature. Photo sharing, and pivoted to focus on that. Hello, Instagram. Twitter was born out of a failing podcast platform. Iteration is part of the process. As Paul Graham observed, most startups end up nothing like the initial idea. It would be closer to the truth to say the main value of your initial idea is that in the process of discovering it's broken, you'll come up with your real idea. In other words, your first idea is just a stepping stone to the truly great idea. And that's okay. So what might refinement look like for you? It could be narrowing down your target market further because you found one subgroup really loved it and the others didn't care, or adjusting your pricing if people said it's too expensive, or maybe adding or removing a feature. For example, if you offered a meal delivery service and learned that customers only really use it for dinner, maybe you pivot to focus on dinner plans specifically. If your app has 5 features but users only care about 2, Simplify and double down on those two. Listen to the feedback and be willing to adapt. The best entrepreneurs are flexible thinkers. They don't marry their solution, they marry the problem. They stay committed to solving the core need but are willing to change how they solve it based on what is actually working. There's also a chance your test results are phenomenal and basically scream, yes, this idea is a winner exactly as it is. That's great. Then you persevere and start scaling it up. But if the results were lukewarm or confusing, don't despair. Use them to make your idea better. This is the time for tweaks and maybe a second round of testing with the improved version. Here's one more thing. Overcome the fear of failure by reframing it as learning. Thomas Edison famously said, I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. Each tweak you make is bringing you closer to something that will work. Each failure in testing is just an experiment that yielded new information. It's like a pilot adjusting course based on weather conditions. You're still headed to your destination. You're just navigating reality. So stay consistent and keep that growth mindset. If version 1 of your idea doesn't fly, think of version 2 or 3. This phase might repeat a few times. Test, learn, refine, test again. That's normal. The end goal is when you start consistently seeing people willing to pay good satisfaction, and growing demand. That's when you know you've honed in on a truly profitable business idea worth pouring gasoline on, which is scaling up. Step number 8: Take action and execute. Your ideas are worthless without execution. By now, you should have a solid, validated business idea in your hands. Congratulations. Do you know how many people never get to this point? A lot. You've done the hard thinking, you've done the research, you've tested and refined. Now comes the part that separates wantrepreneurs from entrepreneurs: taking massive action and executing consistently. This is where you turn that idea into an actual business with customers and revenue. It's showtime. Let me be real with you. An idea alone, no matter how brilliant, is worth almost nothing. Execution is everything. Mary Kay Ash, the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, famously said, ideas are a dime a dozen. People who implement them are priceless. Let that sink in. You might have the most innovative idea, but if you don't act on it, it's just theory. On the other hand, even a simple or common idea executed with excellence can make you incredibly successful. Look at businesses like Starbucks or McDonald's. Coffee and hamburgers are not novel ideas at all. It was their execution. It was their systems, their branding, their consistency that made them billion-dollar empires. So don't worry if your idea isn't completely original. What matters is doing it better, doing it your way, and actually doing it. Millions of people say, "I had that idea," when they see a successful business. But the winners are those who acted. You're going to be a winner by acting on yours. What does execution involve at this stage? It means building your product or service for real. Setting up the business basics, even if it's just creating a simple website or social media page to start. And aggressively going after your first real customers beyond the testers. It means refining your operations, how you deliver your product or service efficiently. It also means marketing, getting the word out through any scrappy means you can— social media, word of mouth, local events, content marketing, etc. Essentially, you transform from planner to doer full time. This part will be a journey on its own with new challenges. Maybe you hit technical issues to solve. Maybe you face rejection from investors or partners. Maybe sales are slow in the first months. This is where the passion we talked about in step 1 really pays off. It will keep you motivated to push through. Remember your why, the passion or purpose that made you choose this idea and the problem you're solving that really helps people. That will drive you to persist and innovate in the face of obstacles. Here's a quick tip. Don't seek perfection before launch. I've seen too many aspiring entrepreneurs tinker endlessly trying to make their product perfect and delay actually offering it to real customers. Don't fall into that trap. Get a good enough version out and improve as you go. Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, said, if you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late. The point is to launch, learn, and improve rather than aim for perfection out of the gate. Execution is a learning process too. And guess what? You're never truly ready. You might still feel doubt or fear. That's normal. Successful entrepreneurs feel it and take action despite it. You don't need anyone's permission to start. You just need to start. Discipline and consistency will carry you forward. Make a plan, even a simple to-do list or a 90-day action plan, and then execute on it every single day. Step by step, you will build momentum. Finally, as you execute, keep your motivation and vision high. Celebrate your small wins, your first sale, your first 100 users, a great customer testimonial. These are milestones on your journey to a profitable business. Surround yourself with positive influencers, mentors, entrepreneur communities, or even motivating videos. That's what I'm here for. This will keep your energy up when you face challenges. And step number 9, you have everything you need. Now believe in yourself. We've covered a lot from finding your passion, ikigai, to identifying real problems, generating a ton of ideas from products, services, online, offline, trending, timeless, the whole spectrum. Researching the market, finding your unique angle with frameworks like Blue Ocean Strategy, testing your idea lean with MVPs, and then executing with full force. This is the roadmap countless successful entrepreneurs have followed to find their profitable business idea, and now it's in your hands. Here's the beautiful thing: you already have what it takes. The fact that you watch this video through, working on yourself and your dreams, shows that you're serious. The profitable idea is out there waiting for you to bring to life. It might be something small that grows big, or something that starts one way and evolves into something unexpected. However it unfolds, it begins with you taking that next step. Remember, every big business started with one person and one idea. Jeff Bezos began Amazon as a tiny online bookstore in his garage. Sara Blakely started Spanx with just an idea and $5,000 in her savings, hustling her way to building a brand because she believed women needed better undergarments. The common thread? They started and they believed in the idea and themselves. Now it's your turn. No more analysis paralysis. You have the tools and strategies. Use them. Start brainstorming. Start researching. Start talking to potential customers. Start building something. It's okay if it's not perfect. It's okay if you pivot. What's not okay is to let another year slip by and still be dreaming about someday. As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. The best time to start your business idea is now. I want you to bet on yourself. Take that leap of faith, even if it's a small step at first. Trust that you'll figure things out along the way because you will. You've learned how to find a profitable business idea, but it will only profit you if you act on it. I'm excited for you. This could be the moment you look back on and say, that's when I decided to change my life. So get out there and make it happen. Evan, you've got this. I believe in you, but most importantly, you need to believe in yourself. The world needs that special business that only you can create with your unique passions, skills, and perspective. It's time to turn your idea into reality, because if others can do it, you can do it too. And you will, as long as you believe. Go forth, do the work, and see your dream come to life. I'll leave you with one final word that I live by myself: believe. You are sabotaging your own business without even realizing it. Do you feel like you're working hard but not getting results? It's time to find out if you're making one of the 5 huge mistakes that self-taught entrepreneurs often make. Stick around because fixing even just one of these could change your business forever. Mistake number 1: trying to do it all yourself and not asking for help. You might be thinking self-taught means you have to figure out everything on your own, and this is a huge mistake. No one can do everything alone. When you try to be the lone wolf, you miss out on other people's experience and insight. It's hard to see the forest among the trees, as they say. A mentor advisor can often spot the solution to a problem that has you stumped. Even the greatest entrepreneurs have coaches, mentors, support networks. Here's some proof. A survey from the UPS Store found 70% of small businesses that receive mentoring survive more than 5 years, which is double the survival rate of businesses with no mentor. In the same survey, 88% of business owners with a mentor said that having one was invaluable. Another study found that one-third of successful entrepreneurs had a mentor or support group versus only 14% of entrepreneurs who failed. So the evidence and all the data, it's clear going it alone is actually hurting you. So what should you do instead? Ask for help. Find someone who's been where you are and learn from them. This could be a mentor, a business coach, or even a peer group of fellow entrepreneurs. You'll make decisions with more confidence and avoid pitfalls others have already learned from. Remember, being self-reliant Self-taught doesn't mean refusing guidance. It means you take charge of your own learning. The smartest entrepreneurs are always learning from others. As the saying goes, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. So drop the ego, reach out, and build your dream with others. You'll get further faster with a little help. Mistake number 2: winging it without a clear plan. Running a business without a plan is like going on a road trip without a map. You might be busy driving, but you have no idea if you're heading in the right direction. Many self-taught entrepreneurs make the mistake of just winging it. They dive into work each day, just reacting to whatever happens without a clear strategy or goals. Figure it out as you go can only take you so far. The result is you waste time and money. You chase shiny objects or you stall out because you don't know what your next step should be. Here is why a plan matters. Entrepreneurs who plan are far more likely to succeed. Research shows that writing a business business plan significantly increases your chances of success. One review found that entrepreneurs with a formal plan were twice as likely to successfully grow their business and secure funding. Another study found that entrepreneurs with business plans are 260% more likely to actually launch their company and 30% more likely to grow it. But despite these benefits, only about a third of business owners ever actually finish a business plan. So don't let that be you. Even writing down your goals makes you 42% more likely to achieve them. That's a simple step that pays off in a big way. It doesn't have to be a giant plan. Having a plan doesn't mean you can't adapt or be lean. It means you set clear goals and a basic roadmap for how to reach them. You can always update the plan as you learn, but start with something. Define your target customer, uh, figure out your product or service, your pricing, and how you're going to actually market your thing and deliver value. Set milestones for the next 6 months and year. This gives you a sense of direction each day. You'll know what success looks like and how to measure it. Without a plan, Anything can distract you. With a plan, you can wake up each morning knowing the top 1 or 2 things you need to focus on today. You become proactive instead of reactive. So take some time to map out your business. It doesn't have to be a 50-page document. Don't stress out. Don't overanalyze. Even a 1-page plan or bullet point list of goals is better than nothing. You'll be amazed at how much clarity you get by writing things down. So stop winging it and start planning it. Your future self will thank you when your business stays on track and starts hitting its targets. Mistake number 3: lacking discipline and consistency in your habits. Freedom is one reason you became an entrepreneur, right? No boss, no time clock. But here's the trap: without discipline, that freedom can destroy your business. Self-taught entrepreneurs often treat their business like a hobby instead of a job. They work on it when they feel motivated and slack off when they don't, or they get caught in procrastination and busywork instead of the hard tasks that actually matter. Inconsistent effort leads to inconsistent results. The reality is successful entrepreneurship takes a lot of hard work and consistent habits. It's not a 4-hour workweek fantasy. In fact, most business owners work longer hours than employees. One study found 33% of small business owners work over 50 hours per week, and 25% work more