Unlock Your Potential: Transform Negative Thoughts into Powerful Motivations

I've had to push people out of my company because the best thing for them to do is not be with me. Yeah, but that's a problem because sometimes people just get— they love the culture and they love the energy and they love to believe, and it's like the greatest place they've ever worked, and the opportunities, and just the vibe is so high, and the teamwork is not like people yelling at each other. But dude, your dream is to go do this. Like, you can't be doing this with me anymore. And you have to kick them out so they can actually go chase down their dreams. Yeah, so we've had to do that to a couple people. Everybody wants to serve, you know. If you're not serving, you're not happy. And some people want to serve the world, and some people to them. I want to serve the world. If you felt like today you're going to wake up and you weren't going to serve, it doesn't matter if you show up today, you go to work, whatever, nobody cares. That's the path down to depression, anxiety, suicide, all of that, because you feel like you don't matter to anybody.

Yeah.

But if you felt like today I was going to do something that would matter to somebody, whether it's the world or one person, you're like, today is going to mean something to somebody else. That's how you get to purpose and happiness and fulfillment.

Welcome to the very first episode of The Standout.

Let's go.

I'm here with my very first guest, Evan Carmichael.

I thought you were gonna say your very close friend, but I'll take your very first guest.

We became friends just recently.

Very quickly.

So yesterday we spoke about, you did a test because you started a show, The Things That I Suck At or something like that.

Tell Me Why I Suck.

Tell Me Why I Suck, where you bring on people, experts in their craft to, come on and show you or illuminate areas where you may suck or may want to improve. And one of them was kind of figuring out all the things that are disbelief or things that come up that are negative thought processes. And instead of immediately replacing them with a positive thought, you just sit with them instead because you trained yourself whenever a negative thought comes in you immediately replace it with a positive one. And it seems like it served you because you are a successful entrepreneur.

Yeah, except grief, that's the only one, but everything else, yes.

Gotcha. And so when did you start the habit of replacing those negative thoughts with positive ones, and then when did you start to see them take root and actually manifest in your life?

I don't know that I made a conscious choice that like now I'm gonna replace this thought with this thought. I think it's just as a result of being in the industry so long, watching so many, like if you think about what I do and how many videos I watch of how many successful people, they all have some core themes to them. And whether it's entrepreneurs or athletes or artists or musicians or whoever, they have similar themes. Turning lemons into lemonade, turning the negative into a positive is a consistent theme across everybody. And so I think it just, it happened subconsciously just by being in the environment of having those people around me virtually to the point where I was doing that exercise, being forced to sit with negative thoughts and I had changed, but I didn't notice. There was no moment of coming out of the cocoon and now I'm a butterfly, it just slowly became Here I am as a butterfly.

Gotcha, so it was just going through the process.

Yeah, it's like imagine if you were working out your legs every day. You don't see a day-to-day difference. There's no one moment like, oh, you did one extra hard set and now you've got these rippling calves ready to go, right? But I think the only difference was I wasn't even consciously training. It was just because it was in my environment. And I think that happens for most people just in a negative way. You're constantly watching news and Twitter streams and all of this negativity, and all of a sudden, you start to become a negative person because of all the things that are happening around you. But it's not that you can pinpoint one thing that that was the moment you became negative, or even notice that you're becoming negative. It's just happening. And so that's the power of when you shift your environment and you're controlling what you're consuming into your brain. So I was conscious of what I was consuming. I wasn't conscious about a lot of the transformation that happened as a result. It's only in looking back or doing exercises like that that I noticed a difference. I mentioned grief as a caveat because that's the only one that I don't think you can just positive your way out of.

Sure.

You know, like I think you just have to feel your way through grief, at least me. You know, I haven't lost my parents, so that's awesome, but Um, my family dog was like— that was the only time I haven't made videos in the past 10 years, is when my family dog passed away. Wow. Uh, because he died on filming day and I just couldn't film. And I, I could have if it was anything else. If I was jealous, if it was angry, if I got cut off on traffic, if I lost a bunch of subscribers, I don't know, something else happens, like, okay, come on, let's go, Carmichael, like, film. But I just didn't feel right to push past it to film. You know, like I film with a concussion and a broken neck and all this other stuff, but when Toby passed, like, I don't know, it doesn't feel right to just brush it away, and so I just have to feel this.

Yeah, it's just one of those things that you need to sit in, because if you push it away, then maybe it manifests in something other than what you want it to come out as.

