Turning Your Hobby Into a Career

Keeping your passion as just a hobby is a waste of your potential. Think about it. Most people, they slave away jobs that they hate, suppressing the things they love. No wonder they feel stuck and unhappy. If you never act on your passion, you risk waking up at 80 with nothing but regret. The regret of knowing that you never even tried. Take Walt Disney as an example. Walt started out drawing cartoons for fun, sketching animated figures in his spare time. At 18, he landed a job as a cartoonist, But he wasn't satisfied with just drawing for someone else. He had a bigger vision. He turned his doodles into an empire, starting his own studio and growing it into the Disney we know today. Imagine if Walt had played it safe and kept art as a side gig. We might not have Mickey Mouse, no Disneyland, none of it. His hobby became his legacy because he had the courage to go all in. Now, a personal story from my own life. Years ago, I fell in love with salsa dancing. I started as the tall, awkward guy with two left feet. I didn't speak Spanish. I was a slow learner, but I kept at it week after week. Salsa wasn't my job. I did it because I loved it, and it changed my life. I met my wife through salsa. It became a huge part of who I am. Fast forward a few years later, the owner of my salsa studio decided to move on, and the community we built was at risk, so I couldn't let that happen. So I bought the studio. Yeah, a guy who started as the worst student in class ended up owning Canada's largest salsa dance studio. Why? Because salsa was more than just a hobby. It was a passion that I was willing to invest in, and that little hobby now impacts tens of thousands of people, even doubles as my film studio for my videos during the day. I turned my hobby into a business that serves my community and brings me joy every single day. So you might be thinking, okay, that, that's great for you, Evan, but my hobby can't pay the bills, or what if turning it into a job ruins the fun? I hear you. It's scary. That's legitimate. You worry about money, about failing, about losing that spark. But what if you never try? What if you keep dragging yourself to a mediocre job and only dabbling in your passions on the weekends? That's a recipe for a mediocre life. Turning your hobby into your career doesn't kill the passion. It doesn't have to. It can amplify it. Yes, it will be work, and not every day will be amazing and sunshine and rainbows, but it's meaningful work fueled by something that you actually care about. And that beats any soul-sucking job any day of the week. And guess what? People are making it happen every day. If someone else with a camera or an oven or paintbrush can turn their passion into a thriving business, why not you? The only difference is they said yes to their dreams while others say no. So are you ready to say yes? Let's talk about how to actually do it, how to transform that hobby of yours into a real career, step by step. Here we go. If you've been here before, drop a hashtag #believe in the comments below so I can feature you here in a future video. And if you're new, Welcome to Believe Nation, the only channel that helps you believe in yourself daily, one video at a time. Believe. Step number 1: stop calling it just a hobby. Shift your mindset. So you have to believe that your hobby can be your career. Step 1 is an identity shift. Stop treating it like a cute little side interest and start treating it like it matters. If you don't take your passion seriously, nobody else will. Think of Alicia Schaefer, a mom of 3 who loved making boho chic designs. She started out crafting in her kitchen at first and selling on Etsy. At first it was just a fun side hustle. Then she had a mindset shift. I decided to stop treating it like a hobby and start treating it like a business, she said. The result, she became Etsy's top seller, pulling in as much as $60,000 to $80,000 a month with her handmade products. That happened because she believed her hobby was worth something and committed to it like a professional. I had to learn this myself. Some of you know my story. I started a website in my 20s of sharing lessons from successful entrepreneurs, and that site started to blow up. We had 100,000+ pages of content, and even big names started writing for us. On paper, it was a success, but I woke up one day and realized I no longer loved it. It had turned into a content factory, just chasing ad dollars, not the mission-driven project that I envisioned. Meanwhile, I was getting more excited about making YouTube videos, reaching people more directly, having more fun with it. So I made a bold decision. I just shut down my big website. Overnight, and I moved my entire focus to YouTube. People thought I was insane. They said, Evan, you walked away from a sure thing to chase a hobby on YouTube? What are you doing? But I didn't see it as crazy. In my mind, it was more risky to stay stuck doing something that I didn't like anymore. Why keep investing in a business that my heart wasn't in just because it made some money? I'd rather take my shot doing what I loved. And I told people, walking away from something you don't like towards something you do is the opposite of risky. And you know what? That decision to treat YouTube, my passion for creating video content, as my real business changed my life. The channel that you're watching now only exists because I had the courage to put my passion first. So step 1 for you is internal. Own the identity. You're not just a hobbyist. You're a baker, an artist, a coder, an educator, whatever your hobby is. Start calling yourself that. Carry yourself like it's already your career. This isn't about fake it until you make it. It's about Being it so you can become it. And psychology backs us up. When you identify deeply with a role or mission, you behave differently. You show up with purpose. You keep going when others would quit. And the world needs people who are alive with passion. One of my mom's favorite pieces of wisdom for me was, if you have the ability, you have the responsibility. If you can, then you must. And I carried that into my mission. If I can help somebody with something I love, then I have to. Your hobby lights you up for a reason. It's pointing you to your purpose. So embrace it fully. Decide that you're going pro in your passion. That decision alone sets everything else in motion for you. Step number 2: Start before you're ready. Overcome perfectionism. So stop waiting for permission or for the perfect plan and just start. This is where so