than 60 hours. Many even put in the time on weekends and vacations. Why? Because when you're building something of your own, You get out what you put in. If you only put in half-hearted effort, don't be surprised when you get half-hearted results. But it's not just about the raw hours. It's about habits and consistency. Research from Duke University found that over 40% of our daily actions are governed by habit, not conscious decision. That means nearly half of what you do each day is just on autopilot. If you develop good habits like dedicating 2 hours every morning to high-priority work or making those sales calls daily, it will carry you through even when your motivation is low. On the flip side, if you fall into bad habits— sleeping in, scrolling social media, reacting to emails all day— your business will suffer. You won't even realize how much time is slipping away because habits run silently in the background. So to avoid this mistake, treat your business like a serious commitment. Set a schedule for yourself. You don't need a 60-hour grind if that's not realistic for you, but work. Do decide on consistent work times and stick to them. For example, you might commit to working on your business from 8 AM to 1 PM every weekday before any other activities. Create a routine. Maybe you review your goals each morning, you tackle the hardest task first, right? Eat that frog. You dedicate certain days to specific needs. Mondays are for marketing, Tuesday is for your product development, etc. Also, eliminate the distractions when you're working. Turn off your notifications. Let your friends and family know that those hours are secret. Being your own boss means you must boss yourself around. No one else will do it. Consistency beats intensity. It's better to move the ball forward every single day with solid habits than to work in erratic bursts of inspiration. Those small daily actions will compound over time, and that consistency builds trust with your customers and momentum in your growth. So set up habits that make you productive by default. Make success your daily routine. When discipline becomes a habit, your business will start to run like a well-oiled machine, and you will start to reap the rewards. Mistake number 4: ignoring your market and customers, building something no one wants. This mistake is a silent killer— pouring your heart into a product or service without checking if anyone actually needs it. Self-taught entrepreneurs can fall in love with their idea and assume, if I build it, people will come, right? They spend months or years developing a business in a bubble— no market research, no customer feedback, only to launch to the sound of crickets. It's devastating and it's common. Building something nobody wants is one of the top reasons that new businesses fail. So don't just take my word for it. Research by CB Insights found that no market need is the number one reason startups fail. In fact, one report showed that 8 of the top 12 reasons startups fail are related to poor product market fit, basically making something that nobody wants. Think about that. The majority of failures happen not because the founders weren't smart or they didn't work hard, but because they didn't solve a real problem for customers. Another analysis found that 34% of startup failures were due to a poor product-market fit, and 22% failed from not having the right marketing plan. If no one wants your product, even the best marketing won't save you. The market is the ultimate judge. If you ignore it, you're running on hope. You're not running on reality. So to avoid this mistake, put your customer at the center from day one. Don't be afraid to get out there and talk to people who might have the problem you're trying to solve. It could be as simple as having conversations with your target audience or doing quick surveys. Ask them about their biggest problems and needs in the area that you want to help them serve. Listen more than you talk. Don't lead the witness by pitching your idea too soon. Just learn what they truly care about. And as you gather these insights, be ready to pivot or to tweak your idea to better solve the real pain points that you discover. This is not meant to be a blow to your ego. It's how you craft something people actually want to buy. Also, try to test your idea early and cheaply. If you have a product concept, creating a rough prototype or even a sketch and get feedback on it. If it's a service, try a small pilot program or consult with a few potential clients. The goal is to validate that your solution resonates with people. Are people saying, I need this, or when can I have it, or are they lukewarm? Early feedback is gold. It's far better to learn and adjust in the beginning than to spend all your money on a full launch that then flops. Remember, feedback isn't criticism, it's direction. It guides you to shape your business into something that will work. At the end of the day, your business exists to serve customers, to solve a problem, to bring value. When you align what you offer with what people genuinely need and value, you create that win-win relationship. Customers get something they love and you get a growing profitable business. So fall in love with the customer, not just your product. Do your homework on your market. Stay curious, ask questions, and never assume that you know it all. The more that you listen and adapt, the less likely you are to build something useless. Solve a real problem and you'll never have to worry about finding customers. Customers. They will come to you. Mistake number 5: being afraid of failure and giving up too soon. Entrepreneurship is tough, and not every attempt will succeed. But the biggest mistake self-taught entrepreneurs make here is taking failure too personally and giving up when things go wrong. You might hit a roadblock— a product launch fails, a client backs out, the revenue isn't coming in as fast as you hope— and you think, I'm just not cut out for this. So you quit. That is the only guaranteed way to fail permanently. The truth is, failure is not the end unless you stop trying. Every successful entrepreneur has faced setbacks. The difference is they learn from them and they keep going. I love the mindset that failure is feedback. In fact, every failure teaches you something valuable. It does. It shows what not to do or how to do it better the next time. Failure is only failure if you don't learn from it. If you treat each failure as a lesson, you actually haven't failed at all. You have grown. It's like getting feedback from the market or from life on how to improve. And guess what? But everybody fails on their path to success. This isn't just a nice saying, it's reality. The road to success is paved with trial and error. The most legendary business leaders, inventors, creators, they all had flops and outright disasters before figuring it out. They succeeded because they didn't quit after those failures. There's a famous quote, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." That's Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb. Humorously reminding us that every no gets us closer to a yes. Success usually takes longer than we want to believe. Too many people just give up in year 1 or 2, just when things might have started to click if they had persisted a bit more. So how do you embrace failure in a healthy way? First, expect it. This doesn't mean you're aiming to fail, but don't be shocked when something doesn't work. It's just part of the process. Adjust your mindset to see failure as a teacher, not as a verdict on your ability and that you suck. When something goes wrong, take a step back and ask, why did this happen? What can I learn from this? How can I adjust and come back better? Maybe your marketing message was off. Maybe you targeted the wrong audience. Maybe you simply need more patience for your strategy to actually play out. Use that insight to pivot and refine your approach, and then you try again. And keep in mind that resilience, it's like a muscle. Every time that you get over some setback, you start to build that muscle. You get a little bit tougher and smarter, and over time you become more and more unstoppable because no failure can break you. You always find a way to adapt. This is crucial for self-taught entrepreneurs because you're learning as you go. Not everything will be perfect on your first try. Give yourself permission to fail and learn in public. It's better to launch imperfectly and then iterate and improve than to hold back back because you are afraid. And most importantly, don't quit on your dream just because it's harder than you thought. If you truly believe in what you're doing, then keep pushing. You might be closer to a breakthrough than you think. Remember that every overnight success story has a hidden chapter of years of effort and setback. So keep going even when it's tough. Perseverance is going to be your superpower as an entrepreneur. Use it. The beautiful thing about mistakes is that they don't define you, they educate you. Now we've covered the 5 huge mistakes to avoid. You have the power to course correct. Ask for help when you need it. Plan your path so you're not drifting aimlessly. Build rock-solid habits that drive you forward every day. Obsess over your customers and make sure you're giving them real value. And above all, don't let fear of failure stop you. Every entrepreneur's journey is a work in progress. You're going to have ups and downs, victories and defeats. That is normal. What matters is that you stay in the game and keep going. Learn from every misstep and keep moving. Success is not reserved for only the geniuses or the lucky ones. It's for the ones who keep improving and keep going. So you've chosen a challenging path being an entrepreneur, but it's also a rewarding one. You have a vision inside you and the world needs to see it. So take this video as your wake-up call and hopefully your pep talk. It's time to double down on your growth. Correct the mistakes if you've been making them, and you'll see the difference in your business and in yourself. You already have everything it takes to win. Now go out there and make it happen. And remember, the only way you truly fail is if you stop trying. Law number 1: Money follows value. Money isn't random. It's the reward for solving problems. Wealth is built not on what just excites you, but on what you create that serves others. The more value you deliver, the more dollars will chase you. It's that simple. Think of entrepreneurs like Elon Musk or Sara Blakely. They got rich by fixing pain points for millions. You want money? Stop chasing cash and start chasing problems to solve. When you help enough people get what they want, you'll get what you want. That's a law of the universe. Law number 2: Adopt a wealth mindset, not a lottery mindset. Getting rich starts in your head. If deep down you believe money is evil or not for people like me, you'll unconsciously push it away. Newsflash: Luck won't save you. 70% of lotto winners blow it, and a third end up bankrupt because they didn't change their mindset. Self-made millionaires, on the other hand, think differently. They believe they deserve success and can learn whatever skills wealth requires. So the excuses like, I'm not smart enough, I came from nothing, and replace that with, why not me? Train yourself to see money as a positive force, a tool you can master. Your mind is your biggest asset or liability. Choose to make it an asset. Law number 3: Purpose over profit, but money in your top 5. Money itself isn't the end goal. Freedom, impact, and purpose are. I always say making money is great. It has to be in your top 5. It just can't be number 1. If you chase only dollars, you'll burn out or compromise your values. Instead, chase a mission and use money as motivation. Think of companies like Patagonia or Tesla. Mission-driven, but they still prioritize revenue to fund that mission. Here's the balance. Care more about your impact than your income, but respect money enough to plan for it. Money in your top 5 means you price your product right, you monetize your skills, you track your revenue because you know profit powers your purpose. When your why is strong, the money follows. And when the money comes, you push it back into your why. That's how world-changing businesses businesses and lives are built. Law number 4: Pay yourself first. The first bill you pay each month should be to yourself. Before rent, before groceries, invest in your future. Siphon a chunk of every paycheck into savings or investments immediately. This habit needs to become a non-negotiable. Why? Because wealth doesn't come from what you make, it comes from what you keep and grow. It's the classic millionaire habit. Nearly half of self-made millionaires save 20% or more of their income from day one. That requires discipline and delayed gratification, skipping some short-term treats So future you can win. Psychology proves this. The famed marshmallow test showed that kids who delayed gratification ended up more successful in life. The same goes for money. So automate your savings. Treat it like a tax that you owe yourself. If you can't pay yourself, you'll always be paying someone else. Law number 5: Live below your means. I know this sounds basic, but it's amazing how many people ignore it. Don't spend all you earn and definitely don't spend more than you earn. Hello, credit cards. The rich stay rich by living like they're broke. The broke stay broke by acting rich. Studies of millionaires show they're frugal. 64% live in modest homes. 