Yeah, like I didn't overthink it, and I'm not necessarily saying this is prescriptive for other people to follow, It was just for me in the moment, it actually, it feels right to move from something negative happening to switching to positivity as soon as I can. Like if I have a negative thought like, I'm never gonna make it. Okay, right away, even me saying that, it's like, I'm gonna make it, of course I'm gonna make it. Like it's such a like half a second switch already to the positive, and that feels good, it feels right, like I like that. But when I did that with Toby dying, it's like it didn't feel right. It didn't feel right, so I just didn't do it. But I didn't overthink of like, if I don't do this in a year, I'm gonna regret, or whatever, right? It just didn't feel right.

I guess it's the 5 stages of grief. You don't just go from recognition or whatever that first stage is all the way to the end with skipping the other ones. It's there for a reason because it's taking us through something.

Maybe, I mean, I don't even know what the stages are, but. Yeah, again, I'm not as book smart knowing everybody's methodologies as just doing what I feel works.

Gotcha. And the point that you made about it's just like going to the gym, working out legs. Clearly, I need to work out my legs.

You're still probably better than me on my legs. Although, I'm probably the opposite because I'm on a trampoline.

That's right.

And will jump 20,000 to 40,000 times a day, uh, and so my calves are pretty legit, but my upper body is where I need to train.

So the trampoline to you is push-ups to me, it seems like.

Maybe.

Yeah, you do way more jumps than I do push-ups.

Yeah.

Okay, uh, but before the episode, I just did some push-ups, get the blood flowing, get ready, get my mind right, get my body right for the interview. Um, and now you have your own method to get the blood flowing.

Yep, we're jumping.

But what you're saying is like staying in the gym is what gets you to that process. And you just displayed perfectly, like even just saying it, even it's not, man, it's not even real, but just saying, I'm never gonna make it, boom, your mind is already at the point to where that is not a thing. That's not how we operate. Now let's switch that to a positive. Just shows the mental strength that you've gone through not just by, it's not just a thing that you sit down and do, but through experience, but also monitoring what you consume.

Yeah, I don't even think it's mental strength. I don't think I went through anything really, but it was all subconscious. Like in looking back, it's all subconscious. Like if you took a gym and then your condo was like right beside the gym, like in the same building and you had to walk through the gym to get to your condo every day, you're gonna start working out more. 'Cause you're gonna see other people working out more. You don't even need to come up with a plan of like, how many pushups do I do, when do I do HIIT training, or strength training, or cardio, or machines, or free weights, or whatever. You'll just start doing it because it's around you so much. And most people's environments are designed to keep them small. Not that they have designed it themselves, It has been architected by others.

Right.

It's been architected by your parents. It's been architected by whoever had the place before you. You know, like your place has not been architected. So you can, if you just change the environment, and that's what you consume, that's who you follow. I was doing a podcast today talking about how negative social media is. It's like, not mine.

Yeah.

I go to my Instagram and it's amazing.

All positive.

I go to my YouTube channel, it's like awesome.

Same.

Right? Why? Well, 'cause I'm not following people who are spreading negativity. Like, you could easily go and find lots of negative accounts to go off and follow. I don't watch their stuff. As soon as something negative, I'm swiping away. I don't want that in my algorithm. I don't want you feeding me more of that crap. Like, next, gone, gone, gone, right? And same thing for YouTube.

Yeah, and a lot of times, whether it's parents, friends, people that are close to us, necessarily mean to design an environment that is negative for us, but we need to have the recognition of this isn't serving me anymore.

So yeah, and even maybe, maybe negative is not always the right word. I'd say your environment's been designed to keep you where you are.

Gotcha. And when you— it seems like from a younger age, after high school, once you started working on your business with your partners, you were entrepreneurial minded. What did you do in your environment to kind of get rid of, besides the news, the TV, what kind of things did you remove from your life and still have removed from your life to make sure that you're designing your environment properly for optimal?

So I might answer that in two different ways. You look at like being in university, starting the business versus now, because in university there was no Instagram or YouTube for me. I didn't have a cell phone, and I also wasn't a news junkie. Like, there's a war happening, there's like an oil crisis, somebody was assassinated, there's a riot somewhere, like, I don't know. Yeah, like, I'm not, I used to judge myself for not being in the know on a lot of these things. It's like, I don't care. I'm focused on other things. And so I was never a news junkie where I felt like I had to know what was going on. And so I didn't really have a lot of negative stimulus. But I read books. I just tried to read books of people that inspired me. 'Cause my parents are not entrepreneurs. So they're my heroes in that they taught me how to be a human, believe in others and caring and compassion and all my values that make me who I am. The reason why I invited you here is because of my parents. The push to say, come and let's do it now, even the offer, that's my parents speaking through me. But they're not entrepreneurs, they don't know anything about business. I had to go off and learn that somewhere else, and so I injected books at the time. If you look at it now, I'm a lot more aware of how important environment is. I didn't even know when I was in, I was 19, 20, started the company 19. Yeah. So now it's being conscious of who I surround myself with, events that I go to, what videos I watch. There's a channel that I love, that I've loved for years, and their content shifted in the past 3 months to go a lot more negative. Sure. I stopped watching their videos, and it's a close friend of mine.