many aspiring entrepreneurs, they fall apart. I know because I stumbled here too. We want everything to be just right. We don't want to launch until the stars align and success is guaranteed, right? Newsflash: that day will never come. Perfect is an illusion, and waiting for perfect is a dream killer. So let me share two quick stories. First, back in my 20s, my software company almost had a huge exit. This deal would have been $40 million to us, life-changing money for me at that age. But guess what? We missed it. Why? Because I was obsessing over details and planning instead of taking action. So I spent an entire summer writing and polishing our business plan. Meanwhile, a competitor They got out there and they built relationships. And when the big opportunity came, they were ready and we weren't. And that competitor got acquired for $40 million, not us. And I'll be honest, that really stung. I remember saying, I lost a $40 million deal because I was trying to make things perfect. It was a tough pill to swallow, but also an incredibly valuable lesson. And I'm still a recovering perfectionist. And I realized that a half-assed plan that you act on is better than a perfect plan that you never execute. Most of your precious plan is gonna be wrong anyway once it meets reality. You've got to get in the game and adapt on the fly. And my perfectionism cost me a once in a lifetime deal. Time deal. And I vowed to never let fear of not being perfect slow me down again. Second start, my YouTube channel. So fun fact, I created the channel in 2008, but I was so nervous about getting it right that I didn't upload my first video until April 2009. I sat on it for months. Why? Perfectionism. I told myself I needed a professional videographer, a script, the right suit, and I did all that for my first video. It took me an entire day to record a— I forget how many minutes video because I kept overthinking every line. I was so stiff and unnatural. Trying to be perfect. And looking back, it's cringey, but, but I posted it. And you know what? I had 3 comments in the first year. My mom, my older sister, and some random person. But that experience taught me just to press record and post, even if it's ugly. If I hadn't broken through that perfectionism, I'd probably still be sitting here planning my perfect video instead of having 10,000 videos and 4 million subscribers. So I call myself a recovering perfectionist now because that tendency never fully goes away. You just learn to override it with action. So I want you to override your perfectionism Starting today. Start before you feel ready. Launch an Etsy shop, even if your product line isn't 100% polished. Post that video, even if your video could be better. Tell your first 5 clients that you are open for business, even if you're still figuring things out. Yes, you might stumble. It will definitely be messy, but you'll learn more from one real step forward than 6 months of theory crafting in your living room. Psychologists even have a term for getting stuck in planning mode, Analysis paralysis. You think you're being diligent, but really you're just procrastinating because you're scared. So let's call it what it is. Perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes. You're afraid of being judged or failing, so you dress it up as, I'm not ready yet. So I'm giving you a loving kick forward right now. You are ready enough. You don't need to know everything to begin. You'll figure it out as you go. I promise. Action creates clarity. As you start, you'll refine your strategy in real time. The big company you admire, they started in a garage with a clunky prototype. My first First videos were terrible, but you can't get to video number 100 without making a few awkward ones first. So get version 1.0 out there. Embrace the motto, progress over perfection. Your mantra is launch and then adjust. This is how every successful entrepreneur turns a hobby into a career. They start, they launch that Etsy shop, the YouTube channel, the small weekend catering gig. It might flop or it might fly, but either way you learn and you move forward. As the saying goes, You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to become great. So do it now, do it imperfectly, but do it. Also, if you want to take real action after this video, I made a free worksheet just for you. Covers the top lessons from today, gives you space to write your biggest takeaways, and helps you build a simple action plan. It's 100% free. Just click the link in the description to go grab it. I'll see you there. Step number 3: share your passion and ask for help. Don't go it alone. Turning your hobby into a business is hard, but doing it alone is almost impossible. You need to build a a support network around your passion. So that means sharing your journey. It means connecting with others. It means asking for help when you need it. And this step is both practical and mental. Practical because opportunities come through people. Mental because it forces you to shed the lone wolf mentality that might be holding you back. And I'll admit, this is a tough one for me. I still have a hard time asking for help. I'm an introvert. Reaching out is not my natural tendency. And especially in the early days of my startup, I was too embarrassed to tell anyone that I was struggling. I was making $300 a month, felt like a complete failure, but I kept it all inside. I thought, I have to figure this out on my own. And that was a huge mistake. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Don't do it alone because you'll probably fail. You'll quit along the way because it's too devastatingly lonely. And that's the truth. When you're grinding in isolation, every setback hits you harder and every, every doubt becomes louder. I almost quit on my business because I felt so alone in it. The moment that I finally swallowed my pride and I asked for advice from a mentor, things started to turn around. I learned that asking for help is not a weakness. It's actually just a success strategy. So let me give you a quick story to show how important this is. A while back, I was on a flight to Puerto Rico to speak at an event. The guy next to me tried to chat, but I did my usual introvert thing. I put on my headphones and basically sent leave-me-alone vibes. Small talk on a plane is like my worst nightmare. I'm thinking, please don't let this stranger talk to me. So we fly in silence, and when we land, I see the same guy checking in at the hotel for the entrepreneur mastermind that I was speaking at. And turns out he was exactly my kind of