55% buy used cars. Nearly all of them vacation cheaply, and 84% refuse to gamble with their money. They aren't clipping coupons for fun. They just know that every dollar wasted is a dollar that can't work for them. So yes, reward yourself occasionally, but don't inflate your lifestyle with your income. Grow into your wealth. Don't blow it. As your earnings climb, keep your expenses in check. This creates a gap, the golden gap that you can invest to generate real wealth. Law number 6: Avoid bad debt. Leverage the good debt. There are two kinds of people: those who pay interest and those who earn interest. To get rich, you want to be the second kind. Credit card balances, payday loans, buying a Ferrari on finance— that's bad debt. It will chain you down. The average credit card interest will eat your future alive. So here's your rule: never borrow to buy depreciating crap. Use debt only when it's a tool to acquire an asset that pays you back. In simple terms, an asset puts money in your pocket, a liability takes money out of your pocket. Your home, for example, can be a liability if it's draining cash. Meanwhile, a rental property or business loan can be good debt if managed well because they generate income. The rich strategically use other people's money to multiply their wealth, but they respect the risks and have a plan to pay it off. Be very real with yourself. If thing you want to buy won't earn or save you money, don't go into debt for it. Law number 7: Let compound interest work. Start investing now. Time is your greatest ally or your worst enemy in building wealth. Every day you delay investing is cash left on the table. Why? Compound interest. The snowball effect of money earning on top of itself. Albert Einstein supposedly called compound interest the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it earns it. He who doesn't pays it. So here's a quick example. If you invest $1,000 at 10%, you'll earn $100 a year. Not bad. But if you reinvest that $100 next year, you earn 10% on $1,100, not just $1,000. That's $110. And now you have $1,210. Keep rolling that over. And in 10 years, that $1,000 turns into nearly $2,600 without adding a penny, all from reinvesting and compounding. Start earning and it's like planting an orchard instead of a single tree. Don't wait for enough money to invest. Even $50 a month invested now beats $500 a month started 10 years later. Small seeds become giant oaks, but you must plant them now. Law number 8: Create multiple streams of income. One stream of income is one point of failure. If that stream dries up— job loss, one client leaves, industry shifts— your financial life sinks. The wealthy know this, so they build boats with multiple engines. It's often said the average millionaire 7 streams of income. And while your number may vary, the idea is diversification. It could be a side hustle, investments, rental incomes, royalties, a second business, you name it. In one study, 65% of millionaires had at least 3 income streams, and nearly a third had 5 or more. So start with one strong income. This is where most people get it wrong when they're thinking have multiple streams of income. You don't have 7 all from the beginning because then you will be— you will diversify your energy out of any real wealth. So you start with one strong income, master it, and then add another. Each new stream is a layer of security and a force multiplier for your wealth. Importantly, build active income—so business, career—and passive incomes, which is investments and assets. Do them together. Don't rely on a single paycheck or a single customer. Spread your bets and create income while you sleep. Law number 9: Make money while you sleep. That's passive income. If you earn only money when you're personally working, you'll never escape the grind. You need income that doesn't require your constant presence. Warren Buffett said it best: if you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die. And that's not hyperbole, that's, that's reality. Passive income can come from investments like stocks, uh, index funds that pay dividends, rental properties, or from systems that you create— a business that runs without you, or online products, or royalties from a product. It usually takes hard work up front to set up these passive streams, so So don't think it's free money, but once they're running, they free up your time. Even having a little extra cash trickle in every month gives you breathing room. So imagine waking up to find you earned $100 overnight. Now imagine $1,000 or $10,000. The goal is to decouple your time from your money. Start building something today that pays you tomorrow, next week, next year. That's real financial freedom. Law number 10: Never stop learning. The moment you think you know it all, your bank account We'll prove you wrong. The wealthy are students of wealth, constantly reading, attending seminars, picking up new skills. 88% of rich people devote at least 30 minutes a day to learning through reading. They read biographies, business books, industry news— not gossip, not junk. They treat their mind as a million-dollar asset that compounds just like money. If you want to get rich, adopt a growth mindset. Invest in courses, find mentors, seek feedback. My core philosophy is believe. Believe that you can learn and improve. And I try to live this. In the early days, I studied Bill Gates and other successful people to model their strategies, and that learning led directly to my big breakthrough. So ask yourself daily, what can I learn today that will make me more valuable tomorrow? Every new skill or insight is money in the bank, just a bank you can't see yet. Stay curious and humble. The more you learn, the more you earn. Law number 11: Your network is your net worth. You can't do it alone and you shouldn't try. The people you surround yourself with will make or break your success. Jim Rohn famously said, you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. So take a look around. If your 5 closest friends are broke, negative, and complacent, guess where you're headed? Successful people consciously build success circles. They hang out with other winners. One study found The rich intentionally seek optimistic, goal-oriented peers. Why? Because environment matters. Conversations with high achievers will spark ideas, opportunities, and higher standards in you. On the other side, toxic, pessimistic people will drag you down to their level. This doesn't mean cut off loved ones. It means spend time strategically. Find mentors who've achieved what you want. Join entrepreneur groups, mastermind calls, online communities of goal-getters. Upgrade your network and you'll upgrade your net worth. It's practically automatic. Remember, birds of a feather flock to the bank together. Law number 12: Don't do it alone. Ask for help and mentorship. So pride and secrecy keep people poor. I learned this the hard way. In my startup days, I was making $300 a month and was too embarrassed to tell anyone how much I was struggling. I thought I had to fake success or go solo, and it nearly broke me. The truth is, successful people ask for help all the time. They hire coaches, they seek mentors, they gather teams of advisors. Ego can be expensive. If you're too proud to admit what you don't know, you will cap your growth. In fact, 82% of small businesses fail due to cash flow problems, often because the founder didn't seek financial advice or delegate when they should have. So don't let that be you. Find someone who has been where you want to go and learn from them. And if you're in a crisis, Reach out instead of suffering in silence. Don't do it alone because you'll probably fail. You'll quit along the way because it's too devastatingly lonely. The right help at the right time can save your business and your sanity. Success is a team sport, so play it that way. Law number 13: Reinvest your profits. So when money does start coming in, it's tempting to celebrate. I made it. Let's spend. But the wealthy think differently. They plow money back into growth. Warren Buffett insists on this. When you first make money, you may be tempted to spend it. Don't. Instead, reinvest the profits, whether it's profits from your business or returns from stocks. Feed it back into your wealth machine. This is how small ventures become empires. I did this with my first company. When we landed our first deal, I didn't go buy a car. I poured it into scaling the business, which later allowed me to sell and truly cash in. Reinvesting is how Buffett turned a pinball machine side hustle into a stock stock portfolio. Each round of profits bought more assets, which produced even more profit. It's a cycle: earn, invest, earn more. On the flip side, if you spend all you make, you kill the compound growth and go back to zero. So celebrate your wins, yes, but then put that money back to work. Delay the gratification a little longer and watch your wealth snowball. Law number 14: Take calculated risks and embrace failure. No risk, no reward. It's a cliché, but it's true. Getting rich will require you to step out of your comfort zone. So start that business, invest in that property, pitch that big client, even when there's no guarantee of success. In fact, you will screw up along the way, and that is okay. 63% of millionaires admit they took risks and failed at least once in business. But here's the difference. They didn't see failure as the end. It was just data. They learned and kept moving. As the saying goes, winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success. And that was one of the hardest lessons for me. I was afraid to look stupid, to ask dumb questions, to lose money on a strategy that might not work. But every failure— eating beans for lunch for years, failed product launches, interviews that tanked— that taught me something that eventually led to a huge win. So don't be reckless. Do your homework and take calculated risks. But when you feel fear, don't let it stop you. Often that fear is a sign that you're on the right track. Bet on yourself. And if you fall, get back up smarter. Law number 15: Be patient. Wealth takes time. We live in a world of instant gratification, but building real wealth is a long game. Too many people try one thing for 6 months, don't become millionaires, and then quit or jump onto the next fad. Don't fall for the get-rich-quick trap. The truth is most millionaires get rich slowly. In one study, 80% of millionaires were over 50. It took them decades of consistent effort to hit 7 figures. Saver investors took an average of 32 years to reach millionaire status. Even fast-track entrepreneurs took 12 years on average. The media loves to highlight the 22-year-old crypto billionaires, but that's the exception, not the rule. Embrace the process. Commit to the long haul. This doesn't mean it has to take 30 years for you. The timeline can accelerate with smart decisions, but it won't happen overnight. Set longer-term goals and keep grinding. Remember, Remember, compound interest needs time to work its magic. That's law number 7. Each of you persist, your knowledge, your network, and your assets compound too. Patience isn't just a virtue in wealth building, it's a strategic advantage. Law number 16: Leverage. Multiply yourself through others. Here's a harsh truth: you will never get truly wealthy trading only your own time and effort. There are only 24 hours in a day and only one of you. The rich scale up by leveraging other people's time, their talent, their resources. That means hiring, delegating, automating. Leveraging, building a team and systems that make money even when you're not personally doing the work. So I learned this in running my YouTube channel. For years I was in front of the camera, I was behind the camera, I was doing everything myself, and I was hesitant to spend money on help. I grew up without a ton of money and maybe I was too cheap at first, but once I hired my first part-time editor, boom, I went from one video a week to one a day, which then brought in more money. Leverage. Similarly in business, the moment I started bringing in partners and employees who are smarter than me in their areas, our growth started to explode. According to research, over 80% of millionaires rely on a team of smart people— attorneys, accountants, advisors— to help achieve their vision. So ask yourself, what tasks or expertise can you leverage from others to scale up? It could be as simple as hiring a virtual assistant for $10 an hour to free you up to make $100 an hour, or partnering with someone who has skills or contacts that you lack. Yes, it can cost money to hire good people, but not hiring when you need to is far costlier. Build your dream team. Law number 17: Take action. Speed beats perfection. The money goes to those who do, not those who wait. One thing I see holding entrepreneurs back is analysis paralysis. They plan and polish and procrastinate, and opportunities pass them by. The wealthy have a bias for action. They do the best research they can, then pull the trigger. Jeff Bezos calls it the bias for action and credits much of Amazon's success to it. Warren Buffett calls unnecessary waiting thumbsucking and pushes himself to make decisions swiftly when he has enough facts. The point is, you can't steer a parked car. You have to start moving. Want to invest in stocks? Open the account and put in a small amount today. Learn as you go. Have a business idea? Launch a simple version of it right now, even if it's not perfect. You will refine through real-world feedback. Money loves speed. Not reckless, stupid speed, but the momentum that comes from decisive Action precedes clarity. So the law is do it before you feel 100% ready. An average plan executed today beats a perfect plan never executed. Start, stumble, learn, adjust, but start. Law number 18: Know your numbers. Track your money. You wouldn't drive a car blindfolded, right? So don't drive your finances that way too. Ignorance is extremely expensive. Wealthy people are keenly aware of their numbers. They know their income, their expenses, the profit margins, the tax liabilities, the investment returns, at least the key figures at all times. You need to become the CFO of your own life. You make a budget, update it regularly, and review where your money is going. You can use apps or spreadsheets, chalk on a board, whatever works for you, but track it. If you're an entrepreneur, this is even more critical because poor cash flow management kills 82% of small businesses. When I started, I used Microsoft Money software to track my business finances, and my early accounting was a total disaster until I learned how to prioritize. It. And once I did, I found ways to save on taxes and get unexpected refunds that boosted my cash flow. That's the reward for paying attention. The law here is what gets measured gets managed. When you track, you naturally start optimizing. You spot wasteful spending, you find opportunities to save or invest, and you avoid nasty surprises. So open those bank statements, know