In this motivational video, Evan Carmichael argues that entrepreneurs should deliberately surround themselves with positive people, media, and environments to boost productivity and business success. He shares a distressing story about a 24‑year‑old Norwegian woman who was assaulted in Dubai and then jailed for reporting the crime, using it as an example of how exposure to extreme negativity can derail focus. Carmichael emphasizes the need to filter out harmful news and toxic individuals while still addressing legitimate business feedback. He explains his personal practice of avoiding negative news for years, describing how this ignorance of world events improves his mood, motivation, and entrepreneurial performance. The video concludes with a call for viewers to like, comment, and engage, offering to answer business questions in future episodes.
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You need to surround yourself with positive energy, positive people, things that bring you up, because running a business is hard enough. You don't need to have negativity around you that will only bring you down. Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. I believe that hungry entrepreneurs deserve help. And recently a friend of mine forwarded me an article about this young Norwegian girl who was 24 years old and went to Dubai on business and ended up getting raped. And somebody mixed something in her drink, and she woke up and she was she was getting raped. And as if that wasn't bad enough, she reported it to the police and they arrested her because it's illegal in Dubai to have sex outside of marriage. And the only way to recognize rape is if either the rapist comes forward or 4 men of Muslim faith say that they saw it happen. And I got so frustrated and angry at this situation. You know, like, imagine being that girl. You're going somewhere on business, you're just trying to get a deal done, and to have that happen to you, like, as if that wasn't bad enough, to then report it to the police thinking you're doing the right thing, and they're the ones throwing you in jail. It just blew my mind, and it ruined the rest of my afternoon. I couldn't focus. I knew I had stuff to get done, and I was doing it, but it wasn't the way I should be working. And I told my friend, "Don't send me this stuff anymore." Because running a business is hard enough. And I try as much as possible to avoid negativity. Avoid negative people, avoid negative news. You have to pay attention to the negative things in your business. You know, if somebody's saying something bad about your company, if a customer's had a bad experience, okay. You can't just say, "Hey, life is great, I'm gonna ignore these people." You gotta take care of the problem. But if it's something like this that has nothing to do with yourself or your business, then I'd rather not know about it. I'd rather be able to try to surround myself with people and news and information that is positive and uplifting because it makes me feel better and it makes me more productive. I haven't watched the evening news in maybe 10 years because it's mostly negative. It's all the negative stuff that's happening in the world, and I'd rather not know about it. And that may sound like I'm ignorant and not knowing about worldly events, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay to be ignorant on some things and know my business and know the people that I care about really well, because it makes me feel better. It makes me happier. It makes my business stronger. And so I'd encourage all of you to shut out the negativity in your life as much as possible. If there's negative people around you or people sharing negative news with you all the time, just shut them out. Phase them out. Because they're not bringing you anything that's going to help you. You want to create an environment by the people you meet, by the websites you read, by the TV shows that you watch, by the books that you're, you're reading right now. You want to surround yourself with things that bring you up, that give you ideas, that motivate you, that make you want to be a better person, that help you become the best entrepreneur you can be. So that's my little rant for the day. For those of you watching, if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up. I always love seeing those come in, and please leave a comment below. It really is one of the best parts of my day seeing your comments come in underneath. So if you have a comment about this video or a question for your own business, I'd love to try to help. Please leave a comment, and I'll see you on the next episode.