person, an entrepreneur headed to the same event. And we could have had a great 2-hour conversation on that flight, sharing ideas, maybe forming a friendship or some kind of partnership, who knows. But I shut the door on that before it even opened. I remember standing there thinking, wow, I literally avoided a golden opportunity because I was too shy to say hello. So Lesson learned. Now I try to engage even just a little because you never know who's sitting next to you. Maybe your future business partner, maybe your next investor, or simply a friend who understands your journey. So what does it mean for you? Find your people. If your hobby is baking cupcakes, join a local bakers club or an online forum for baking entrepreneurs. If you love coding, go to hackathons or meetups. If you're a dancer, start hanging around dance studios or in online dance communities. Get yourself in the mix where others share that passion and then open your mouth. Share what you're doing. Tell your friends and family that you're starting a business. Yes, that can be vulnerable. You're effectively saying, I'm trying something big and I could fail. But you'll be surprised how many people will cheer you on or introduce you to someone or give you that one idea or client that kicks things off. And please get comfortable asking for help. This is still one of my biggest growth points. Even after I've had some success, I still struggle with asking. But funny story, a few years ago, a friend of the channel, Brendon Burchard, invited me to his mastermind at his house. And I walk in and I'm surrounded by all these legends, people that I look up to, and part of me feels like I didn't belong. And at one point, Brendon noticed that I was being quiet and he called me out in a kind way and he said, Evan, you give so much to people, you gotta make sure you come up with an ask. What do you need help with? And he pushed me to receive, not just to give. And that was uncomfortable for me, but I did it. And I asked that group for advice on growing my YouTube channel and on my book and dealing with some self-doubts that I had. And guess what? The feedback I got was pure gold. And one idea from that room saved me months of trial and error. And it reinforced for me that entrepreneurship is a team sport. Even if you're a solo entrepreneur, you need mentors, your peers, your cheerleaders along the way. Don't isolate. Communicate. Show your passion to the world. If you keep it hidden, no one else can help you, and you might miss connections— you will miss connections that will change your life. Collaboration and community will carry you further than you can carry yourself. So ask yourself, who can I reach out to this week for support or for feedback? What forum or group can I join? Who out there is doing what I want to do, and how can I connect with them? Don't let pride or fear of rejection stop you. Most people love to talk about their shared passions. They'll be happy to help an enthusiastic be because it reminds them of why they started too. So send that email, attend that meetup, uh, comment on that fellow creator's post. You never know where one hello might lead. Step number 4: be patient and persist. Play the long game. Turning your hobby into a full-fledged career will take time. There's almost no way around this. The overnight success is a myth. Most overnight successes were grinding in the dark for years. So Commit to the long game. That means staying patient and more importantly, staying persistent when your progress is slow. So reality check from my own journey. People see my YouTube channel now with the millions of subscribers, et cetera, and think I have some sort of magic touch. They don't see that for years I was shouting into what felt like the void. It took me 5 years on YouTube to crack 2,000 subscribers, 5 years of, uh, what some would consider a failure of a number. But in another 5 years, I got to a million, but that's a decade of work to get to what creators can potentially get in a year. And in the first few years, my subscriber growth was so slow that I thought I'd be 90 years old before I'd ever get a Gold Play Button. I remember uploading videos that got 30 views and 50 views, and it's hard not to compare yourself to others when they're blowing past you. But I just had a mindset shift that saved me. I stopped obsessing over the numbers and started celebrating the people. I told myself, okay, 50 people watched this video, but 50 people took the time out of their day to hear my message. Imagine I was giving a speech at a local library and 50 people showed up to listen. I'd be thrilled. And so that perspective changed everything. I started focusing on who I was serving instead of who I wasn't. So instead of feeling like, oh, only a few dozen views, I felt grateful and energized to help those few dozen people. I focused on serving the audience I did have, not the audience that I didn't. And slowly those 50 turned into 100, and then 1,000, and then 1 million. And what kept me going in the dark days was Purpose and love for the process. So I genuinely enjoy making videos and I was on a mission to solve a problem that I struggle with myself, lack of belief and mentorship for entrepreneurs. Even when the external rewards were small, the internal rewards were there. I was growing, I was learning, I was getting better in my, my field, my craft, the videos. You must find that same well of patience and persistence. Expect that the first year or two might be slow. That's normal. It's okay. Do not quit your passion just because it's not printing money immediately or because your Etsy shop only got a few sales in your first month. If you truly love it and you see even a glimmer of impact, keep going. Adjust your approach maybe, but don't give up on the whole game. I'll give you an example from my own persistence. My salsa business partner, Alex, when Alex started as a dance student at my studio, he was awful. I mean it. The guy was the worst student in the class. And we have a system for if you're not ready to move to the next level, you get held back to repeat the level. Now it's actually pretty rare. Like almost nobody gets that. Less than 1% of students ever get held back. But Alex was held back at almost every level. Can you imagine that? Most people would have been so embarrassed they quit after the first time. But Alex loved dancing. He didn't care if he wasn't a natural. He kept showing up. He actually thanked us for holding him back because it meant that he could continue to improve on his fundamentals of dancing. And that