Top Strategies for Getting Honest Feedback | Here’s How To

My favorite question to ask somebody who I respect and I want to learn from is, please tell me why I suck. It might seem a little crazy. It might seem a little out there, but here's why I do it. Feedback is so important for you to grow your business. You don't know anywhere close to everything you need to know to get to where you want to be. And you're going to get a lot of negative feedback. You get a lot of criticism. You get a lot of people who might be in your family or friend circle or people you went to school with who tell you their advice, right? Lots of people give you unsolicited advice. That's not not necessarily that helpful, right? Telling me that I suck is not the actual answer for people around you. But when it's somebody that you respect who actually has information to give you, what happens is people are afraid of hurting your feelings. So the somebody who you look up to who might be able to give you the information, they would be afraid just because it's normal human nature. Most people will not be direct, honest, blunt, tell you the hard facts and the truth because they're afraid of hurting your feelings. But when you lead with, tell me why I suck, Here's what happens. They're going to share their one idea. That's the safest. That's the simplest. That's the easiest. That's the least likely to hurt your feelings. If you lead with, tell me why I suck, tell me why it's like the worst thing you've ever seen. What they're going to do is say, well, it doesn't suck, but here's the 3 things I would do to fix it. You get a lot more truth. You get a lot more honesty because you led with, tell me why I suck.

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Watch a top 10 with Believe Nation.

Hey, it's Nina Carmichael. And we made these videos. It's because you're probably the most ambitious person in your circle. Circle, but you know you're capable of more, and you need that push by surrounding yourself with the best. So today, let's learn from one of the best, my husband Evan Carmichael, and our take on his top 10 rules for success. Enjoy!

I remember doing a keynote, um, at a YouTube event, and I shared this strategy, and, and that was the main theme for the ending, and they They filmed it and the MC came up and said, "What did you learn from Evan today?" And they all said, "We suck." Which as a standalone doesn't really fit the Believe vibe of what I'm usually going for. But it was funny and they got the message across because when I'm at an event like that with YouTube, there are a handful of people that I would listen to for advice. Right? As you get higher and higher and better and better at something, you don't listen to everybody's opinion anymore. Now, if it's something like who I should profile next or some themes or content, definitely open. For specific strategies on YouTube, you're going to start looking at people who have actually done it, right? As you get better at something, there's fewer people who can teach you. So there's a handful of people who I like to collaborate with and seek their feedback and counsel. And that's what I'll always say every time I'm at one of those events. I'll find those people, like 5 people, I can count them in my hand. I would go, hey man, tell me why I suck. Like, you mind spending 8 minutes looking at my channel again and just tell me why it sucks and it's like the worst thing you've ever seen? And I'll say it exactly like that. And again, the response is always, well dude, like, come on, you don't suck, you have 300 subscribers, it's great. But you know what, here's what I would do. 1, 2, 3. You're giving permission to people to be honest. You recognize that it's out of love. Some people will give you a lot of negative comments not out of love, right? They'll tell you that you suck and all the things that are wrong, and who are you to do something like this, and what makes you think that you're good enough to do this? You don't have the education and family and connections and resources and money and smarts, and you're too ugly too, right? All of these things that people throw at us, but they haven't done the thing that we've we're trying to do, right? If somebody hasn't done the thing that you want to do, their advice is not very meaningful. If anything, you should probably do the opposite because they don't know what they're talking about. And yet we listen to these people, right? We, we often listen to the people who are closest to us because they're in our proximity. But if they haven't done the thing, you know, just because you went to high school with them doesn't mean that their opinion means something. On the thing that you're trying to do. Chances are they took their shot at one point and they didn't hit it, and now other people around them can't have success either. It happens a lot of the times, so their advice is meaningless. But when you find the person and you seek out people who have done the thing that you want to do, you have to give them permission to be 100% honest with you.

Rule number 2: Think big, act small.

The secret to getting everything that you want out of life is to think big and act small. Think big, have a Create a vision for yourself that excites you, that you wanna make happen, and then act small. Don't let the big dream be so big that it becomes so scary and you never start. Find the smallest possible way to just get started. Think big, act small. Otherwise, your dreams will stay exactly that. I recently had a guy pop into my Instagram Live who was a fitness coach, and he's building his success up and doing one-on-one training fitness and helping people get results, and he said, Evan, how do I go bigger? How do I build my brand? How do I get people to know me outside of just my pocket, my community? I said, well, you have to create content. You got to be a thought leader. You got to be an expert. I got to see you doing what you're doing. How often are you making videos? He said, well, I don't know, I'm making them once a week. Okay, great, dude. How often do you go to the gym? How often do you work out? How often do you care about your nutrition? He said, well, every day. You have to take the same approach to your business. To making content, to being a thought leader. I said, are you in shape? And at the time he's shirtless. And then he says, yeah, I'm in shape. And he pans down and you see his abs and then back to his face. He's got this smile on his face. Like, I love it, man. You've put that into your daily routine. You're working out and eating right as part of your daily routine. He said, yeah, but it's so hard to go off and make videos every day. What are your clients saying to you about working out and eating properly? That it's so hard. Dude, it's the same excuses. You've already figured this out in one area of your life. The problem is you're not being consistent in the other areas. That if you want to blow up and be a thought leader and get a lot of traction, attention, and views, you need to get good at the thing. You don't become great at anything doing it once a week. If you believe that you have Michael Jordan-level talent at something, Michael Jordan wasn't practicing basketball once a week. You just will never get great at it. You have all of this untapped potential, all of this ability to go off and make a huge impact. But we never see it because you're doing it once a week. You just will never get good at it. You'll never get good enough at the thing if you're only doing it once a week. So he says, what do I do? Great. You put it into your routine. You already know how to do this. You just have done it for something else. All of you, you've already been consistent on something. Now make this next business goal part of your daily routine. It's thinking big and acting small. Most people think big and have this big vision of where they could go. It's amazing. I believe in your vision. I love you. I want to see you go off and crush that huge goal. I think you can do it. But then show me in your calendar where you take any action, because most people are spending too much time just thinking, thinking, thinking, planning, planning, planning. You got to actually get going and doing it. Daily, consistent, small action. One video from my friend who's running his gym now, one video is not going to do anything. One video, one small act is not going to do anything. It's the accumulation of the daily videos that are coming out, the daily content, the daily improvements. That's where you start to build momentum. The biggest thing that's missing from most of your ideas is momentum because you're thinking big but you're not acting small.

Rule number 3: Trust your idea.

Great ideas flow through you. Teach yourself, train yourself that great ideas are flowing through you, that the idea that you just came up with that you've been thinking of that doesn't make any sense is great, is amazing, and is right for you because quite often the ideas that come to you don't make sense, are not practical, someone like you shouldn't do it. And whenever your head and your heart are misaligned, whenever your heart wants to do something but your head tells you that you can't do it, if you listen to your head, you'll stay small. If you listen to the practical reasons why you can't do it, then guess what? You won't do it. You'll stay stuck, you'll stay small, you'll stay crushed for life knowing that you're capable of more but never going after it. So trust that great things flow through you. Trust that this thing that just came into your mind, if you're feeling bold, ambitious, confidence in service, that it's the right thing for you and you need to go and chase it down.

Rule number 4: Be present.

I was in New Mexico and I was doing, on Super Bowl Sunday, my workshop. And it was the smallest group on our tour and we were talking about morning routines. And there was a woman there and I asked her, "What's the most important part of your morning routine?" And she said, "Prayer." I said, "So you pray? How often do you pray?" "Every day." "Every day?" "Every day." She prays, she prays. Perfect. I said, "How often do you feel the prayer? How often do you feel the connection? And how often are you just saying the words?" And she said, "Like half the time." Great. Other people might look to her and say, "Well, look, you do it every day." Even for herself, she might look in herself and say, "Great, I did it every day." As achievers, we like to check the box, right? You like to check the box and say, "I did it." I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it. I prayed, I watched the video, I read the book, I brushed my teeth, I whatever. You have your checklist and you did it, right? And you feel great that you did it. But if you don't get the feeling of courageousness and you just check the box, it doesn't count. So watching a video might be part of your morning routine. Great, if it's mine, I'm honored to be a part of your journey. If it's somebody else's, amazing, do that too. But if you know that watching the video is the thing that helps make you feel alive, bold, confident, you know that there are some days that watching a video actually makes you feel that way and other days where it doesn't. And you know that watching the same video over and over and over and over every day will lose its impact super quick, right? Day 1, you're motivated. Day 2, already you've lost like 80% of the motivation that you got from day 1. Day 3, it's basically over. You run it for a month, forget it. Like you already memorized the words, that the words don't mean anything to you anymore. So you have to have some variety. And if you're watching a video while you're doing something else, this is the achiever's curse. You're watching the video while you're brushing your teeth, while you're taking the dogs out, while you're cleaning the sink, while you're making the bed. You're distracted, you're doing something else, you're trying to multitask, right? Here's what happened to the achievers. You still get to check the box to say that you watched the video, but because you weren't present for the video, guess what happens? There was no retention. There was no feeling. You don't feel ready to take on the day. You don't feel the boldness, the courageousness, and therefore you don't go and have a great day, even though you checked off everything on your morning routine. That's what makes a difference. So if you get to the end of your morning routine and you don't feel bold, powerful, courageous, ready to go for the day, there's one of two things that you have to do. One is you audit your morning routine. You say, what's missing? You know, like, does this still work for you anymore? What's missing? Do I need to add something in? Do I need to add an espresso video in during the morning? Do I need to add reading? Do I need to add working out? Do I need to add writing my goals down? Like, what do you need to do to add and tweak and experiment and see if it makes you feel better? Or 2, maybe you just need to do the routine again but with more intention. Maybe you did the whole routine while you were distracted. Maybe you did the whole routine while you're thinking something else, so you don't get the feeling. There's nothing wrong with the routine. The routine is great. Routine is perfect for you. But if you don't show up with intention, if you don't show up and be focused on it, you're not going to get the feeling. You could sit there and be in the chair and And think about going to classes, going to school. You could sit there, be in the chair, doesn't mean that you're gonna learn. You can sit there and watch a video, but if you're brushing your teeth and doing 8 other things, you're not gonna get the feeling. This is the loving push forward that I hope you accept, because everybody else is gonna look at you and see how much you're doing and how perfect you are and how much momentum you have and how many things you're doing, and they look up to you in awe. And you're an inspiration to them, and you should be because you are doing amazing things. And at the same time, you know it's nothing compared to what you could do. But the difference between where you are right now, where you want to go, is actually not that big. The difference is just minor tweaks between where you are right now, where you want to go. For most of you, it's just minor tweaks. This is one of those minor tweaks that if you could just stay consistent on having a morning routine, and then inside of that consistency, doing the thing that makes you feel bold, powerful, unstoppable, alive, ready to start the day, not expecting to be amazing when you wake up, but then doing the thing that brings that out of you every single day, your life will change. Also, to make sure you're actually taking action after watching this video, I've designed a special free worksheet just for this video. The worksheet will highlight all the lessons learned in this video, as well as pull out our 3 favorite learnings and quotes that will inspire you to actually do something. The worksheet will also give you space to write down what your key takeaways are and your specific plan of action to make sure you're getting results. If you want the worksheet designed specifically for this video, absolutely for free, there's a link in the description below. Go click on it and start building the momentum in your life and your business. I'll see you there.

Rule number 5: Learn actively.

This is where intentional learning really makes a difference. I can't tell you the number of events that I've done, whether it's virtual or in person, where there's always Q&A at some point. So if you're going to an event or you're signing up for, for for a Zoom call and the person who you want to learn from is on that call, what most people do is they become passive listeners. You're passively taking out your notepad and you're taking notes. You got your phone and you're like taking notes on it and like, oh, that's a good insight. That's a good insight. But it's passive because you are not going into the event with an outcome. Your goal should be, if you want to make learning active, if you want to actually get the most from the experience and be able to make the contacts and get your questions answered, you have to know what question is going to be that you're going to ask, right? So here's what you should do. First off, whoever your heroes, mentors, guides are, you want to follow them on all the platforms where they can go live. I just, before this, I was live on Instagram and we had a whole bunch of people asking questions. Follow, if you want to talk to me, follow me on Instagram, right? Join my Discord, EvanCarmichael.biz. Get in there. We're having great conversations, but the people who are your heroes, follow them on the platforms where they might go live. Look at where they might be speaking at an upcoming event. And then when you go and attend that event, have a plan for your learning so that it's not just passively going through the exercise and activities that they gave you. That's all a bonus. If you're going to go to some conference and there's an activity sheet or workbook to go through, great. That's all a bonus. You need to know going in, what do I want to learn? If I got a chance to ask this person, one question, what would that question be? What's the outcome that I want from this? Most people don't do that. And you get caught up in the hype and the energy and the motivation of, ah, so amazing, woo! But then you still didn't get the answer that you could have had if you're just more intentional. So you show up, and then when they do the questions, like, okay, we're going to Q&A, boom, you're the first one there. You're the first one there. You're not, you're not, you might be nervous, your heart might be pounding out of your chest like crazy, but you're the first one there. You're standing by the microphone, you're ready to go. You got your hand up before they even go to Q&A in the Zoom chat, right? Like, you are ready to go with your question, the one that you want an answer to. And then you're going to ask the person, hey, here's what I'm struggling with, here's what I'm working on, tell me why I suck. And then you get the feedback. If you apply that strategy and go after the top 5 to 10 people in your industry, in your niche, who are doing a thing, you can get access to them. And if you intentionally show up with that one question that you want an answer to, and then you end it with, tell me why I suck, you'll get their brutal, honest feedback and get the advice you actually need to grow.

