Unlock the Fastest Way to SUCCESS: Model Success with Evan Carmichael | Top 10 Rules

The fastest way to get what you want in life is to model success. Be super clear on what you want out of life and then go find people who've accomplished exactly that and learn from them. Who you spend your time with is who you become, so choose wisely. Because most people wake up like an accident instead of actually chasing down their dreams, and it starts with modeling success. I've been a big believer in modeling success ever since my very first business. It's why I continue to do what I do. I tell the story, Bill Gates saved my first company. I haven't met him yet. Hopefully we'll get to shake his hand and tell him the impact that he had. In my first business, I was making no money, and I, and I wanted to quit on my company, and I told my business partner that I quit, and I felt like I tried everything. I tried everything. It wasn't for lack of effort. Every day I woke up and new ideas came into my head, and I tried them, and nothing was working. Hey, it's Nina Carmichael, and like Evan Carmichael says, the fastest way to get what you want in life is to model success.

And that's why we made these videos, to help you find the fastest way to get what you want in life, to model success. Need motivation?

Watch a top 10 with Believe Nation.

You know that feeling when you're just trying nonstop and nothing is working, and the frustration that comes over you to feel like, I feel worthless. I felt worthless as a human, that I wasn't contributing, that I was just I was putting all this effort in and just nothing was happening. And that led to me quitting on my business partner. And the next day I woke up and I said, I can't quit. I'm going to regret it if I quit right now. But I have to find another way. Like, this is— it's not— this is not working right now.

And then I just realized I'm not the first guy to try to sell software before.

Somebody has figured this out, right? Somebody has gone through this process. I can learn from them and maybe apply that strategy to my company and maybe it'll work. And I thought of the only person I can think of at the time was Bill Gates. I had a biotech software company. He didn't have biotech. It was something else. But I mean, at this point it was, it was bottom of the barrel. I'm willing to try anything right now. And I looked at how he started his company, went from zero to one, and it was through partnerships. And so I applied that strategy to my business and shortly thereafter closed my first partnership deal that paid us $13,500. And that was a lot of money for me because I was only making $300 a month at that time. And that gave me hope. And ever since then, whenever I don't know what to do in any area in life, in business, in relationships, anything, I ask myself, who's done this thing? And it's recognizing that nobody is the perfect person. There's no one person you can learn everything from, but there's different pieces from different people. So when you're super clear on what you want, when it's really easy to know this is what I want in my business, this is what I want in my relationship, this is what I want in my career, this is what I want in my— this specific thing. I want to be a salsa dancer like him, and I want to be a YouTuber like her, and I want to be a real estate investor like him. Then that's what you learn from that person. Modeling success is the fastest way to get you where you need to be. Understand that you don't have to be a genius at everything. The path before you has already been figured out. It's already been done by other people. And as the famous quote goes, success leaves clues. You have to start looking for them. All right, how do I set a success? What is my 3-step process as somebody who's maybe done it more than any other person, at least definitely within a YouTube environment? Here we go. Step number 1 is get super clear on what you want. What do you want? What kind of business do you want to build? And inside of that, what kind of marketer do you want to be? What kind of operations manager do you want to be? What kind of leader do you want to be? And understanding that those may be different skill sets that you learn from different people, right? I want to be a visionary like Steve Jobs. I want to believe in people like AP Giannini. I want to be a father like my father. I want to stand up for my principles like Howard Schultz. I want to know that now is the time to be the greatest me like Kanye West. You're pulling different things from different people. If you start to mush it all together, that's when you lose clarity. Or if I say I just want to be like Steve Jobs, That's not great because there's a lot of things I don't want to be from Steve. I don't want to be a father like Steve Jobs. There's things that I don't want to be from different people. The goal is to be the best Evan Carmichael, and you can't get that by just following one person, but you take different little pieces from different people when you're super clear. So you have to get super clear on what you want out of life. What kind of person do you want to be? Write it down and be super clear. Step number 2 is find the people who have it. So who's done it? This is what you want in life. Great. Go out and start researching who's done it. So if I want to build a successful software company, who's done it? Bill Gates did it. Great. Let me go learn from him. Right? Let me understand how he did it. Let me go read the early days of how he got started, right? Not, not so much how he does it now, but how did he get started? So for each of those categories, who has done it? One of the things that helped me free myself from being sick all the time was I studied Wim Hof. I used to get sick all the time. I was sick all the time. I would have a belief system that if somebody was sick, if Alex got sick, he's like, Alex, don't come, don't come near me. Don't come over today. Work from home.

I don't want to see you because I'm going to get sick.

And I would get sick every month. I was sick. I get sick now maybe once a year. It's crazy. Why? Because I decided to study after, after being so fed up with having 4 days of hiccups that I couldn't get rid of. It's pretty embarrassing. I was hiccuping for 4 days. I couldn't get rid of it. And I decided I'm just—

I need to get healthy.

Who's done this? And I came across Wim Hof. Great. I'm going to learn from Wim Hof and I'm going to learn how to not get sick again. I don't necessarily want to be an entrepreneur like Wim Hof. There's a whole bunch of other stuff that I probably don't want to learn from Wim Hof. Awesome. How to not get sick. I want to learn that from him. So be super clear on what you want to learn and then find the people who are the best in the world at that one thing. And that's who you're going to study. And then step number 3 is live in their world. So if you want to learn Italian, the fastest way is to go to Italy. You'll be forced to learn it. Chances are whatever you want to learn, whoever you want to become like, the people that you want to hang around with and spend time and be the next visionary like Steve Jobs, right? Those people are not in your environment right now. And so if you just get this little micro dose once a month, it's not going to be enough. If you just watch one Wim Hof video, it's not gonna be enough. You might have this one little moment that's amazing, but then it's not consistent enough. You have to live in their world. So for me, I've done it by creating these channels. I forced myself to be in people's worlds by creating this. I'm not hanging around Grant Cardone every day. I'm not hanging around Gary Vee or Tony Robbins or Ed Mylett every day. I've connected with these people, I've met, a good chunk of them, we've done content and hung out, but I'm not with them every day, so it's easy to fall back to where you were. So I force it through my content, I force it through my business, I force it through the YouTube channel that I'm making. Now you could do it for yourself as well. Whatever you want to learn and be more like, be around it, have it in your world. I look at the Wim Hof stuff, and when I was going through his app and the material, I was doing it very consistently. But because Wim Hof wasn't a part of my environment every day, I fell off. I wasn't doing the breathing as much. I wasn't doing the cold showers as much. And so what did I do? I printed a giant poster. It's in my bathroom. I would take you back there, but my camera is stuck on the tripod. This giant poster of Wim Hof. I subscribe to his YouTube channel, so anytime he has a new video coming up, it's a trigger. It's a reminder. Like, yeah, ah, right, I need to do that again.

I need to—

because you're gonna forget. You're gonna fall back to your old habits and your old ways and your old thinking patterns. You need to be shifted into the new one. And that happens by living in their world. So follow them on Instagram, follow them on YouTube, put something up on your wall to remind you of it every single day of that thing that you're trying to become, because that thing that you want to become is the best version of you. So we got super clear on what best version of you looks like. You've now identified who's done it, and now you're living in their world. And that doesn't mean you have to follow 1,000 people, but different people for different things to help you be the best you.

Rule #2: Find your own path.

People don't know what balance is for them. I meet so many entrepreneurs who want to be like Kevin O'Leary or Mark Cuban or Elon Musk and build these giant businesses, but they're not willing to do the sacrifices that go along with it. If you look at their personal lives, you probably don't want to be like them. I look at Steve Jobs, who's on my wall at home, and I want to be a visionary like him, but I don't want to be a father like him. Right? I don't want to put in that amount of work and then not be present for my family. The key is figuring out what balance looks like for you, what a successful life looks like for you. And that may mean that you don't go and build a billion-dollar company. What does life look like for you? We're constantly judging ourselves based off of other people's schedules, based off of other people's results, and saying, I can't do everything. I want to be like this and like that and like this and like that and like this and like that and having no clear picture for what a complete picture looks like for you. That's a problem. You can't look like The Rock and build a billion-dollar business and be the greatest father in the world and, right? Like, you have to pick. You have to understand what balance looks like for you and not judge yourself against other people's version of balance. Period. What I like doing personally is what I call trying on hats. So I will look at what other people are doing and use it as a source of inspiration as opposed to judgment against myself for how poor I'm doing, right? What most people will do is you'll look at somebody like Kevin O'Leary and say, man, look at what he's doing. I suck. I can't do that. I'm not working hard enough. I look at that as inspiration, as a hat to try on to say, Maybe I can do this. And then I try it.

But my goal isn't to be the next Kevin O'Leary.

My goal is to be the best Evan Carmichael.

Right?