Got you.

And it hurts, but it's like Dude, now I feel worse watching your videos. But it's doing better. Okay. It's getting more views. Sure. Yeah, but I don't like it anymore.

Bad news travels 7 times faster.

Yeah, it's a lot more negative and like feeding into the fear and everything else. It's like I don't want that for me. And so it's being conscious of those things and unsubscribing and unfollowing and stop watching that content. And then being around people who lift you up. You know, like being here to make this happen, because you have to go home tonight. You're driving like 6 hours, you're going to get home at like midnight or 1 AM or whatever. Hopefully the border is not too crazy for you. Like you had to move things around or, you know, change your life to stay for this. I had to cancel 3 interviews today to make this happen today. Why? Well, because I wanted to spend more time with you. Because hopefully this, you know, helps you lead to something. Gives you more belief, whatever. Like, again, not overthinking or judging. It's like, I like this guy, I want to help him. And so it's worth it. And those things pay off, you know? Like, we'll be, yeah, 10 years later, we'll come back. It's like, remember that first episode we did at your dance studio? And like, I almost didn't show up. I was the 90-day guy. And like, all this, right? And it doesn't always work out. Like, I've had people where I'm their first episode and then they never post it. They never post the episode. We film it and they never post it. And then they never launch anything.

That will not be me.

Well, but whatever. It's like the gift is the moment. Whatever happens afterwards happens, right? But it's a conscious choice to, when you find somebody, a human in life, a video, a channel that you want to subscribe to, just be around it more. Make a conscious choice to be around it more. More, and there's so many different people that you can meet and so many different channels you can subscribe to or accounts that you can follow. If something hits you in some kind of way, just make an effort to be around it more. Now, it's easy with YouTube or Instagram or whatever. Just follow the account and unfollow the other accounts. With humans, it's trying to find, it's awkward sometimes, right? Ask the person for coffee. You be the one to try to stay in touch with them and ask them, How they're doing. Even this, just like I offered to do— I don't know what you're doing tomorrow or today. I didn't know what you're up to, right? I didn't know what I was up to, dude. I had no idea what I was up to.

Sure.

I agreed to do an interview knowing that it's probably a crazy day, but I didn't know who we'd be canceling on and what time and whatever, right? And listen, if it was really bad, I would have said, hey man, like, sure, you got to talk to Alex instead of me, or whatever. We figured you can always make it up, right? Like, worst case, I can't do it and we do a Zoom or I fly to Ohio or whatever, right? But it's the conscious choice to when you find someone that you like and you want to spend more time with, to spend more time with them because it can make a huge impact on your perspective, on your energy, on your motivation, on the output. You can just go so much, like if you look at this, this was gonna happen, how long were you thinking about doing a podcast?

At least a year.

So you've been thinking about doing it for a year. You meet us, we talk about it. Now you give yourself a 90-day deadline and now we're here. Like you've done more in one day than you've done in the past year.

Yeah, that's right.

Right. And that's, that's the same for a lot of these things, right? Like how many people want to start our YouTube channel or want to start going to the gym or want to start— like if somebody came to you and said, hey, I want to, I want to go to the gym, like, oh yeah, you know, I've been putting on these pounds, want to go to the gym, whatever. But we get stuck in our heads of, well, what gym do I join and what exercises? And like, you know, how about diet? And do I do the keto or do I do the carnivore or do I do the vegan? And I need tools, right? Like I need weights, I guess. Or do I need the home gym? Or do I need to go to a gym? But then I need a trainer. And all of a sudden you're like—

You talk yourself out of it. You created all these roadblocks.

But if they were around you, you'd be like, dude, "Let's do push-ups together." And in them doing like 4.5 push-ups, which might be their max, right? They've done more working out with you in like 8 minutes than in the past 5 years of their life. Right? So like that's the power of being around people who energize you and push you. Like we've done this episode now, you've done more on this than in the past year. Right? And that's how people can, you can level up with them.

And what you're talking about reminds me of something, I can't remember who said it, but sometimes you have to ride other people's belief in you until yours kicks in. And it seems like you're just a big edifier. You just want to push people forward and if something comes from it, great. If nothing comes from it, then you did whatever you wanted to do in that moment.

Yeah, because it's also a gift for me.

Yeah.

Right? Whether I'm— I could be completely delusional too, right? I'm okay with that. I could be completely—

I think you need to be a little delusional.