Rule number 6, take immediate action.

Immediate action. Immediate action to start building some kind of momentum. This is the problem. This is what we're missing. What's the first step that most of us take? What's the first step that you take? What's the first step? You most often immediately start to talk yourself down. Does this, does this relate? Does this connect? Like as soon as you get the idea, immediately you're talking yourself down. Forget about telling friends, family that that's a problem. No, it's you. It's your own mind that's holding you back, saying that you can't do things. After that, what do we do? We go into planning mode. Plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan. I'm gonna research, gonna make my perfect plan, gonna write out all my questions for this interview, gonna, you know, research, research, research. And then, and then what? And then what happens? Nothing. Because you spend the first day planning, and then you wake up tomorrow, and you tell yourself that you can't do it. So the first step is not planning. Planning is important, but it's not the first step. The first step is some kind of immediate action. This is where people get caught up, like, well, what's a perfect first step? There is no perfect first, guys. There's no perfect first step. There's no perfect first step. Go make, go create, go do something. Like, something, anything. You want to write a book? Take out your notepad, your typewriter— who uses a typewriter, your laptop, your computer, whatever, and just start writing. Take out, take out a piece of paper like this and just start writing. Like if you're stuck in the car and you come up with a great idea for what you should be doing for your book, pull over, or if somebody else is driving— Nina drives while I film these videos— take out a piece of paper and just start writing on this. You may think, but this is nothing, and you're right, but you know what's something? The first step. Momentum. Because your scribble notes down here, that means everything. That's more progress than most people ever make on their goals. Because once you get started, the next step becomes so much easier. It's the first step that sucks, the first step that seems so giant. So don't worry about the perfect first step, just start building some immediate momentum. Learn to take crappy first steps. Crappy first steps. Crappy first steps.

Rule number 7: Apply the 2% difference.

Apply the 2% difference. The 2% difference means as soon as you get a goal in mind, most things that we want to do, most people, what we, what we do is we think of planning. That's step number 1 for most people is planning. No, don't plan. Your first step after you come up with an idea is to act. Planning is important. It's just not your first step. Most people will plan their way to 100%, right? Plan to how I'm going to accomplish my goal. And then they wake up tomorrow, they've lost the boldness, they lost the confidence, and they say, "I'm not going to do that. I can't do that." And there's no momentum, and then the dream dies on the table. The first step is momentum. The first step is action. The first step is figuring out the first 2%. That's it. 2%. Don't plan to 100%. Instead, act on the first 2%. Why is it so important? Because when you're feeling bold, when you're feeling confident, when you get that idea, it's flowing through you, right? You're in that energy zone. You want to use that energy to build momentum. Using that best energy to go into planning, and then you wake up tomorrow a different person, you've lost it all. Where if you use that energy into action, into momentum, then tomorrow you're going to wake up and see, oh, I've already built some momentum. It's easier to keep the ball rolling. The hardest step is the first one. So push, build that first step when you're feeling the energy. So as soon as you get your next idea, apply the 2% difference. Your first step is to act.

Rule number 8: Help someone.

One of my instructors at Toronto Dance Salsa has Lyme disease. Also, one of the guys on my marketing team now has Lyme disease. But at the time, I knew nothing about Lyme. I didn't know what it was, didn't know what it caused, didn't know how you got it, didn't know anything about Lyme disease. But because she has it, I started learning about Lyme disease. I set up a Google News alert that anytime there was something about Lyme disease, I would get notified. And I started sharing things with her that she hadn't seen before. You know, started sharing that Avril Lavigne has Lyme disease and Shania Twain had Lyme disease and they both took big breaks from their singing career because of the impact of Lyme disease. If there's new treatments or holistic healing or other people talking about it, then I would, I would share it with them and I would also educate myself in that process to the point now where she has opened up her own Lyme disease holistic healing practice and doesn't teach at my school anymore. She's left the school to go launch this business, and I'm so excited for her. It's great. It's fantastic, right? We're on a parallel path, and now she's jumped off and done her own thing, which is amazing. Now, did I make her go launch that business? Of course not. Did I have a tiny little piece of inspiration or hope? Maybe. You know, I'd like to think so. But when you can help people accomplish their goals, it does two things. One, it makes you feel good. You know how good it feels to help somebody, right? We're all built to serve. Where's the book? Right there. We're all built to serve. It makes you feel good to know that you help somebody. This is what we all want to wake up and feel like what we do matters, is meaningful. You are built to serve. And so when you can get out of your own selfish interests and go help that person accomplish what they want, it feels good. I get more joy from doing that than a business transaction, right? I get more joy from sending her something that she's like, "Oh my God, I didn't know that existed," than how many views I got on my video yesterday, right? It feels weird to know, great, we have 3 million subscribers on my main channel. I don't even know what that means. It's hard to even contemplate that. It doesn't feel like anything I can touch, but knowing that I helped one person with something is the thing that gets me excited. So it feels good. And the more you feel like you're doing things that matter, at least to one person, it gives you the motivation, energy to just keep going. Because a lot of times that's the thing that we struggle with, is we don't feel like what we do matters, it's not important. Then we lose motivation, then we stop, we quit, right? So you have to feel the connection to the work you're doing.

Rule number 9: Solve a problem.

Solve a problem. As you're talking to customers, as you're talking to people who will be using your product or your service, who will be engaging with your content, as you're talking to these people, what is the problem that they're facing? What is the struggle? What is the challenge that they're facing? And then help them accomplish it. If I apply it to myself and the YouTube channels for context, One of the biggest challenges I think people have is a very poor environment. You've got people in your life who keep you where you are. Some people may be telling you that you can't do things, that's the worst-case scenario. Some people might be cheering you on, but they can't guide you. You're not inspired by them. The people around you are not inspiring enough for you, and that's why you're stuck, because the environment is keeping you small. Where if you are around higher achievers, If you're around Tom Bilyeu and Oprah Winfrey and Elon Musk and these people, they would pull you to be better. And so that's the biggest problem that I see the entrepreneurs that I love helping is, you know, you're capable of more. You've got this big mission inside you. You've got the heart and the care and the willingness to serve. You've got everything, but you're not being pulled forward by anybody. And so I want to try to create that through content because you may not be able to hang out with Tom Bilyeu and Elon Musk and Oprah Winfrey, but Every day on YouTube, you can hang out with Tom Bilyeu, Elon Musk, and Oprah Winfrey from the content that I'm going to make and create, right? So that's the problem that I'm trying to solve. And I get that because it was me who struggled with it, but also the people that I see who I connect with who are watching the videos, they're leaving feedback for me, and I'm talking to them, and I realize you've got everything. You've got everything. You, you've got everything. You're just missing that environment to push you forward. So that's a problem that I solve. What is the problem that you solve? When you can combine your passions, right? Step number 1, you're combining your passions. Step number 2 is we're talking to customers, people who are going to use potentially what we can create, and then you're understanding what their problem is and you solve it for them. That's how we start to build a successful business. Back to the Entrepreneur Success Formula. If you get this formula, if you apply it, it's simple. It's basic and it's one of the most powerful things you can ever do. And it's one of the biggest reasons why entrepreneurs don't win despite having the heart and the care and the service. You have to combine the thing that you love doing with all your heart with something that brings value to other people. Bring those things together and you're onto your next successful business career.

Rule number 10, the last one before our very special bonus clips, do it anyway.

