Evan Carmichael argues that heart-driven decisions create new possibilities while head-driven ones stay trapped in the rational world. He turned down offers from Merrill Lynch and McKinsey to start a company that grew to 30 countries and was acquired. Following passion looks illogical to others but leads to greater fulfillment.
Questions this video answers
Listen to your heart. If journalism feels right, pursue it despite societal expectations; it’s more courageous and smarter than staying in a path that will make you unhappy.
Chapters
Follow your heart. Whenever you're faced with a major decision in your business or your life, the most important thing that you can do, the best decision to make, is to follow your heart and not your head. The reason why it's so important is because your head, it's logical, it's rational, and if you're making a decision, it always revolves around the world that currently exists. It's a concrete world. I can't fathom creating something new because that wouldn't be logical. You can't think about a world that doesn't yet exist because that is not logical. That's not rational. When you think with your heart, when you're following your heart, you understand that you can make any world you want. Whatever you want to go and do, you can go and do. You can create the world that you want to live in. But that's not logical. That's not rational. If you are making an important decision, if you end up doing something with your life, if you are in a job that is great with your head, right? I told you this makes sense logically, but your heart's not in it, you're never going to be successful. But if your heart is into something, if you're passionate about something, your brain will find a way to make that work. You have to lead with your heart. It's critical. Any important decision in your business or your life has to be led with your heart. Think about somebody graduating from school who maybe loves math. Loves math and is thinking about, "Should I become an accountant or should I become a chess player? Because I love chess." What do most people do? They'd say, "Become an accountant." Because they're thinking with their head. They're making a decision with their brain. Because they look at the world that currently exists and they say, "Hey, if you're an accountant, you got a steady job, there's lots of jobs open right now, you have income coming in, you can look after yourself and your family. Go take that job." If you do that, if you're that kid, you're great at math, you go and you take that job as an accountant when you love chess, if you do that route because people say you should become an accountant, it's the safe route, it makes sense, it's logical, you're never going to be happy in your career and in your life. You're not gonna be happy. You're doing something only because your head, but not because you feel it. You gotta feel it. Now I'm not knocking on accountants. If you love accounting, if that's your thing, then go out and be the world's best accountant. Own it, love it. But if you love chess, go be a chess player. And people say, There's no way to make money off of chess. That doesn't make sense. That's a crazy idea. There's a million ways to make money off of chess. Okay? If you love this, if you're passionate about it, this is something that you were born to do. There's a million different ways to make money off of being a chess player and you'll have more success, have more money, have more excitement, have more happiness in your life if you follow that route, become the chess player instead of going off and becoming an accountant. This is important. I think about my own life. When I was graduating university, okay, I was starting up my business. I had my business starting university, and I was sucking. I was sucking as an entrepreneur. I was not getting anywhere near the results I thought I was going to get. I'm making $300 a month. Failure. And when I'm getting into my last year, I got job opportunities with 2 of the biggest companies, most respected companies that I wanted to potentially work for. I was looking at Merrill Lynch and McKinsey Consulting. If you wanted to be an investment banker or if you wanted to be in strategic consulting, those are the top 2 companies. And they came to me. They came recruiting me, wanted me to join their companies. Looking at everybody in my class, they would die for that opportunity. That's what everybody geared themselves towards. That's what you were trained to want to go and become. You're making six figures the day you graduate, you're traveling around the world, you're closing huge deals. That was the lifestyle everybody wanted. And, and I barely put effort into the interviews, and I didn't get the job because my heart wasn't in it. My heart was in this crappy little company that wasn't doing anything yet. If I did make that decision with my head, I would have looked at the two scenarios logically, right? On the one hand, I have this crappy company, I'm barely making any money on it, I don't know if this thing is ever going to take off, I have no track record as an entrepreneur, my partner's never done anything. What makes me think this is going to be a success? Nothing logical. Versus, six figures, travel, doing interesting work. Why wouldn't I go the safe route? Why wouldn't I take that job? Because I was listening to my heart. I would never have thought, it would never have made sense that I would have taken that company from $300 a month to building it up to having customers in 30 countries like NASA and Johnson Johnson, to being acquired, to then going into a venture capital company, helping raise millions of dollars for entrepreneurs, and then starting my own venture again with a goal to help a billion entrepreneurs, to start this movement around believing in entrepreneurs, to make a real impact, to have all the traction that I've gotten so far, I would never have thought of that with my head. And if I did, it wouldn't have made sense. If I was going back to my last day of university and looking at those options, that wouldn't be a smart, logical, rational decision. You never know the world that you can create unless you listen to your heart. And I'm so glad I did, because I look at my friends who did take those jobs 10 years later, and they hate their lives. They have no family time. They're bored with what they're doing. They don't feel like they're growing. They're burnt out. They're stressed out. And I'm so glad that I didn't go that route. And at the time, it was, it was scary. It was stupid. It was crazy. Why would I go do this? It didn't make any sense because I was listening to my heart. You have to feel it. You have to feel like you're doing the right thing and you have to be willing to turn away people who doubt you, right? You're going to have the nonbelievers. You're going to have lots of people who say, what are you doing? This is crazy. This doesn't make any sense. And often when you listen to your heart, it doesn't make any sense because you're off creating a world that never existed before. You're creating Spanish. Something for yourself that never happened before. You're blazing a new trail, and you're fulfilled, and you're going to be happy. You're going to make a lot of money, have a lot of success doing it, but it doesn't come easy, and it doesn't make sense to everybody else at the start. And so you have to have the courage to push through that, push through the naysayers, and follow your heart. This whole rant came out of a question from one of my YouTube viewers, Lindy. Love you guys. Who wrote in to say she's interning at a magazine company. She's an accounting student, wants to know what I think about changing her degree to journalism. She's in her final year. Does it make sense to do it or not? First of all, it doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't matter what you think. Stop, stop being up here. Listen to your heart. What feels right? Do you love journalism? If you do, that's the path. Follow it. And it takes guts, it takes courage to start down one path like you've done with accounting and then say, "This is not right for me," and switch. It takes a lot of guts because in the eyes of society, you're seen as a failure. You're seen as someone who doesn't know what they want. You're seen as someone who's giving up. But it's way more courageous and way more smart to do that than to continue on this path and hate your life because society tells you so. So, you know, Lindy, it doesn't matter what I think. Listen to your heart. And for those of you watching, you have an important decision in front of you right now in your business or your life. You're not sure whether to say yes or no to an opportunity. Listen to your heart, what feels right. Get out of your head because this isn't going to help you. Go with what feels right. Listen to your heart and your head will find a way to make it happen for you. Believe. For those of you watching, like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. Always makes me want to do more for you. And let me know what you think. You listen to your head or your heart? Put it in the comments below. I want to see your responses. Those comments keep me going. You have a question? Put it below as well. I'll make a video response. Thank you so much. And I'll see you soon.