Yeah, I could be. So like people, I've shared examples of, you know, I was somebody's first guest on their show. I did the same thing that I did for them that we're doing right now. And then they never post. And then people ask, now most people post, right? Well, like, why would you waste your time with that person? It wasn't a waste of time.

Yeah.

Because that was a gift for me to serve. And I still help them in the moment to give them belief to be able to do something, whether, whether they end up continuing on or maybe they realize that content creation isn't for them or whatever. I don't know why they don't post. I'm not following up and like pissed that they didn't post or whatever else. But that was a gift and I helped them level up in that moment. And that, I believe, will have ripple effects out into anything else that they We've taken them to another level that then is gonna help them pop in another area of their life. And maybe that's not true, but at least I tell myself that that's true. So then it's not a waste of time. It was awesome.

Yeah, and if it doesn't happen, it's just like the news. Just like those negative, not that that's a negative situation, but you don't even let it affect you. You don't let what's going on out here—

It's a switch to positive, like back to the first question. It's just an instant switch to the positive, right? So like the 3 people I canceled on today to do this, I mean, I didn't cancel, my team messaged them. So hopefully not. Whether you are or not, right? It's like, I'm assuming we can reschedule. Maybe we can, maybe we can't, I don't know. Maybe they're pissed, hopefully not. Like I think I can always make it up to somebody if I piss somebody off. 'Cause it's not intentional. I mean, worst case, somebody's like super pissed. I can't believe it. I rented this studio. You're supposed to come on, yada, yada, yada. You know, I would say, I'll make it up to you, come to Toronto, I'll make it happen. I would make you make them a personal video to say, dude, I'm so sorry, but like, here's what happened, right? And like, and then it'd be good, right? And if they can't make sense of that, then I wouldn't get along with that person anyway, right? So there's always a, like, everything is savable in the worst case scenario, and the upside is so tremendous.

Right, and one of the things I learned from you last night at David Meltzer's VIP dinner, 'cause you were on the panel, Yeah. Was creating a list of 100 people that you'd like to stay in contact with.

Yeah.

And then following up with them at least 90 days. So it just kind of shows, even if you screwed up, or not necessarily screwed up, say you cancel on these 3 people, you hit them up on the next 90-day touch whenever that comes around, they're probably gonna respond. And they'll probably respond in a positive way.

Yeah, those people aren't on my list, but.

Sure.

But yes.

Sorry for those who are not on his list of 100. Well, it's 300 people.

It's 300 now, yeah.

Okay, am I on the list or?

Not yet, we'll see. We'll see where that goes. We'll see what Dave is. So I sent the picture, it's funny, Dave, I sent the picture to Dave of us at the dinner, 'cause we had dinner together. He wanted to sit next to me, so we did that. And then I read to him, says, thanks for your energy yesterday, Dave. I appreciate you and it's always an honor pouring into people alongside you.

and then he wrote back, I loved it, talk to you within 90 days. That's awesome.

Now Dave is on the list, and I talk to Dave more than every 90 days, but that's like the worst case scenario, 'cause sometimes, that was designed for me because I historically don't remember to stay in touch with people.

Sure.

And I don't know how to stay in touch with people.

Yeah.

You know, if I haven't talked to you in 90 days, I don't know what I would, Like if I don't know, well, I would probably ask you how your show's doing or something. Dave Meltzer or whoever, Gary Vee or whoever, I feel like it's a waste of time just to say, hey Gary, like, what's up? I suck at, I hate small talk. As an introvert, I hate small talk, and so I don't wanna waste somebody's time. And so my solution has been to one, look at their stories on Instagram and then comment on it if there's something on their story, like hey, congrats on the whatever that they just posted. And if they don't have any stories, then my solution, and this has saved me, is I just say, "Hey, happy Friday, sending you love from Canada." And I put like a heart emoji and a Canadian flag. And it's so well received.

[Speaker] That's awesome.

[Speaker] It's crazy how well received it is, 'cause I don't think many people just do that. Even their friends, I don't think they get somebody just dropping love. And then he's like, "Hey," It shocks people at first, and they're like, hey, so, like, they're surprised that there's no other, there's no second punch.

Yeah, there's no obligation for them to even respond, but you're reaching out.

But they're surprised that there's no, 'cause usually it's like, hey, how you doing? But then there's an ask. There's like, I haven't been in touch with you for a while, okay, I'm trying to sell my new book, right? So hey, how you doing, man? Like, good, good, good, yeah, I got my new book, and like, it'd be great to connect and do something together, which, that's most of what happens. but then there's no, I got nothing to sell, I'm just saying hi, like I'm just dropping love, dropping love from Canada.