mindset— but Blue Mary was awesome. Fast forward, after being our most persistently terrible student, Alex eventually improved. He started assisting classes, then teaching, and today Alex is our head instructor who helps run the dance studio. He had a career in sales and he left it to pursue dancing. Talk about turning a hobby into a career. He literally went from the worst in the class to leading the entire school. How? Through grit, through showing up even when it was hard and humbling. That's the power of persistence. And science backs this up too. Psychologists have a term, grit, coined by Angela Duckworth, which is basically the mix of passion and perseverance. Studies have shown that grit, which is just sticking with something that you care about over the long term, is a better predictor of success than talent or IQ. What does that mean? It means that if you're consistent and you keep improving, you can surpass the naturally talented people who just give up early. Consistency beats intensity every time. I take the everyday hustler over the one-week genius any day. So commit to a process. Give yourself time to succeed. I'm not saying quit your job tomorrow and live in your car while you wait for your hobby business to bloom, right? Be smart financially. Build it on the side if you have to. But emotionally, you need to give this endeavor some patience. Set a longer horizon. I'm going to give this my all for 3 years instead of 3 weeks. When setbacks happen, and they will, remember why you're doing this. Well, We'll get to that in the next step. But remind yourself that every master was once a disaster. Every pro was once an amateur. Your slow progress is not a sign of failure. It's an indicator that you're on your journey. As long as you don't stop, you're still in the game. And sometimes slow growth is setting you up for explosive growth later. My channel crawled for years, and then boom, it started to take off. And those early years were absolutely necessary to build my foundation, my skills, my content library. If I quit in year 3 or year 4, you wouldn't be watching this right now. And one more tip: celebrate those small wins. Did you make your first $100 from your art? Awesome! Take a picture of that PayPal notification. Did you get your first client testimonial? Amazing! Frame it on your wall. Treat these little victories as breadcrumbs that lead you forward. Cherish them. They'll, they'll keep you positive and motivated while you wait for the bigger break to come. Step number 5, stay connected to your why. Make it about purpose, not just profit. So as you turn your hobby into a career, there will be a point where it starts to feel like work. Anytime you monetize something, there's pressure. Now there's deadlines, there's customers, there's finances that enter the mix. And the danger is you can get so caught up in the business side that you forget why you loved it in the first place. So to prevent this burnout and truly succeed, you need to anchor in your purpose. Keep it mission-driven, not just money-driven. Don't get me wrong, you absolutely should aim to make money and lots of it. Money is a fantastic servant. It gives you freedom. It validates that you're providing value. But money cannot be the only reason that you're doing this. If it is, the first rough patch, you're going to quit. When the money is lean or the sales aren't coming in, you'll have no reason to continue. But if you have a deeper why, a mission, you'll push through walls to see it happen. For me, that mission was baked into why I started creating content for entrepreneurs. Remember my first company struggle, how much pain I went through trying to build a business as a clueless 19-year-old? I felt so alone and so close to quitting so many times that I eventually survived and sold my startup, but it was brutally hard. And that pain became my purpose. I thought, if I can make it even a little bit easier for the next entrepreneur in my shoes, I should. Your purpose comes from your pain. I like to say that the thing that hurt you, uh, or challenges that you overcame is exactly what you can help others with. So my hobby of consuming entrepreneur stories, tips, strategies, that turned into a mission to share those with the world so others don't have to struggle as much. That's what kept me going in those early years of creating content for basically no one. I wasn't driven by ad revenue or fame. I was driven by the thought that maybe one video could save an aspiring entrepreneur from quitting. That meant something to me. And guess what? That's exactly what ended up happening. I started getting emails and comments from people saying things like, Evan, your video kept me from giving up on my business, or this interview inspired me to finally start my dream. And that became motivation for my soul, right? So connect your hobby to service. Ask yourself, how does doing this passion as a career help others or impact the world positively? Positively. So if you're a musician, maybe your music brings joy or helps people feel seen. If you're making something, your products might bring people comfort or confidence. If you turn your baking hobby into a bakery, you're not just selling cupcakes, you're giving people moments of happiness and celebration. You like tie your work to something that matters. Debbie Fields, who founded Mrs. Fields Cookies, said it perfectly: once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing And she also said the greatest failure is to not try. Her deeper purpose was spreading joy through cookies and proving naysayers wrong, and it drove her to build a cookie empire. Another part of purpose is keeping your own passion alive. So protect the love you have for your hobby. Sometimes when it becomes a business, you might start doing aspects you don't enjoy, like paperwork and marketing, et cetera. And that's normal. But always make time to reconnect with the fun, the creative part that made you start in the first place. So I like to tell creators, make sure that you're still creating things for you, not just for the algorithm or the market. So in my case, I still make videos on topics I'm personally curious about or struggling with, not just what I think will get views. I thought this was an important video. We'll see how it does, but I wanted to make it because I thought it was important personally. I make content that I need to hear, and it turns out that a lot of people need to hear it too sometimes. And that keeps me engaged and growing too, personally. It's also okay to evolve your vision as you grow. So