Everything that you want out of life is on the other side of your fears. Every great thing that you want out of your life, the, the life you want to create for yourself, for your family, for the community, for the world, the life that your family and you deserve is on the other side of the things that you are afraid to do. And if you never jump into it, if you never address them, if you never do those things, those great ideas that you got inside your head that could change the world, if you never take them on You'll live your entire life knowing that you were capable of more, that you played small. You might have convinced yourself of all the reasons why you can't do it, but really deep down it's just fear and you played small. And we need to change that in this video. I just, uh, came back from doing an event this weekend. It was virtually, uh, where I spoke in front of a couple thousand people. And just before going to speak My niece was in the other room and she asked me, hey, are you nervous? Are you nervous about the speech you're about to give? I didn't have any slides. I was set to speak for almost an hour and I had one or two thoughts that I wanted to make sure I got out, and I just wanted to jam with the audience. My favorite thing to do isn't just to give a prepared speech, but to try to bring as much value based off of the people in the room and get their questions and answer them. And so she said, aren't you nervous doing that live with no slides? Like, are you nervous? Like, yeah, I'm nervous, and I do scary things. If you look at your calendar for the next month, look at it, look at what you've got booked in your next calendar. If there's nothing in there that scares you, I believe that you hate your life. That just means that you're you're doing the same thing over and over and over again, right? You're photocopying your life over and over and over and over and over and over. Every day is the same. If there's nothing in your calendar that scares you, everything is the same. People ask me all the time, they message me and say, how do I remove the fear? How do I get rid of all the anxieties? Like, well, you don't all the way. Having too much anxiety, sure, but you, you don't want a life with no stress, with no anxiety. With no, uh, with no fear. That means you're repeating the same day over and over again. You would hate that life. You'd be bored out of your mind. You'd be bored out of your mind. So you don't want that life. The key is we're not attacking it, we're not addressing it. You're not doing enough to, to jump into the thing, and so you're just reliving the same fear in your head of what could happen over and over and over and over and over again. The path through fear is through It's not to play small. Every time you get scared of something and you don't do it, you're teaching yourself to have less self-confidence. If something— if a great idea comes to you, maybe you get a great idea from this video or another video or a book or a friend, you get inspired, a great idea comes to you and it's a big idea and it's going to require you to grow and be a better version of you, right? And then you don't do it, you play small, you find some excuse, some reason why you can't do What you're doing every time that happens, what you're doing is you're teaching yourself that you play small. You're teaching yourself to have less confidence in yourself, less belief in yourself, that you're not capable. You're teaching yourself in these moments every time that you're not capable of doing these things. I'm somebody who can't do this. That's what— that's even if you don't say it out loud, that's what you're teaching yourself every time that you play small and you don't do the thing. You need to start to flip it. You need to start to show yourself that you do difficult things, that you take on challenges, that you jump into the fear. Whether it works out or not is not the issue. Whether you get the result or not is not the problem. It's did you try? Did you put your best effort in? I'm a big believer that you have a big mission, a big vision, a big thing that you're trying to accomplish, and it's inspiring. Why do you do the work that you do? Because you're trying to make the world a better place. That's what we as entrepreneurs want to do. That mission is inspiring. It's amazing. It gets you up out of bed. But sometimes it's too big. Sometimes you think, well, who am I to go off and do that? Sometimes you think, well, other people should do that who have more money and more funding and more skills and more knowledge and more resources. I can't. Who am I? I can't do that. And so on some days, the big why is actually too big. When you're trying to motivate yourself to get going and take action, the big why might be the greatest thing of all time, but sometimes it's too big. That's where you need the little Y. Big Y and the little y. When the big Y seems too big, you use the little y. What's the little y? The little y is the small daily little comments that you get, the little pieces of feedback that you get. For me, the little y is people who read my book. I'm trying to find a copy. People who read my book and then they message me. For people who leave comments on my YouTube channel like you guys who comment down below, we read them. For people who DM me on Instagram. That's a little why. It's knowing that the work that I do has an impact. Because a one-off comment doesn't mean a lot in the grand scheme of things, but I know that I hit one person. However many views this video gets, the people who comment are way less than the number of views, right? That's always the case. And sometimes the views don't make sense. I mean, the idea that I get a couple hundred thousand views a day on my YouTube channel doesn't make sense. What does that even mean? I don't know. But seeing somebody comment to say, This video had a big impact on my life. Thanks to this video, I'm taking action in my business today. Like, that's, that's deep and meaningful. That's the little why. So find the little why version in your business. You may not think that you're capable of accomplishing some big thing every day, but knowing that you help one person can give you the motivation to get up and do it again tomorrow and again tomorrow and again tomorrow. Big why, little why. Don't spend money until you're making money. Teach yourself that at the beginning of your venture You are not going to spend your money until you're actually making money. What are you going to do? You're going to invest your heart, your hustle, your energy, your drive, your motivation, but you're not investing your money until you're making money. People say, well, don't you need money to make money? Like, no, you don't need, you don't need money to make money. You need your energy. You need your resourcefulness. As soon as you focus on resources as being the problem, you've lost. It's never a lack of resources, it's a lack of resourcefulness. It's you feeling that it's a lack of resources that is the problem, and that prevents action, that prevents forward motion. Because if you— hey, if I only had X amount of money, then I would be able to do this. There's always a way to start smaller. There's always— today you could do something today, some small step today to move one little step closer towards achieving your goals. And it's that inaction due to a lack of resources or perceived lack of resources that prevents people from actually accomplishing their goals and reaching their, their mission. That's what happens. So there's always a, there's always a smaller way to get started and to teach yourself, especially at the beginning, that you want to be more resourceful, that you don't want to spend your money until you're making money. So instead of focusing on how you can spend money that you don't have, Think about how can you do something with what you do have and to invest your heart, your energy, your time, your hustle, your drive, but not your money until you're making money. So, so how do you do it? You know, what are some of the steps? Well, step 1 is you dream big, but you act small. Dream big, act small. There's, there's the big mission you've got is amazing. That's what's going to fuel you. You don't want to feel like Every day you're waking up and doing something small. You've got this big drive, this big ambition. It's awesome. And act small. Like today, do something instead of waiting for venture capital or somebody put you on or to co-sign you. Just do something. Dream big. Most of us never take control of our self-talk. You don't take control of the thoughts that you have about yourself when you're by yourself. It doesn't even matter as much what our parents think, what our friends think, what our husband or wife thinks. It's you. You're the problem. You think negatively about yourself. You are not consistently filling yourself with thoughts, with positivity, with ambition, with courage. The default pattern is one of mediocrity, of one of I can't do this, one of lack of resourcefulness. And so that's what you live. And it's possible to change. And in making that shift and making that change, you become an entirely different person. We talk about How do you become the best version of yourself? How do you live your life? How do you, how do you show up as that proud version? This is it. It's taking control of the automatic self-talk that you have to yourself. Even if you don't actually talk to yourself, even if you're not saying, Evan, you're an idiot, right? Evan, you can't do that. Even if you're not saying those things out loud, you're feeling those things. It's at a subconscious level, and this is where playing small and limiting yourself. I'm afraid a lot, and I used to let that fear dominate me. I used to let that fear prevent me from doing the thing that I would need to do, whether it's making videos, whether it's speaking on stage, whether it's interviewing people. I don't believe in being fearless. I think if you're fearless, that means that you are just doing the things that are inside your comfort zone. You're photocopying your life. I think if you're fearless, you actually hate your life because you're just doing things that you know how to do. I think fear is a great thing. It's not being fearless, it's having the fear and then showing up because of— not even despite of— because of— because you're afraid, then you have to go do the thing. Because you're worried, then you have to go do the thing. Because you're afraid of somebody's judgment, then you have to go do it. Just because, just to teach yourself that you do it. So for me, speaking on stage, doing interviews, making videos were the three that I struggled with the most. This is a guy who's made 10,000 videos, has spoken in front of thousands of people, have done interviews with some of the biggest people on the planet. I'm still afraid every time. I'm still afraid every time. And I don't let that fear now stop me from doing the thing. I'm still, you know, I had Tony Robbins on my channel and I had him on 3 years or 2 years before, but I'm still nervous to have him on. My heart's still beating like crazy. I'm still an emotional wreck the day of. I'm still not focused on anything else. I can't do any other work. I can't make any other videos because I'm, I'm stressed about the interview going well. I still worry about these things. It doesn't go away. There's just levels to this. And I still want to show up where old Evan, younger Evan used to find a reason why I couldn't do it, find a reason why I couldn't show up. Live in the fear and justify it as an actual reason or excuse, but deep down I was just afraid. Think about your reasons. Like, why can't you do this thing? What are you telling yourself that you can't do? Really deep down, it's just a fear. You're just afraid. There's no really good reason. You've convinced yourself there's a reason, but deep down you're just afraid, right? If you're actually honest with yourself, You're just afraid. Living in regret sucks. Imagine you are 95 years old, you're looking back on your life at this moment on this day, realizing that you could have played bigger, you could have done more, you had more potential, you had an opportunity in front of you, you could have done something and you didn't. You didn't because you were afraid. You came up with some, some reason that you actually believed that was really an excuse. You played small. you didn't accomplish your goals. Now you're 95 years old and it's over and you can't do it. You're not physically or mentally able to actually do it. The more you can actually feel that, that, that today matters, that you want to stop living your life by other people's opinions and stop living with the fear of regret, stop having that thing hang over your head that you could have done something and you were too afraid to do it, the more you can actually feel that, it can push you to actually take an action. Because otherwise, you live the life that everybody lives, that most people live. Most people regret their life. Most people regret not the things that they did, but the things that they didn't do. Regret the ideas that you had, then you saw somebody else make a ton of money off of. You regret the conversation that you wanted to take, but you were too afraid to go introduce yourself. Like, we live in this zone of regret. Already you can feel it. Look back to things that happened last year, 2 years ago, or 5 years ago. Like, you wish that you showed up a certain way. You wish that you had more courage, more boldness, and you didn't do it. You didn't do it. And the point isn't to beat yourself up over that. The point is to use that as courage to go do something today towards accomplishing your goals. I used to use the fear of regret a lot when I was when I was younger especially to get myself to take action. The biggest decision of all, the hardest decision of all was to, when I was 19, not take the $100K a year dream job that I thought I wanted to go become an entrepreneur, make $300 a month, own 30% of a company. That was the hardest thing ever. And the thing that gave me the courage to do it was the fear of regret. And Jeff Bezos has a great regret minimization framework, he calls it, where basically he tries to project out to being, you know, that old, old, old, old, old, old man and living life with as few regrets as possible. So I asked myself, what will I regret more? Will I regret more saying no to my dream job and making six figures and traveling around the world, or will I regret more saying no to this business and just not knowing? And I thought, you know what, I can always go get another job. It may not be the same job, it may not be the same company, may not be the same opportunity, may not be as much money, may not be as much travel, may not be this perfect job, but I could get another similar job. I felt like I could get another similar job. This business idea, this business opportunity, I didn't know that I would ever have this chance again. And so I said, you know what, even if the most likely outcome is failure— I didn't think it was going to blow up, I didn't know that it was going to work out or not— even if the most likely scenario is failure, I still have to do it because I don't want to live with regret. And I told myself I would rather know and fail than not know. The number one way to deal with negative people in your life is through empathy. It's empathy. It's not It's not hating them back. It's not spreading negativity. It's not reminding yourself that you're better than them. It's, it's empathy. And it's not even just feeling bad for them. It's actually connecting to them. Let me, let me explain. I default to assuming that people are good. This is a wild idea. People are good. Humans are good. I've done the who exercise, the year one word exercise, helping people find their most most important core value with so many people, and it's always something positive. I believe that 99.999999% of people are good. There's a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of people who enjoy killing people and maybe have, you know, a few screws loose up here, but for the most part, we're good. Everybody has dreams. Everybody has ambitions. Everybody wants to serve. Everybody wants to be in a better place than where they are right now. The problem is a lot of people are afraid. A lot of people are in pain. A lot of people are struggling. A lot of people are suffering. A lot of people have tried. They took their shot and, and it didn't work out. And because they're so in pain now, they don't want other people around them to have success either. Because if they took a shot and it didn't work out, it's— they don't want to own it, that it's on them. But if you then go off and have success, you start achieving your goals, what does that say about them, right? It's not that the world is rigged against them, it's that they actually suck and they don't want to admit that and they don't want to own up to that. And so they're living in pain, and so they take it out on other people. They take it out on you, they take it out on me, they take it out on, on the world. They take it out on people, right? That's what, that's what people do when they're in a lot of pain. Think about you, think about your experiences, your life. Think about when you've been in a lot of pain, when you've struggled, really think about this. The last time that you were struggling, a lot of pain, did you then show up as your best self in all situations? Did you maybe lose your cool on somebody? Did you maybe insult somebody? Did you maybe say something that you're not proud of, that you later would regret? Has that ever happened to you? It's not that you're a bad person, it's not that you're a toxic person, it's not that you're a hater, you were just in a lot of pain. And so the people who are throwing shade at you are in a lot of pain, they're struggling. And just recognizing that, just trying to put yourself in their shoes and look at their life— and if you know them, you can actually look at their life, and if you don't know them, you can assume things about their life. If somebody's coming and leaving a negative comment on your YouTube video, the fact that that is the highlight of their day speaks volumes about them, right? If If the best part of your day is going to somebody's YouTube channel, leaving some nasty comment that gets you feeling good, you're in a lot of— just imagine the pain that that person's in. Imagine what their life is like right now. And it's a bit of a mental exercise because at the beginning, the natural reaction is to be defensive. Like, well, no, I'm not this, and how could you call me that? And we want the people around us to support us. Cheer us on and tell us that we're doing the right thing. So the natural defense mechanism kicks in where we say, no, that's not right. But if you can take a breather, you can take a step back, and you can just try to have empathy, try to put yourself in their shoes, try to see that they're in a lot of pain. What it does is removes the sting from the words. It removes the venom from the words. It doesn't get you to react as emotionally. It allows you to show up more as your best self. It's, it's one of the most valuable things you can start to practice. This is one of the things that prevents people from creating content, from posting videos, from sharing their thoughts. You've got a big mission, a message. Your story can change people's lives. You, your story, your story can change people's lives. It will change people's lives, and we're afraid to do it. Because of how people that we don't know or people that we do know will judge us. We're afraid that we're going to get negative comments, and that's the reason why you're not putting your message out there. We have to learn, you have to learn to stop getting in your own way and to start sharing, to start releasing, to start living your life, the life that you want, not somebody else's version of it. There's an order to things, there's a sequence to things. Part of the problem with a lot of entrepreneurs is they're just not doing the things in the right order. You're trying to tackle that big mission from the start, doing all 30 things at the same time and not making any money and not making any momentum, not making any progress, and ultimately not having the impact that you want to have. So out of your 30 ideas, all inside your mission— amazing— which one is actually going to start getting you paid? Because when you can start making money, everything becomes better, everything becomes easier. You can quit your job, you can pay your bills, you can hire a team, you can have a bigger impact, right? If you had a team of 10 people versus you doing things part-time on the weekends and evenings, you're just going to have a much bigger impact if you have you working full-time and a team around you. How do you get there? What's the one idea out of the 30? Catching that pattern, it's like, oh, it happened again, again, again. I wanted to go and do this and I didn't do it. I didn't do it. Again, I had this opportunity to talk to somebody and I played small. Again, I had this chance and I didn't do it. And you're gonna catch it a day later, a couple days later, and reflect back on it and realize, okay, I should have done it. Next time I'm going to try to have more awareness. Step 1 is just the awareness game, because it's— the problem is it's, it's so autopilot. We play small by default, especially if we've been doing it for decades. You play small by default. So it's so ingrained, so natural, so autopilot that we have to slowly shift out of autopilot zone. Eventually what's going to happen is you're going to catch it in less than a day, you're going to catch it a couple hours later, they're going to catch it an hour later, they're going to catch it 10 minutes later, they're going to catch it 5 minutes later. And then step number 2 is you're going to get to this magical moment. You're going to get to this magical moment where it's about to happen. You've caught it, you've caught caught your small thinking, you've caught your scared thinking, you've caught your excuses thinking in the actual moment that it's happening. This is a magical spot right now because you're actually calling yourself out on your own BS right now. And what you need to do is get enough courage to actually take the action to pivot courses, to instead of doing what you historically normally would do on autopilot, now we're going to take the other action, the action where you're proud of yourself. The action that you don't want to live in regret. That version of you showing up. Spend a little time with yourself and finish the sentence. I am what? I am blank. I am blank. What's the blank? You are what? If you're just by yourself, you have a little space to breathe from your environment. You are what? What are some of the words that come up? What are some of the positive words? What are some of the negative words that show up? If you're being honest with yourself, there'll be hopefully some positive ones. So For me, it could be I'm someone who believes I am, uh, I am a great husband. I am, you know, a great father. I am a great— not owner, what do you do with dogs? I don't know, a great—

they still consider your kids.

They're my kids.

Yeah, dog kids, pet kids.