That's great because one of the, I struggle with that too. I'm an extrovert, but I like, hey, we make the connection and then when we're not in that interaction anymore, I've gone on to want to meet the next person and then the next person, the next person, which is probably why sometimes I even struggle to start things like this because I'm off to trying to figure out the next thing even though I haven't committed to building whatever that first thing was. But it's a great way to do it. Hey, just want to let you know that I'm thinking about you.

That language, that's like every other wording felt weird. 'Cause hey, how you doing? Hey, what are you working on? Hey, can I support you with something you're doing? It felt like too transactional or a waste of time. Like if it's hey, how you doing, just felt like a waste of time. And hey, can I help you with something, it feels like there's going to be like they're expecting me to ask for something back.

When's the next shoe gonna drop?

Yeah, and so I like it. It's just that language or that verbiage of, hey, just dropping you some love from Canada, happy Friday.

Yeah.

It just works great.

Yeah, that's good. And one of the things I was listening to you talk about was your wife Nina. Her chief heart officer role in the business was to incorporate more family values, more keeping the schedule, making sure everyone's in the know of what's going on. Would you say that those two things are connected with your 100-day list, keeping in touch with people, but also incorporating touchpoints within your business? 'Cause you have 42 employees. How do those things kind of translate into your business?

So I'm great at really shining a light on somebody when I'm with them, and then I go away, you know? And then it's like, oh, but I'm left alone, like what do I do, right? Sure. Right, it's like we're making your podcast, 'Here we are, you're gonna go home tomorrow.' He's like, 'Oh, but like, where's the lights? Where's Dominic? Where's Alex to help me? And like, who's gonna bring the chairs?' And like, who— what? Right? And so it'd be this, like, when I come in, it's like a burst of energy, and then it kind of goes away. And it really depends on the projects that I'm working on. And so, you know, My team I meet usually more than every 90 days, but what a lot of people need, especially when you go to a more employee mindset, they need more friendship. And I am weird in this, and the best explanation of it was from Shah Rukh Khan. I don't know if you know Shah Rukh Khan. He's one of the most famous actors in India. He's like the Tom Cruise of India. King of Bollywood. And he had a quote that just struck me in one of the videos we did on him. And he says, "I connect with people through the work." And so he's doing his acting shows and the movie's done and his friends, his cast are like, "Hey, we're all gonna go out and party. We're all gonna go whatever." And he's like, "No, I'm—" I'm good. Like, I love you, but like, I don't want to just hang out. Connects with people through the work. It's like, that's what I love doing. Like, I connect with people through the work. I don't want to just— I don't know even know what hanging out is. Sure. I don't know what that means. I'm weird. But so, you know, so Shah Rukh Khan and I might be the only two weird people in the world, but I like this. Like, yeah, like, I can deeply connect with somebody through The work.

Yeah, it's kind of like doing life together because a lot of your life, probably the majority of your life, is working. Do I have that right? Yeah, yeah. So like you're just doing life with those people.

Yeah, and so I remember Alex who's here in the studio, he runs this business, Trona Dance Salsa. He was engaged in a different lifetime. And his fiancée also kind of worked in the school and was helping teach and stuff. And she came to me and she said that she wanted to spend more time with me and get to know me. And it's like, I'm not a good, like, I don't want to do that. It's like, I'm not good at friendships. Like, I don't know what, if you want to talk about the business, like, yeah, happy to. Or if you need me for something, like, hey, I need your help with something. Yeah, I'm there. Like, I'm the first one in. but to just hang out and I don't know, do cards or something. It's like I'm not, or whatever, I don't know what the, I don't wanna do that. Like it's just not fun. I would be forcing myself to go do that thing and it's not me. But most people like that stuff. Like I'm the weird one. And so back to your question, Nina is great at facilitating those kinds of things. So she's the one checking in on people and asking about their relationships and asking about like how their mom is doing. She's the glue for a lot of this stuff. And it's a big weakness. It works really well with high-achieving entrepreneurs, but a lot of people on your team will not be high-achieving entrepreneurs. And so they need that extra level of connection, and Nina's way better at it than I am.

She complements your weaknesses with her strengths. Yeah, 'cause she's—

everybody wants to serve. If you're not serving, you're not happy. And some people want to serve the world and some people want to serve the closest people to them. I want to serve the world. Nina wants to serve the 20 closest people to her. And so combined, it works great. That's amazing.

That's a really good mix.

But everybody wants to serve. If you felt like today you're gonna wake up and you weren't gonna serve, it doesn't matter if you show up today, you go to work, whatever, nobody cares, that's the path down to depression, anxiety, suicide, all of that, 'cause you feel like you don't matter to anybody. But if you felt like today I was gonna do something that would matter to somebody, whether it's the world or one person, you're like, today is gonna mean something to somebody else. That's how you get to purpose and happiness and fulfillment.