maybe your hobby career opens new opportunities. Great. Follow the ones that actually excite you. Just always do check-ins. Does this still align with what you care about? If you ever find yourself feeling like your passion business is becoming soulless, pause, refocus, remember why you started. Maybe even write down a mission statement or a simple sentence of why you do what you do and put it on your wall. Make it somewhere in front of you. When things get tough or confusing, look at it. That why will help you cut through the noise and reset you on the right path. And one more thing. Acknowledge yourself for the courage it takes to do this. Seriously, most people will never even attempt to turn their hobby into a career. It takes guts. It takes belief. By even trying, by putting yourself out there, you're already in the elite minority of people who are trying to live life on their own terms. And that is actually something to be really proud of, no matter what stage you're at. So use that as positive reinforcement. You're doing what most only daydream about. So keep going. Your hobby can become your career, and when it does, it's one of the most fulfilling feelings in the world. You wake up excited to work, you give it more energy and love, and that translates into better results. And people will feel that energy. Your customers will sense that you genuinely care about what you're doing, and they'll support you because of it. And in turn, you're making a living, or maybe even a fortune, doing what you love. And that's the win-win outcome that we're after. You're happy and you're making others happy or solving their problems too, and you get paid for it along the way. It's a beautiful cycle, and it all starts with the decision to take your hobby seriously and go for it. Now, I've given you a roadmap here. Mindset, action, community, patience, purpose. These 5 steps are not one and done. You'll revisit them often, but if you follow them, you will be miles ahead of where you are now. So remember Walt Disney or Alicia Schaefer or my friend Alex? Their success didn't happen by accident or overnight. It happened because they dared to believe in their little hobbies and stuck with them. You can do the same. Do one thing that moves your dream forward right now. It doesn't matter if it's small. The journey of 1,000 miles, right? One step. You've got this. It's not going to be easy, but it's going to be worth it. And your future self is already smiling back at you saying, Thank you for starting. Thank you for watching. And more importantly, for being the type of person who actually wants to do something with their life. Most people won't even make it this far into a video like this, but you did, which tells me that you're serious. You're building that belief and that knowledge. And now turn that knowledge into action. And congratulations, you're one video closer to who you're meant to be. Believe. Now let's learn the 10 money traps that will keep you poor. You're not broke because of the economy or bad luck. You're broke because you keep stepping into the same 10 money traps while other entrepreneurs are quietly getting rich by avoiding these mistakes. You might be repeating them without even realizing it. And if you don't fix this, a year from now, you'll still be stressed about money, hustling hard with nothing to show for it, wondering why you are not winning. Just look at the proof. Ever hear about lottery winners going bankrupt? Roughly 70% of big lottery winners end up broke within a few years. Jack Whittaker won a $315 million $1 million Powerball jackpot and lost it all in a few years. He even said the money destroyed his life. Why? Because money isn't the answer if you haven't fixed the habits that keep people poor. If you got $1 million today but carried on with the same bad behaviors, that money would vanish. I had to learn this myself the hard way. When I was 19, I had my first company. I was making $300 a month. Imagine working more than full-time and not being even able to afford rent. That was me. I felt worthless. I hit my breaking point at a family event and I told my business partner I quit. I broke down crying, snot-nosed, uncontrollable tears because I felt like I just didn't have what it takes. But the very next morning I woke up and something snapped. I realized I hadn't earned the right to quit because I hadn't tried everything. I thought, has someone figured this out before? And turns out Bill Gates had built a software company from nothing. So I decided to model how he did it. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started learning from someone who'd already won. And you know what? Within a short time, I closed a $13,500 deal and jumping from $300 a month to a $13.5K check. In my head, I felt like a millionaire. But more importantly, I had proof that if I changed my approach, I could change my results. I went from almost giving up to finally getting momentum. Now, maybe you're thinking, Evan, it's not me. It's just, it's a tough market, or I already know this stuff. Wrong. That thinking is a trap by itself. I've coached thousands of entrepreneurs, and the ones who stay broke always point fingers at the economy, their competition, anything but themselves. The winners, they take responsibility. They look in the mirror and they fix what's holding them back. So drop the excuses, at least for this video, and really listen. Even if you think you've heard it all, I guarantee there's at least one trap on this list you're caught in right now. And if you could eliminate it, it could mean the difference between scraping by and actually building real wealth. So let's do this. Here are 10 money traps that will keep you poor and how to break out of each one. Trap number 1: scarcity mindset. This is the fear of spending money or taking risks, the impulse to hoard every dollar. You tell yourself you can't afford to invest in growth. So you do nothing. And ironically, that guarantees you'll always be short on money. Here is your truth. Money is a tool, not a trophy to tuck under your mattress. If you're too afraid to use it, you'll never have more of it. Think about it. If a farmer refuses to plant seeds because he's afraid of losing them, he'll never get a harvest. It's the same with your money. Sitting on it due to fear is a sure way to stay broke. Successful entrepreneurs have an abundance mindset. They invest in themselves and their business confidently. Even when I was struggling, I forced myself to invest in help. I hired someone for just an hour a day to take over tasks