My goal isn't to be the next Rock or Steve Jobs or anybody else. It's to be the best Evan Carmichael. And you get that by trying on other people's hats. It's not going to quite fit. Their schedule won't quite fit. Working out for 4 hours a day like The Rock does, that may not fit. And it doesn't. You look at me, that's why I don't look like The Rock. 'cause I'm not working out 4 hours a day. You have to try on their hat, see how it fits, see how you like it, make the tweaks and adjustment to get the perfect thing for you. And then when you found your version of balance, you're less likely to be pulled in a million different directions for what other people expect of you and for what other people out there are doing and you feel crappy about yourself 'cause you're not doing enough. So here's a quick example. Right now I'm filming this at the beginning of January, and my son has an extra week of Christmas break. Everybody else is back to work, and I am doing a hybrid right now. So most kids get 2 weeks off, he's got 3 weeks off. I am spending half my day with him having fun, doing, doing father-son things, and and half my day working. So the morning, I'm here right now filming videos for you. Nina is in Costco. Can we see the Costco sign? There, see, Nina's in Costco. There's Costco. I'm filming. I'm starting the morning making YouTube videos for you guys, and in the afternoon I'm going to be with, with my son. I want to do that. I'm okay with that. I'm missing opportunities right now. I could be making content all day long, and those videos Maybe the video that I would have made this afternoon is one that gets 10 million blues— blues— views and blows up my channel, right? Like, maybe that happens. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with spending time with my son. I want to do that. I'm not following through with people that I should. I can leave that until next week. I'm not making content on my Instagram like I normally would because I want to spend time with my son. And that's my version of balance. And, and I'm okay with that. And you can judge me and say that's a wrong decision, or you can judge me and say that's a great decision. Either way, I don't care because I'm living my version of balance. I'm proud of myself for my actions, and that's all that matters. Are you proud of yourself for how you are living your life? Period. When you go home, when you look at yourself in the mirror, are you proud of today? Are you proud of what you did? Are you proud of how you spent your time? Your version of balance may not be perfect, not yet. And listen, mine isn't either. I'm constantly tweaking, constantly hacking, constantly learning, constantly adjusting. Because even if you found your perfect version of balance, it's going to adjust, right? It's going to adjust. Next year won't be the same. 5 years definitely won't be the same. And so it's finding those little micro tweaks and adjustments. But the most important thing is understanding What are your goals? What are your ambitions? Not just business. We tend to focus— entrepreneurs, we tend to focus just on our business. Here's my goals for this year. Here's my goals for where I want to be in the next 5 years.

Right?

You set your goals, but you don't have the same structure for your family. You don't have the same structure for your, for your life. Look at your schedule. Look in your schedule. How many of the things in your schedule are business things? Have you scheduled your family time? Do you treat that as important as you would a business meeting? So I schedule in my time with my wife. I protect it. If something is going to go against it, for example, Saturdays I spend with Nina. I haven't done every single Saturday. Some opportunities have come up, but if I'm going to move something on a Saturday, I have to talk to Nina about it, and it's got to be an important opportunity. Otherwise, left to my own devices, I would just work all the time, right?

I love it.

I love my work. I'm obsessed with my work. I love making videos for you guys. I love responding to the comments. Like, I love, I love, I love, I love what I do. If Nina's out on a Friday night with her friends, 85% chance I'm just going to be working because it's not work, because it's love, it's enjoyment, it's fulfillment, it's service, it's all the great stuff for me. But then when I step above it, that's my addiction, right? Like entrepreneurship, helping you guys is my addiction. When I step above it, doing that 24/7 actually doesn't lead to me having the life that I want because I want to be a good father and I want to be a good husband and I want to take care of myself physically. So those other things you have to schedule into your calendar. Don't just schedule in the business things, you schedule in your life so that when you Step above. This is a great exercise for the next week. Create your life schedule for the next week that when you step above, when you say, okay, yes, I'm going to wake up and I'm going to, I'm going to work out, or I'm going to watch those videos, or I'm going to spend this time with my wife or husband or boyfriend, girlfriend, or children or parents, right? Whatever you need for your life. If you need to call your mom every day, schedule that in. If you need to hang out with your family every weekend, schedule that in. Right? Whatever is super important to you. If you have to watch the game every Sunday, schedule that in, put it on your calendar. That leads to a happy life for you. What is your version of balance? That's all that matters. Your version of balance to create the best you that when you step above, when you look at your calendar and say, if I did these things, I would be a happy, successful, fulfilled person, period. And when you've done that, When you've created that, then have the courage to step into it and live it regardless of what the people around you are judging you for, because you're always going to get judgment. Some people say you're doing way too much, and some people say you're not doing enough. You're building your business, some people will say you're working way too hard, and other people will say you're barely, you're barely starting, keep going, like, you call this work?

Right?

Somebody's always going to have an opinion on what you should be doing with your life. And until you determine, you figure out, you understand what balance looks like for you to create a happy, successful, fulfilled life on your own terms, write it down and then create your calendar and then stick to your calendar. And if other people are judging you for it, you thank them for their opinion, but you let it bounce off you because you're happy and they're not.

Rule number 3: Build your confidence.

Whoever is more confident wins. When you're hanging around somebody, whoever has more confidence is going to be the person who influences and persuades the other person. And this is for all areas of your life. If you're hanging around people who are confident that you will not be successful and you're lacking confidence in your success, guess what? Their confidence in how unsuccessful you're going to be will breed into you and you'll feel like you can't do it. On the flip side, if you're hanging around people who believe in you, who make you feel amazing, guess what? Their confidence in you Their belief in you will help you believe more in yourself. This applies to health and fitness. If you're hanging around people who are always working out, who are eating healthy, who are taking care of their body, they're more confident in their health than you are in your lack of health, and you're gonna become healthier. You're gonna start to eat better, you're gonna start to work out more just by osmosis, just by you being around them, just through proximity. That's it, period. You will become that. You will become like the people who you spend the most time with. So when Ed Mylett invited me to his home, he's got a beautiful home just outside of San Diego, and he invited me over. I spent the evening there, and if I spent more one-on-one time with Ed, I left that night feeling amazing, bold, confident, ready to take on my big goals, the big dreams, like, let's go. He's got a beautiful environment, he's got a beautiful family, you know, beautiful house, just motivating as ever. And that, that evening I spent with him made me feel like I could do anything. If I spent more time with Ed, then I'm sure I would be even more successful. I'd have a bigger impact, I'd be reaching more people, I'd be making more money, I'd be, I'd be way more successful than I am already right now if I spent more time with Ed. We talked a lot about Ed's YouTube, and I'm sure if Ed spent more time with me, his YouTube channel would be blowing up even more than it already is. Because I'm more confident in YouTube than he is, and he's more confident in the things that he's great at than I am. And so by us spending more time together, we will both get better at the things that we're less confident in. When I went to an event in, uh, just outside of Los Angeles, I met Charlie who runs Cruising On Command, another awesome YouTube channel. If you haven't seen it, go check it out. And Charlie was working out every day, going for runs every day. Whenever we met and had dinner, he was always eating super clean, always eating fish and salad with no dressing, like really looking after himself. And for me at that time, anytime that I traveled, I kind of used that as my out, as my excuse to say, okay, it doesn't matter if I'm I'm not going to be as healthy as I am when I get back. I'll have these 4 days away and then I'll be fine when I come back. So I'd be eating junk and pizza and burgers and everything else. If I spent more time with Charlie, I would be healthier. You know, and in that micro window that we had, him just eating salmon and going for runs every day made me want to be healthier. And if we had more proximity, I'd be even healthier than I am right now because he's more confident in his health and routines than I am. And so this is really important because a lot of this is happening in the background. You're not even noticing it. You're not even paying attention to it. If you are around successful people, you would by default become more successful. If you're around healthier people, you'll by default become healthier. It just will happen without you even thinking about it. You'll be pulled there automatically. Because they're more confident in that area of their life than you are. The problem is most of us have people in our lives who are not happy, not successful, not fulfilled, not purpose-driven, not healthy. They have the potential, they're good people, they're just not living the life that they want to live. They don't have a high degree of confidence that a life is possible. They actually have a high degree of confidence that things are not possible. And so if you are the most ambitious person in your circle that you're around, that's a problem because you're the one giving hope, giving belief, giving confidence to other people, but who's doing it for you? And it's probably not the people currently in your life, or maybe you have a few special people, and if you've got those people, hold on to them real tight because you really, really, really need to have that. And so knowing that that's what happens, right, knowing that this is the way that that your life is shaped. Now, how can we do it with more intention? So, two ideas that I've got for you, and, and if you do this, if you actually apply this to your life, things will start to change dramatically for the better for you, for the money you make, for the impact that you have, the service you can create, for your health, for your happiness, all of it. Step number one is start to really look at the people in your life, the people who you spend the most time with, the closest proximity How much are they sucking your energy or giving you energy? How much are they inspiring you? How confident are they in your success? And trying to spend as much time as possible with the people who are giving you energy. We don't have that many people who give us energy. You probably don't have that many people that after you spend time with them, you're feeling more pumped up, more bold, more confident, more courageous, more willing to go off and seize the day, right? When you leave them, when you finish that coffee with them or get off the phone call or Zoom call with them, you leave them, are you ready to seize the day? Or do you feel tired, worn out, burnt out, stressed out because you took on all of their problems and you gave them a great gift and you're trying to encourage, motivate, and inspire them, but you don't feel better. You might feel better because you served, which is great, but you don't feel more energetic to go off and seize the day on a big scale. When you find those people, you have to spend more time with them. You have to find a way to spend more time. You have to, you have to, you have to. You have to be the one to reach out, to put something on the calendar, to schedule it in so that you are spending more time with the people who make you feel better about yourself. And that may not be, you know, Ed Mylett level, right? I only went to Ed's house once. I haven't been back to San Diego since, and when I do go back, hopefully he invites me over again. So I'm not calling Ed every week, but trying to find ways to spend more time with the people who lift you up, even if it's somebody who is an acquaintance, somebody who you don't know super well, but every time you're around them you feel better. Like, try to put a regular coffee schedule in your calendar with them, even if it feels super awkward, even if you have to say, hey, this might sound super weird, but every time we get together, every time I'm around you, I leave feeling better about myself. I leave feeling ready to go and seize the day, and I have more confidence and boldness. And there's just something about you that makes that come out in me, and I'm super grateful. I'm wondering if you just want to do a— if you're down for a coffee once a month, and we could talk about our business, we could talk about books we're reading or videos we're watching and just share. That may seem like it's coming out of left field, but What do you think? And then see what they say. Put that on your list to spend more time with those people. Second thing is what I call aspirational mentors. So I believe that you can learn a lot from people even if you never meet them, that you can have proximity by spending time with them through their videos, through their books, through their podcasts. I've learned a lot through my own videos, through watching Ed Mylett, top 10 videos. I learn a lot. I can still have Ed in my environment even if I had never known him, even if I had never met him. You can still learn a lot from Ed by watching his YouTube channel, by reading his book, by listening to his podcast. You can learn a lot from him. You're still around him. Is it as good as being in his house in San Diego getting the one-on-one coaching?