And I kinda wanna unpack that a little bit because obviously you're very mission-focused and your mission is to solve the world's number one toughest problem, which is people's belief in themselves. And then you're matched up with Nina who wants to serve the close people that are around her. And when business owners, entrepreneurs are out there and they want to incorporate their spouse into their business, and whether it's either going well, not going well, or they're just thinking about it, what are some of the things that, in alignment with how you guys operate, that you would suggest for them to make sure Before you do this, these are the types of things that you should think about.

Depends on how well you can communicate. People say don't work with friends and family. I love it. I think it's the best. The best, dude. I think it's great. If you can't have conversations, then that leads to passive aggressiveness and bitterness and anger and all this other stuff, right? And so you either get down to a values difference or an inability to communicate. What I mean by that is, you know, when I came up here, I asked Alex, "Hey, what time did Trevor show up?" Right? And then you were 2 minutes late, right? It's like, okay, that's not how we roll, right? Right. And so either, no, whatever, like, I don't really care, but if we were hanging out more, that would not fly. right? And so either we just disagree on that, right? Like, you don't— it doesn't matter to you and it matters to me, in which case, like, we wouldn't keep working together, right? But we wouldn't be friends. Like, I'm not friends with people who are late on things. Or there's an inability to communicate, meaning, like, I couldn't tell you that, dude, like, you can't be late, right? And we couldn't communicate that. Which is where most people, like they actually share similar values, 'cause that's why you married them, or that's why you're a friend, but you can't communicate around the things that mean something to you, and if you can't have hard conversations, then I mean you're gonna struggle as a boss in general, but I love working with family. It's the best.

[Speaker] And have you always been able to just have those tough conversations? 'Cause I know that I've personally struggled with, having those tough conversations. I know when it's necessary, but it doesn't— it's not a right away thing. Like for you, you came in here, boom, hey, that's not how we roll, right? For me, it's like, hey, you know, we like to show up on time.

Well, so it depends. Like you get people at the beginning— I remember we had an instructor here who was working at the studio, and I forget if he showed up, if he just completely forgot about a meeting or showed up like half an hour late. Or whatever, and Alex was, saw it or heard about it, and then it's like, how come you gave him like so much leeway? Like if it were him one minute late, I'm gone, right? But with, you know, it's like, why are you not here? 'Cause it's not only my standard, it's his standard, right? It's like, what are you teaching yourself if it's okay to be late for things? But this new guy was like half an hour late or completely forgot and didn't show up or whatever. Because I haven't built the rapport, the respect, the trust yet to go hard on him. 'Cause if you just show up and you're hard, they think you're just, you know— A jerk. Yeah, a jerk, yeah. They just think you're a jerk. Like yesterday when you did this, you did this MC at this event with Dave, After everybody's telling you, hey, great job, like, yeah, that was really awesome, and we were talking, we were walking, I don't know, it was the first time I'm meeting you, I said, hey, you open to some feedback? And you said, yeah, yeah, give it to me. In a very, not like a, yeah, sure, you know, like, I don't wanna hear it.

What do you know, but sure.

Exactly, right? And so then it became a bunch of hard pushes on things, and the more you were receptive to things, the deeper we went, and more ideas came, and more like, dude, you have to do this. So that when I walked in here, and asked what time you came up, it was like, okay, we've already established a relationship now around that where you know I'm not being an ass and I love you and wanna see you win. So that allows, like, I think the deeper you are to somebody, the more you can push them and the more everybody can grow.

Yeah, you can't bring a reckoning without a relationship.

Because it's the love that allows you to push harder. Yeah, like the harder I am on Alex, it's only because he knows that I love him. Like it's on a foundation of love and want to see him win that gives me the permission to go and push harder. With somebody who I don't know very well, I'm super just belief, you know? Like, hey, good job. Hey, next time you'll do better, whatever, right? Sure. It's like it's very surface level, which is still like, that's still more encouragement than most people get ever. But anyway, but the closer that you get to me, the more becomes a push, 'cause if somebody, if you don't know that they love you, it comes across as you are a jerk. When people saw video, like Alex and I did a couple videos before of like mentor sessions, and people would leave comments like, I didn't realize Evan was such a jerk, or like comments kind of like that. 'Cause they're seeing a window that, like Alex wants that, he's grateful for that, right? Like you're grateful for the push yesterday and taking the notes, right? But to an outsider, it's like, What am I stepping into here, right? 'Cause it is actually believe, it's just a deeper version of believe. It's gotta believe in what you could do so much, and that people sitting telling you how great you are is actually not helpful to you get to become the person that you wanna be. And so if you're willing to go on a journey, then like this is actually a faster path to get there.