your credit score, set a weekly date with your money. Yes, I'm serious. Your bank account should never be a mystery. Law number 19: Give and you shall receive. This might sound more spiritual, but it's a hard-nosed success strategy too. Generosity breeds prosperity. The wealthiest people I know are givers. They donate to charities. They mentor others. They create opportunities for the people that are around them. Why? Because what you put out into the world comes back to you multiplied. Zig Ziglar said it best: You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. And it's true. When you operate from a mindset of service and generosity, you build an army of allies. People open doors for you. Clients refer to you. Your reputation starts to shine. Even on a practical level, generosity expands your network and skills. So volunteer in an organization and meet influential people. Mentor someone, and you often learn from the teaching. Also, giving keeps you humble and hungry. It reminds you that wealth has a purpose to improve lives, including your own. And here's a little secret. Here's a secret. Giving money away can actually make you feel wealthier. It breaks the fear that money is scarce. Of course, be smart. Don't give beyond your means, but make generosity a line item in your life. It could be money or time or knowledge. Nearly 3 of 4 millionaires in a study volunteered at least 5 hours a month, and many actively mentored others. Coincidence? I don't think so. The more you give, the more you grow. It's a law. And law number 20. Stay humble and stay hungry. Money is a moving target. The game doesn't end when you hit some magic number. To not only get rich, but to stay rich, you must keep your ego in check and your drive alive. Success can be a sedative. The moment you think I've made it, you start to slip. Remember Bill Gates's warning: Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose. So don't fall for that trap. The greats, the Buffetts, the Oprahs, they never stop learning. They never stop pushing. They act like beginners even when they are masters. For me, the belief game never ends. Despite all the subscribers and the business, I still wake up as a student. I still want to get better every day. So celebrate your wins, yes, but stay curious and grounded. Keep setting the next goal, setting the next challenge, and importantly, stay grateful. Humility also means recognizing the role that others have played and some luck in your success. It keeps you from doing something dumb and losing it all out of arrogance. The hungry, humble entrepreneur will run circles around the complacent one one who's resting on his laurels. Money has a way of disappearing from those who take it for granted. So no matter how well you're doing, adhere to these laws. Keep growing, keep giving, and keep believing. A quick final thought: you've just learned 20 laws, but knowledge alone won't change your life. Action will. Pick one law today and start living it. Maybe it's setting up that savings account. Maybe it's calling that mentor. Maybe it's finally launching that product. Remember, every big success is just an accumulation of small consistent wins. You showing up for this, absorbing these strategies, that already sets you apart from the masses who are still looking for easy answers. And so I want to acknowledge you for being here right now and investing in yourself. Now get out there and do the work. Apply these laws and build the wealth and life that you deserve. A single conversation could spark your next big partnership or close a life-changing deal. But if you sleepwalk through it, that opportunity vanishes. Fail to act. Act, and you'll wake up one day filled with regret, realizing you talked your way out of success when it mattered most. It's that serious. There's a famous story that proves it. At a dinner party, author Dale Carnegie spent the whole evening listening to a botanist gush about plants. He hardly said a word, yet afterwards the botanist told everyone Carnegie was a most interesting conversationalist. Dale Carnegie didn't try to impress him at He just listened with genuine curiosity. I'm a classic introvert. I hate small talk. Once on a flight to Puerto Rico, I was speaking at an event. I sat next to a guy and silently prayed he wouldn't start a conversation with me. I remembered everything about him. I remember he ordered a coffee. I remembered he had this really cool backpack, but I kept my mouth shut. 2 hours later, we land and I find out he was an entrepreneur going to the same event that I was speaking at. I was shocked and I thought, wait, he was an entrepreneur. We could have had a great discussion for 2 hours and I just didn't realize it. I missed a 2-hour golden opportunity because I was too scared to say hi. Now maybe you're thinking, yeah, Evan, but I'm not good at this. I'm shy. I'm not a people person. Guess what? Neither am I. I still get anxious walking into networking events, but being introverted can actually be your advantage. It means you won't you won't fall into the trap of blabbering about yourself. You'll actually listen to people. And listening, my friend, is a superpower in conversations. So how do you dramatically improve your conversations? Let's break it down. First, talk less, listen more. Seriously, stop trying to dominate the conversation. We tend to think we have to prove ourselves by talking about our achievements. Wrong. Research shows that talking all about yourself actually makes people like you less. Meanwhile, letting the other person share more makes them feel heard and valued. Remember that dinner story? Dale Carnegie barely spoke, but the other guy felt amazed by him. Why? Because Carnegie's undivided attention was the ultimate compliment. Harvard studies found that when people talk about themselves, it triggers the same pleasure in the brain as food or money. Think about that. By listening and encouraging someone to talk about their story, you're literally giving their brain a reward. They walk away feeling great about the conversation, and they'll credit you for it, even if you hardly said anything. So zip your lips more often. Aim to listen 70% of the time and talk 30% of the time. When they pause, don't immediately bring it back to you. Instead, nod and say, Hey, I'm listening and mean it. Your silence combined with genuine interest shouts that you care, and caring is charismatic. Second, ask more and better questions. Being a great listener doesn't mean you just sit like a stone. You engage by asking. Questions are your secret weapon. A Harvard study revealed that the secret to being more likable isn't your jokes or your charm. It's asking questions, especially follow-up questions that show that you're really paying attention to them. In experiments, people who asked a lot of questions, particularly follow-ups like, "Really? Tell me more about that," were rated far more likable than those who didn't. Why? Because it shows that you're focused on them. You're not just waiting for your turn to talk. You actually care about what this person is saying. Think about it. We all love when someone is interested in us. So be the person who says, "That's interesting. How did you feel when that happened?" What got you into that business in the first place? Skip the superficial stuff. Get them to talk about what they care about. If you meet another entrepreneur, instead of asking, "So how about that weather today, huh?" Try, "What projects are you excited about right now?" When they answer, dig deeper. What's the story behind that? Within minutes, you'll have them lighting up because you're giving them a chance to share their passion with you. And here's the magic. As they talk and you listen, they start associating you with that good feeling. You become, in their eyes, an amazing conversationalist, just like Carnegie did, all because you asked and listened. Now, you might worry, won't I come off as nosy? As long as you're genuine and not prying into ultra-personal territories, people usually love it. Most of us are craving to be truly heard. So by asking sincere questions, you're offering a gift that's that so few people get: the gift of someone who cares. Third, use your body language and tone to build energy and trust. It's not just what you say, it's how you say it. Humans are wired to respond to nonverbal cues. So if you come in with a genuine smile and a warm eye contact, you instantly signal to people, I'm friendly. You're safe with me. It's just biology. When someone sees you smiling and relaxed, their brain's mirror neurons fire and they start to feel a little bit of that warmth too. Emotion is contagious. So, have you noticed when one person in a meeting is enthusiastic, others also perk up? That's the science of emotional contagion at work. So, bring positive energy. It doesn't mean that you have to be bouncing off the walls and going crazy if that's not you. It can be a calm warmth. Just show that you're happy to be there in that moment with them. Similarly, pay attention to your listening signals. Nod your head, say, "Mm-hmm," or "I understand" at appropriate moments. This tells them, "I hear you. Keep going." It builds incredible trust. Neuroscience tells us that when we feel trust, our brains release oxytocin, the bonding hormone. That oxytocin literally helps people open up more. They feel safe. On the flip side, if someone feels judged or ignored, their brain douses them in cortisol, which is a stress hormone, and they shut down completely. So your job in a conversation is to create that safe, positive bubble for them. And here's a quick tip: mirror the person's vibe authentically. If they are speaking softly and thoughtfully, don't steamroll them with a loud, rapid-fire response. Match their pace. If they're a little bit more upbeat and they are gesturing, You can lean in with energy too. Research has found that one reason extroverts often come off more likable is that they subconsciously mirror people's expressions and their posture. They make the other person feel understood without saying a word. You can do this intentionally too. It's as simple as noticing their body language and their tone and aligning with it. Just be subtle. You're not mimicking them, you're not copying them, you're harmonizing with And here's a fun one. Don't be afraid to laugh or show emotion when they say something that's funny or heartfelt. If they crack a joke, you can chuckle. If they share something inspiring, say, "Wow, that's awesome." Your genuine emotional reactions help validate them. It's like you're saying, "I'm right here with you. Keep going." That feeling can turn an everyday chat into a meaningful conversation. Fourth, drop a genuine compliment compliment when you can. A real one, not fake flattery or pickup lines. If you notice something that you truly appreciate about the person, say it. Like, "By the way, I love how passionately you speak about your team. It's really inspiring." Or, "You've got great energy. I can tell you really care about what it is that you do." Why do this? Science gives us a big reason. When you give someone a compliment, their brain receives like a gift. MRI scans show that a sincere compliment activates the same reward circuit in the brain as receiving cash. Seriously, telling someone, "I admire your work," can light up their brain with dopamine, the pleasure chemical. And get this, it's not one-sided. When you give a heartfelt compliment, not a fake one, you give a boost too. It fires up your brain's empathy and bonding circuits and releases oxytocin in you the love hormone that makes you feel connected. So compliments are literally a win-win backed by neuroscience. Most people vastly underestimate how much a small compliment actually means to people. Now you might think, eh, she probably already knows what she's doing and she knows she's doing a great job and I don't need to say it. But you have no idea how one comment might lift her whole mood for the day. We all fight inner battles every and your kind words might be the highlight that drowns out a day full of self-doubt. And in terms of conversation, it creates a positive emotional spike for both of you. They'll remember that you made them feel good. Just be authentic. Compliment something that you genuinely appreciate about them, whether it's their insight, their enthusiasm, or even something simple like the awesome t-shirt that expresses their personality. Fifth, make your conversations about service Not just self-interest. This is one of my core beliefs. Treat each conversation as an opportunity to give, not just take. Yes, even a casual chat at a party can be an act of service for people. I'll tell you what I mean. A while back, I was at a book launch party hosted by Joe Polish. A member at the event came up to me nervously, just hoping to get a selfie with me. Instead of a quick pic and polite nod, I ended up spending 20 minutes with him brainstorming his YouTube strategy right there in the middle of the party. He actually tried to end the conversation early because he felt guilty taking my time. But I said, no, no, dude, like, we're working. Let's go. Why? Because this is my purpose. If someone needs help and they're an entrepreneur, it's literally my favorite thing to do. And that's how I approach these types of conversations. How can I help this person? How can I leave them better than I found them? Now, you don't have to turn every chat you have into a coaching session, but go in with a mindset of trying to bring value. Maybe you do have some knowledge or a connection that could help them. Awesome. Share it freely with them. Or maybe the value you give is just making them feel heard, which trust me, is huge value in and of itself. Ironically, when you focus on helping others, you often benefit too. They'll remember you. They'll want to help you back, and you build a reputation as someone who lifts others up. Karma is practical, but you can't fake this. It has to come from a genuine place of wanting to see other people win. So it could be as simple as if they mention a problem, you offer a suggestion or you offer a resource that might help them. Or if they express a goal, you encourage them. I love that you're doing that. I think you're going to kill it. Give them that boost of confidence. These little moments of