that he was better than me at so I could focus on higher-value work. Did it cost money I felt I didn't have? Yes. But freeing up that hour led to more growth and more money. The scarcity-minded you would never have done that. That you stays stuck. So here's your action step. Next time you're scared to spend on something that could grow your business— a course, a tool, an employee. Remember, avoiding calculated risk is the riskiest move of all. If you want this year to be different, you have to loosen the grip. Invest in your growth or remain forever a servant to pennies. Trap number 2: Believing money is not important. I don't care about money. I do it for passion. It sounds noble, right? It's also a recipe for staying poor. I'm all about mission. My channel exists to spread belief. But if you don't make money, you can't keep going. Some entrepreneurs wear burnout and poverty like a badge of honor, as if making money would taint their purity. That's nonsense. Money is oxygen for your business. If you ignore it, your dream dies. I had this blind spot myself at a mastermind. My peers told me, Evan, we want to pay you more, but you haven't given us a way. It hit me that I was so focused on service, I hadn't built monetization into my mission. And I used to say, I'll do it for free if I have to. And I meant it. But that mindset was holding me back from scaling my impact. I learned that money can't be your number one motivation, but it must be in your top five. If your mission really matters, you owe it to yourself to fund it properly. Think of money as the fuel or the gasoline that you have on your fire. More fuel, bigger fire. Does running on fumes make you a martyr? No, it makes you a struggling amateur who might have to quit their dream and go back to a day job. So your action step is start respecting money. Charge what you're worth. Create offers and products that bring in revenue, not because you're greedy, but because revenue equals longevity, equals impact. Money in your pocket means you get to keep serving, keep improving, keep living your purpose. Breathe life into your business by embracing profit not as the goal, but as the means to amplify your goal. Trap number 3: the get-rich-quick illusion. This one is deadly because it seduces you with flashy promises— crypto schemes, meme stocks, guaranteed 6 figures in 30 days courses. If you're chasing those, you're running on this hamster wheel, right? The reality is almost nobody wins that game. Studies show that over 97% of day traders lose money over time. Did you hear that again? You think you're the exception? The odds say that you're not. Trying to get rich quick is like trying to sprint in a marathon. You burn out or collapse financially. Wealth built fast rarely lasts. Look at the dot-com bust. Look at the crypto crashes. Fortunes made in months disappeared overnight for those who didn't have solid fundamentals. And psychologically, the more you chase instant rewards, the more you wire your brain for short-term thinking. Remember the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment? Kids who resisted eating one marshmallow immediately to get two later ended up with better grades, better jobs, and way more success decades later. Why? Because delayed gratification is a superpower. It means you can sacrifice now for a greater payoff later. If you lack that, you'll always snatch at pennies and miss out on dollars. So your action step: commit to the long game. If you catch yourself saying, why am I not rich yet? I need a shortcut. Slap yourself, right? Figuratively decide to get rich for sure, but not to get rich quick. Build real value, develop skills, put in the reps. It might take longer, but when you get there, you'll stay rich. Every overnight success you admire took years of unseen work Keep that in mind every time you're tempted by the next hot opportunity. Trap number 4: stagnating your learning. The moment you think you've arrived or I know enough, you're done. The world is changing faster than ever. This year will belong to the innovators, the learners, the adapters, the tinkerers. If you're not obsessed with learning, you will be left behind. Maybe you've got a degree or some experience and you think that's enough. I'll tell you what I discovered. My business degree was practically useless when it came to real entrepreneurship. In my senior year at University of Toronto, I finally got a class on entrepreneurship, on small business, and the professor had never even run a business himself. While my classmates played it safe with case studies about fake coffee shops, I was out there running a real company at the time and struggling, and none of my professors could help me. I learned more from YouTube shows than an entire semester of lectures. That's how out of touch formal education was with entrepreneurship. And guess what? Today the best teachers are on YouTube or podcasts or forums. People actually in the game sharing their up-to-the-minute insights. If you're not tapping into that, you're choosing ignorance. Meanwhile, technology is exploding. AI, social platforms, shifting market trends. You can't rely on what worked in 2016 or 2023. You need to be upskilling constantly. Read books. Take courses, follow industry leaders, watch YouTube videos, experiment with new tools. The top CEOs read dozens of books a year, always hunting for one idea that gives them an edge. So your action step: schedule daily learning. Yes, daily. Even 30 minutes of reading or watching a YouTube video or tutorial. Adopt a beginner's mindset. Assume that there's always something that you don't know, because there is. This year, ignorance will cost you more than ever. But if you keep learning, you won't just make more money, you'll future-proof your success. Trap number 5: Lifestyle inflation and looking rich. This trap is sneaky because society will clap for you while you fall into it. You make a bit of money and you immediately upgrade your lifestyle. Bigger apartment, nicer car, expensive gadgets to look successful. After all, you deserve it, right? Here's the problem. When your income goes up, if your spending matches it, you're not growing wealth. You're just on a nicer treadmill now. I've seen entrepreneurs make $100,000 in revenue and spend $110K trying to appear like ballers. The math doesn't work. Even multimillionaires go broke from this. 78% of NFL players are either bankrupt or under serious financial stress within 2 years of retirement. These are people who earned millions per year, and 60% of NBA players are broke within 5 years of leaving