Right. It's that uncomfortability.

But you have to establish a sense of love first. Like this person is actually, not criticizing me as a human. They love me and they want to see me win.

Yeah, people don't care what you know until they know how much you care. That's a perfect example. And yeah, you just said, hey, can I offer— are you open to some feedback? Yeah. If you just came up to me and said, hey, this is what you did wrong and you should probably do these things better, maybe I wouldn't have been receptive to it. But you just asked the question. And of course I was open to it because I want to get better.

Well, maybe not of course. Most people are not, you know, super open to it. But I wouldn't have asked if I didn't get a vibe that you might be. But I still asked. Where Alex, like if he did that, like dude, that sucked. Like are you off your game? What's wrong with you today? Right? It'd be like, that's, well like what am I watching here? Like I've come into classes here, he's like can you come and watch my class? And it's like it's the same feedback that I gave. No, I think Alex is the, if someone needs to learn absolute beginner level salsa, from nothing, I would bet money on Alex to give the best experience of anybody in the world. I would put money on him going up against somebody else, right? For what he does. Cool, great, so that's the foundation. Now, I come to your class and he wants feedback. He's like, dude, this is the same feedback I gave you 6 months ago. You haven't done the thing I told you. I'm not coming unless you work on the thing I told you to do 6 months ago. This is a waste of time.

Yeah, it makes sense, right?

Yeah, but it's like, but he wants to grow and get better and do this thing. So when everybody's telling him— this is like, as you get better at something, there's gonna be fewer people who can teach you and more people who just tell you how good you are. What you respect the most is like, who's gonna help me? It's easy to level up, to go from like a 2 to a 4 or whatever, to a 7, but like, it gets harder and harder and harder because it's fewer people who can tell you what you need to get to the next level, both just information-wise and most people are telling you how good you are. Yeah. And so you just stay this big fish in this small pond.

Right. And by you asking me that, or providing, hey, these are the things that I saw you do well, these are the things that I saw you do not so well, now from my perspective, you're somebody who pays attention. You're somebody who cares enough to even, one, take the time to say something, but pay attention during the entire thing 'cause you just have a perspective to pick up on those things and then do something about it, which I think is super helpful and I'm glad to be sitting here and that's why we're sitting here right now.

That's why we're sitting here. If you said no or whatever, like, okay, whatever, cool. Like, lots of love, next.

Thank you, next. And he gone. Guess he'll never get those big strong legs now. But another question that I had is earlier in your journey when you were working as an entrepreneur in your business, the very first business that you were part of, it was science software technology. And you came to a point where it was just so tough, you weren't making any progress, $300 a month, and couldn't figure out any way to make some traction, and you decided, I quit. But the next day you're like, nope, can't quit yet, gotta keep pushing. 'Cause you had a phone call with your partner the night before and just said, hey, this isn't for me, I'm out. When you came back, because you came back with a plan with bringing on a virtual mentor, not necessarily someone that you could touch and reach, but somebody you could learn from, Bill Gates, because he had a software company that he built from zero. To what it is now, but you looked at the very beginning. When you came back to the business, how did that invigorate your partners, especially once you got that first sale when you partnered with somebody?

So I don't know how much it invigorated them. I don't— I'd never had the conversation, to be honest. I was more concerned just about me coming back. And I think back to your previous question, I think this is why it's so great to work with people who you love and have a deep relationship with, because I told him the night before that I quit, that I feel worthless, that this is not working out, that his ideas weren't working, and I need to feel like I'm a valuable human, so I'm out. That's hard to hear, right? Like, he's struggling too. He's trying to build this business up. He's not happy with where it's going, and now the guy who's like the business guy is quitting on him. So I decided, you know, again, not to live with regret. Somebody else has done it. I didn't have a plan the next day apart from Bill Gates had built a software company. I'm gonna learn how Bill Gates did it, and I'm gonna try to apply it. Like, that was my plan. It was a very loose, like, it was just more of a, I felt like I had tried everything. And then I realized, oh, there's like this other thing I haven't tried yet, so it gave me a little bit of hope. And I remember walking, like going to his apartment, we all worked out of his apartment, and I didn't know how he was gonna react. I just quit on him the day before, I tell him I felt worthless and this was going nowhere, and here I am like back at work. Yeah, let's get back on the horse. Right? And I was really afraid that he would, you know, not let me in, not like we'd have to have this whole conversation or whatever. And I didn't tell him I was coming. There was no like, hey, by the way, sorry, man, you know, right? I just showed up and he opened the door and he looked at me and then we just moved on, you know. It's like just one of those things. Yeah, he just— it's like, okay, like, wow, that was so much easier. It's like, okay, like And now maybe he's carrying some trauma or residual something as a result, I don't know, I haven't asked him, but for me that was a huge relief in that I would, I guess, hypothesize that he understood how stressful everything was, but that I still cared for him, cared for the business, wanted to see it work, and so I'm back. And we didn't need to have this giant conversation, 'cause if it's somebody that you don't know, and then they quit on you, and then they come back, you're like, why are you, you either— You're in or you're out. Well, it's like, if somebody worked for you for a day and then quit and then show up the next day, you're either gonna just not let them in, right? It's like, dude, like, forget it. Like, you're not staying here. I got work to do. I need people who are reliable. Or you're gonna have a conversation like, why did you leave yesterday? And then have to go through this whole process. But with somebody that you know better, it's like, okay, I get it. It wasn't personal. We don't need to dive into this. Let's just get back to work. So he said everything without saying anything, and then I just went in and we got back to work.

