In this motivational business video, Evan Carmichael opens with a segment called “Recognize Opportunity,” featuring a quote from Earl Nightingale that emphasizes there are no bad businesses—only a lack of perception. Carmichael argues that the best business to start is one aligned with personal passion, a clear vision, and a unique problem the entrepreneur can solve, rather than chasing trendy industries like biotech or forex. He encourages entrepreneurs to train themselves to see opportunities in any existing business, using everyday observations (e.g., coffee shops, liquor stores) to generate improvement ideas. He illustrates cross‑industry learning with Howard Schultz’s creation of Starbucks after observing Italian coffee culture, and mentions learning from sports teams, video games, and music stars. The video concludes with a call for viewers to share examples of opportunities they’ve recognized from other industries and applied to their own businesses.
Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is Recognize Opportunity. Over to you, Earl Nightingale.
There's nothing more pitiful to my mind than the person who wastes his life running from one thing to another, forever looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And never staying with one thing long enough to find it. No matter what your goal may be, perhaps the road to it can be found in the very thing in which you're now engaged. You see, the average man believes some businesses are better than others, instead of realizing the truth that there are no bad businesses. There are just those people who don't know enough to see the opportunities in the work they're in. No matter what our work happens to be, it's our business. We're the manager. If there seems to be no future or opportunity in it, it isn't always because it's not there, but perhaps only because we can't see it.
I get a lot of entrepreneurs who ask me, what's the best business to start? And it blows my mind because there is no one single best business to start. The best business to start is the one that you feel passionate about, the one that you see a vision for something that nobody else sees, the one where you have some pain that nobody else has solved yet and you're passionate about Solving it. It's not about what Inc. magazine says is the 5 hottest trends for next year and trying to jump on that, because too many people do that, right? Say, oh, you know, biotechnology is growing, so I'm going to get into that, even though you have no idea about biotechnology. And so that's the fastest way to lose money, right? Forex is taking off, so I'm going to jump into Forex, or I can make tons of money from home with this easy, amazing online opportunity, and you jump in there and you lose all your money. You have to do the thing that you love and that you see the opportunity in. I think entrepreneurs, we're good at seeing the opportunity in almost anything, right? We're optimistic, we're positive. I walk into any business and I think about how it could be better. And I think it's good to train yourself to do that. I walk, you know, in this mall here, we've got a coffee shop, we've got a liquor store, we've got an office supply store. And whenever I walk in, I think of, man, if I were running this business, I would do this, this, and this, this, and this. And there's always opportunities. And the flip side of that is you could bring some opportunities from other markets and other industries to apply it to your business. Howard Schultz started Starbucks because he was in Milan in Italy and saw all these people hanging out in coffee shops, and he looked to the North American market and thought— he saw Dunkin' Donuts and saw, you know, nobody's hanging around the coffee shops, where in Italy it's the center of their culture. And thought, I could bring this to North America. I want to create that community and family vibe. And that was the foundation of Starbucks, which became a global brand. And so by looking at what other businesses are doing, you can bring opportunity to your company as well. And so I learned from other businesses. I learned from baseball teams. I learned from League of Legends. I learned from music superstars. You know, I learned from the Top 10 series and the Enespresso series. You can find how these people think and how they're solving different problems and apply that to what you're facing in your life today to find an opportunity to help you become the best version of yourself. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious to find out what opportunity you've recognized from another industry and applied it to your business to have a big impact. I'm really curious. Leave it in the comments below. Thank you guys so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot A vent'espresso.