All right, you know, I am a bit down on the negative side, like I am I am, uh, afraid of disappointing people. I am scared of speaking on stages. I'm worried that I'm gonna ask bad interview questions. Like, what are the positive and negatives? If you fill in the 'I am,' okay, just to get awareness of yourself, this starts to uncover some of the subconscious behavior that you're living on autopilot, right? The subconscious is the autopilot. It's what you're doing by default. The conscious is what we want take control of, to then turn into subconscious, to then make the automatic the positive, the ambitious, the bold, the courageous, right? So start with 'I am.' What that does is lead you to step 2, which allows you to identify your trigger words. So what are the trigger words that you use consistently as an excuse for you not to do the thing? So my 3 trigger words are 'scary,' 'difficult,' or 'hard.' that when I say scary, difficult, hard, those used to be the reasons why I couldn't do something. Those used to be the reasons why I would let myself off the hook. Those used to be the things I would tell myself, oh, I can't do this because it's scary. I can't do this because it's difficult. I won't show up because it's hard. And I would let myself off the hook for those things that I would say, oh, that's okay because it's scary, so I'm not do it. And, and I would— that would used to be my identity. You want to swim forever? Adopt the mindset that you want to swim forever. Most people, if you're thinking about swimming, you're swimming to reach the island, right? If you're swimming out in the ocean, you're swimming to reach the island. The island is, is some goal. The island is, I want to hit a million subscribers, I want a million in revenue, or whatever, some arbitrary goal. The goal isn't to hit the island. Your intention shouldn't be to hit the island. It should be to swim. You have to love swimming. You want to swim forever. I want to swim forever. Every now and then you might need to look back, you know, and see how far you've come, see how far you swam. Every now and then we need that, that mindset, that, that, that gratitude, that perspective to say, wow, I'm I'm so much further ahead than I used to be, right? A big challenge with achievers is we don't feel like we've done enough, especially high achievers. You don't feel like you've done enough, and, and that can often be a drive forward, but sometimes it's so overwhelming that it actually puts you in a negative state where it prevents growth. So in those moments, you look back and see how far you swam. Like, wow, I've come a long way. Compared to who I used to be, the, the accomplishments, the belief systems, the mindset, the relationships, like the personal development— how much have you grown? If you actually think about it, how much have you grown in the past 5 years? It's probably crazy. If you're a fan of this channel, you're watching this video, you've grown a lot in the past 5 years. And every now and then when you're feeling low, you need that perspective shift to look back and see how far you've come. But otherwise, it's forward. Growth, more growth. You want to swim forever. You don't want to hit the island. You want to swim forever. We've all experienced those moments where you, you hit a goal, and then, and then what? What do you feel? You feel a moment of happiness, of, of accomplishment, and then like, oh, is that, is that all there is? You know, when I hit a million subscribers on YouTube, like, that was the drive, that was the goal. I want to hit a million subscribers on YouTube. I wanted to hit it. I don't even remember what the goal— I wanted to hit it before Gary. I wanted to hit a million subscribers for GaryVee, and we did it. And they're like, oh, I'm still the same person. Somehow we feel that when we accomplish something, we're gonna feel different, we're gonna be different. You're gonna be a different person when you hit that goal. And it's— it we end up getting confused because it's not even about the goal. You become a different person in the pursuit of the goal. I've studied more successful people than most people, just in the nature of the work that I do. And there's a reason why the number one rule for success, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, is you have to love what you do. You have to love the process. Successful people, they love the process. They love the doing. They love the actual showing up every day. I'm sitting here at a— Nina's inside there. Can we see? Nina's inside at a TNT. It's a Chinese grocery store. She's inside doing shopping. I'm sitting here in the car making videos. Why? Because I like it. I like, I like the process. I like— it's not about how many subscribers I have on the channel. I like feeling like this matters, that you— I'm so grateful that you're— thank you, honestly, thank you for watching this video. I'm so grateful that you're here watching this video, that I could make something from my car that's worthy of somebody else's attention. Thank you. I love this. We've done over 10,000 videos. Why? Because I love it. Like, if it's just a strategy, if you're just trying to reach the island, you drown. If you're just trying to reach the island, you drown. You have to love swimming. This is the mistake most entrepreneurs make when they're first getting started. Is you're just chasing an opportunity, but you don't actually love the process. This is a great, uh, quote, one of my favorite quotes of all time. It's an African saying that beyond the mountain is more mountains. And it's similar to the swimming analogy. Beyond the mountain, there's more mountains. What do you do when you get to the top of the mountain? There's another mountain to climb. You don't, you don't ever want to get to the top of the mountain. Think about if you, if you hit the top You're gonna start to hate your life because there's no growth. Because we want more growth, we want more learning, we want more progression. If you felt like you hit the top, that's a fast path down to depression. Beyond the mountain is more mountains. It's the greatest quote of all time, at least one of them. I love that one. I think of Ted Turner's father, whose goal was to be a millionaire, and then he hit the million and he killed himself. Because he thought, you know, he wasn't happy with his life, he wasn't happy with his, his process, he wasn't happy with what he was doing every day. But if he hit a million dollars, then everything's gonna change, then he's going to be a different person. He hit his million and he was the same person. He wasn't happy, so he killed himself. So Ted Turner, who's, you know, a billionaire, one of the wealthiest people in the world, decided, I'm going to set a goal so big that I'm not going to hit it. And that's the point of having a vision, you know, a mission, like something so big beyond yourself that you never hit it. I want to solve the world's biggest problem, that people don't believe in themselves enough. I'm never going to do that. It's not, it's not going to happen, not in my lifetime. And yet I wake up every day trying to make that happen in my lifetime. You have to want to swim forever. Tell the people around you. So Nina, Nina stepped out, but, uh, Nina, my son, my team, my family, I'll let them know, hey, if I say scary, difficult, or hard, I want you to let me know. If I say to you in any conversation, I can't because it's scary or it's difficult or it's hard, I need you to call me out on it because I'm not gonna— I still don't catch all of them. It's a lot more than it used to be, and I'm probably, I don't know, 90, 95% of the way there, but there'll still be some small percentage. And having people hold you accountable is really important. Now, the default thinking for them is going to be, what are you talking about? You're always doing all of these things. You're always showing up. You're always doing scary, difficult, hard. In my case, yeah, but not like I could be. There's another level to this, and everything I want out of life, my mission, my, my vision, my boldness is on the other side. My great life is on the other side of even more scary, difficult, and hard. I have to start living it. And so I need help in catching it. So you use yourself as step one, as the first part. But then if you can, as a bonus, bring in the accountability to the other people in your life who can help you catch it. And you're not allowed to get angry at them. You're not allowed to get frustrated at them. If you say one of your trigger words And they say, you just said it. You're gonna want to say, nah, but that doesn't count, it doesn't mean it. I was thinking something. Stop letting yourself off the hook. Instead, you say, you're right, and then you go do the thing. And the more you can train that trigger word came up, I'm doing the thing. Trigger word came up, I'm doing the thing. Trigger word came up, I'm doing the thing. It's scary, I'm doing it. It's difficult, I'm doing it. It's hard, I'm doing it. Just because you start shifting your identity, you start changing your self-talk. Now you start to become the person that you're proud of. You start to become the person that you, you say you want to be. You start to actually become the person. You've become the best version of you. Inflict so much pain on yourself, a future regret, that if you don't do this thing, how painful it's going to be for you, how you're going to regret it your entire life, that it forces you into action to do the thing that will make yourself proud. That will build the life you want, that will help create the dream that you know you're capable of doing. Spend 5% of your time planning, strategizing, thinking, and 95% of your time doing, executing tactics. I call it the 5-95 rule. 5% of your time thinking, planning, strategizing, and 95% of your time actually doing. This is where a lot of entrepreneurs get held up because we're dreamers. We want to change the world. We've got this big mission, this big vision. We've got all these amazing giant plans, and it's so much fun to sit and think and plan and watch videos and draft up what our perfect company, our perfect life, the perfect world's gonna look like. It's a ton of fun. Anytime you get entrepreneurs together and you start dreaming about the future, tell me about where you want to go, what you want to build. Those are really fun, easy exercises for us. We love staying there. The problem is none of that stuff actually happens until you do something, right? The perfect world you want to make, the perfect life you want to build, none of that happens until you actually start doing it. Think about working out as an example, right? You could, you could research all the exercises, you could think about the beautiful life you're gonna have when you have your six-pack abs. But nothing counts until you actually start working out, until you start running and, and doing your push-ups and doing your sit-ups and your squats and all of that stuff. 5% of your time should be picking the plan, strategizing the plan, and 95% of the time actually doing. You don't want to be in the same spot a year from today, a month from today, heck, even a week from today. We don't want to stay stuck. You don't want to be in the same spot, you want to be having the same thoughts to say, I wish I could be further ahead, I should be doing something else, like to have the frustration with yourself, your life, your lack of momentum. If you don't want to be stuck in the same spot one week, one month, one year from today, the difference is not going to be different strategies that you come up with. You're, you're super smart, you're a smart person. And you're doing this for the right reasons, you've got heart, you want to serve, you want to make a difference, you want to feel like what you do matters. The only tweak you have to make is switching the time you're spending thinking and pondering and in fear and strategizing and moving it to just doing, to just executing, to doing one more. So that's the challenge for today. Look at your calendar for the rest of today, for the rest of next week. 5/95. 5% of your time planning, thinking, strategizing, and 95% of your time doing. That will make the difference. The biggest problem is a lack of belief. My biggest problem, your biggest problem, the world's biggest problem is that we don't believe in ourselves enough. You could do great things. You could be the Michael Jordan of something. You are literally the greatest in the world at something. But if you don't actually believe that you are, then you won't be. And people with far less talent, far less resources, and far less heart than you will win because they just took action. So my biggest limitation is still a lack of belief. It's still the thing that holds me back. I believe in my ability to do what I've already done, but not to do the next thing. It's a constant battle and a constant reminder because you want to grow. I want to grow. I want to keep learning. I want to keep getting better. And so to get to that next breakthrough, I'm going to have to believe in myself to say I can do it. Just yesterday, I was on an Instagram Live with Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful, Shark Tank. It was a super fun interview. And the hour before it, I was just totally useless. I gave myself an hour before to prepare, to research, to think about what questions I wanted to ask, to think how I'm going to introduce him when he comes on. I don't have a connection to Kevin O'Leary before yesterday. I've had the good fortune to meet tons of people and connect with them, but Kevin I haven't done anything with over the— how many years I've had my YouTube channel? It's crazy. So I'm nervous. And in the back of my head is he's a professional. He's It's gonna be great. He's not somebody who's like yells at his, you know, interviewers. It's gonna be fine. But in my heart, I'm still nervous. I'm still worried. I'm still anxious that I'm gonna say the wrong thing, ask the wrong question, not give a great interview. And, you know, it's over in 7 minutes. It's my panic attack taking over. And so that hour before the interview, I was completely useless. I, I kind of went over at least 10 times how I was going to introduce him and some of my key questions that I was going to ask him. And then I just basically wasted time. I wasn't in the right mindset to be able to go and do anything else. I couldn't even do Instagram DMs or emails because I was too distracted thinking about this thing that was coming up. But what's the alternative? You know, whenever you face those doubts, whenever face those fears. The alternative is saying no. The alternative is, oh, I can't do it, I'm busy. Find some excuse, right? Evan of 10 years ago probably would have backed out of it, would have found some reason why I couldn't have done it. I'm busy, uh, you know, find something, some— find some reason. I want to teach myself that I do scary things, that I do difficult things, that I lean into the thing. If I don't believe in myself enough, then I have to go do to show myself that I believe in myself. You can say all day long, I believe in myself, I believe in myself, I believe in— but if you don't do the thing, you won't believe in yourself. And so you do it scared, you do it when it's hard, you do it when it's difficult. Even if I go on the live and just say the wrong thing to Kevin and insult him, or he leaves, or something happens, the fact that I showed up with a positive intention, with the goal to try to make this a good interview is enough for me to pat myself on the back and say I did it. Now, the interview ended up going great. At least I thought it went well. We had a good conversation. We talked about his new business. I made a new connection. He now follows me on Instagram. It was, it was a fun time. And logically, you might be watching and thinking, well, of course it's going to work out. You've done all these interviews. And logically, to myself, it's the same thing. Of course it's going to work out. I've done all these interviews and with harder people to talk to than Kevin No leery. But in the moment, when it's your fear talking, the logic isn't enough to get you through it. At least for me, it's, it's the boom boom boom test that my heart's beating. Boom boom boom boom boom. I'm nervous. I'm scared. I have to do it. That's how you start building confidence, belief, self-respect, by doing difficult things. Number 1 is be surrounded by it. Be surrounded by the things that make you believe in yourself more. This is so critical because chances are the people around you aren't encouraging you to be more, aren't pushing you, saying you're capable of so much more. A lot of people have either haters around them, people telling them that you're never going to make it, be safe, be practical, go get this safe job over here, you can't go do that, or people who might have empathy, might have some kind of understanding, but they don't know how to push you to do greater things. And so you have to be surrounded by the people who make you feel like more is possible. This is so critical. It's so important. It's why I make this YouTube channel. I want you to start your day with confidence and belief. So if this channel does it