No.

But is it better than just turning on Netflix and being entertained? Absolutely. If you watched an Ed Mylett video every day, you are slowly going to start to think more like Ed Mylett.

You are slowly going to start to see the world like Ed Mylett.

And apply that for anybody— Tony Robbins, somebody in health and fitness, nutrition and diet, like whatever it is that you want to get great at. Put it as a part of your calendar. Schedule that time in. I like videos the best. I'm a visual learner. So for me, it would be watching the videos of somebody. It's why I have so many channels, because I want to consume the content and then share it with you, but it helps me. These are the aspirational mentors in my life. I can learn a lot from a Steve Jobs, even though I will never meet him, because of the video content that he has produced and interviews that he's been on. You can choose to inject that into your life. So step 1 are real-life people who you can meet and have coffee with and learn from and connect with. But step 2 are aspirational mentors who you may meet at some point but may never meet, but you can still learn a lot from them. You can still be inspired by them. And if, again, this is— this happens not in these one-off big moments, it's daily. It's daily. You need to create in your calendar a daily time to be around the people who inspire you the most. I would look at everybody who has inspired you at some point. Make a list of all of the books you've read or videos that you watch. For me, it's videos that I've watched. Make a list of them, of the people, and then put that into your daily calendar. Create a schedule of 30 videos for the next 30 days that you're gonna watch in your morning routine with intention, not while you're vacuuming. I guess people don't vacuum as part of their morning routine. Do you vacuum as part of your morning routine? Not while you're brushing your teeth. Or making your bed or doing something else, but with intention, you're gonna sit down and have your coffee or have your breakfast and watch the video with intention to learn from this person because you want to start to think, to act, to adopt the mindset of the Ed Myletts, of the Oprah Winfreys, of the Elon Musks or Steve Jobs or whoever it is again that inspires you to be the best you. Think about the people who gave you the most energy and then be around them even if it's just virtually through video every single day. Those two things, it'll dramatically shift your life forward. If you stay with the people who are in your life right now, you will stay where you are right now. If you shift it to start cutting out or limiting access to the people who make you feel worse about yourself and injecting more people who make you feel better about yourself, and then supplementing that with the aspirational mentors of the people who lift you to a higher stratosphere every single day. One year from today, your life will be dramatically different, but only if you do it on an every single day basis.

Make it happen.

I'm excited to see you change.

Rule number 4: Shift your beliefs.

Your next big step forward in life will come from a big shift in perspective on one of your beliefs. Your habits, your routines, the results that you're getting all come from what you believe to be true about your life and the world. And for you to get different results than you're getting right now in your life, you're going to have to change your perspective on one or more of your beliefs. So this topic makes me think about my favorite comment of all time. If you think about my YouTube channel, I've had it for 11 years and I don't know how many thousands of thousands of comments. My favorite comment of all time was we profiled a Black entrepreneur and one of the guys in the comments said, growing up, my parents taught me that black people were the N-word, and you just changed my perspective today. I was willing to learn from a black man. And it blew my mind because when I first set out to make my channel, uh, it wasn't really about race or willingness to learn from other people. It was, it was more, hey, these people have accomplished success, you should go and learn from them. I wasn't set out to try to solve sexism or racism or anything so big like that. But what had happened was I had enough credibility with this person, and I didn't know them from anything, they just watched enough of my videos, that then when I made this video on a black man, he decided, you know what, I'm gonna give it a few minutes. And that experience changed his perspective, that then will hopefully go off and change his life. Imagine having that belief that then changes— what kind of ripple effect that has on the rest of your life. And that's what happens when you get exposed to new opportunities and new people and new perspectives. You, you were raised with a perspective, your parents, your family, community, a super isolated perspective that you feel is right. And many of those things may still be right for who you want to become. But if you want to have greater success, greater levels of confidence, greater levels of happiness and purpose and fulfillment, then the people around you you're gonna have to believe something that's different than what they believe. You're gonna have to surround yourself with other people who've actually gone off and done that thing because the people around you aren't giving you the thing that you need. And so that's one of my main goals with this channel. I know people come in to learn from people who are like them. You learn from people who, who look like you, who might be the same sex or same gender, in the same industry, or use the same language as you. But what I'm really hoping to do as well is in that process, you came for this one person, you came for this one thought or one idea, and I want to expose you to a whole bunch of different perspectives, all still within the lens of belief, right? Everything on my channels, all of the channels are always positive. It's always belief, it's always optimistic, it's always uplifting. But I want to try to hit you with different perspectives and angles because Eric Thomas and Jocko Willink are going to yell at you through something. And Oprah Winfrey and Wayne Dyer are gonna hug you through something. And sometimes maybe you need the yell and sometimes you need the hug. But I wanna give you different perspectives to help you become the best version of you. Okay, so how do we make the perspective shifts that we need to make in our life to get to the spot that we wanna be? I've got a 3-step process, let's go. Step number 1 is learn to learn from people that you hate. This is one of the most important things that I can articulate, that I can push you towards. Find somebody who's had success, ideally in some kind of related field, but still has some success that you hate for some reason, and force yourself to learn from them. Force yourself to find one thing about them that you can learn to make you better at what to do. So even looking at my wall here, right, I like to tell a story. I've got, I've got Steve Jobs here and I got my dad here.

I want to be a visionary like Steve Jobs and a father like my father.

I don't want to be a father like Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs and a visionary like my dad, right? The whole point of this is for you to be the best you, and for that to happen, you pull different things from different people. You may hate everything about Steve Jobs or everything about Kanye West at the back wall there, but there's, but there's one thing, this one thing that you can learn from that person to help you be better. That's often a thing that unlocks a huge chunk of learning. People typically lock themselves in a box. You've trapped yourself in a box of learning. Of saying, I'm only going to learn from these kinds of people. And so you get the same kind of messages over and over and over again. But really, if you want to unlock your learning, finding people who you disagree with, who you may hate, you may hate a lot about them, but examining how they've had success, a good starting point is the top 10s on my other channel, right? It's always positive. It's something that I've learned from. If I can learn from them, you could probably learn from them as well. There's one little nugget out of those 10 rules maybe that can apply to your life. And when I was learning from Kanye West, Kanye West was somebody who used to bother me a lot. I saw somebody who's got a giant ego, somebody who I didn't want to be like. But I realized, you know what, I can learn from this guy. I can learn from this guy. I can learn to think bigger like Kanye. I can learn to be a better friend. If you know the story of him and John Legend, I can learn to be a better friend like Kanye. You can't really see that picture there, but he's on a radio interview and he's saying in that clip, "The time is now to be the greatest you. I don't want to sit inside a corporation for the next 30 years. Like, this is the time. The time is now. Let's go." I believe that. I need to remember that even more. Like, the time is now, not tomorrow, not in 3 years, not next month. Like, it's right now. The time is now for you. You can learn that from Kanye right now, even if you hate him. So step number 1 is find somebody who you hate. Go to my Top 10 channel or my main channel and go back in the archives and find somebody who you see their picture and it drives you nuts already. Great.

Force yourself to go learn one thing from that person.

