Rory McIlroy says talent accounts for only half his success, the rest is work ethic. Evan Carmichael went from his agency's worst performer to their best by filming three videos daily instead of one and obsessing over feedback. A Toronto entrepreneur's rule: ignorance on fire beats talent on ice.
Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is talent can only take you so far. Over to you, Rory McIlroy.
I always believe that natural talent can take you so far, but I think you need to have the work ethic and the drive to to achieve your potential. I mean, I'd say my natural talent probably brought me 50% of the way, but then after that it was all down to the work that I've done and the volume of work that I've done over the last 15 years, you know, when I really started to take golf seriously and thought about making this a career.
I met up with a Toronto entrepreneur who's had a lot of success with businesses, building them to rapid growth and then selling them and building new ones up. And one of his favorite expressions that really stuck with me is that ignorance on fire is better than talent on ice. And the thought behind that is whatever you want to learn, whatever you want to get into, if you're passionate about it, you can develop any talent, any skill. Where if you are talented but you're not putting in the hard work, you're not going to make it. The world belongs not to the talented. There's tons of people who have talent who don't do anything with it. The world belongs to the doers. The world belongs to the people who get up every single day and go to work honing their craft, getting better, trying to make a positive impact. That's who the world belongs to. I haven't told this story in a while, I think it's worth revisiting. When I started at the agency that I'm at— so I have an agent, he's in New York, he helps book me into speaking gigs and book deals and corporate brands. When I first got in touch with him, he asked to look at my YouTube channel. And he looked at it and he said, Evan, I really like your content, you're talking about some good stuff, but your on-camera presence really sucks. You know, it's not good. I don't know if we're going to be able to do something with you. And first that hurt because I had already done hundreds of videos and I thought I was pretty good. Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Modeling the Masters. I believe that the fastest and most effective way to grow your business is to model the strategies of people who've already done what you're trying to do. Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. But I obviously wasn't up to a certain level of standard. I didn't have that talent or skill. And luckily he said, you know what, I see something in you, let's take a risk. And he brought me on. And he worked with me to help me get better. And every day he gave me assignments and I worked at it and I got better, right? He asked me to make a video about my story and it wanted to be around a 30-minute long video. And I did that video, I would say, at least 20 times. Right? I would make a new version, he'd say, "Nah, it's not good. Do it like this." And I'd make a new version, and a new version, and a new version, over and over and over and over again. And I increased the quantity of work that I put out. Right? If you look at my YouTube channel, I was making 1 video a day, and then I moved to 2 videos a day, now 3 videos a day. And the people who are at the agency saw the massive growth in me, in me getting better. And I went in a couple of months from being the worst in the agency to being the best practice example, to the point where my agent was sharing it with his other clients at the agency and saying, look what Evan's doing, maybe you should be doing something similar. From the worst, from the guy who almost wasn't accepted in, right? The guy who didn't have enough talent to almost— I couldn't get in to now being the best at the agency. And it's because I listened to feedback, but I put in the insane amount of work. Where most people at that agency, the clients, struggled to find the time, right? Find the time to come up with one video a week on their channel. And my agent's like pulling teeth, like, come on, you got to get another video up so we can work to get better. They can't find the time to do one video a week, and I'm doing 1, 2, 3 a day. Don't you think I'm going to get better, right? I'm going to develop the skills way faster than these other people because I'm putting in the effort, because I made it a priority, because I made it important. So if there's anything that you want to learn, any skill can be overcome just through practice and dedication and hard work. Take the same approach that I did, right? Go all in on it. Practice. Get better. Block out chunks in your calendar to dedicate to doing this so that you'll rapidly get better because talent is not the variable. Because you could pick up the talent, you could pick up the skill when you are passionate about it and put in the work. Believe. So my question for you guys today is, I'm really curious to find out, what did you start off in totally sucking at, having no skills, no talent, but put in the work and got better at? I'd love for you to share your story in the comments below. I think it could really help inspire other people who are doubting themselves or going through similar issues. So thank you guys for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot Evan's Espresso.