the league. How is that possible? Lifestyle inflation. They felt like they had to flex Lamborghinis and jewelry, spend like kings, help every second cousin, an old friend who asked, and they blew their money. Wealth is silent. Poverty is loud. If you're spending money to prove to others that you have money, that's a fool's game. Real millionaires are investing into assets, not liabilities to stunt on Instagram. They're not buying depreciating toys on credit. They're reinvesting in their business and stocks and real estate. Things that make money while they sleep. Meanwhile, the pretenders stay one hiccup away from complete disaster. So your action step: cap your lifestyle. Pick a modest baseline and stick to it as your income grows. Instead of a fancy car, get a fancy investment portfolio. Let your results do the talking, not your Gucci belt. This year, economic ups and downs will hit the flashy spenders hardest. Be smart now so you're not selling your luxury junk later to pay your rent. Remember, you're building empires, not trying to look like a king for a day. Trap number 6: Doing everything yourself. The one-person army, the solopreneur who refuses to delegate. That mentality will keep you broke and exhausted. You might think you're saving money by not hiring, not outsourcing, not partnering, but you're actually stealing from your own future. Why? Because you're capping your growth to the hours that you personally can work. There are only so many hours in a day, and if you insist on being the hero who does it all, you will burn out before you ever build real wealth. I'll share a quick story. I met a YouTuber with 6 million subscribers, had a huge audience, and he had just hired his first virtual assistant because until then he'd been doing everything himself. The editing, the thumbnails, the emails, all of it. This guy was a rock star on the outside, but behind the scenes he was drowning in busywork. It blew my mind and it reinforced one of my core beliefs. You have to build a team if you want to go from just hustling to actual enterprise. And I get it. Nobody does it as good as you, right? And paying others feels like a luxury when money's tight. But not hiring help when you're overloaded is a trap. Think about it. If you spend 10 hours a week doing $10 an hour tasks, that's $100 of value. If you paid someone $10 an hour to do it, that's $100 out of your pocket. But those 10 hours could be used to generate $1,000 of value or $10,000 doing higher-level strategy, sales, product development. So action step: identify the one task that consumes your time and someone else could do at half your rate or better. Outsource it this month, even for a trial run. Start small if you have to. Hire a freelancer for 5 hours a week. Your future self will thank you as you find yourself with more time to make real money. Remember, businesses are built by teams, not lone heroes. You're not just an entrepreneur. Become a leader of people. Even if it's one part-timer to start. Trap number 7: Never asking for help or advice. Pride. Fear of looking stupid. I have to figure it out on my own. These attitudes will silently rob you of your success. Listen, every great entrepreneur that you admire had mentors, coaches, advisors guiding them. Steve Jobs had Bill Campbell. Zuckerberg had Steve Jobs. Gates had Buffett in his corner. Meanwhile, you're over there Googling or ChatGPT for hours, just flailing in silence, comes because you're too proud or too shy to ask someone who's been there for help. And I struggled with this too. I'm an introvert. I don't like bothering people. For years, asking for help was my biggest weakness. Probably still is. I thought I had to do everything myself— back to chapter number 6. But once I started seeking guidance, everything started to change. I joined the mastermind group. I reached out to entrepreneurs I looked up to. And very often, people are willing to help. 84% of CEOs say that having mentors prevented them from making costly mistakes, and 69% of them made more more profitable decisions thanks to mentor guidance. That's data. Even the top of the top lean on mentors to fast-track their learning. If the highest performers can benefit from advice, why on earth would you try to wing it alone? It's pure ego or ignorance. Both will keep you broke. So action step: swallow your pride and actively seek out mentorship. This could mean reaching out to someone in your field that, that you respect with a specific question, joining a local entrepreneur mastermind or meetup or even just posting your challenge in a community of your peers. Not asking is a guaranteed no. The worst that can happen is someone says they're too busy. So what? Move on to the next. When I was stuck early on, I could have saved so much time if I had just asked someone who'd already built a business for advice instead of assuming the bank would help me or suffering in isolation. Don't let your pride or your fear keep you ignorant. This year Make it a rule. If you don't know, ask. Save yourself years of trial and error. Your net worth will often depend on your network. So start building one that can guide and inspire you. Trap number 8: Waiting for the savior or a sign. This one's a bit counterintuitive. It's when you wait for an outsider to rescue you. A bank loan, an investor, the perfect moment instead of creating momentum yourself. It's the mindset of if If only I had X, then I would succeed. And I see entrepreneurs fall into this trap all the time. They think a big investor is going to suddenly appear or write them a check, or a bank will just toss them tons of money because they had the courage to start a business. I made this mistake myself at 19. I walked into a bank, my head was held high, and I said, hi, I'm starting a business. How can you help me? Expecting them to be as excited as I was. And the banker basically laughed me out of the door. They told me no loan without 3 years of history or huge collateral. I left feeling crushed, like, oh my God, I'm going to fail. This is ridiculous. For a minute, I thought maybe that was it. Maybe I wasn't meant to be an entrepreneur if even the bank didn't believe in me. But here's what I realized. Nobody's coming to save you. That rejection was actually a gift because it forced me to get creative. Many people would have quit right there. In fact, a lot of new entrepreneurs do quit after their first big rejection or failure. They take it as a sign that it wasn't meant to be. That's the trap. The truth is setbacks are normal. Rejection is normal. Waiting around for perfect