That's the starting point for shifting your perspective. Step number 2 is say, "It's the best." It's the best. This is one of the most valuable perspective shifts that I think any human can make is when you're faced with something that's negative, something that most people will complain of and the old you used to complain about, you shift it and say, "This is the best." This is the best. This thing that's happening to me right now This is the best. This coronavirus is happening right now, for me, it's the best. Shift your perspective to say this is the best, because what it does is it moves you from a place of being complaining and upset and angry and unproductive into a place of possibility, of resourcefulness, of you now showing to yourself and to the world what you're capable of. And so when I broke my neck, when there's a fire alarm going off, when we have coronavirus, This is how I stay productive. This is how I stay focused. This is how I stay pushing forward when most people are complaining and negative is I tell myself, this is the best. This is my chance. This is an opportunity. And I think this is one of the biggest things that entrepreneurs who've had the biggest success crush at. So many entrepreneurs have built their businesses, the ones that you look up to and respect and admire and want to be like. They built their businesses in the toughest times. They built their businesses in recessions and depressions. Why? Because they said it's the best. So whatever that thing is that feels overwhelming, all-encompassing, negative in your life, stop complaining about it and say, this is the best. I'm growing. I'm getting stronger through this adversity. I'm going to make something amazing as a result of it. And step number 3 is the first time yes rule. The first time yes rule is the first time you get Invited to something or an idea comes to your head, say yes. Most people are in the no business. Most people are looking at all the reasons why it's not going to work and you can't do this and you have no skills or abilities or time or resources. You're always finding those. We're in the no business of why we can't do stuff. We've told ourselves we can't do these things. Just say yes the first time. This is one of the things I love most about my wife, Nina, is I'll come with all sorts of crazy ideas and the first time she'll say yes. We'll see, right? You want to drive to Boston with 2 videographers in the back and film the whole— yes, perfect. You want to go to Sadhguru in Philadelphia and spend 2 days meditating? Yes, perfect. Even though you hate the cold, you want to sit in an ice bath with Wim Hof when he comes to Toronto and film behind— yes, perfect. Doesn't mean she's gonna do it again. She hasn't sat in an ice bath since, but it's the first time, yes. The first time yes rule. It's one of the biggest mentality shifts that if you can make, you'll open yourself up to so many more opportunities. I look at dancing, for example, Toronto Dance Salsa, right? The other— another business that I run and operate. The number of people who come in and are scared and super nervous and it's their first time dancing ever as an adult. And then you see the shift that they make in the identity of like, I just did that.

I danced.

I never thought I could dance. And here I got a few basic steps of a move. And if they keep coming back, they'll keep getting better. A lot of times you're not making the perspective shift that you need because you're not trying enough new stuff because you're in the no business. First time yes rule. You get an idea, somebody asks you for something, somebody wants to try something with you. Yes. First time yes. Doesn't mean you keep doing it. And as long as it doesn't go against your ethics or your values, don't go rob a bank because they said first time yes. Okay, we're not talking about that First time yes rule. Just see, you might surprise yourself. 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: Choose to be in control.

You are always in control of how you feel.

You're always in control.

You, you may not be in control of the world and the results that are happening and how people are acting around you, but you are always in control. You can be, you can choose to be in control of how you feel. There's that great quote that there's nothing either good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. When something happens, you have a choice, right? Your subconscious mind can take over, and I'm gonna give you a super important hack in this video on how to do it, but you have a choice. You can at any time choose to see that thing that happened as a negative or positive. The problem is we let our subconscious mind take over. We let our stories and our patterns take over, and we let that take us into the negative. And when you're in the negative, you're not productive, you're not happy, you're not fulfilled, you're not in action mode, you're not building momentum, and you don't hit your goals. How do you override the subconscious mind? How do you get into that positive place when you are in a negative place?

This is really important.

'Cause when you're watching maybe a video like this or when you're inspired, you don't need it as much, right? When you're inspired and you're ready to go, you're on fire, you're taking action, nothing can stop you. You've had these moments where you felt super fulfilled, whether it was meeting somebody or watching a video or listening to a podcast or reading a book. You had these moments that you felt amazing and then what did you do? You went to work and when something bad happened, you just I just overcame it and kept going. But it's when you're in the depths, when you're not feeling great, when something really bad happens to you, what do you do? Here's the hack that I use that if you can apply this consistently, it will change your life. It will change your life. It's catching those down moments and saying 3 words. 3 simple words. It's the best. It's the best. Anytime you find yourself complaining, it's the best. Anytime you find yourself in a negative situation, it's the best. Anytime you find yourself stressed, overwhelmed, out of control, it's the best. It's the best. It's the best. Tell yourself it's the best. And we're trying to rewire our subconscious mind. And you won't catch it all the time, and don't judge yourself for catching it all the time. But if you can catch it once, and you can catch it and you can catch it again the next day, and you can catch it 3 times the next day, you're gonna start to train yourself. You're gonna start to catch it more often. You're gonna start catching it instead of 1% of the time, 4% of the time, to 20% of the time, to 50% of the time. You'll catch it more because you're building the muscle of catching it. It's the best. Why?

Why is it the best?

Well, again, there's nothing neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. You can choose to see the best in any situation. I've used this for small things and big things. So even today. So today in the morning, I decided to do a whole bunch of squats. My legs were burning me. Right after that, I take the dogs out for their morning walk. And what I've been doing in the morning is after I take the dogs for a walk, I climb up 13 flights of stairs holding both my dogs. I got these 2 little dogs. They're maybe 12 pounds each. And I hold one under each arm and I walk up the stairs. My legs were Jell-O at the start. And I remember getting to the 6th floor and like, oh my gosh, I don't know if I can do this. My legs are Jell-O. These dogs are heavy. These feel like 1,000 pounds. I just want to quit. I just want to get on the elevator and go all the way up to the 13th floor. The voice in my head tells me, well, but I already did all the squats. We find our way out, right? We give ourselves logical reasons, logical outs from situations. I did all these squats, so that kind of counts, right? I mean, I don't normally do squats in the morning. I did them here. That should count as half the climb of stairs, right? Like, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is the practice. This is the best. This right now is the best. This is my chains to show myself what I'm made of, that those extra 7 flights of stairs do not own me. And even if I'm walking at half pace, I'm gonna get to the 13th floor. This is the debate inside my own head as I'm climbing the stairs. And this seems trivial, right? This is not a big deal. This is one-off. What happens doesn't really matter. But in those moments, those moments when you want to quit, when you want to give yourself the out, when you want to, to play small, when you're giving yourself that excuse for not doing it, how you react becomes super important. This is another small little battle that I won by going all the way up to the 13th floor and then hitting 13 and opening the door. That feeling of, of pride, of belief in myself because I overcame the difficult thing. You want to build self-confidence? You have to do difficult things. Every time you go up against something that is difficult, that is hard, that is scary, and you're battling yourself, and then you get through it and you do it, whether you get a great result or not— that wasn't my best climb up— but that I continued and that I finished it, that I got there, that makes you feel great about yourself. That's how you build the self-confidence, self-love, self-respect, by doing the difficult things, by having that inner debate with yourself, and then choosing the path of growth, choosing that path of growth instead of choosing the smaller path and letting yourself off the hook. 'Cause other people might look at you and say, what a great job you're doing, how hard you're pushing yourself, and maybe you're pushing yourself too hard, but they just have lower standards than you. This is the battle with yourself to be proud of yourself. It's the best. So this is my fastest hack, my fastest way to get into growth mode Growth Evan, Proud Evan, Believe Evan, that when I find myself complaining about something negative in my life, I say, "This is the best. This is the best. This is my chance to show myself and the world who Evan Carmichael is." And what does that do? Well, one, it's a little mental trick because even just doing that, even if you just say that, say it, you can practice it right now. Say out loud, "This is the best." Think about some negative situation. Situation. This is the best. This is my chance to show myself and the world what I'm made of. Tell yourself that. Instantly you're gonna find maybe you're not all the way amped up, ready to go, but you're feeling a little bit better than you were before. And all you need is that little, that little tiny bit of inspiration to force you into action mode. The point of saying it's the best isn't just some motivational pump-up. It's to get you the courage to then take the action and do the thing. Because all you need are those few seconds of courage to take the action to then make yourself proud. The goal of "It's the best" is to get you into action mode. Now what about bigger things? What about, what about bigger problems? Well, listen, when I broke my neck last year on my tour, right, if you guys don't know the story, I broke my neck in 2 spots and had a concussion and compressed my spine and had all these issues. What did I do? I told myself, this is the best. It's the same strategy, guys. It's the best. This is my chance to show myself and the world what I'm made of. And when everybody told me to go home on my tour and just to lie in bed and relax, I finished my tour. I only missed one spot on my tour because I was in a hospital in Colorado. Every other stop we hit, and I sat at the front with ice packs for 4 hours answering questions and doing my event. Was it the best event?

No.

Was I on top of my game as much as before?

No.

But I finished it, and it was an inspiration to a lot of the people who came out too. They say, I'm complaining about the guy who cut me off in traffic on the way here, and you're sitting here with a broken neck at the front doing the workshop. Like, yep, right?

Let's go.

It's the best. And ultimately, if you step above it, If you believe like I believe that your purpose comes from your pain, whatever happened to you, your— that deepest, darkest moment in your life that you never want to experience again, that you never want to go back to again, that, that pain, that's your purpose. Helping other people never experience that pain. Helping other people go through that pain and feel like they're not alone like you were alone. that's your calling, that's your purpose for the rest of your life, that will fill you up for the rest of your life. For me, helping entrepreneurs not struggle as much as I struggled at the beginning will fill me up forever. Forever. Your purpose comes from your pain. And so the greatest pain of all time that you ever went through, it's the best. It's the best. You could choose to be overwhelmed by it That pain that happened to you will define you one way or the other. Either you continue to live in that pain or try to forget that pain and never live a fulfilled life, or you choose to serve and you choose to help and choose to understand that there are millions of people right now who are struggling with that same thing and they're suffering alone and they could use your help. It's the best. So whether it's getting cut off in traffic, whether it's breaking your neck on a tour, whether it's some crazy thing that happened to you when you were younger, some painful moment, it's the best. It's the best. And you try to catch it and use that as your 3 seconds of courage to then take the action that would make you proud. Because if you did that consistently. You start to catch it more often. You start to take those complaining moments that you have, even if it's just complaining inside your head. Maybe you're not complaining out loud, but you're complaining inside your head. You're about to give yourself a break. You're about to tell yourself to go easy and have an excuse for not doing something, and then you wake up tomorrow and you're not proud of yourself anymore. Try to catch it today, tomorrow, this week. Catch it, catch it just once. Catch it. And say, "No, not this time. This is the best. This is my chance to show myself and the world what I am made of." Good luck.