service turn ordinary conversations into impactful ones. You stop being just another person they chatted with and become someone who made a difference in their lives. Finally, and this one ties everything together, believe in the power of conversation and believe in yourself as a great communicator. This isn't just about techniques. It's about who you are. It's your identity. Start seeing every conversation as significant. When you do, you bring a different level of energy to it. You'll prepare a little bit more. You'll be a little bit more present. You'll listen a little bit more deeply and start seeing yourself as someone who can connect with anyone. Don't just label yourself as awkward or shy or not good with people. That story is holding you back. Instead, tell yourself of, "I am someone who makes people feel seen. I have meaningful conversations." When you adopt that identity, you will naturally do the things great communicators do because it's now who you are. It's not just a strategy. You'll step up to talk to that stranger. You'll push through the discomfort to ask one more question, to give that compliment, to share that piece of you. And when you do, watch what happens. Your relationships will deepen, New opportunities will flow your way because people trust and like the person that you've become. You'll start to feel a shift. Conversations won't drain you anymore. They will energize you. You will leave interactions with people feeling, wow, that was awesome, because you weren't hiding. You were all in, and so were they. This is how you win in business and in life. Entrepreneurs often think success is all about the product and the strategy and the hustle. Deal, but behind every deal, every investment, every team is a conversation. Master this and you master the art of inspiring, leading, and connecting. The art of making people believe. So here's my challenge to you. Your next conversation, maybe that's today, maybe tomorrow, treat it differently. Be present. Listen like few ever do. Ask the question nobody asks. Smile. Bring good vibes. Give a compliment. Offer help. Do even one of these things and you'll see a difference. Do them all and you will be amazed. You have the power to turn ordinary exchanges into extraordinary opportunities. So use it, because you are one conversation away from a breakthrough. Make it count. Every entrepreneur fails until they figure out their true purpose. Most entrepreneurs get it wrong. They obsess over raising money, perfecting a logo, or building a fancy website and they chase 10 different ideas at once. Wrong. None of that matters if you don't have the foundation in place. Let's look at some stats. 90% of startups go under, but the ones who make it, they almost all share one thing in common: an unshakable clarity of purpose and vision that drives everything that they do. They know exactly why they started and they believe in it so strongly that nothing can knock them off course. That is the level level of obsession you need to survive and thrive. And if you ignore this, the consequences are pretty brutal. Without a guiding mission, you'll wander into distractions and then drown in them. You'll work yourself into the ground on things that don't even move the needle. And when the first real obstacles hit, you'll quit, because why suffer for something you don't truly care about? Years from now, you'll wake up stuck in a mediocre life, haunted by what could have been. Research shows we regret the choices we didn't take far more than our failures. So imagine looking back and knowing you had a dream but were too scared or unfocused to give it your all. That kind of regret sticks with you forever. So decide that you're going to be the real deal, the entrepreneur who goes all in and what really matters, instead of the wannabe who gave up and made excuses. To drive this home, let's look at a famous story. In the early 1900s, there was a race to invent the airplane. Samuel Pierpont Langley had everything going for him: a $50,000 government grant, the best team money could buy, top scientists, cutting-edge equipment. The press followed him around like he was already a hero. It was practically impossible for him to fail on paper. Meanwhile, not too far away, two brothers in Ohio, Wilbur and Orville Wright, were working on the same goal. These guys had no money, no pedigree, no government backing. They ran a bicycle shop, for goodness' sake. No one paid attention to them. By all odds, they should have failed. But the Wright brothers had something Langley Langley didn't: a deep passion and belief in their cause. They knew that if they could figure out controlled flight, it would change the world, and they were obsessed with making it happen. Langley wanted to be rich and famous. The Wright brothers wanted to fly. And on December 17, 1903, in a field in Kitty Hawk, the Wright brothers did exactly that. They flew a powered airplane for the first time in human history. Langley, with all his funding and talent, never did. In fact, the day the Wrights succeeded, Langley quit. He packed it in because it wasn't about the mission for him. It was about the payday and the ego. And once that was gone, so was his drive. The Wright brothers won because their purpose and belief fueled them beyond what money and resources alone could. A passionate team of true believers will beat a team of well-paid mercenaries every time. That is the power of leading with mission. I learned this lesson the hard way in my own life. Let me take you way back to when I was 19, the start of my first real business. I turned down my dream job I'm talking a high-paying 6-figure job at a big company to chase a startup with a couple of partners. I owned 30% of this little software company and was working my face off every day. And on paper it sounded exciting. In reality, it was really tough. We were struggling. I was making only $300 a month and living on beans for lunch. And every day felt like I was pushing a boulder uphill only to have it roll back down over me. Nothing was working. Nothing. I felt like a total failure and I was embarrassed to tell anyone. My friends were getting having real jobs, going out for drinks, and there I was, broke and ashamed. And I started avoiding them because I couldn't face telling them how badly my business was doing. I mean, I was supposed to be this entrepreneur, and here I was feeling like a loser who couldn't make a dime. The stress, the loneliness, it just kept piling on. And finally I hit my breaking point. I remember I was at a family event and my business partner called me, and I told him that I quit with tears in my eyes. I couldn't see any way out. That night I cried harder than I almost ever had in my life, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I was broken. I felt like I was flushing my dream down the drain and proving everyone who doubted me right. It was the worst night of my life, at least one of them. But here's the crazy thing: by the next morning, something in me had changed. As the sun came up, so did this little voice inside me that said, no, not yet. And in the pit of absolute despair, I found one spark of fight left. I realized I couldn't live with the regret if I gave up completely. Yes, failing sucked, but you know what would suck more? Not knowing if I could have made I remember telling myself, I can handle failure, but I can't handle not knowing. And that lit a fire in me. I went to my business partner the next day and we went back to work. I had no idea what I was going to do differently. I just knew I had to keep going or I'd hate myself forever. So I made a plan that day. Well, calling it a plan is generous. I basically decided to borrow belief from someone who had done it. I thought, who has built a big software company before? And Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, came to mind. I spent the day researching how Bill Gates went from from a nobody to building Microsoft into a giant company. I read everything I could find, and I discovered something that changed my life. Bill built Microsoft through partnerships. He landed big deals by partnering with other companies. The most famous was partnering with IBM. I thought, hmm, maybe that's the key that I'm missing. So I started modeling his strategy. I literally started messaging potential partners and pitching them on our software. And you know what happened? Momentum. We got our first breakthrough deal, a $13,500 contract with a company in the UK that wanted exclusive rights to our software in their market. $13,500. I went from making $300 a month to closing a $13.5K deal. I felt like I was a millionaire in my head. It wasn't about the money. It was proof that my business could work, that somebody out there believed in what we were doing enough to pay for. That deal was the turning point. It gave me momentum. It gave me my confidence back. And it all came because I got back to focusing on the mission. I remembered why I started— to bring this software to the world— and I refused to quit on that. I learned that if you stay in the game and you model success, you can turn things around. But it all starts with that decision to not give up on your dream. I had to believe in it again 100% and fight. And that's why I'm here now. If I hadn't had that mindset shift, I would have ended my entrepreneur journey right then and there, and you'd never have heard of me. Now, at this point, you might be thinking, okay, Evan, I get it. I have a purpose, believe in it, but come on, man, passion isn't going to pay my rent next month. I've got bills to pay and real life pressures. I can't just sit around believing and not worry about the money or the product or the marketing. Fair point. Let's address that because it's the biggest objection people have to this idea. Yes, you need to make money. Yes, you need customers. But here's the truth. If you chase money before mission, you'll get neither. I've seen it over and over and lived it. When you focus on profit first, you start compromising everything else. You cut corners, you get desperate, you lose sight of serving customers, and instead you're just serving your own wallet. And in the long run, that destroys your business. I've said this before. I'll say it again. It's okay to want to make money. We're entrepreneurs, not charities. But if profit is your primary reason for starting a business, then you are in trouble. A profit-first mindset makes you do stupid things. You sacrifice your team, your product quality, your customer experience, all in the name of squeezing out a buck. You know where that leads? A race to the bottom where you're cutting costs and undercutting competitors until there's nothing unique or valuable left in what you do, and then you lose. On the flip side, when you lead with purpose, something amazing happens. The money comes as a result of doing the right thing. So think about it. If you genuinely solve a problem that you deeply care about for people, do you think those people feel that? Absolutely. Your customers can smell whether you actually give a damn about them or if you're just looking at their wallet. When you care, you overdeliver. You wow people. They become raving fans and tell others. That drives sales. And you can weather the early stages when money is tight because you're fueled by something bigger. You'll show up with energy and creativity even when you're tired and broke Whereas the person who's only in it for cash is going to burn out fast when things don't go as planned. So let me ask you this: who works harder, someone doing a job they hate just for a paycheck, or someone doing work they love for a mission they believe in? Right? It's obvious. If you've ever worked a boring job, you know you do the bare minimum. You watch the clock, you mentally check out at 5 PM. But when you're part of something that you love, maybe a project or a cause you really care about, you became a maniac. You put in extra hours and and didn't even feel the time passing by. You lay in bed or shower thinking of ideas for— you gave your best self to that work. The difference in output is huge. As a founder, you want that level of effort and passion from yourself and eventually from your team. That only comes from having a meaningful mission. In fact, great leaders inspire people to act by giving them a sense of purpose or belonging that goes beyond any financial incentives. When everyone's driven by a cause, they endure inconvenience, suffering, and setbacks that people who are just there for a paycheck never would. So yeah, passion does indirectly pay the bills because it makes you work harder and smarter, and it attracts others to help you. Purpose drives profit. Not immediately. You still have to be smart about your model, but it lays the only sustainable foundation for success. Now, I want to give a quick shout out here because this entire video was sparked by a great question from one of our community members. Ryan Leo from our school community. He asked, what's one thing every entrepreneur should focus on in the early stage of building their business? Ryan, this is it. The one thing is to identify your mission, your why, and pour every ounce of focus into it. Everything else, the money, the strategy, the growth flows from that. If you get this right, you give yourself a real shot. If you don't, nothing else you do will ever be enough. So thank you for your question, Ryan, and I hope you and everyone else watching is starting to see why I'm so passionate about this. So we're about to dive into the how, how to actually do this step by step so you can put it into practice today. All right. Now let's break this down and deliver on that promise. What should you focus on as an early-stage entrepreneur and how do you do it in practical terms? I'm going to give you 3 steps, 3 concrete things you can do right now to put purpose and belief at the core of your business. This is what saved me in my journey, and it's what I see in every successful entrepreneur that I've studied. Step number 1. Step 1: Find your single driving mission. This is your foundation. It's the answer to why you started this business in the first place. And to make money is not a good enough answer. Dig deeper. What's the problem that fires you up? Who do you want to help and why do you care so much? One