conditions or someone else's money is a loser's game. If I had waited for an investor or kept begging banks, I'd still be waiting. Instead, I bootstrapped. I cut expenses. I hustled for sales. We made alliances. Remember the idea of modeling Bill Gates's partnership strategy? Eventually, I didn't need the bank's money. My business funded itself. So your action step. Whatever you're waiting for, stop waiting, start doing. If you think you need funding, challenge yourself to launch a smaller version of your idea with whatever resources that you have right now. Prove that it works. Get some traction. If you're waiting for the economy to improve, find a way to serve people in this economy right now. If you're waiting for permission or validation from some expert, give yourself permission. This video is your permission. The only savior you need is the person in the mirror. No more waiting for someday or someone. Successful people start before they're ready, and they trust that they'll find out what they need along the way, not upfront. Trap number 9: not managing your money. Look, it doesn't matter how much you make if you can't manage what you have. Plenty of entrepreneurs have high income and still end up broke because they don't know where their money is going. Ignoring your finances is a huge trap. Maybe you find it boring— spreadsheets, budgets, taxes— so you avoid it, or you assume your cash flow is fine because sales are coming in. That's a big mistake. According to a US Bank study, 82% of businesses fail due to poor cash flow management. That means almost 8 out of 10 businesses don't die from lack of ideas or even lack of customers. They die because the owners weren't on top of the money moving in and out. They run out of cash and boom, game over. You must know your numbers, your monthly expenses, your revenue, your profit margins, your, your burn rate. If you're burning savings, all of it. When I started making a bit of money, I hated accounting. So you know what I did? I didn't ignore it. I delegated it. One of the first things I let go of was doing my own books because I knew if I tried to handle it while hating it, I'd probably screw it up. I used Microsoft Money software to automate what I could. And as soon as I could, I hired a part-time bookkeeper. I kept an eye on everything, but I left someone who loves numbers handle the details. So that key point is I respected the numbers. You need to respect your numbers too. If you're not a finance person, fine. But the excuse, I'm not good at math, doesn't fly when your business goes under. So action step today, make a simple financial dashboard for yourself. Track your monthly income, the expenses, your net profit. At the very least, you can use a spreadsheet, an app. I don't care. Just have visibility on it. Set a weekly date with yourself— Money Mondays, for example— to review and update your finances. Find one expense to cut or optimize and one area to potentially invest more in. And please separate your personal and your business finances, right? Pay yourself a salary or draw so you're not constantly mixing your funds and losing track of what's what. When you know your numbers, you can control them. They don't control you. Master this and you won't wake up one day surprised that you're out of cash. Instead, you'll wake up building true wealth systematically. And trap number 10, quitting too soon. The only guaranteed way to fail is to give up, right? Cliché, maybe, but it's cliché for a reason. It's true. And most people still don't get it. Quitting early is the ultimate wealth killer. Every entrepreneur faces pain and doubt and darkness on the road to success. Those who push through eventually see light. Those who quit stay in the dark forever. And I nearly fell into this trap myself. As I told you, I almost quit my business in the first year when nothing was working. If I had stayed quit, you probably wouldn't know my name. I'd be working some job that I hate right now, and none of the impact I've had would exist. I was this close to that reality. And it scares me how many people's success stories end early because they walked away right before the breakthrough. It's digging for gold. Most people stop 3 feet from gold because it's taking longer than they thought, I say keep digging. Often the breakthrough comes just when you're at your lowest and ready to quit, if you give it one more big push. After I decided to stick with my business and model Bill Gates, our first win, that $13,500 deal, it came in not long after. That wasn't a coincidence. It was my persistence being rewarded. And it taught me that a failure is just an event. It's not the end unless you make it the end by quitting. I try now to use my almost-quit story to coach others that quantity leads to quality. You have to put in the reps to churn through the failures to get to the success. If you bail after a handful of tries, you never develop mastery. You never hit the tipping point where it starts to rain money. So your action step is make a commitment this year that you won't quit on anything important out of frustration or fear. If you're gonna quit something, quit making excuses, but don't quit on your dream. Whenever you feel like giving up, remember why you started and picture yourself one year from now if you keep going versus if you stop and use the pain of potential regret as fuel. Because if you persist through 10 failures, you might find success on number 11. But if you quit after 3, you've guaranteed failure. So keep going, adjust your strategy, learn from the setbacks, reread chapter number 7 about asking for help, but keep going. Persistence is undefeated in the long run. Winners are just ex-losers who refuse to quit. And most importantly, don't just watch this video passively. Do the work to call yourself out and improve. Most people won't even admit they have flaws to fix. You are. That already sets you apart from the masses who will just let another year go by and live in the reruns of the same mistakes. Now it's on you to take action. Knowing these traps is step one. Doing something about them is step two. You've got this opportunity right now to set new habits, a new standard for how you handle money and success. So take it. It. To learn the Norwegian life hack that might just change your life, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there. Your brain is not built for non-stop screens and indoor stress. It is begging for fresh air. And when you step outside, even for a few minutes, your mind resets. Stress drops, ideas rise, you feel alive again.