Rule number 6: Remind yourself of your greatness.

Reminding yourself every day of how amazing you are, I think it's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. And it's not about ego, it's about confidence. Confidence comes from a place of strength. Ego comes from a place of weakness and insecurity. So it's time to step into your confidence and remind yourself of how amazing you really are. This video is going to help. So I used to have a lot of problems with, with ego versus confidence. I used to feel like, who am I? Why do people need to hear my story? I was profiling all these different successful entrepreneurs and people kept asking, well, where are you? How come we can't see what you're about?

Where did you come from?

And I always felt like my story doesn't matter. I'm profiling David Goggins and Steve Jobs and all these people. Why do you care about— I mean, sure, I sold my first business, had an exit, but it's nothing compared to what all these other people have done. And I always shrouded it, covered it under ego. Like, well, that's such an egotistical thing to do. But really, I was just playing small. I was cheating people the opportunity to learn, to get better, to grow. From my story, that my story has value. It's the belief that my story had value that took some time to really work up. Even making videos on my channel, the number one most requested person for top 10 was me, and I resisted for maybe 2 years of even making an Evan Carmichael top 10 because I just felt not good enough. I felt like that's such an ego play and not coming from a place of confidence and yes, my message has impact, has meaning, can help the world. And the first Evan Carmichael top 10 came out from my team. So my birthday— birthday?

I think it was my birthday.

Birthday or Christmas, my team put together, with the support of my hardcore fans, my first top 10. No, not yet, Evan.

You wanna watch it?

I'm a little scared. And that's the one that went live on the channel. And ever since then, we've done a regular series of me being on the channel. But it's, it's been a real progress for me. It's been a real evolution. It's taken me a long time, and hopefully you can get there faster. This has been almost 20 years of me sharing ideas and content and, and slowly stepping into the light and slowly building more confidence and more belief. And I hope that with the content I'm making and the experiences I'm sharing, you can get there a lot faster. Now I've got a 3-step process that I've gone through that can shortcut that path to confidence for you. Okay, so my 3-step process— how do you go from worrying about being seen as too egotistical to actually having real genuine confidence? Here we go. Step number 1 is play bigger triggers. Play bigger triggers are things that you create in your environment that remind you of who you want to be, of the best version of you. And so I've changed my camera angle around for this week of filming. Hope you guys like it. You can see my environment, you can see more of it now. And so I've got Play Bigger triggers. I walk in and I see Steve Jobs, Nippon Shinini, my favorite entrepreneur of all time, my parents, Howard Schultz, Kanye West. Even Kanye West is somebody who I hated at the beginning because he seemed way too egotistical for me. But he says some things that make sense, that make me better. He's got a picture of himself when you walk into his house. He's got this giant picture of himself, which feels very egotistical. But how he explains it is like, if you're not your own biggest fan first, Nobody else is gonna be your fan, right? So I love it. I've got Kanye on the wall. I have my, my YouTube plaques there. I've got a mannequin wearing the Believe hoodie because I feel like a superhero putting this on, right? The clothes you wear are play bigger triggers. The books here, you know, the, the, the, the YouTube Awards, the Doritos bag, even, even, even this, right? Like, I wore, I wore this for 60 days when I broke my neck and I was I was just gonna throw it away. And my friend Mark Drager, fan of the channel, said keep it. Like, why would I keep it? It's this nasty duct tape, you know, neck mask, neck guard.

I don't know what it was. Anyway, to keep my neck in place.

So it's a reminder. And when I look at it now, when I walk into the office, I feel awesome. Like I did that. I did 60 days in this. When I took it off for 10 minutes every day and I continued on my tour, I didn't go home and I kept making videos concussion, a broken neck, and 4 was at the front of every seminar I was putting on. It sometimes feels hard to remember that I did that. Just now being back home and making my content and back on schedule, it's hard to remember that this— I'm this guy. I did this. And so what are the play bigger triggers for you? From the clothes you wear, from the, the what's on your desktop background and your cell phone background and the pictures on the wall and the things that you see every day, because you might have one day of being in being inspired and motivated. Maybe after watching this video you're ready to go. Awesome. But what do you have on the daily? And the beautiful thing about creating an environment like this and having Play Bigger triggers around you is you only set it up once. You set it up once, and every day I'm working here, my computer's right here. Every day I got Steve Jobs staring me down and, you know, AP Giannini and my parents. And this reminds me every day of the best of who I am. And so same thing for you. What's one immediate change that you can make to your environment that's a play bigger trigger to remind you of the best of who you are? Because the goal doesn't be the next Steve Jobs or the next Kanye West or next David Goggins. It's to take those pieces to remind you to be the best of you. Step number 2 is act on your uncomfortable ideas. We get great ideas as entrepreneurs. We get great ideas, and especially moments of boldness and confidence and courage, you get great ideas. It could be when you're in the shower, on an airplane, or traveling, you get great ideas for what you want to do. And then tomorrow you tell yourself, "I can't do that. That's crazy. That's too hard. That's scary. That's uncomfortable." Teach yourself to act on your crazy ideas is how you start to build confidence. Because if you come up against a crazy idea and then you allow yourself to say, "Well, that's too scary. That's too hard. That's too difficult. You that. What you've taught yourself is you don't have courage. You've taught yourself to come up with ideas but then not trust in yourself. And so when you come up with the next idea, you're telling yourself, I don't trust myself. When you set a goal for yourself to hit, hit some big goal, you don't believe yourself anymore because all you've done is taught yourself that you set goals, you have ideas, and you never follow through. You've built this identity of I'm somebody who doesn't follow through. That's what you need to start to destroy. That's what you need to destroy and squash out of your life. That identity of I don't follow through. Your ideas are genius. Your ideas are amazing. This is why Play Bigger Tools will help. You get an idea in your, in your awesome environment, act on it. Do something. Lean into the uncomfortable. Lean into the things that cause a little bit of your heart to beat and cause some anxiety. That's how you start to make the shift. And step number 3 is then celebrate your effort. Celebrate your effort, not the results. Celebrate the effort that you that you worked your hardest, that you did the uncomfortable thing, whether it worked out or not, that you came up with an idea to email somebody who could be a potential dream client for you. Maybe they didn't write back. Maybe they did write back and they told you, "You suck and I hate you. I never wanna work with you." It's the willingness to go and do the uncomfortable thing, the fact that you did it, that you tried, because that's the only thing that's separating you from the David Goggins, from you, from the person that you want to be. If you look at David Goggins' story and being 300 pounds and overweight and couldn't do anything, it's the will to get up and do it every day. And on a day-by-day basis, there's not a lot of growth. If you've never done something and now it's your first day doing it, if you never made a video before and it's your first day doing it, guess what? The video's going to suck. You're supposed to suck at the start. That's okay. That's normal. But people judge themselves for sucking at beginning. People judge themselves for not getting the result right at the beginning. That's the mistake. You celebrate the effort. David Goggins was 300 pounds overweight and now is one of the best ultra marathon runners in the world.

How does that happen?

Well, it didn't happen on his first run. And if he did his first run and then said, well, I suck, I'm not going to keep going, then guess what? He never becomes that ultra marathon runner. Same thing for you. Same thing for me. Go back and look at my YouTube channel. I'm 6,000 videos in. Is that 6,000? Some crazy number of videos in on my channel. Go back and watch the first ones. I sucked compared to where I'm at now. And even right now, I suck compared to where I'm going to be in 10 years if I keep doing this. It's been 11 years on the channel. If I do it for another 11 years, I'm going to be even better in 11 years than where I am right now. That's called progress.

That's normal.

And so tying your self-esteem, your self-worth, your self-confidence, to the willingness to go off and do it whether you get the result or not. Because if every day you get up and you start working that hard and you're insanely proud of your effort, you are going to get the results.

Rule number 7: Leave your comfort zone.