of my favorite exercises is to look at your life and identify the biggest pain you've ever overcome, because I firmly believe that your purpose comes from your pain. The adversity you faced and conquered, that's your source of passion. In my case, as you heard, I struggled so much as a young entrepreneur. Felt so hopeless and alone that I developed an obsession to help other entrepreneurs never feel that way. That's my purpose. I don't want the 19-year-old Evans of the world to give up. I want to make their path easier. Now, I've been doing this for over 20 years, and I still wake up excited because it's personal for me. So what is that for you? Maybe you battle depression, and now your mission is to help others find hope. Maybe you grew up poor, and your mission is to empower people financially. Maybe you just really love baking and your mission is to bring people joy through amazing cupcakes and cookies. It doesn't have to be end world hunger. It just has to be real and deeply meaningful for you. Think about the moments in your life that changed you or hurt you and how you wish they could have gone. There's gold there. There's a mission there. And when you find it, plant your flag in it and declare, this is what I'm building my business around. Write it down. One sentence. My mission is blank. Get it crystal clear, because once you have that, it becomes that North Star for every decision. You can ask, does this action align with my mission? If yes, then do it. If no, you toss it. It simplifies things so much. You stop getting distracted by every shiny object because you know I'm here to do this and nothing is going to stop me. Now, quick caution on this step. Don't freak out if your mission isn't perfectly unique. Don't think, oh, someone is already doing that. Who am I to do it too? Listen, there are 7 billion people on this planet. Even if your mission is similar to someone else's, your voice and your story will reach people in a way that others can't. There are tons of entrepreneurs trying to help other entrepreneurs. I am not the only one, but I reach some people that others don't, and others will reach some that I don't, and that's fine. The world needs all of us living our purpose, so don't let the fact that it's been done before stop you now. Now. No one will do it exactly like you. As long as it's coming from your genuine passion, it is valid. Step number 2: Cultivate unwavering belief in yourself and your mission. It's one thing to have a mission, it's another to believe that you are the person to make it happen. This is where so many entrepreneurs stumble. They have a great idea or a big why, but deep down they don't believe they can do it, or they waffle when things get hard. You must develop rock-solid self-belief. Think of it like this: you're a bird perched on a branch. If you're confident in your own wings, it doesn't matter if the branch breaks because you trust yourself to handle it. But if you don't trust your wings, you're going to live in the fear that your branch, which is your current plan, your current situation, your branch is going to break. In business, things will break. Your first product might flop, your client might back out, your investor might say no. If your confidence is only in the plan you're in trouble. Your belief has to be in yourself that no matter what breaks, you can figure it out. That's called unwavering belief. So how do you build that kind of belief, especially when you're just starting and the results aren't there yet? I'll share what works for me. Daily rituals to feed my mindset. Every single day I do something to strengthen my belief because let's be honest, motivation isn't a one-time thing. It's like bathing. Like Zig Ziglar says, you need to do it daily. For me, I take a believe walk. Literally, I go outside and walk while listening to something inspiring. A video, a speech, something from a person I admire. True story, the other day I woke up with a pounding migraine after only a few hours sleep, and it was dark and raining here in Toronto, and I had back-to-back meetings and interviews lined up, and I felt like garbage. I had zero motivation. And part of me was thinking, maybe I can cancel everything today. Who would really care? Ever had one of those mornings? Here's what I did. I forced myself out the door in the rain, popped in my earbuds, and I listened to Elon Musk at the time talking about his vision for the future. Why Elon? Because his vision is insane and it inspires me. By the end of that 20-minute walk, I was fired up again. Seeing someone who was more successful and still pushing massive missions made me want to attack my day. I came back home ready to go crush my schedule. What changed? Not the weather. Not my migraine, just my mindset. I refueled my belief by borrowing from Elon's story. This is what I mean by feeding your mind daily. You might use podcasts, books, YouTube videos, prayer, meditation, whatever fills you with strength and positivity. Make it a routine. Block it in your morning if you can, because as an entrepreneur, you're battling doubt and fear constantly, your own and everyone else's. You need to armor up your mind every day. When you consistently flood your brain with stories and examples of success and courage and perseverance, you train yourself to think that way. Neuroscience even shows that your brain's RAS, the reticular activating system, will filter in information that aligns with what you focus on and believe. So if you focus on your goal and believe in it, your brain will literally help you spot opportunities and solutions to achieve it. Focus on fear and doubt and you'll only see roadblocks. So choose carefully What you feed into your mind. Surround yourself in person and virtually with people who uplift you and remind you of what's possible. Protect your environment. That might even mean cutting back time with friends or with family who are negative about your business. Now, I'm not saying drop all your friends, but maybe don't discuss your dreams with those who shoot them down. Find a community like Believe Nation here, or mentors who build you up when you falter, and you will. Borrow belief. I still do. If I'm facing something scary or new, I'll think about how my mom believed in me or how my audience believes in me, and I use that as motivation until my own belief catches up. Do whatever it takes to keep your belief tank full, because if that ever runs empty, you're done. But as long as you believe in yourself and what you're doing, you are literally unstoppable. You'll find a way through anything. Step number 3: Take action now. Start by serving one customer extremely Well, okay, you have your mission and you're building your belief. Now you need momentum. Vision means nothing without execution. This is where you switch from planning into doing. And my advice here is simple: start small and start now. A lot of new entrepreneurs get stuck here. They think they need the perfect business plan or 10,000 followers or everything figured out before they actually engage with customers. Nope. The best way to start is to help one person, just one person. Solve one person's problem with your product or service. Deliver value to one client, sell to one customer. Why? Because that first real result is priceless. It gives you proof that your idea works, or it gives you feedback on what to fix. It gives you confidence and a testimonial. It might even give you your first dollar of revenue and referrals. But most importantly, it gets you out of the wantrepreneur stage and into the entrepreneur stage. You're doing it for real this time. So if you have 5 potential customers in mind, Call one of them today. If you have zero, then make a profile of your ideal customer based on your mission and reach out to someone who fits the description. Offer to help them for free or at cost, whatever you need to do to get that first win. Do not obsess about scaling or what if a million people buy this. Focus on your first fan and give them an experience that makes them say, holy crap, this is amazing. When Amazon started, Jeff Bezos didn't try to sell everything. He focused on just books initially. By nailing the online bookstore model, he built a foundation and could then expand. Bezos himself said that narrowing the focus to one category was a key to Amazon's early success. So think, what's your version of selling books first? Create a small, winnable market or task for yourself. Win it, then move to the next. Here's another example. Uh, if you're building an app, don't wait until it has 50 features and a fancy UI to get user feedback. Build a simple version or even just a prototype on paper and get it in front of someone now. Let them use it and learn from their reactions early on. Feedback is your friend, and you only get that through action. Plus, by focusing on one user at a time, you'll naturally create a better product. I always tell entrepreneurs and founders, don't worry about the ones who aren't there. Serve the ones who are. If only 3 people watch your video, treat those 3 people like gold. Reply to their comments. Ask them what they want more of. Overdeliver to those 3. Free, so they tell 3 more people. Focus on who you're serving, not who you're not. I did this with my own YouTube channel when I only had a few comments. I replied to everyone and built real connections. Those early supporters became evangelists for me. You don't need a million customers to start. You need to deeply impact the ones that you have, even if it's just one. Great businesses grow from word of mouth because the founders were obsessed with customer success. Not just customer acquisition. So who is your one going to be? Identify the first target and go make them super happy. Now, while you're taking action, keep this in mind: your first attempt will probably suck, and that's okay. Don't let perfectionism stop you from launching. Your first YouTube video, your first sales call, your first prototype— it might be terrible. As I often say, expect to suck at the start. That's not a judgment on you as a person. That means you It's just reality when you're learning a new skill. The key is to not attach your worth to that first outcome. If it goes badly, it doesn't mean I'm a bad entrepreneur. It just means that you're a beginner and you are learning. Too many people do one bad livestream or get one rejection and say, okay, I suck. I guess I'm not cut out for this. And then they quit. Don't do that. Embrace the suck, laugh at it, learn from it and improve. Expect it. It. Each iteration will get better if you keep your mission in mind and listen to the feedback. I promise you will not suck forever if you keep going and keep learning, but you will 100% fail if you stop. So get that first version out, deliver it to your one customer, and then iterate. This action-oriented mindset is what separates the ones who talk about being entrepreneurs from the ones who are entrepreneurs. Finally, tie your action back to your mission every single day. This isn't just about, uh, hustling blindly. It's about intentional hustle. Every morning, remind yourself, I'm doing this to— and then put in your mission. For example, I'm making 20 cold calls today to help local businesses save money on their energy bills, right? If that's your mission, when you connect the grind of the day to the higher purpose, you'll find even the tedious tasks start to gain meaning. It stops being, oh, I have to do accounting, and becomes, I'm doing accounting so I can keep my business healthy and continue serving my mission. Mission. Everything becomes motivation for that mission, and that mindset makes you way more resilient. Let me also share a philosophy that my mom taught me, which has also become a core of Believe Nation values: if you have the ability, you have the responsibility. If you can, then you must. Think about that. If you can help someone, you must not turn away. If you have a gift, you must use it. If you see a problem you can solve, you must step up. That's It's a powerful way to live and do business. It means your business isn't just about you, it's about the people that you are meant to serve. So when fear creeps in or laziness tempts you to Netflix instead of work, remember, someone out there needs you. If you don't show up, they stay stuck. But if you do, you might change their life. How dare we hide our gift, right? That mindset kicks me into action on days I feel low. I think of that 19-year-old entrepreneur who's watching my video somewhere, and I I have to show up for her because I can't. Use that sense of duty to your advantage. It's one of the best cures for procrastination and fear that I know. So that's the formula, my friends. Purpose, belief, action. Focus on those first. Nail those, and I guarantee you will build something that not only succeeds but fulfills you. So to recap, first, define your purpose, the meaningful mission that will be the heartbeat of your business. Second, build unbreakable belief in yourself and that mission. Second, feed your mind daily, surround yourself with positivity, trust your wings so you're not afraid of the branches breaking. And third, take action now. Serve one customer, create momentum, and iterate all while keeping your mission front and center. Do this and you will be ahead of 90% of new entrepreneurs who are scattered, directionless, or chasing shortcuts. You'll be building on bedrock instead of quicksand, and most importantly, you'll become the kind of person you're proud of. Someone who doesn't just talk about wanting to start a business, but someone who is actually making a difference one step at a time. You'll feel that alignment in your soul when you wake up each day, knowing why you do what you do. And that feeling, that's freedom. That's success beyond any dollar amount. The dollars will come. Trust me. They're a byproduct of doing meaningful work with excellence. Marketing is the lifeblood of your business. It doesn't matter how great your product or your service is. If nobody knows about it, you're not in business. When you avoid marketing, you're essentially writing a death sentence for your dream. And if you keep neglecting it, your ideal customers will never find you and your competition will eat your lunch while you watch your vision wither away. Back in 1984, Steve