for you, great! Hey, every day I'm making videos. If not on this channel, I've got lots of other channels also making content. But if it's not me, then it's somebody else. If it's Dean's channel or Dean's books or Dean's podcast that makes you feel bold, confident, alive, powerful, then, then be surrounded by it as much as possible. Have it as a part of your regular schedule. Have it in your environment. Look at my environment here. Look at the people on the wall behind me. I walk into here and these people make me believe in myself more. From Steve Jobs to AP Giannini to my parents, Howard Schultz, Kanye West. These people make me believe in myself more. From the cell phone background that I have, can I load it up? It says, "Remember your intention." Remember your intention. Ah, you can see it. Hey, you can see it. It works. Remember your intention. It's a reminder. Reminder for myself. My desktop background, the clothes that I wear, right? I, I feel like I'm Batman going to work. I feel like I'm a superhero going to work to try to change the world for the better every time I put this on. Now, that might seem crazy to you. That might seem stupid, childish, ridiculous. Awesome, go do you. But think about it, from your office environment to, you know, the screens on your phone and computer to what you wear, it impacts your your self-confidence. So you want to be around it as much as possible. Physical environment plus online environment from the, the music you listen to, the podcast, the videos you're watching to every day inject that belief into yourself. Step number 2 is fix your morning routine. Most people, well, most people don't have a morning routine. So most of America doesn't have a morning routine. But if you're watching this video, you probably have some kind of morning routine. Most people wake up like an accident. You probably wake up and have a morning routine. And so your friends and family, people who look at you, they might even be in awe of your morning routine and say, "How do you accomplish so much and how do you stick to that morning routine?" You're the one that people are going to for advice on morning routines. But your morning routine is likely still broken. Do you know what the most important part of a morning routine is? It's not brushing your teeth. It's not, you know, meditation. It's not even watching one of these. An espresso videos, as much as that breaks my heart. The thing that's most important in the morning routine is do you get the feeling of belief, of unstoppable confidence, of boldness when you finish it? Too many people are just checking the boxes. Too many people are saying, well, okay, I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna brush my teeth, I'm gonna read a book, I'm gonna work out, I'm gonna. Great, check, check, check, check, check, check, check. Perfect. You checked all the boxes. You did it, but you don't feel bold. You don't have confidence. You don't feel the belief. Why? Well, one of two reasons. One, either your morning routine is broken and you actually have to inject something in. You have to actually watch that video or make that call or do that meditation or say that prayer or whatever the thing is. You have to add something into your morning routine to get the confidence. Or two, your morning routine actually is a okay, you're just not doing it with intention. So remember my cell phone screen here, right? Remember your intention. Remember my— this is— how do I— there we go. Remember your intention. This is a constant reminder for myself to remember my intention. Your morning routine, you might have all the right pieces to it, and maybe watching a video is the thing that gets you feeling fired up and ready to go and have that belief. But if you're watching a video you're doing something else, if you're watching a video while you're brushing your teeth or while you're planning out your day or while you're making your lunch or something else and you've only got half your brain on it and you're not actually too focused on it, then great, check! You watched the video, you could check it off your morning list, but you don't feel the feeling. And if you don't feel the feeling, if you don't feel bold, powerful, unstoppable, confident coming out of your morning routine, then you need to immediately fix your morning routine for tomorrow. It's one of the single greatest things that you can do. Because if you woke up and did the thing that made you feel belief, confidence, boldness every day, if that's how you started your day, you actually felt that every day your life is going to look dramatically different one year from today, I guarantee. Fix your morning routine. And step number three is pass the boom, boom, boom test. And the boom, boom, boom test is when your heart's beating. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's a sign to go. That's a sign to do. That's a sign of your. Your beliefs in yourself being questioned. When I had Kevin o' Leary coming up on my show, Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, right? Even having Dean on my show, I had Dean not too long ago on my show. And now I know Dean better. We've hung out in Puerto Rico. He's been on a couple times already. We spent some time together. So he's. He's a closer friend. friend, then Kevin O'Leary, who I didn't know before. Now, the last time I had Dean on, it was to promote his book, but I couldn't bring him in for more than a couple seconds. Instagram, I'd bring him in and it would crash. And so I tried to bring him in and then it would crash again. So try— and I tried like 4 or 5 times to try to bring him in, and he's sitting there live and it just keeps crashing. And it felt so terrible. It's like all my, my worst nightmares coming true, right? Like, it didn't work out. Oh my gosh, I feel so bad. I'm letting him down and letting my audience down. Live. It just felt terrible. And so in the back of my head is, oh my gosh, remember the last time I tried to have Dean on, the, the fiasco that happened? And so boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, I don't want it to happen again this time. But not letting the boom boom boom— this is just your fear talking, right? This is a lack of belief talking. It's a lack of belief that it's going to go well this time. You can't let that hold you back from actually doing the thing. And quite often what happens is you feel the boom boom boom boom boom, right? It's going like this, but then your brain will find some reason why you can't do it. Your brain will talk you down from doing the thing. It'll find a really logical, smart reason, because you won't believe a stupid reason, a really smart reason why you can't do the thing. And so you don't. But really, you're just afraid. And so this helps you catch it. When you feel the boom boom boom, it's going like this, your heart's beating, I'm scared, I'm, I'm doing that thing, I'm I'm doing that thing. I'm going to reward myself for the effort, whether it ends up working out or not, because I do scary things. And so do you. The fact that you look at your calendar today, tomorrow, next week, and nothing excites you— okay, great. What can you shift? And it may require a wholesale change. It may require you doing some drastic thing. But more likely, you could probably just do one small shift. Like, just start building momentum. Just start doing one little thing. Every day to start to train yourself, to start to just push the ball a little bit forward? Because often we think we have to make some giant change, and the only answer is to move to Mexico, and then it never happens. Because to move to Mexico takes you however many, you know, months and budget and all this stuff. You get stuck in planning mode instead of doing. What's a small step? What's a small tweak that you can make to today's calendar to inject more energy into it with something that you're going to love doing that will give you more energy, that then now you have energy for other things as well, right? Some kind of immediate momentum. The fear of regret is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal to help you get into action mode. Let me explain. Whatever you want to do, whatever your goals are, your, your mission, your mission, your dreams, whatever whatever you want to do, if it's big enough, it's going to have some fear attached to it, right? You don't want to just do the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. So therefore, your dreams, your ambitions, your drive require you to do things that are scary, that are new, that are different, that are pushing you outside your comfort zone. And our natural reaction is we don't want to do those things, right? In theory, we do. When we feel bold and confident, we do. When you watch a video like this, you get inspired motivated, like, yes, I'm gonna go do it. And then when it comes time to actually doing it, you find a reason why you can't do it, right? Too tired. I'll do it tomorrow. There's always some logical reason why you can't do it. Meanwhile, it's just fear. Understand that underneath your excuses, your reasons are just fear. It's just fear. You're afraid of doing a thing. You're afraid of being judged. You're afraid of who will see it. You're afraid of who won't see it. You're afraid of nobody is saying it. You're just afraid. You're afraid. And getting to your dreams require you to step through that fear. And the future regret— the fear of future regret is so powerful because it can knock you out of the immediate fear of doing the thing. So let me break it down. If you had to make a video, you're gonna make a video. You know, I'm, I'm making making a video right now, right? If I was afraid of making this video— I'm afraid of making this video. I'm afraid of— I'm gonna have the wrong words. I'm afraid that Nina is gonna judge me for the words that I'm saying. I'm afraid that my dogs are not going to be happy with me. Whatever, you know, afraid of what that guy thinks. For me, with my phone, right? You're afraid. All these things come through our head of what we're afraid of. By the way, Nina's very supportive, as always. We love you, Nina. Anyway, you're afraid. So if you're afraid of making a video, great. The fear, the present fear is very real. It feels big, right? Let's call it, let's put it on a fear score. The fear of actually making that video is a 50, okay? It's a score of 50. That's how much afraid we are to do it. It's a 50. The fear of the regret regret of not doing it in the moment is not very big. Maybe it's a 1, right? It's just a 1. It's a 1. The, the, the idea that, okay, I might regret this one day, whatever, it's a 1. But the problem is the 50 is just for today. That little fear of— well, it's a big fear, but in the moment of doing the one thing, say it's a 50, it's just today. The regret compounds. So it's, it's, it's 1 to and it's one tomorrow and it's one the next day, it's one the next day, it's one the next day. It actually ends up being a million, right? Ends up being huge. The fear of inaction becomes huge, but we don't feel it on a day-to-day basis because it's too small compared to the present fear of doing the thing. So what you have to do— and this is the, this is the hack to get out of procrastination, bless you Nina— this is the hack to get into action mode. This is the hack to actually start chasing your dreams down. Believe Nation, come on, let's go! Is to make the fear so big of regret that you're gonna miss out, that, that this video that you're about to make today is going to be the video that is life-altering, life-changing, life-redefining for you. This one thing that you're about to do is going to be the greatest moment of your life. So you make that pain so big that now it becomes a million versus the 50, right? So then it's not as, as scary to go do the thing because there's a bigger fear. You're basically inflicting a future pain so big on you that the present pain doesn't feel as big. For too many of us, there's no deadline. When's the deadline on your dreams? When's the deadline to make your content? What's the deadline to actually execute things. For most of us, there's no deadline. You don't have a deadline. And so because you don't have the deadline, you allow yourself to procrastinate and to, and to tinker on, to make things perfect and to never release, because there's no deadline. It doesn't matter enough. When I'm making videos, I have to make a certain number of videos every week for my channels, and there's a deadline. I have to get them done today. They have to get done today because tomorrow I'm doing something else, and the next day I'm doing something else, and I'm not touching my YouTube content again until next Tuesday. So if I don't get it done today, then my team doesn't have content to go off and create for the channels, and then I'm disappointing you. And it's been, I don't know, 7 or 8 years since we haven't— not since we have not— haven't not— since we have not uploaded a video on one of our channels. Years. It's been years. Years of consistency. And that's how you start to build the machine. Because there's a deadline, because it matters, because it's important today. Have a reminder system in your life constantly. What are the things— because you're feeling it right now, hopefully, if you're watching, you're feeling it right now, you're feeling excited right now, you're going to make a change right now, and then tomorrow you're going to fall back to who you used to be. So what, what do you need in your environment What do you need in your habits and your daily routines to remind you? You need to remind your system so it can become more automatic, that it doesn't rely on your self-will and your discipline constantly, that it gets introduced to you constantly. Whether that's YouTube videos— hey, Instant Espresso, 5 days a week, every morning, I'm here, let's go, here's a new video for you. If it's Ed Mylett's channel or Tony Robbins' channel or Oprah Winfrey's videos, whoever, or if it's books or podcasts, if it's your physical environment, if it's morning intention, like just figure it out for yourself and schedule it in. Schedule in the reminders, schedule in the intentionality so that this doesn't just become a one-off moment, but that it's a daily reminder. It's a daily consistency. It's daily momentum because you need that. Happiness comes down to fulfillment versus excitement. When people ask me, hey Evan, how do you define happiness? This is one of the most common questions I get asked when I'm doing interviews and podcasts and such. What does happiness look like to you? Well, happiness is fulfillment and excitement. Because it's very interesting word, so let's break it down. Fulfillment is feeling like what you do matters. You're happy when you feel like what you do matters. You're happy when you feel like you wake up today and today is going to matter. This This is what we all want. We all want to feel like what we're going to do today is going to have an impact on somebody else's life. We are all built to serve. You want to feel important to somebody else, not just from an ego perspective that, oh, I matter and I'm important, but in a way that you contributed to somebody else's life. We're all connected. We want to feel connected. We want to feel like this is gonna matter today, that this video that I make for you, even though I'm I'm here just in the car by myself. Well, Nina's actually— Nina's back there. Hello, Nina! Even though I'm just here filming by myself in the car, I want to feel like this video is touching somebody, it's touching you, that you guys are watching it, and hopefully the message here is going to be inspiring and helpful to you in some way. We all want that. That's fulfillment, right? If you wake up too many days in a row and you feel like today doesn't matter, nobody cares if I show up Nobody cares if I do a good job or not. Nobody cares. That's a fast path to, to depression and worst case suicide, right? That's where a lot of people unfortunately are living right now, is they don't feel like they matter. They're not happy because there's no fulfillment. They're not happy because they feel like they don't matter to anybody. So that's fulfillment. The other side of happiness is excitement. You're happy when you feel like you're doing something new. You're happy when you get to try something new. You get to have fun. You get to to do something that hasn't been done before. You're, you're, you're going out of your comfort zone, or you're, you're having this quick hit, right? I mean, it could be anything from, I'm excited to have my coffee, you know, I'm excited to have my Starbucks. You know, when we go once a week to film, we get a Starbucks, put some cream in, and I'm excited for the taste, right? You could be excited for that donut or that meal. You know, it may not even be good for you. The donut's not good for you, but you're still excited to have it because it tastes so good. You're chasing this little momentary high. Or you could be excited to go on that vacation. You're excited, just something new. There's— it's a, it's a moment in time. It's the little— it's the candy, it's the sweets, right? And it's the sweets of life. It's not sustainable, but it's not designed to be sustainable. It's these little moments in time that make us happy. And that's true too. But that's why it's excitement. Jumping from an airplane, you know, it's exciting. It's not sustainable. You're not gonna show up every day and fall from the airplane all day long, right? And so I think where a lot of people struggle, a lot of entrepreneurs especially, is we're chasing the excitement only. You're chasing what it's gonna feel like when you hit your goal, when you have a million subscribers or a million in revenue. Or whatever success looks like to you. Well, what we're missing is the fulfillment part of it. So there's nothing wrong with chasing those goals. There's nothing wrong with having that caffeine high, that sugar rush, that, you know, hey, I hit my goal, amazing. There's nothing wrong with it. But if that's all there is, you need the meal, right? If that's all there is, you're never actually going to be happy because those are just moments in time. That you get excited today if that something happened, and then you might wait another month before the next exciting thing happens. We're just adrenaline junkies is what entrepreneurs are. A lot of entrepreneurs just become adrenaline junkies chasing the next high. That's not sustainable, that's not healthy, and that's not ultimate happiness. You have to pair it with the fulfillment. When you can do both, that I'm chasing these big goals, these big dreams, or even something small I can do right now to get excited, and pairing it with what I do matters, this is fulfilling to me, this is going to make a difference in somebody's life— that's where I think you have long-term, sustainable, healthy forms of happiness. The good news is both of them you can accomplish right now. At any point in time, you could choose to help somebody. You could choose to go serve somebody, right? At any point time. It could be, you know, helping those people put the groceries in their car, right? They could go, go help them, or take the shopping cart and, and put it away for them. Random act of kindness. It could be going to somebody's YouTube comments and leaving a nice message. Think about a creator that you like to follow, somebody else that you subscribe to who maybe doesn't have as big a following. Go leave a nice message. How long does it take you to do, right? 