Every day there's a battle raging inside you. The battle is between the comfort version of yourself and the growth version of yourself. The comfort you wants to be comfortable, doesn't want push, wants to stay where you are. It's, it's difficult, it's scary out there, let's stay warm and comfortable. And the growth version of you wants to grow, wants to learn, wants to develop, wants to progress, wants to serve, wants to help. And doing that requires having courage, boldness, and jumping into the unknown. And it's a daily battle, it's a daily battle that never goes away, and you have to choose who consistently is going you're going to win. And those daily battles are not won by doing the big heroic once-a-year things. It's won by doing the daily things, the daily small things that shift your identity forward to teach yourself that you're the growth kind of person and not the comfort kind of person. The first time I met Brendon Burchard was at his event at growth.com. I was speaking in Phoenix. It was his event. I one of two guest speakers. It was him and his partner speaking, and then me and Eric Thomas. And his business partner invited me to come and speak and flew me down there. And I'd never met Brendon before. I knew of him, obviously, but I never met him face-to-face. And when I met him, he came backstage. I think it was the day before I was gonna go speak, and I met him backstage, and he said, hey, I can't wait to see you on stage. Stage. I almost never bring on guest speakers who I haven't seen speak before, but you came highly recommended by my business partner, so let's do this. And I'm gonna watch your speech and see what you do. I have a TV interview that I'm doing, and I'm gonna pause that and make sure I'm done so I can watch your speech. So in my head, there's a lot of stress and pressure. One, I never met Brendon before, 4. 2, there's a couple thousand people out there in the audience. And 3, usually when speakers are on stage, the other speakers aren't super paying attention. You know, they're backstage in their own world doing their own thing. But Brendan was going to end his interview to make sure that he was going to watch my speech, and so he's adding all this extra pressure on me. This is the battle of growth versus comfort, of growth Evan versus comfort Evan. My biggest fear disappointing people. I don't want to disappoint him. I don't want to disappoint the person who paid me to be there. I don't want to disappoint the couple thousand people in the audience. And so we go through these moments where the comfort you takes over. The comfort you wants to play small, wants to quit, wants to back down, wants to find an out, wants to find an excuse for why you can't do something. And the growth you is struggling for control. There's two things that I do that help growth Evan come out, and I want you to internalize them, to apply them, to use them, because if you can use these two strategies, it can massively shift your identity forward, help you become the growth version of you instead of the comfort version of you, and start giving you the results you want as well as a more purposeful, happy life of service.

Two things.

First one, take on the identity that you do difficult You do difficult things. That if something is scary or difficult or hard, that it's not a good enough reason. That you do scary, you do difficult, you love hard. And so I use those as triggers. And why it's important is you shortcut the thinking pattern. Every time that you say that it's scary, that it's difficult, that it's hard, or whatever words that you use that give yourself a break, that let yourself off the hook, use those as trigger words. The fact that you say it said it means you have to do it. The fact that you said it, you thought it, you wrote it means you have to do it just because. What it does is it shortcuts the excuse because what normally happens is you say, well, that's too difficult. You've accepted that difficult is a good enough reason for you to play small. You don't go and do the thing. You've accepted any excuses that come into your head over why you can't do it. You don't call them excuses, you call them reasons.

Right?

Logical, valid reasons why you can't do it. I want to shortcut all that. I don't want to even allow you to go there because I don't allow myself to go there. The fact that I said scary, difficult, hard means I have to do it. So find your trigger words. You can use mine as a starting point if you want, but find your trigger words and that becomes your new identity. You want to take on the identity that you do difficult things. That you, you jump into the unknown, that those are no longer good enough reasons for you. And so I did this when I was backstage, when I'm— my heart's beating, uh, I'm, I'm— I forgot what I was gonna say going on stage. Like, in the moments leading up to going on stage, I forgot what I was gonna say. I have no slides either on stage, right? I don't go with a PowerPoint presentation. There's one slide, it just has my, my name and face on it. That's it, no slides. If I forget what I'm going to say, I'm kind of screwed.

So breathe.

Evan Carmichael does difficult things. I do difficult things, right? You remind yourself. What that does is put you into a more resourceful state to go and actually solve the problem. So that's step 1. You do difficult things. And again, it's not just the big hero moments, it's the micro. There's difficult things that have happened already today that you have not done what you need to do because it was difficult and you give yourself an out. Go do it. What that does for your self-love, for your self-pride, for self-respect, for your self-confidence is incredible. And, and you need to give yourself that gift. I want you to give yourself that gift every day of doing the difficult thing. And for you, something that's difficult may seem trivial or small for somebody else. When I broke my neck and was struggling with a concussion, getting out of bed was difficult. Just getting out of bed and putting my feet on the ground and standing up was incredible pain through my spine. Incredible pain, which is something I take for granted now, but that was difficult. And so when, when those things happen, you pat yourself on the back. You did it. You did the difficult thing. So that's step number 1. You do difficult things. The second mindset shift is leaning into service. It's not even about you. Newsflash: it's not about you.

You're here to serve.

You're here to help.

You're at your—

for all the ambitions that you have for yourself, whatever the thing is that you're afraid to do, usually the thing we're afraid to do is in front of somebody else. You're not afraid of failing. You're afraid of failing and who's gonna see you fail, right? You will sing in the shower, but you won't sing on the street corner.

Why?

People will film videos at home, at their home, but not film it on the street where people can see them because you're afraid of being watched. You're not afraid of failing, you're afraid of failing in front of other people. You need to stop being selfish, get out of your own head, and recognize that you're here to serve. You're here to help. You've got a message, knowledge, information that can help people, and by you playing small, you're doing a disservice to them and to yourself. And so that's the other thing that I'll lean into is, yeah, Evan Carmichael does difficult things, but also I'm here to serve. And so when I'm backstage and I'm— I know Brendan's gonna watch me, I know thousands of people are watching me, and I'm afraid of disappointing everybody— I look out into the audience and instead of seeing 2,000 people who are here to judge me and I'm gonna disappoint them, I'm here looking at them saying, I have a message I'm here to serve them because what I'm going to share, Brendon doesn't know. Eric Thomas doesn't know. The other speakers here, his partners, they don't know. I can share something unique that can help them. And my intention is good. I'm here to help these people, not rip them off, not lead them down a dark path. I'm here to help them. And that again shifts how you feel about yourself. To give you the courage, the boldness, the motivation, the power to go and then do the thing that the growth version of you needs. That's how you get out of the comfort zone. That's how you get out of comfort you, scared you, small you into powerful you, bold you, courageous you, growth you. Number 1, you do difficult things. Anytime you find yourself complaining, scary, difficult, hard, Negative, you do difficult things. And number 2, you're here to serve. You're here to serve, you're here to help, you're trying to do good. And keeping your gifts to yourself is selfish, and you have to share it and get it out there. Those 2 things on a daily basis, on a daily basis, every single day, that's that battle raging inside your head between the growth you and the comfort you. And my ambition, my intention, my goal for you is to have growth you win a little bit more than comfort you. It's not going to be 100% growth you. There's no way that's going to happen. Don't make that perfection the bar. It's that every day growth you wins at least 51% of the battles versus comfort you. You do that, your life will change.

Rule number 8: Be the chief goal officer.

Influencing someone starts with you being their chief goal officer. That is your job. Be their chief goal officer. You have to understand what their values are. You have to understand what their ambitions are. You have to understand who they are. Before you can influence them. The worst advice that you can give somebody— this is a challenge a lot of leaders face when they're building their organization— the worst advice you can give somebody is what you would do. The worst advice you can give somebody is what you would do because they're not you, because they have different values, because they have different ambitions, because they want a different path than what you've taken. And so if you just say, here's what I would do, and then you come off feeling like you're a hero and a genius, you've maybe screwed them over. And so you need to start by being a chief goal officer. If people are not listening to you, if people are not following your orders, if people do not respect you, it's because you're giving them wrong advice because you have not done the work to be their chief goal officer and then help them accomplish what they want to accomplish and figure out the best path for them. Okay, so how do you become somebody's chief goal officer? I'm gonna give you 3 ways to do it. Step number 1 is know their one word and credo. Your one word is your most important core value, the thing that you stand on, and the credo are the 3 things that make up, that define what that one word is for people. When I first wrote the book, Your One Word, I didn't anticipate it being a leadership book. I thought it'd be just something that you use for yourself, but it's shocking how many people now buy the book and give it to their team. So you get a window of what your team's core values are so you know how to move and inspire them. As an example, if their one word, if somebody in your team's one word is freedom, then it gives you a window of how to handle that person. They don't want to be micromanaged. They don't want to be told what to do 24/7. They need to have some freedom in their decision-making and controls so they can go off and do their job, so they can express themselves, so that they can have fun and be happy. The more you are handcuffing them, the more they feel like you're putting them in a jail, the more you're going to lose and you're not going to influence them.

Them.

So step number 1 is figure out for everyone on your team, what are their one words and credos? Step number 2 is what are their ambitions? What do they want? What do they want to accomplish? Are they trying to make a lot of money? Are they trying to move to another country? Are they trying to learn some certain skills? Like, what do they want? What are they here for?

What are they trying to get?

Because yes, they're here to do a job. Yes, you want them to figure out how to do XYZ because you have a business target and you're trying to accomplish that thing. Awesome. They're a human being. They're not a robot. They're not a monkey. They're not just typing things in for you so you can accomplish your goals. You have your goals and they have their own set of goals. And if you are not being their chief goal officer, if you do not understand what their ambitions are, then you're going to lose. Then you're going to give them tasks that they don't want to do anymore, that they're going to grow and learn and want to expand. And you don't know how they want to expand and they're going to quit and they're going to leave you and you're not going to be able to push them forward. You have to do the job of figuring out how If they want to go here, this is their ambition, and they're here right now, you have to make that path visible. You have to show them how they can go from here to here, and then you put everything that they're doing in that light. So this is the path. I want you to get here too. I know you want to be here. I want you to get here. Here's how to get there. And they may not see it because they haven't experienced it yet. They may not be able to tie the dots together to say, oh, if I do this, I'll be able to get there. That's your job.

Help them.