And it seems like that was a fairly good partnership between you guys. What did you learn from that partnership that you've applied to future partnerships?

Similar values, you know, and then also talk about difficult conversations and similar values. So like we all, we had a vision for what we wanted to do with the company. We all had similar values. We complemented our skills nicely between us, the three of us, and then we reached a point where they wanted to sell the company. and I didn't want to sell the company. But the most important reason was that it was more personal reason, like they wanted to get to California and live in California. I was like a main— it was a big driver. Okay. And doing some things like counting how many cloudy days there were in Toronto and all this stuff, and it's like they just wanted to get to California. And at the end of the day, it's like, you know what? This is your dream to go live there. Personally, I don't want to be in the way of that, and it's not worth fighting over. So let's sell. And we sold, and they both went to California, and I stayed here, and then I started doing other things. Gotcha. But that's a hard conversation. Yeah, definitely, definitely. And people I love, and like, we built this thing from nothing. I don't regret it. I mean, again, then it just becomes, okay, where are we going next? As opposed to thinking what I could have done or where we could have been or whatever else. I could not build it without them. I couldn't do it. I was the business guy. I'm not a science guy. I don't know how to figure out the software. And I don't want to be the guy holding them back from doing, anybody. If the best thing, I've had to push people out of my company because the best thing for them to do is not be with me. Sure. But that's a problem because sometimes people just get, they love the culture and they love the energy and they love the belief and it's like the greatest place they've ever worked and the opportunities and just the vibe is so high and the teamwork is not like people yelling at each other. But dude, your dream is to go do this. You can't be doing this with me anymore. And you have to kick them out so they can actually go chase down their dreams. So we've had to do that to a couple people.

And maybe you selling that company with those partners, who knows where you'd be now if the Believe brand would be here the way that it is now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I don't think that way, but yes. Sure, yeah. Like what would have happened if I had did this in what parallel universe, whatever.

Sure, just grateful for the way that it did happen and that you are where you are now.

Yeah, I mean, yeah. Yeah, onwards.

And speaking of that, you've done a lot on YouTube. You have almost 4 million subscribers on YouTube. I think it was Gary Vee who said you're kind of like a DJ who takes the best things that people have put out and spin it in a way that people can go and consume positive, inspiring, motivational content. And it's just been really inspirational for a lot of people, which is why I think your channel has had a lot of success. But usually when people wrap up interviews or conversations, they ask the interviewee, you know, where can people find stuff about you? And I'm sure there's a ton of different places where people can find stuff about you because you're a coach, you're a mentor, you have a mastermind, you have your YouTube channel. But if you could send somebody to one thing, whether it's on your YouTube channel, this one video, like if you could send people to one place to get the most value, where would you send them?

Trevor's second video.

Check out the channel, baby. We're going live.

It's not gonna come out in 90 days, it's gonna be soon.

Oh no, I'm gonna, well Dominic, Evan's camera guy, is actually coming back to Ohio with me. He's packing up his gear. He doesn't know that. He's smiling right now.

Yeah, no, I mean the best thing that people can do is support this channel, you know. And if you like the questions that he asked and the, the vibe and the style and where he's going, it's only going to get better. Like, this is— sure, the next video might not have the lighting or whatever, but in terms of the, the questions and the interaction, like, this is the worst that it's going to be. Because as you keep doing this, it'll just keep getting better. So if you like this interview, subscribe to the channel, leave a comment, let them know, and then go support him on the future videos that come out. Awesome.

Thank you very much, Evan. I really appreciate it, man.

Let's go. To see me coaching another entrepreneur one-on-one, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.