18 seconds. You just made a difference in somebody's life. Responding to somebody who follows you on Instagram and saying, hey, thank you for following me on Instagram, I really appreciate you. That's how I built my Instagram following. I'd be sitting here at a Costco individually messaging people who followed me to say, hey Rick, hey Susan, hey Jennifer, thank you so much for following me, I really appreciate you. Thank you. Send. Next. Right? 7 seconds, 8 seconds, 15 seconds at a time. You can choose at any point to be happy. I think you're a tree, and I wrote about this in my book Built to Serve. I think you're a tree. What does a tree do? A tree breathes in the carbon dioxide, which too much of for humans is poison. We breathe— the trees will breathe it in, they'll eat it, they'll grow from it, and then they'll spit out oxygen, positivity for the world. I see that as part of our role as leaders and as entrepreneurs is to eat other people's negativity, grow from it, get better from it, and then spit out more positivity, more oxygen for the world. Ultimately, the people who are negative in your life, you have an ability to influence them. You have an ability to help them see the positive road, not through your advice, but through your actions. By you going off and doing your thing will inspire other people to want to change their life as well. Whoever is more confident wins. And when you're around really negative people, if you are doubting your positivity, they're going to win. They're going to drag you down. But ultimately, the goal is to get so positive, so optimistic, so, so happy that you pull them up, that you're more positive, you're more certain in your positivity than they are certain in their negativity, and you pull them towards making the better life decision. I have a list of beliefs that I read every morning, every single morning. I have it written on my computer, I pop it up, and these are the lists of beliefs and values that I want to remind myself of, that I want to live today and every day. And I find that reminding myself of it in the morning helps make sure that I actually follow through on it during the day. And so one of those One of those things that I read to myself every morning is that work is play. One of the beliefs that I want to espouse on a daily basis is that work is play, that work isn't just work, that work isn't a place to go and die, work isn't a place to go and struggle. And yes, work is a lot of hard work, right? Work is a lot of a grind. Work is a lot of getting stuff done and checking a lot of things off the list, right? You want to be productive and feel like you're creating meaningful value in the world today, but it doesn't have to suck. Like, work can be fun. And it's partly enjoying the work, having passion for what you're doing, right? Doing something that you feel is meaningful, but also just having fun with it. And so if I look at some of the things that I do, you know, in our office environment, I had Alex and Lily over and they started breaking out into a song. Row your boat gently down the stream. Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. And in the morning when I'm making videos for my book, you'll see me on Snapchat with, you know, rabbit ears or raccoon ears or some fun filter on it. And fun is different to each person, right? I'm not the guy who's going to be out cracking jokes. That's maybe more Alex's style. But the point is that you're doing the things that you can express your creativity through, that you are having fun with. If you are on your way to your office, whether your office is your basement or your home home office or an actual office where you have your employees and team members, if you're on your way to go and do work and you are dreading it, like, ah, another day, and it's like it feels like the world is beating you down, you're not going to create great work. Like, if you feel like you have to just plow through a whole bunch of crap every day, it's not going to feel fun. You're not going to create an amazing experience. And so if you can approach it with How can I have fun today? It's just asking that question. How can I make this fun? It's not by taking breaks, right? It's not by doing something in between to break up the crap, right? It's not, okay, I'm gonna grind through this for 2 hours, and then I'm gonna take a celebration and go grab a coffee and then come back, and then I'm gonna grind out some more. It's like, how can you make the grind fun? How can you inject fun into the actual process so that you enjoying the process, because you can get to that point. It's not that every single minute of every day is going to be amazing, but if you get to that point where work is play, where work is fun, you're not just going to have more fun, but it's going to show in the result as well. It's going to show in what you create. You're going to create better things. It's going to add more value. It's going to help you grow your business much more than if you go to work every day feeling like the world is crushing you down. Entrepreneurship is one of the hardest things that you're ever going to do in your life. And it's totally worth it. It's totally worth it whether it actually works out or not. Most entrepreneurs will fail. Something like 85% of businesses fail in the first 5 years. Most businesses won't work, but it's totally worth it. Why? Because you're showing yourself that you bet on yourself. You're showing yourself that you're following through and taking action on your ideas, that you're worthy. You're showing yourself that worthy. You're showing yourself that you believe in you. And if you keep doing that, you're gonna win. The path to living a happy life, a fulfilled life, a life that you're proud of, is one where you continue to show up for yourself. And the minute that you stop, when you stop showing up for yourself, when you just throw in the towel and say, this is over, I'm just gonna work for somebody else, I'm going to help somebody else build their dreams instead of chasing down mine. That's when life starts to fall apart. You know, that's the path down to unhappiness and depression. And it doesn't mean that everybody has to be an entrepreneur, but what you have to do is continue to bet on yourself. You have to continue to bet on your ideas. You have to continue to say, I came up with this good idea, and because I came up with it, therefore it's a is it a worthy endeavor for me to chase it down? I got asked on my livestream yesterday, how do I know when to quit? You know, is quitting— is quitting bad? Do I quit on something? How do I know when to quit? Some people say never give up, never give up, always keep going, and some people are the opposite. So what's the right advice? The right answer is, if you love it, you have to keep going. If you love it, You have, you have to find a way to keep going. So for a lot of cases, that's what entrepreneurship is. You've got a dream, you've got a mission, you've got some goals that, that you genuinely love, that you really want to, to build, to create, to serve, to help people with. And it's that love that's going to keep you going, because in the early days it's going to suck. It's the, it's the chewing glass and eating to the abyss, right? You have You have that moment of high at the beginning of, I'm gonna start this thing, oh my God, this is so exciting. And then you land into the valley of no momentum, nothing working, no results, nobody praising you anymore, nobody celebrating you for starting the business. Now you're in the actual running of it and you're not getting the results that you want. And you're trying to show how you're winning and post it on Instagram, but you're not and you know you're not. and you feel like a fraud. And this is, this is the life cycle that a lot of entrepreneurs go through. But if you love it, you have to keep going. You have to, you have to, you have to. You could be a lot more honest. You could be a lot more vulnerable. You could be a lot more authentic. You can understand that you have— you don't have to do this all by yourself. This is my biggest problem. When I started my company, I was, I was failing. I was flat out failing. I was 300 bucks a month, like failing. And I was too embarrassed and ashamed to tell my friends that I was failing. I wanted to look like I was doing well because I turned down the jobs that they all went and got, and they're all making high 5-figure, low 6-figure jobs out of university, and I'm making 300 bucks a month. I was just embarrassed. I was just too embarrassed, and I made it hard harder on myself to be alone. You don't have to be alone. You can make it easier by just letting people in. When you're down in the dumps, being by yourself is usually the worst thing. If you can be around other people, especially people who support you, a lot of people will. Let's circle back to the idea that if you don't love it, you're going to regret it. Why, why do you have to keep going? Why do you have to keep going? Why is it so important if you love it? Because you will regret it. Because you will look back on this moment in your life and say, I should have done more. I could have done more. I regret not giving it one more week, one more month, one more year. I regret it. You will regret it. That's the only thing that saved my first business. I quit on my partner. I told him I'm done. I need to feel like I'm a valuable human again. Nothing I'm doing is working, and I hate how this makes me feel as a person. Nothing against you or the business, just how I feel. I need to feel like I'm valuable again somehow. That was the conversation. And then the next day, woke up and I said, I can't quit because I'm going to regret this. I know I'm going to regret this. I'm going to be an old man at 40. I'm 41 now. I'm gonna be an old man at 40 and I regret that I wasted my life and I didn't do this thing. And that's the only thing that gave me the, the courage, the motivation, the energy to get back up and just keep going. You will regret this if you love it and you stop now. You will regret this for your entire life. Now, on the flip side, I think there are many things that you should quit on sooner. The, the difference is if you don't love it, you need to quit on it. If you don't love it anymore, and maybe you never loved it in the first place, then you need to move on because you will never win doing work that you hate. The people who are at the top of their game, people that I've studied— how many successful people have I studied and profiled and showcased on, on all of these channels? How many? So many people, right? The one thing they all have in common is that they love what they do. They love the process, they love the work, they love the grind. It's not a grind for them because they're, they're in it so much and they love it. So that's who you're going up against, right? And if you don't love it, you're always going to lose. No matter how smart you are, you're going to lose because you're going up against people who absolutely love the thing. And so that's what you need. You need to be loving your thing. And so if you're in it just as a strategy, you're going to lose. Move on immediately as as soon as your heart's set into it. Either sell it, or if it's too new, then, then you just flat out move on. I think people stay in relationships for too long. I think people stay in businesses for too long because you're afraid of failure, because you're afraid of what it means if you quit on something and go to something else. You're afraid of what people are going to say. You're afraid of what the person looking back at you in the mirror is going to think if you quit. You're afraid of the uncertainty of where to go next. Because if this thing— at least I know what this thing is doing. I don't know what the future holds for me if I go somewhere else. A lot of people are handcuffed by having a little bit of money, not, not a lot, but enough to survive, and that then prevents them from taking the next jump, which they actually need to do because their heart's not in the thing. So many people start a business because they're just trying to make money. People ask me, what's, what's the number one business to get into for this year to make a lot of money? That's the wrong question. You're asking that question, you're gonna lose. You can't start with how to make money. You start with the thing that you love, that brings value, and inside of that you're making money. Making money is important, 100%. If you don't make money, you will not have a business. Making money has to be in your top 5 of priorities. But if you make it number 1, you're gonna lose because you're always going to be chasing the next hot thing. Never get good enough at anything to actually be the best in the world, which is actually how you start to make a lot of money. You need to be the best in the world at something. How do you get that? By loving the thing so much and by wanting to serve and help people get better at it too. That's how you win. The language you use about yourself when you're by yourself is what will make or break your self-esteem. When we talk to other people, when we post on Instagram, when we share our lives, we always wanted to look good and be amazing and be so positive, right? Most people's Instagram stories are, are just all of these amazing highlights and how beautiful my perfect life is. And then you go home when you're by yourself and you look at yourself in the mirror and people, you know, cry themselves to sleep. What's the message when you talk to yourself? What's the message when you're alone? What are you saying about yourself? When you can start to fix that self-talk, that inner dialogue, that starts to shift everything inside you to then create amazing things outside you. I remember when I first got started making YouTube videos, my self-talk was, uh, in conflict because I had my parents who I remember the voice, you know, there's a picture of my parents behind me on my wall in my office. And when people ask me what's my favorite quote of all time, it's, it's what my parents used to tell me, that I am Evan Carmichael, I could do anything that I believe that I can. And that is a constant reminder that I still today, you know, at 41, still use, still tell myself, still remind myself of, like, I am Evan Carmichael, I I could do anything that I believe that I can, and it's helpful and valuable. And what a gift. I'm so grateful for my parents for that. When I was getting started on YouTube though, the other voice that was in my head was, you're introverted, you're shy, you suck on camera, anybody who makes videos has a big ego, just needs to be famous. And so I really struggled with that because I had competing voices in my head. It wasn't even what other people were telling me to do. It was me, myself. When I'm by myself thinking about myself, that constant inner struggle with the voices in my head left me struggling, left me making super slow