Be their chief goal officer. Understand their ambitions, step number 2. And then step number 3 is how can you run parallel paths together? So it's pretty unlikely that somebody on your team will stay with you forever. They have ambitions, they have goals, they want to get somewhere. And if you understand what their goals are and you know where you want to go, then great, you're running this parallel path together. And that parallel path might be for 3 months, it might be for a year, it might be for 6 years, or it might be forever. But at some point they want to go off and do something else. You're a stepping stone for them to get somewhere else, and that's awesome. You should celebrate that. Don't fear that. Celebrate that, and then figure out how you can be a part of their success, how you can run that parallel path together. And then when they're ready, push them away. Like, you're ready, you should go off and do that thing now. Go do that thing, you're ready, you shouldn't be with me anymore. Figure out how you can run the parallel paths together and then help them go and be the person that they want to be. Once they've hit the end of the road with you. So that's a 3-step process to being someone's chief goal officer. 1, figure out what their one word and credo are. 2, figure out what their ambitions are. And then 3, figure out how can you run parallel paths together.

Rule number 9: Raise your environment.

You become who you consistently hang around with, who you spend the majority of your time with, both people who you actually physically meeting and connecting with and hanging out with, and what you feed into your brain. That's how you start to think, that's how you start to behave, that's how you start to act. Think about your mindsets, your belief systems. It comes from the people who you're consistently around. So if you want to change your life, you want to change your direction, you're tired of living where you are, you're tired of your situation right now, the fastest way to change it is to change who you start to associate with. I remember when I first got started on my entrepreneurial career, I always felt like I was kind of a dummy. I was a slow learner in school. I never got— I didn't fail out of class, but I never got the straight A's, you know, that my sisters kept getting. And what I realized was I'm not dumb. I just need the right models and the right mentors. I had a different way of learning than a lot of people, and when I started to figure figure that out is like, I'm not, I'm not an idiot, I'm not dumb, I can do this, but I need to be around the people who are doing it. Because, because when I can get that mentorship, when I can get that learning style down, then I can do amazing things. That's it. That's the only difference. The only difference is I just don't have the right people around me. And I learned that lesson over and over and over and over again, that when I just try to figure it out myself, I usually don't win. When I'm doing a structured learning style like in a classroom setting, I also usually don't win. But when I can surround myself with the people who are doing it and get the coaching and mentorship and guidance that I need, I can win. I can actually do stuff. It's a big revelation. I'm not a dummy like I thought I was growing up. How do you do it? How do you actually start to be around the people who are inspiring you, lifting you up? 3 strategies that I think will help. Okay, the first is actual people in your life. So you start to audit the people in your life. How much of the people in your life building you up, making you believe in yourself, giving you encouragement, giving you support, giving you love, telling you that you can do it? How many people do you have like that in your life? Probably not a lot. Most of us probably don't have that many people. And so you want to immediately cut out the people who are not giving you that hope and encouragement, or at least spending less time with them, because maybe that's your mom, right? So spending less time or not talking about your career or your business with the people who don't support you, and then injecting more of the people who do, and fighting to find ways to spend more time with the people who lift you up, who make you feel like things are possible, fighting to spend more time with them. I have an expression that I use where I like to go— I like to collect good people. I like to collect good people, like to have people around me that make me feel great. And when I find somebody, I fight to try to spend more time with them, whether it's start a business with them, whether that's do a monthly call with them. Think about who's made you feel the best. Who is somebody that you know? And it probably isn't your parents or close family members. There's somebody in, in the outer ring of your circle. How can you now regularly spend more time with them? An easy starting point is a monthly call. How can you have a monthly coffee with them to talk about your business ideas and where you're going? So you want to try to inject more of that positivity into your circle, into your group, into your life. Step number 2 is the aspirational people that you may never meet, but you can be surrounded by. So if you love Warren Buffett, hey, maybe, maybe Warren Buffett's not going to sit down with you for a monthly coffee to chat about your business and your ideas, but There's his videos, there's his books, there's lots of stuff on YouTube. You can start with my channel. There's a lot of content that you can learn. If you watched a Warren Buffett video every day, guess what's going to happen? You're going to start to think like him. You're going to start to adopt his mindset, his mentality. You're going to, you're going to take on his belief systems a little bit more. And so the more you're around Warren Buffett, the more you're going to start to process things like him and think like him.

And so you may never meet him.

For all the people who are watching to say, well, I don't know anybody who's had success, okay, well, you don't need to, but you can still learn from the people who've done it. That's the beauty of YouTube right now. That's, that's everything that I've learned. I learned, I learned how to get out of the hole I was in with my first business by learning from Bill Gates. I still have never met Bill Gates, but he saved my company because I learned from his story, because I was willing to at that time read books. Now I would much prefer to watch videos than to read books on the topic.

But however you learn—

videos, books, podcasts— your heroes are making content. Be around them more. Be around them more because they will lift you up. They will make you feel like things are possible when the people around you are telling you all the reasons why you're not going to win. And then step number 3 is join some kind of group. Join some kind of group, some kind of community, some kind of connection where you can be around like-minded people. The one that I use a lot is my Movement Makers program. So inside Movement Makers, we meet every 2 weeks talking about a different tactic to grow your movement and also connecting people together. It becomes a family. When you're the only one in your circle doing something, man, it's so hard to keep going, to keep the motivation, to, to be the person who's constantly lifting other people up.

Who's doing that for you?

So whether it's Movement Makers or some other program, get into one where you're around your peers, when you're around people who are also trying to do big things, when you're around somebody else who's trying to have a big impact and change the world. And when you're saying even language like that, you know, if I'm talking about, I want to build something to change the world, you know, most of the people shopping here at Costco are like, when— who's this crazy guy? You can't do that, right? That's most of the people around us. But when you find your tribe of people who are also trying to do something big, something scary, something crazy, you start to feel like, this is possible, finally, yes, right? And so whether it's Movie Makers or something else, to get a part of a network of people, your peers. So in the early— the first two bits of advice, you're learning from people who are— who've done more than you. But being just around peers who are doing the same thing, maybe in a different industry, but they're, they're trying to chase down their goals, you can motivate each other so that when you're feeling down, they, they give you a little bit of extra jet fuel, and, and you do the same for them. You fill them up when they need it, because that little extra bit can make the difference between you quitting and you going off and spending one more day. And that one day might be the difference between you building a giant company or working at some job that you hate for the rest of your life. And so your heroes really matter. The people you surround yourself with really matters. There's only so much you can do completely by yourself. You know, the fastest way to win is to, is to model success. And so you can do that. You can do that if you follow those 3 steps. If you start to weed out the people from your life who are just filling with negativity and spend more time with good people, learn to collect good people. If you learn from your aspirational mentors and you you watch their videos. Make it part of your daily routine. That's why I make so much content, because there's always somebody you can learn from.

But there's no excuse.

We— I don't know how many videos we do every single day. A lot of different videos every single day. Why? Because there's no excuse now for you not to be surrounded by your heroes, to learn something from them, to be educated by them, to be inspired by them every single day, whether it's my videos or something else, to inject that as part of your daily routine in in the morning. It really, really matters. And then 3, to join a group, some kind of peer group. Be around people who are doing things that you can lean on and ask for their support, and that you can, you can support them as well when they need the help. You do those 3 things, your life will change.

Rule number 10, the last one before our very special bonus clip: build momentum.

With YouTube, I feel like this is my moment. I feel like I know what I'm doing. I feel like I have my window however long it's gonna last. It could be 6 months, 12 months, 24 months. I got to push as hard as I can. I feel like we're really hitting it. I think it's a great combination of everything that I love doing, my skill sets, my interests, my passion right now, to provide value to myself and to you guys. And so that's why I'm pushing hard. I'm making 3 videos a day. I go to my website. I had a shift where I said, you know what, I want to solve the world's biggest problem: untapped human potential.

What does that look like?

I don't know. When I first launched it, I had no idea. I deleted my entire website, threw up one picture, and that was my homepage. If you go right now, you'll see it's still a bunch of pictures. I had a little bit more meat to the bones, but I still don't know where it's going. I don't have all the answers around it. I'm still trying to figure it out, but I figure it out by doing, by testing, by having conversations. And so from an SEO From a technical perspective, my website sucks.

But I wasn't interested in the direction I was going anymore. I switched. And so I had to find a way to get started. And so I did it myself.

My website has now what I call the circle of potential, and all of those points you can click on it and dive a little bit deeper.

Somebody made a comment when he clicked on the first version of my self-awareness button. He said, well, it's only promoting your stuff.

It should have a wider range. You're right. I don't know the answer yet.

I'm figuring it out.

And so I don't let the fear of making mistakes prevent me from doing anything.

Because if I waited until I had the whole thing figured out, what the perfect website would look like, I'd never launch it.

And having a website that's not complete and building some momentum with it drives me to want to do more on it, drives me to want to figure out more details on it. And so some pages are more worked out than others, but all of them need a lot more work. And it just came from that initial idea, that initial thesis, that as soon as you have an idea for something, you find immediate ways to take action on it because the momentum is so, so, so, so, so, so important. The biggest risk of all is not taking any risk at all.