Jobs bet everything on a single bold marketing move. Apple was about to launch the Macintosh and Jobs commissioned an an outrageous Super Bowl commercial that looked nothing like anyone had seen before. A woman smashing Big Brother on a huge screen to announce the birth of the Mac. Apple's board of directors hated it. One board member even wanted to fire the ad agency that made it. The CEO told the team to sell off the Super Bowl ad slot and cancel the whole thing. But the marketers on Apple's team quietly refused to back down. They ran that ad anyway in the Super Bowl, and it became legendary. The commercial shocked the world, generating massive buzz, and reinvented Apple's image. A week later, Apple's once-skeptical board gave a standing ovation, admitting they were wrong about the power of that marketing. Here's the thing: the pressure Steve Jobs felt to prove his vision is the same pressure you feel right now. He bet his company on one gutsy marketing idea when everyone around him doubted him. Now, you might not be launching a Super Bowl ad, but every time you put your message out there, it can feel like your reputation and business are on the line. I know how that pressure feels because I lived it. When I was 19, I became a co-owner of a tiny startup. We had a great piece of biotech software, but we had zero clue how to market or sell it. Month after month, very limited sales. Crickets. I felt like a total failure. I was isolated, overwhelmed, and almost gave up entirely, wondering if I was cut out for entrepreneurship or not. But But in that dark moment, I decided to dig deeper instead of quitting. I told myself, I'm not the first guy to struggle with marketing, so how did others figure it out? I started studying how the great entrepreneurs got known. I learned that Bill Gates built Microsoft by partnering with bigger players. So heart pounding, I started reaching out to companies that had the customers we needed, and I proposed a partnership. I was a nobody. I was 20 years old. I was terrified they'd laugh me off. But you know what? One company company said yes, and that one partnership helped expand our business. We went from slowly moving along to landing over 300 customers in 30 countries. We built a global brand because I swallowed my fear and marketed through a partnership when it counted. I learned that marketing isn't about slick ads or having a huge budget. It's about courageously putting yourself out there and finding smart ways to reach people. If a shy, non-technical teenager like me could do it, trust Trust me, you can too. Now maybe you're thinking, okay, sure, Evan, but I'm not Steve Jobs and I'm not a born marketer. You might even feel a knot in your stomach when you even hear the word marketing. And maybe you're saying to yourself, I'm an introvert, or I don't have any money for ads, or I just don't know where to start. I get it. One of our subscribers, Safari's Company, asked me point blank in a comment, hello Evan, can you help with marketing? And maybe you're asking the same thing. Here's what I need you to understand. Marketing is not some mystical talent reserved for extroverts and madmen. Marketing is a skill. It can be learned like any skill. It can be mastered. And it starts with a decision to stop making excuses and start taking action. You don't need millions of dollars or a fancy ad firm. What you need is the belief that your message matters and the willingness to fight for it. Now, if you've watched this far, you have that spark inside you. And now I'm going to show you how to turn that spark into a fire. Make marketing non-negotiable. Your business depends on If you only take one thing from this video, take this: treat marketing as a must, not a maybe. Too many entrepreneurs build a product and just hope people will magically find it. They won't. Without promotion, something terrible happens— nothing, as master showman P.T. Barnum famously said. And he was right. Look at the stats. 52% of small businesses admit they routinely put off marketing tasks. Why? They feel they're too busy, or it's uncomfortable. They think it's not their job. but avoiding marketing is a fatal mistake. I want you to flip a switch in your head starting today. Marketing is your number one job as an entrepreneur, not an afterthought, not a when-I-have-time activity. It is the activity. You could have the cure for cancer or the next iPhone in your hands, but if you don't actively market it, nobody will care. So schedule it, prioritize it, put it on your daily to-do list. Even if you only have an hour a day, use that hour consistently. More than half of business owners say they have an hour or less you have 1 hour or less per day to spend on marketing. Fine, make that hour count every single day. Consistency beats intensity. I'd rather you spend 1 focused hour every day promoting your business than a sporadic blitz once in a while. When you make marketing non-negotiable, you send yourself a clear message: I'm here to play in the big leagues. That mindset shift alone will start producing opportunities for you. And remember, your business's survival, the It depends on people knowing and caring about what you do. So add fuel to that fire. No more hiding. No more saying I'll get to it later. Later is already too late. Start today. Post that video, send that email, make that phone call. Fanatically promote your value. The world needs to know about you, and it won't happen by accident. Obsess over understanding your customer. Great marketing isn't slick tactics. It starts with empathy. If you don't deeply understand who you're serving and what they desperately need, all of your marketing efforts are just a shot in the dark. This is where so many entrepreneurs go wrong. They talk about features and facts that they think are cool instead of speaking to the customer's heart and pain. The result is crickets. In fact, 42% of startups fail because they didn't solve a real market need. They created something that nobody truly wanted. I nearly fell into this trap myself in my software startup We once spent months coding a cool feature, and guess what? Not a single customer cared about it. We wasted time because we didn't bother to ask what our customers actually needed. Never again. From then on, I made it my mission to build around what customers really wanted. You need to do the same with your marketing. Get out of your own head and into your customer's head. Who are they? What keeps them up at 2 AM? What problem would they pay almost anything to solve? What language do they use to describe that problem? Do the research. Talk to them. Literally call a few customers or prospects and listen. Really listen to their frustrations and their desires. Read the reviews in your industry. Look over forums and social media comments. Look for the complaints. Find the exact words your target audiences use and then mirror those words in your marketing. When your customer feels like, "Wow, they get me," trust is disformed in an instant. Also, focus your message on the outcome that you deliver, not just the product. Remember the old marketing truth: people don't buy a quarter-inch drill, they buy a quarter-inch hole. And really, they're buying what that hole will do for them. Speak to the result and relief your solution provides. And please, ditch the jargon. If you can't explain your value in plain language a 10-year-old would understand, go back to the drawing board and reword it. Research shows investors and customers Customers prefer simple, clear language. The grandmother test, as I like to call it. So boil your message down to the core. Who do you help? What problem do you solve? And why do you do it better? When you truly know your customer and speak their language, marketing stops feeling like selling and it starts feeling like helping. And that is a game changer mentality shift. Suddenly your emails get open, your ads get clicked, your phone starts ringing with referrals because your audience hears their own story in your marketing. That's the foundation everything else rests on. Obsess over your customer and you'll never worry about marketing tricks. You'll be delivering exactly what they're already searching for. Tell your story and share your values. People don't want to be sold a product. They want to buy into a mission and a story. Especially today, people are craving connection and authenticity. So the question then becomes, what is your story? Why did you start this business? What do you stand for? And if you haven't shared that, you're leaving your most powerful marketing weapon on the table. Facts tell, stories sell. It's cliché, but it's true. Research from Stanford shows a story is up to 22 times more memorable than facts alone. Now think about that. You could fire off a bunch of data in your marketing and people will forget almost all of it, but wrap a single fact in a relatable story and it sticks. Why? Stories create emotion. And emotion drives action. So start telling your story. Maybe you created your product because you experienced a problem firsthand and decided enough is enough. Tell us about that turning point when you became the hero of your own story. Or maybe your company exists because you believe in a world that operates differently, right? Share that vision. Bring us in. When I started my business, it wasn't to make a quick buck. It was because I struggled so much as a young entrepreneur, and I never wanted other people to feel the same way. I wear the word believe on my hoodies and t-shirts and hats, not just because it's a slogan. It's my core value, and I share that in my content openly because those who resonate with believe become my most loyal followers. Likewise, whatever your core values are— integrity, innovation, freedom, family— wear them on your sleeve. 64% of consumers say shared values are the main reason they have a relationship with a brand, far and away the largest driver according to Harvard Business Review. People want to support businesses that align with beliefs. So weave your values into your marketing. Don't be afraid to take a stand for what you care about. It could be as simple as saying, uh, we believe in sustainability, so our packaging is 100% recycled, or family is at the heart of our business, here's the story of how my grandfather inspired this company. These aren't digressions, they're emotional glue that makes customers stick with you. A customer might find you for your product, but they stay because of your purpose. And here's the beautiful part. When you share your story, you not only attract the right people, you also repel the wrong ones. And that's okay. If someone doesn't vibe with your values or your story, they were never your customer anyway. Focus on the ones who do. Build your tribe by being you. In a world full of very generic brands, your personal story and your values are marketing gold. So start infusing them into your website. Put it on your about page. Create YouTube videos, your social media posts, your sales everywhere. Be the entrepreneur who isn't just selling a widget, a tool, but sharing a piece of their soul. That's how you move your marketing from a transactional relationship to a transformational one. That's how you get customers not just buying, but believing. Dare to be different. Stand out or fade out. So let's be honest, we are all drowning in marketing messages every day. If you play it safe and bland, you'll get lost in the noise. The worst fate in marketing isn't that some people dislike you. It's that no one even notices you, and the data backs this up. The number one challenge most small businesses report is simply standing out in a saturated market. 62% of consumers say they struggle to even tell the difference between products from different small businesses. Think about that. If you don't boldly differentiate yourself, customers literally can't see why they should choose you at all. So you must dare to be different. Embrace what makes you unique— your niche, your style, your store, your approach— and amplify it. Businesses that truly consider themselves one of a kind actually find it easier to reach customers. Why? Because when you stand out, you cut through the confusion. So ask yourself, what's something that you can say or do that your competitors are too afraid to? It might be your branding, your tone, or bold guarantee. Maybe it's taking a controversial stance on an industry issue or using humor where others are really stuffy and boring. One of my favorite examples is the Dollar Shave Club. Here was this unknown startup selling razors, right? Not exactly a new invention, but the founder launched a hilariously bold 90-second YouTube video full of attitude and jokes. It cost about $4,500 to make— peanuts— but it didn't look or sound like any other razor ad. That video went mega viral, pulled in 12,000 orders in the first 48 hours, and essentially put Dollar Shave Club on the map against giant competitors. 