progress, left me started and stopping and starting and stopping. If you look at my videos, I started and then I took big breaks and then started again, then I took more big breaks. And it wasn't until I solved that inner conflict that I started to get more results, and I started to be more, uh, productive, and I started to stop stopping. I started to stop stopping. I stopped procrastinating. I just did it because I wasn't so caught up in my head and the discussion and the inner dialogue and the voices. And I just replaced it with better thinking thinking about myself, better messages to myself. I think when you can do that, your life starts to change, because it's not other people's opinions that we— that really shape us. It's other people's opinions that then influence our own self-talk, that then that's what shapes us. You are where you are because of you, because of the choices you've made. You are right now here, stuck where you're stuck. It's not the government's fault, it's not the economy's fault, It's not the algorithm's fault. It's not your parents' fault. It's not even your fault. I'm not even here talking about placing blame. It's not about who we're going to blame. It's about taking the responsibility to fix it, to say, I don't want to stay stuck here where I am right now. Things have to change. This is not— this is not my final destination. I'm going places. You're going places. And taking the responsibility to make that change happen, where too many people just get stuck up on the blame. Like, well, I'm here because, well, because of the economy, or because of the president, or because my parents, or because my education, or because whatever circumstances. And we use that as a valid excuse, a reason for why we won't take action. Well, it's not your fault. And because it's not your fault, we have somebody to blame, and so that means we can just stay stuck. And unfortunately, that's where most people are stuck. They're stuck being stuck. They're stuck placing blame. They're stuck because it's easy, because it's easier to just shut off the world and go dive into Netflix and entertain yourself as opposed to actually fixing the problem. When there are problems that show up in life, and that's going to happen for everybody, the most common responses people have are one, to blame somebody else because it's not your fault, and two, to go dive into entertainment. As opposed to saying, I don't even care whose fault it is, but I'm going to take responsibility for where I'm at and I'm going to invest in myself to flip from entertainment to education so that changes can start to happen. Because until you break that loop, until you break that cycle, you stay stuck. And, and it's comfortable. It's comfortable, and it feels good to know that it's not our fault. But ultimately, you're not happy. The short term, you're happy because you can just put the blame on somebody else. But long term, you're not happy. You're not happy because you never get the growth, you never get the progress, you never get your goals, you never accomplish your dreams, and you're, you're stuck there knowing that you're capable of more. I went through this very recently on my YouTube channel, so One of the strategies that I've been helping some of my friends with— there's one guy in particular who has blown up, blown up on YouTube thanks to one key strategy that I gave him. And I told this to him maybe a year and a half ago, and he started applying it maybe 6 months ago. And you see channel popping up, growing faster than I'm growing off of my strategy. And I finally came to the realization, like, why am I not doing this for my own channels? I'm telling other people to do it. Most people never take action, but this guy actually took action on it, and he's, he's crushing me now doing this stuff. Why are we not listening to our own advice? Like, why am I not doing the same thing on my channel yet? And it came down to, well, I'm worried about— I'm worried about my team. I'm worried about how much extra work it is. I'm worried about, um, you know, mostly about my team and like how we've done things in the past and changing things up. And I finally came to the realization that, you know, things— this has to change. Because if it— if, if I can't make this work, then it's my fault. This is my fault. And my team's livelihood is my responsibility, and I need to be constantly growing and getting better. And if YouTube's algorithm changes, I need to be on top of it, and I need to be guiding my team in the right direction because they rely on me for their career and for their impact. Now, could they go get another job? Of course. But hopefully they like working with me and the work that we're doing and feel like they're, they're valued and, and what they're creating is having an impact. And so me being afraid is not a good enough reason. And so it wasn't until I really owned that to say, this is, you know, this maybe took a couple months for me for really to sink in. Like, my own advice is being used for somebody to help them blow up, and we're not doing it because I'm afraid of the impact that it's going to have on my team. And that can't be a good enough reason. That can't be a good enough reason, because ultimately I'm doing a disservice to my team. I'm doing a disservice to myself, and I'm doing a disservice to you. Because the more people who can see these videos, the more, more belief we spread in the world, the more impact we have, the more people's lives change, the more great companies are built. This is my mission. And so if I don't do it, then it's my fault. It's not YouTube for changing. It's not, it's not anybody on my team for resisting. It's me, it's my fault. And so when, when I finally accepted that, then you can move fast. Then I messaged some of the key people on my team and said, okay, here's, here's what we need to start to do. And I understand there are problems with this, so let's, let's fix the problems because this has to happen. And now we're doing it, and now we're moving quickly, and, you know, hopefully we'll start to see the results. Uh, but it wasn't until I accepted the responsibility for it to say I'm not going stay stuck in this rut that we're in, that things start to change. You did not ask for this painful situation you're going through right now. You did not ask for this health issue, for this work issue, for this environmental issue. You didn't ask for this thing to happen to you. This is where we struggle, because you didn't cause this. It's probably not your fault, right? Maybe it is your fault, but it's probably not your fault, this thing that's happened. There's a lot that happened to make this thing happen for you right now. And so it's so easy to get stuck in the land of negativity. Why me? Woe is me. Why did this happen? As opposed to flipping to say, it's the best. This thing that's happened to me right now, it's the best. When I broke my neck, I was on my tour, I broke my neck. What I said was, it's the best. It's the best. Is it actually good to break my neck? Probably not. But It's, it's my chance to show myself what I'm capable of. I remember being woken up, so I passed out. I had a concussion. I fell on the floor. I woke up like I fainted. I woke up and I remember that the hospital had sent their, their ambulance and also fire people showed up and my circulation was getting shut off. I couldn't feel my arms. I couldn't feel my legs. They're worried that I'm having a heart attack. And I remember going through this in my head as I'm explaining what's going on. They asked me if I was okay and I said, I feel okay, but then I can't feel my arm. I can't feel my right arm. I can't feel my legs. I can't feel— and most people would be kind of freaking out at this point. Oh my God, I can't feel my arm. I can't feel my legs. And I'm calmly explaining that, oh, I can't feel my left hand right now. I can't feel my right hand right now. And just walking them through what's going on. And in my head, this is why it's so important, whether this is actually true or not, in my head, what I'm telling myself is, this is the best. I am the greatest patient of all time. As people are normally freaking out in this moment, I'm calm. I'm explaining what's going on. I'm amazing, right? And I would never say that stuff out loud, but that's what the voice is inside my head, that this is the best. This is me. I'm amazing. Let's go. Let's solve this problem. And what it does is when you're in that negative situation, it switches you to a place of possibility. If you are stuck in complaining and why everything is so bad and why this happened to me, all you're doing is perpetuating the negative situation. You're not actually solving anything. When you can flip it to say, this is the best, this is my chance to learn, to grow, to improve, to solve this, to show myself what I'm capable of, what it does is puts you in a place of resourcefulness. It takes you from a place of helplessness into one of resourcefulness that then allows you to go off and solve the problem. That immediate thing that nobody asked for, that you would never wish upon your worst enemy, that's happened to you right now. It gives you the tools to actually come out of it. And so switching your mindset, telling yourself that it's the best when you've got these moments of pain and struggle and suffering where you just want to blame the world and complain and tell everybody how negative it is, you flip it. It's the best. Practice those three words. Maybe you're facing that situation right now. Maybe you're dealing with something you hate right now, or something— if it's not right now, listen, I promise you something is coming at some point. That negativity is coming for you. And so use that as inspiration. It's the best. What do I do with my life? One of the most important questions that I get asked over and over and over and over again. People are struggling with, what do I do with my life? You see your parents doing something, you see your friends doing something, you know that that's not the life that you want, but you're afraid of actually chasing down your dreams. You see people living their life on Instagram and it's so beautiful and perfect, And you're worried that you're not going to measure up, that you're not going to live up to it, that if you try and do your thing, you're going to fail. And so you're constantly stuck in this, what do I do with my life? Pull between the safe life that everybody around you is living and they want you to live for yourself, or the dream life that you know you're capable of, but you don't know quite what it looks like. What do I do with my life? Here's what I found. You're going to have moments in your life where you have absolute clarity, and equally you'll have moments in your life where you have zero clue what to do. Let's break those two down. When you have absolute clarity, when you know exactly what you want to do, when it feels right, when you have momentum, the best thing you can do is put your blinders on and go to work. The best thing you can do is shut down everything else and get to work building your dream. We often hedge, we often play small, we often don't put as much in because we're afraid. But when you have those moments of clarity, you have to go play a bigger game. You have to start betting on yourself. Right now, I look at my YouTube channels as an example. This is a pretty special moment in time, and things are very well aligned for me right now. I mean, been doing YouTube for 12 years, built up a lot of traction, have a lot of momentum, been helping a lot of my friends, made a lot of new friends as a result of the channel, got into rooms that otherwise I shouldn't be in because of the success of my channels. And it's been a lot of work, and the early years did not pay off. Very well at all. I share on my Instagram a lot of my traction, and, you know, first 5 years of the channel, we didn't even have 10,000 subscribers in the first 5 years. And then we went and hit, you know, next 5 years, 2 million subscribers. Now passing 3 million subscribers on the main channel. But a lot of, a lot of slow, slow, slow growth. But right now is a very special moment in time. Right now I need to push harder on the YouTube channels. Right now we've launched, I don't know how many channels, a lot of channels. We've got a dozen channels plus maybe at this point. I need to be pushing more on YouTube. This is a moment in time. This is the window here is so wide open that I need to jump through it because at some point it will close. And, and I don't want to look back on this moment and say, I wish I pushed harder. I wish I wasn't afraid. I wish I did the thing that I knew was right. And we'll have it. You'll have those moments too in your life where you just see it so clearly. You, you have this vision, you, you see it all working out, but you're afraid to go actually take the action. You're afraid to go all in on it. You're afraid to do what is necessary. And then what ends up happening is regret, because you'll be at the end of your life, or even 10 years later, thinking, I knew it, I saw it so clearly, there was this opportunity in front of me and I wanted to do it and I love to do it, but I was too afraid and somebody went else Somebody else went off and made millions of dollars off of my idea. Does that ever happen to you? Somebody made millions off of my idea. Well, no, they just went and took action when you were sitting being afraid. And so when you have those moments of clarity, you have to push everything else aside and go after that thing, even though it's scary, even though it's too big, even though it feels beyond you. You have to go after that thing because that's where your genius lies. And you either lean into your genius and go change the world, or you live the rest of your life with regret. You have to force it. Where are you stuck right now? Is it your business? Is it your relationships? Is it your career? Is it— where is it? Your mindset, your health habits? Like, where do you feel is the number one place that you're stuck right now in your life? Where are you stuck? Get really clear on that, because having that honest conversation with yourself really matters. That's how you can start to make the change. And the point of this is not to say that you suck and look at the disaster you made for yourself and I can't believe you're not doing better. This is not a negative self-talk exercise. This is a, we're going to have an honest evaluation of where we are right now. This is you sitting down with you. You can look in the mirror, you can journal, you can go for a walk, whatever you need to do to have that conversation with yourself, but figure out what is the number one area that you feel stuck. Right now that you don't want to be stuck in anymore? That if you're still stuck in the same spot that you are in right now, 1 year from today, you're going to be upset. You're going to be upset that you missed an opportunity, that you've wasted another year of your life. So where is that number 1 area that you feel stuck right now? Get some clarity on it. Maybe it comes right away. Maybe you got to digest it, but get some clarity on that because that's the starting point to making some changes. The fact that you look at your calendar today, tomorrow, next week, and nothing excites you. Okay, great. What can you shift? And it may require a wholesale change. It may require you doing some drastic thing, but more likely you could probably just do one small shift, like just start building momentum. Just start doing one little thing every day to start to train yourself, to start to just push the ball a little bit forward. Because often we think we have to make some giant change, and the only answer is to move to Mexico And then it never happens because to move to Mexico takes you however many, you know, months and budget and all this stuff. You get stuck in planning mode instead of doing. What's a small step? What's a small tweak that you can make to today's calendar to inject more energy into it? What's something that you're going to love doing that will give you more energy that then now you have energy for other things as well, right? Some kind of immediate momentum. You can't be doing the stuff that you hate. You have to find a way out. It may not be today, it may not be right now, it may not be this week, but you have to find a way out. So if you're working for a boss that you hate, long term you can't be doing that anymore. If you're in a business that you hate, and maybe you started the business and you hate it, long term you can't be doing that anymore. You will never win doing work that you hate. People say, well, you have to do whatever it takes, but you won't. You won't do whatever it takes if you don't like the thing. And you're going up against people, you're competing against people who love the thing. They love it. And for you, it's just a strategy. And so the key is you have to leave the things that you don't love doing and lean in on the things that you do and find a way to use the thing that you love to then bring value to other people so you can have a real business, so you can go make an impact, so you can build the life that, that you deserve, that your family deserves, and the