I think comparing yourself to others is actually fantastic. I think most people aren't even doing it enough. The challenge is people do it incorrectly. The problem is people compare themselves to others as a way to kick themselves down. You look at somebody else who's done a lot more than you and you say, "Wow, they're so much better than me. I can never do it." And that's kicking yourself down. What you need to do, you flip it and say, "Wow, that person has done so much. That's what's possible." I'm comparing my beginning to their middle or to their end, which is an unfair comparison. They can get there, therefore I can go chase my dreams down as well. That's a kick forward. Most people kick themselves down. What you need is to kick forward. But without the kick, you stay stuck. So if you want to stay exactly where you are, don't compare yourself to anybody. You want to move forward, compare yourself in a loving way forward. There's a classic story of Roger Bannister who who broke the 4-minute mile, where it was supposed to be impossible to break the 4-minute mile. Nobody was ever supposed to be able to do it. And then he did it. And everybody thought your body would break down and that it just would never, ever, ever happen. And then Roger Bannister did it.

And then what happened?

Lots of other people did it. High school kids did it. People around the world have done it. Why?

Because they saw somebody else do it.

When you can compare yourself to somebody else and see that they can do it, that can be the inspiration to move yourself forward. Again, the kick forward. If you just look at that and say, "Wow, he's superhuman. I can never do it," then you're right. You stay stuck. But some people, the people who often win, the people who also have a happier life, look at that and say, "I can do something similar." And people did. I actually heard about that Roger Bannister story through Les Brown. And when people ask me who is my favorite motivational speaker, Who do you think is the greatest speaker of all time?

I say Les Brown.

I don't know who touches Les Brown. I mean, there's so many great speakers, so many amazing people out there. I've had the good fortune of connecting with a lot of them, but man, Les Brown, when he gets on a tear, it's something different. He takes you to a different world. And I remember when I first heard him, I was like, holy cow, this guy is so good. And it was at the start of my career of filming videos and making content. And I thought, how does he— how does he know those scripts? And how does he memorize those lines? And how does he just speak for an hour and not need notes or a PowerPoint or anything else? Like, this man is crazy. It's impossible. I could never get that good. And I used to compare myself in a negative way, like, I could never be Les Brown. And then somewhere along the line, I flipped the to say, hey, I'm getting better. And I love what Les is doing because he's actually guiding the industry because it's actually showing what's possible, that if he can do it, then I can do it too. He's actually paving the way for people like me to come up and be speakers as well. And I actually had the good fortune of last week being on a Facebook Live with him where he was interviewing me. About my story. Like, what? Les Brown is interviewing me about my story? This is crazy!

How did this happen?

Because I used him as an inspirational kick forward. See, if you never see anybody who's like you doing it, it's really, really hard to get up and do. If you're the only person that you know in your family and the only person you know in your community, the only person you see online anywhere trying to do the thing that you want to do, it's really, really, really, really hard to stay motivated. But when you can see somebody else, when you can model success, when you can have an example to follow, I think that makes the path easier because it gives you more hope knowing that it's possible. The trick is, again, the key is, again, that in the comparison to somebody else, you're kicking yourself forward to say that's what's possible, not down to say I suck.

You can get great at almost any skill, almost any skill. You could get great at if you wanted to. If you dedicated yourself to practicing, if you dedicated yourself to modeling success, if you dedicated yourself to doing it, you could get great at almost any skill. Now, you know, where people go with this is the, the extreme, like, well, I, I can't become, you know, a 7-footer in the NBA. It's like, okay, great, if you're 5'2", you know, you might not be able to be a foot in the NBA, right?

But, but just think about it. Think about your goals. Think about your dreams.

Think about where you want to go. What you want to do is possible. Stop looking at all the, the rare exceptions of how you can't do it, and instead focus on how you can. Where we struggle is because the things that we need to get great at, we probably aren't very good at. That. This is a really big deal for entrepreneurs because you're probably good at some things. You're probably naturally good at some things, or you had some training, or your parents put you into classes and you developed a skill set at something. But you may not like that thing. Like, this is, this is the trick.

We're good at things that we don't like doing. You're probably really good at a lot of things that you don't want to actually now commit the rest of your life to doing.

And so this creates the dilemma. This creates an entrepreneur's dilemma. We should name it something. Maybe it's the entrepreneur's dilemma, where you have two choices. You either focus on what you're good at that can get you paid, that can get you a job, that can maybe even have you start your business. You're good at it, you can get paid doing it, but it is not something you enjoy. And the more you do it, you so— you slowly start to lose your soul. It slowly starts to be life-sucking for you. Like, imagine this thing that you're good at that you don't like doing. Just imagine, you close your eyes, you're daydreaming. Imagine that you had to do this thing for the next 40 years of your life. How much would you hate your life if you keep doing those things? So it's that— you keep doing the things that you're good at but you don't like. Versus the things that you want to be good at, that you really love, but right now you suck at it.

That's the hardest thing for people.

It's like you want to get good at this other thing, that's where your passion is, that's where your heart is, but you don't have the skills yet. And so a lot of entrepreneurs, where they quit, that's where a lot of you will quit. You'll quit, you'll stop because you're not good at it. It's like, oh wow, I suck at it. And so I guess I'll never be good at it. And so then you don't do it, where all you need to do is flip it to say, okay, I'm—

I don't suck as a human.

I don't— I don't— I'm not good at the skill set yet, but I can get good at it. How do I get good at it? Is by practicing. When I first started making videos, everything is against me, right? If you look at who I was, where I came from, my personality, my thought process, Everything was against me for making videos. So let me, let me break it down. Let me actually take you into the early days of Evan Carmichael making YouTube videos. I am shy. I am introverted. Uh, I don't like disappointing people. I have no need to be famous, you know. I don't, I don't like the spotlight. I actually would rather be at the back of the room instead of, you know, on stage. All of this doesn't sound good for somebody who's I'm then gonna go make videos. Turning on the camera terrified me. Uh, I'm filming here in a parking lot, right? Or my wife is shopping at Costco there. Um, I would never be able to do this. You know, there's people walking by. This would, this would freak me out. I would say, who's that? Who's that crazy guy in the car doing that thing? You know, on paper, I guess everything looked like it was against me. I made a video. Because I had this idea to make a video because I'm a visual learner. I think your purpose comes from your pain. I struggled so much as an entrepreneur, I wanted to make the road a little bit easier for other entrepreneurs. And so I made one video and it was, it was not the greatest experience. I was terrified. I was sitting down, I was in a suit, I was nervous, I was memorizing the script because I was so worried afraid that I was gonna say the wrong words and people wouldn't like my video. They can go back and watch that first one I did on Walt Disney, and it took a day or whatever to make this one short video. And I'm not even on camera for most of it. Most of it is me doing an audio because I could, I could read it.

I wanted to read the script.

I had the perfect script, and there was B-roll on top of it, and it was very little of me actually on camera. But even those few lines I had on camera, I was terrified and I was trying to memorize and I was sweating. And it's funny, sitting down in the suit, all that was hilarious. I wasn't very good at it. I wasn't very good at it. But there was something about it that I just liked.

I liked it.

I liked the idea. None of it made sense, right? Again, there was no option to be YouTube famous. Nobody was YouTube famous, uh, in, in education in 2009 when I first started.

It didn't exist.

And my personality of being introverted, shy, all that did not lend itself well to being, uh, a personality. But for some reason, even though everything was seemingly against me on paper, I just, I liked it.

And I wasn't very good at it, but I thought, you know what, I can get better.

I'm gonna keep doing this thing.

And it took me—

you could see my stats, and I posted often to my Instagram once a month, an update of how my channel is doing. From the first video that I posted, it took 5 years to get to 9,000 subscribers. 5 years to get to 9,000 subscribers. A lot of you guys are already way ahead of that after your first year of just making content. You're already ahead. And then I went 5 years again from the 9,000 to, you know, 2 million. See, there's a person next to me right now. Try to film her. This would freak me out. I'm gonna be filming here, making a video with this person's right next to me. How is she judging me? What is she thinking? What is she doing? You know, I'd get super distracted. I wouldn't be able to film content.

So it took me 350 videos until I wasn't completely embarrassed by myself.

Embarrassed like I watch back my own videos. They were too painful to watch. I would look at it, I would judge myself, I would criticize myself. I would, I would say, man, you're still not very good. I would find a million things that was wrong with the video, just so many, so many things that I was not happy with. 350 public videos, guys, 350. And then it took 700 videos until I inspired myself, until I watched it back. I said, man, I'm I'm starting to get decent at this, you know, there's something there. Maybe, maybe I have a future here.

700 public videos later, it's crazy.

So what, what kept me through it? What kept me consistent? How did I keep going? Because the mission, yes, of wanting to help serve entrepreneurs, but also I liked, I liked it. I like the process of doing it. There was something about And again, even though it didn't make sense for someone like me to do it, I liked it. It was fun. And so I kept going. And, you know, now we're over 10,000 videos later, still making content, still doing it, and not burning out because I like the process. If you love what you're doing, you're not going to burn out. Happiness comes down to fulfillment versus excitement. When people ask me, hey Evan, how do you, 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 a 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 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 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 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 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. Yeah, 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 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.

This— 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 But that's why it's excitement. Jumping from an airplane, you know, it's exciting. It's not sustainable. You're not going to 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 going to 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's 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 in 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, right? 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 10 seconds, 8 seconds, 15 seconds at a time. You can choose at any point to be happy.

Because you made it this far in the 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.

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