4 years later, Unilever bought that company for $1 billion. Why? Because one gutsy piece of marketing through decades of Gillette's dominance. He didn't have a big budget, but he had the courage to be different. He even said, great storytelling is why we've been able to grow so fast. So what does that mean for you? It means stop looking at what everyone else is doing in your field and copying it. If their marketing all looks beige, make yours bright red. If they're all formulaic, inject your personality. Now you might worry, but what if some people don't like it? Let them go. Your goal is not to appeal to everyone. Your goal is to strongly attract attract your ideal customers and repel the ones who aren't a fit. Polarize a little. Create fans, not just casual buyers. When you do something noteworthy— run an offbeat campaign, you create a unique niche, you speak in your fresh voice— you're going to start to generate buzz. People talk about what's different. Think of marketing like a spotlight. You have to shine it on the quirkiest, most remarkable parts of you and your business. That's what gets people curious to step out of their routine and check you As Seth Godin would say, be a purple cow in a field of brown cows. So you can brainstorm right now. What's your purple cow? It could be an unusual origin story, a weird brand mascot, an over-the-top customer service promise, or just your crazy enthusiasm for what you do. Whatever it is, lean into it. In marketing, boring is broke. Different means dollars. Overdeliver value and build Trust. At the end of the day, trust is the currency of any successful marketing campaign. You can get attention with hyper-creativity, but if you don't back it up with real value and integrity, you'll never earn loyalty. Great marketing isn't about tricking people into a one-time sale. It's about building a relationship so they come back again and again and they bring their friends. So how do you build that trust? Start by overdelivering. Make your product or service so good that it markets itself through word of mouth. Think about it— 73% of consumers say product quality is the number one reason they become repeat customers. Your marketing promise must be met and exceeded by the experience that you then deliver. If it's not, no fancy ad campaign will save you. So ensure you're really proud about what you offer, then actively leverage your social proof. Humans are social creatures. We look to others when making decisions. In fact, the vast majority of people now trust trust online reviews almost as much as personal recommendations, and over 90% of consumers read reviews before buying anything. That means one of your marketing priorities should be encouraging and showcasing your testimonials, your reviews, any evidence that real people love your business. Don't be shy here. If a customer sends you a thank you email saying that your service completely changed their life, ask for permission to turn that into a public review. Video testimonials are gold because they're hard fake and highly relatable. Think about featuring some on your website, on your landing page. Next, position yourself as an authority in your space. This isn't about your ego, it's about reassurance. People trust businesses that demonstrate expertise. So share useful tips, publish how-to guides, speak at local events, get featured in the media, go on shows. I started sending out a press release every 2 weeks when I launched my website, sharing advice and stories, and it eventually landed me in major media like the New York Times as an expert. Expert. That third-party credibility boosted my brand tremendously at the time. You can do similar things on a smaller scale. Write a guest article for an industry blog. Collaborate with a respected influencer in your niche. Host a free workshop. Show that you're not just selling something, that you're on a mission to help. That builds trust before a potential customer even makes contact. Also, be transparent. If something goes wrong, own it and communicate proactively. If you're new or small, small. Don't pretend to be a giant corporation. Play to your strengths like personal service and speed. Trust is also reinforced by consistency, so show up reliably with your content and messaging. As we've already discussed, every touchpoint— your website, your emails, your videos, your store, your office— they can consistently reflect your values and keep your promises. And over time, what this does is this consistency, it imprints your brand in people's mind as dependable. And one more thing: invite your customers into your community, whether it's a Facebook group, a Discord server, school community, or just an ongoing email conversation. Make your customers feel like they're a part of something. When people feel connected, their trust in you multiplies. They're no longer just buying a product from you, they're joining a tribe, your tribe. And members of a tribe stick around and advocate for the brand that they love. So deliver exceptional value, prove it with social proof, be the expert who genuinely cares, and treat your customers like lifelong partners, not one-off transactions. If you do this, you won't just have customers, you'll have raving fans who do a large part of your marketing for you. Collaborate and partner for exponential growth. You've heard the saying, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. This absolutely applies to marketing. One of the biggest force multipliers in getting your business known is partnering up with others. As entrepreneurs, we often think we have to do everything ourselves, but smart partnerships can really excel you years ahead. In fact, studies show that high-growth brands are 3 times more likely to use marketing partnerships as part of their strategy compared to low-growth companies. So the evidence here is clear: collaboration creates leverage. I learned this firsthand in my own startup. We partnered with a larger competitor to co-promote our software, and it opened doors to tons of customers we could have never reached alone. So how can you leverage partnerships? Start by looking at who already has the attention of your target Is there a business with a complementary product or service, not a competitor, but something related that serves the people you want to reach? Team up with them. It could be as simple as a co-hosted webinar where you each introduce your brand to each other's audiences, or a cross-promotion deal. You email your list about their offer and they email theirs about yours. It could be creating a bundle or a special package where you offer your things together. One classic example is a partnership between GoPro cameras and Red Bull. Both target adrenaline-loving audiences. Businesses, so they often collaborate on content and events, effectively sharing their fan bases and marketing muscle. Now, you don't have to be Red Bull to do this. Even two local businesses can join forces. Maybe a local gym partners with a healthy meal prep service. They promote each other with flyers, referral discounts, combined social media challenges. Both win new customers at very low cost. Also look at influencer partnerships. Are there individuals, YouTubers, Instagram personalities, bloggers, authors that your target your audience follow and trust. If you can build a relationship with those influencers, you tap into a well of credibility and exposure. That might mean offering your product for them to review, or even doing an affiliate deal where they earn a commission for referrals. People are more likely to try something new when someone they trust says it's great. And don't overlook channel partnerships. If you have a product, can you get a big retailer or platform to carry it? If you have a software, can you integrate within a larger software ecosystem so users can see you. Microsoft built its empire in part by partnering, like having thousands of independent software vendors develop for Windows. Those partners made Windows more valuable, and Microsoft in turn gained a massive distribution network. Again, scale it down to your level. Think about aligning with the players in your space who already reach your ideal clients. Approach partnership conversations with a win-win mindset. It's not about begging for favors, it's about creating mutual value. Value. When you pitch a collaboration, lead with how it helps the other side. Maybe it gives their customers extra value or positions them as offering something new and cool. Be reliable and easy to work with, and you'll find partners opening doors for you too. Remember, the business is not a zero-sum game. By combining forces, 1 1 can equal 3 or 30. So brainstorm a list of potential partners and start reaching out. Even one good alliance can completely change the path of your marketing reach overnight. So don't try to do everything solo. Find your allies and conquer together. Provide value first through content. So we've talked about mindset, understanding storytelling, boldness, trust, and partnerships. Now let's talk strategy. One of the most practical marketing tools at your disposal is content. Not ads, not cold calls. Content that educates, inspires, and entertains your target audience. Why? Because in today's world, people have filters up for traditional advertising. Advertising, but they actively seek out helpful or interesting content. If you become the source of that valuable content, you earn attention and trust before you ever ask for the sale. It's basically marketing on easy mode. Consider this: content marketing generates 3 times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less. That's backed by data. Educational videos, informative blog posts, insightful podcasts— these draw people in without expensive ad spend by offering real value. Up front, and it makes sense. When you freely help someone solve a problem or learn something new, you establish yourself as an authority and an ally. You're not chasing them down, they're coming to you. So what content should you create? Think about the questions that your customers keep asking. Think about the problems that they struggle with. Then start answering those questions through content. If you are a fitness coach, maybe you write a quick— 5 quick home workouts for busy professionals, or you do a video demonstrating them. If you run an accounting firm, maybe you publish a simple checklist, a top 10 tax deductions small businesses overlook. This isn't giving away your secret sauce, it's showcasing your expertise and generosity. And here's the kicker: it attracts more qualified leads. The people consuming your content self-select as interested in what you offer. By the time they reach out to you, they're pre-sold on your knowledge and value. It massively shortens your sales cycles. Content is also the engine of the online ecosystem. Good content gets shared on social media, found on Google, forwarded to friends. One blog post can keep pulling in leads for years. Talk about marketing that works for you 24/7. But no, consistency is crucial. A single blog post or one video is not going to move the needle. So create a schedule that you can maintain, maybe one piece of content a week to start. Over time, you'll build a library of value that becomes an asset in its own right. And don't forget to repurpose your content. Turn that webinar into a series of short videos or a blog post into an infographic. Different people prefer different formats, so spread your knowledge across mediums. Also, remember, storytelling applies here too. Don't just dump information. Wrap it in stories or examples so it sticks. Remember the 22 times more memorable stat? Let your personality shine in your content. Tell your story. That's how viewers feel a personal connection with you. There's a reason I've made thousands of YouTube videos highlighting lessons from successful people. It's valuable content that also aligns with my mission to spread belief. That content has brought me an audience of millions of people, many of whom go on to become customers of my other businesses. You can start small, but the principle stands: lead with value. Give, give, give before you ask. It might feel slow at first, but you are planting seeds that will yield a harvest for years to come. Content builds an audience, not just a customer list, and an audience is one of the most powerful assets that you can have because they'll follow you, rally for you, and buy from you repeatedly. So whether it's writing tips on LinkedIn, sharing how-to videos on YouTube, or posting insightful infographics on Instagram, start sharing what you know. Be the teacher, the guide, the entertainer in your niche. It's marketing that doesn't feel like marketing, and that's why it works so well. Keep believing and keep moving forward. So look at you, you made it here. You're absorbing all these strategies and stories. That already sets you apart. Most people won't invest this kind of time in leveling up, but you did. So take a moment and just acknowledge that you're not just sitting back wishing your business will grow, you're actively doing the work, and that's huge. Now, knowledge without action means nothing. So I've given you a roadmap, but you have to drive the car. The doubt that you had about marketing, is it a little quieter now? I hope So hold on to that belief because you can do this. You can. Every marketing master was once a beginner who just decided to try. The difference is they didn't quit when things got tough. They tweaked the campaign, they learned from the nos, and they kept going. You're going to do the same. Remember, you're not just an entrepreneur or an inventor or a service provider. You are a marketer. This is part of your identity now. Embrace it, wear it proudly, It's the identity of someone who refuses to let their dream die in obscurity. It's the identity of someone who will find a way to connect, to serve, to shine a light so bright that customers can't help but notice. So you have the tools, you have the heart, you have the vision. Combine those and you become unstoppable. So step into the arena and start implementing. Tweak your mindset to make marketing a must. Go call a customer to update your message. Share that personal story in your next video, reach out to that potential partner you've been too nervous to approach. Create one piece of content this week that provides incredible value to your audience. Do it now while the ideas are fresh and your motivation is high. Marketing is a journey, not a one-time thing. You'll get better with each experiment. Some things will flop. That's fine. Each failure is just data that's guiding you to something that does work. But as long as you keep moving forward, you keep testing, you keep believing in your mission, you will make progress that once felt impossible. If a teenage kid who started off making $300 a month, me, can build a global business by learning marketing, then you, with all your experiences and passion, can absolutely blow past anything that's holding you back right now. Now go out there and put this into practice. Your business needs you to be its champion, its voice, and you are ready to step into that role. And congratulations, you're one video closer to who you're meant to be. Believe. To watch the 10 money traps that keep you poor, check the video right there next I think you'll love it. Continue to believe and I'll see you there. You're not broke because of the economy or bad luck. You're broke because you keep stepping into the same 10 money traps while other entrepreneurs are quietly getting rich by avoiding these mistakes. You might be repeating them without even realizing it. And if you don't fix this a year from now,