people around you to deserve as well. So if you don't love it, and worse, if you hate it, you have to find a way out. And that may not be today. This is where people get caught up in the struggles, like, well, I don't, I don't like it, but I have no other plan. Okay, well, we have to start working towards it so that a year from today you're not in the same spot. But today you have to go show up and kick butt on the thing that is causing all of these problems for you. So I look at my YouTube channels, for example, done over 10,000 videos, just crossed 3 million subscribers on the main channel. Woo! Thank you guys, appreciate you. I've been doing this for 12 years, April 2009. How, how do I keep going? How do I keep making videos? How do we, how do we crank out 10,000 videos plus? And how have I not burnt out? How have we not taken time off? Because I love it. Because this doesn't work for me. Because I look forward to this. Because I look at my filming day, which is Tuesday when I make these videos, and I'm excited to make more content to share with you guys. To hopefully, maybe this today is the video that finally sinks in for somebody. For somebody watching this video, whether it's true or not, the message I tell myself is somebody is going to watch this video right here today, this one, and it's gonna be the light bulb moment for them. Not everybody, but for one person, that video, this one right now, is going to be the light bulb moment for them that gives them the big unlock. And so I have to show up. I want to show up. I'm excited to show up. I can't wait to show up. 12 years, keep making content, and, and as long as I love it, I'm going to keep doing it. And so this is why if you're trying to do YouTube just as a strategy, you're going up against people who love the thing, so you're always going to lose. Meanwhile, there's something that you love doing, and that's where you need to be long term. Who are the people who've done this thing? Who are the people who are great at this thing? Who are the people who you look up to, respect, admire? Maybe they're physical people, humans that you can touch and, and have coffee with and have a phone call and go meet, uh, and are in your life. Or maybe they're people you've never met yet, and, and you can learn from them on YouTube, on Instagram, on podcasts. But who are the people that are doing this thing? They're great at it. The thing that you're struggling with right now, they're world-class at it. And you want to try to find some time to be around them more. You make it part of your daily ritual now to be around them more. If it's somebody who's in your circle, you're trying to have a regular call with them that may be a daily call for a while. Maybe it's a weekly call, maybe it's a monthly coffee, but you're trying to spend more time with them. And then you supplement with, with regular content. You start following the people on YouTube who make you feel more of that, who make you want to play a bigger game. You start following people on Instagram who lift you up, who make you feel the hope and possibility. With conscious intent, you're picking who you're surrounding yourself with and who you let into your life based off of goal number 1. So goal number 1 is to have more belief in yourself. And the biggest problem you have is you don't have enough belief in yourself. Great. You can definitely supplement with a lot of my content. I mean, at least that's the intent with every video I make. I'm trying to inject more belief into people, into myself as well as other people. If your number 1 goal from step number 1 is you want to have better health, Great. Who are the channels that you need to subscribe to to make you feel— if you're watching people who are constantly living healthy, who are working out, who are doing the right diet, who are taking care of themselves, who value themselves, if you're constantly around that, they will lift you up. They will make you more healthy. Not just because of the strategies. The strategies alone aren't, aren't much. It's the, it's the environment, it's the mindset, it's the belief. By being around these people, they automatically pull you up. They automatically make you feel like it's possible. They automatically become a part of your daily, and they push you towards having the courage to do the thing that you want to do. Have a reminder system in your life constantly. What are the things— because you're feeling it right now, hopefully, if you're watching, you're feeling it right now, you're feeling excited right now, you're going to make a change right now, and then tomorrow you're going to fall back. Back to who you used to be. So what, what do you need in your environment? What do you need in your habits and your daily routines to remind you? You need to remind your system so it can become more automatic, that it doesn't rely on your self-will and your discipline constantly, that it gets introduced to you constantly. Whether that's, uh, YouTube videos— why, hey, and Espresso, 5 days a week, every morning I'm here, let's go, here's a new video for you. Uh, if it's Ed Bette's channel or Tony Robbins' channel or Oprah Winfrey's videos, like whoever. Or if it's books or podcasts, if it's your physical environment, if it's, uh, morning intention, like just figure it out for yourself and schedule it in. Schedule in the reminders, schedule in the intentionality so that this doesn't just become a one-off moment, but that it's a daily reminder, it's a daily consistency, it's daily momentum, because you need that. You make that change happen, you do those 3 things— you, you do the audit on your life, you take immediate action, and you schedule in that consistency— your life changes. Your life changes. And then the concept of swimming forever, or beyond the mountain is more mountains, doesn't feel overwhelming, doesn't feel scary, doesn't feel impossible, it's invigorating, it's amazing, it's awesome, because you're on a mission. If you've got a vision for a better world and for a better you, and now you're actually going to show up and make that happen. I don't know what to do next. All I know is I don't want to be doing what I'm doing right now. Does that ever happen to you? You know that you don't like your current life, you know that you don't like your current habits, you know that you don't you don't like your current schedule, your routine, what you're doing, who you're hanging with. You know you don't like any of that stuff, but you don't know what to do to change it. Has that happened? If that's you right now, then your immediate goal is the exact opposite. It's not to go all in on one thing, it's to try many things, to give yourself a lot of exposure, to say yes to as many things as possible that are inside your code of ethics. Right? Don't go steal something from a store because it's something new, right? That are inside your code of ethics. To taste, to test, to try, to explore, to find the thing that might be the next thing for you. And to lower the barrier for just getting started. So I went through this in my website. When I had my website, a lot of people don't know me from my website. Because if you go to my website now, there's not that much there. But I used to have 100,000+ pages of content on my website, and I was playing the SEO game and publishing tons of content. And, and we had a lot of the big name people, uh, in entrepreneurship creating content for our website. And I was selling ads off the site. And I realized at the beginning, I was all in. At the beginning, I loved it. I wanted to write. I wanted to bring on people. I wanted to— we had 5,000 people or so writing for the website. I loved it. It was all in. I saw this moment in time I was going for, and we quickly grew the website. But I found that as maybe year 3, year 4, I was starting to lose interest. Wasn't exciting anymore, and I didn't know what else to do inside the website to bring that energy back. So I started to taste test, explore other things outside the website, and one of those experiments was YouTube. One of those tests was me starting my first YouTube channel, and I really sucked at it. You can go back and watch my old videos. It took me a long time to get half decent in front of the camera. I sucked at it. I had no natural no inclination for it. I told myself, well, I'm, I'm an introvert and I'm shy, so I'm always going to suck on camera. But I realized, I don't know, I just, I liked it. I liked it. I liked doing it. I liked making visual content instead of written content because I'm a visual learner. I like the idea that maybe there's somebody else out there who'll watch my video and be inspired by it, and that maybe makes a shift for them I never expected to be YouTube famous because at the time YouTube famous wasn't a thing. Nobody was YouTube famous, especially in education. Nobody was making long-form educational videos. It just didn't exist. And so I thought, you know what, I'll just keep doing it because I love it. That if 50 people, 100 people watch this video, that's 1,500 people who watch the video. That's maybe a couple lives changed because of me being courageous enough at the time to press record forward and make a video. And so that kept me, that kept me going. And eventually that turned it into something that then I shut down my website and it went all in on YouTube. And so when you don't know what to do, you need to get out of your typical routine. Go for a walk, go to— go, go drive somewhere you've never been before, take an extra long shower. Like, do the things that help get you creative ideas. And then whatever comes, whether it's start a YouTube channel, start a podcast, start writing a book, start singing a song, start like whatever ideas come to you, they will probably sound crazy. For someone like me, it would be crazy to have a YouTube channel. For someone who doesn't like being in front of the camera, who doesn't like seeing himself, who, who thought that people who filmed themselves had to have a huge ego when be chasing fame, and I didn't want that. For someone like that, I would have never said— never, never— that I would have 100,000 subscribers, you know, let alone 3 million plus. Never. I would have never thought that was possible. Your brain does not want you to hit your dreams. Your brain is designed to keep you small, to keep you safe, to keep you protected. Your heart wants to create amazing things. Your heart has big dreams. Your heart sees a beautiful world and says, I want to go make something better. And then you wake up the next day and your brain takes over and says, you can't do that. That's too risky. That's too dangerous. Stay small. Stay safe. You didn't go to school for that. And what ends up happening is this constant back and forth between your heart and your brain when you get in these motivated moments where you want to do amazing things and then your brain takes over again. And keeps you small. And this is the path that so many entrepreneurs go on, this roller coaster ride of up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down. Sound familiar? It's time to get off the roller coaster and start making progress on your dreams. Today's video, I'm going to show you how. So yesterday I got asked on my live stream, Evan, what's the most important part of your daily routine? And so many people have so many different daily routines and And it's easy to do the things like drink a glass of water in the morning, go outside and get some sunlight, and you know, all of these things. But the most important thing for me is actually having my intention for the day. I've actually been experimenting with writing it out the day before. So this is, this is what I wrote last night of basically my entire schedule. And then more than just what I'm gonna do, more than just what I'm gonna do, it's how I want to feel. What's my intention going into it? So if I look at this, I'm supposed to be recording and expressive videos right now, right? That was on my list. 10:30 AM, record and express the videos. It's right there. And here, get a head start even though you don't want to. Recording videos at the beginning is always difficult for me. There's a couple reasons why. I'm, I'm shy, I'm introverted, I don't crave the spotlight, I don't like being in front of the camera, I don't, I don't, I don't do it for ego purposes. And also I'm afraid afraid. I'm afraid because I want it to be great. I want this video to be the next best video. I, I don't want to disappoint people. My number one fear is going to be that I'll disappoint somebody. And so every time you make something, you risk disappointing somebody, where it's easier just to stay small, stay safe, don't make anything today. And so it's on my list, the to-do, right? I think a lot of you, if you're watching this video, you probably have a list of to-dos. But how many of you are actually doing the things on your list of to-dos. The hardest part often is just getting started. Already, as I started recording this video, it's a lot easier to keep going and recording more videos. This is the first one that I'm recording today. And so having that written down, get a head start even though you don't want to, reminds me of who I want to be. And what I find so valuable about this is I write this the night before. So the night before, you know, it's, it's 11 o'clock at night. I usually sit on the floor and I review my calendar for the next day and I write out what I'm going to be doing. And I've added, how do I want to feel? What's my reminder to myself before stepping into that task? Imagine you're being your own high-performance coach, sitting there telling yourself how you want to feel. Remember your intention before starting that next task. And I knew Okay, Evan, this is what you always do before you make a video. There's a little bit of procrastination, there's a little bit of fear, there's a little bit of slowness, there's a little bit of— not laziness, but there's a little bit of just apprehension before you get started. Why? Because you don't want to start, because you're afraid, because you don't want to— you don't want to disappoint people. So I write down that message again: get a head start even though you don't want to. Look at your life and do you enjoy what you're doing? People ask me, do I burn out in what I'm doing? Like, I don't— I don't I don't burn out. I like, I like it too much. Like this, making these videos— I'm gonna go home after this and make more videos probably, but this video that I'm making for you right now is not draining or depleting of my energy. It's contributing to my energy. I am manufacturing energy by doing this. So that's why it's easy to do 10,000 more videos, because it It gives me more than I give to it. I get more energy as a result of doing this. I'm going to be a better entrepreneur, a better husband, a better father, a better boss, a better teammate, a better mentor as a result of making this video. It gives me energy. Look at your work. That's how you avoid burnout. If I was doing things that, that sap my energy, if I was in charge of like washing these cars, I'd be burnt out in, in 5 hours. I would hate my life because I don't enjoy washing cars. I don't enjoy cars, really. So look at your schedule. Do a nice audit on your life. How many of the activities that you're doing every day are giving you energy versus taking away energy? How many of the people that you're spending time with are giving you energy versus taking away energy? And you need to start shifting from I'm just gonna chase an opportunity, I'm gonna do whatever it takes. You won't. Hey, newsflash, you won't do whatever it takes. Not if you don't like it, but if you don't love it, you won't do whatever it takes because you don't love it. And that's okay. Stop judging yourself for not working hard enough. Just— you're not lazy. It's not that you don't want to work hard, you just don't like the thing that you're doing. This doesn't feel like work to me. So it's getting honest with yourself, it's doing an audit, it's looking at your calendar. Are you genuinely excited about the things you're about to do today and tomorrow? And if not, then, then we have to start to shift out of them, right? Do the things that give you energy instead of taking away. Because you made it this far in a video, I want to celebrate you. Most people start and don't finish. Most people never actually follow through. Most people say they want something, but they don't ever do the work to actually get it. But you are different. You are special. Believe Nation, you made it here all the way to the end, and I love you. So as a special celebration, if you put a hashtag #believe down in the comments below on this video, I will showcase you and celebrate you somewhere on the screen in a future video because you are awesome.

If you want to watch another top 10 rules of Evan Carmichael, check out the video next to me. Continue to believe. I will see you there.

I want to teach myself that if my heart's beating, it's a sign that I need to go do the thing. Most of the things that we're afraid of doing are because of other people's opinions. You're playing small because you're worried how somebody's gonna judge you. You'll sing in the shower, but you won't sing on the street