What inspires you? Ask Evan

Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. Today I'm going to answer a question from one of my newsletter readers, Stabi, who wrote in asking, "If you don't mind me asking, what kind of companies do you own and what inspires you?" So thanks for the question. My main business is my website, so it's evancarmichael.com where one of the largest websites for entrepreneurs if you're looking for inspiration and advice to grow your business. I started the company around famous entrepreneur advice. When I was young, I was 19, I had my first real business. I didn't know what I was doing, I was scared, it was a software company, and I then thought to myself, you know, I'm not the first person to try to sell software before, and I looked at famous entrepreneurs who had success in the software field, guys like Bill Gates, guys like the people behind Intuit and McAfee, and I looked at their success and saw they started from nothing and they were able to build a huge business. And I was looking at how did they make their first million. You know, I don't care how Bill Gates makes his extra million now, but how did he go from zero to that first million? And those stories inspired me and helped me build my business to the point where we were able to build it to customers in 30 countries and we got acquired. And I started my website as a way to give back to other entrepreneurs and share those stories of famous entrepreneurs. So we have one of the largest collections of famous entrepreneur stories anywhere online. And one of my favorite bits of advice for entrepreneurs is if you're trying to accomplish something, look at somebody who's already done what you're trying to do and model their success. It'll help shortcut your path to success and keep you inspired. I really found that reading those famous entrepreneurs' stories got me inspired, got me motivated to see that, you know, they had all these challenges growing up and making their business get to that next step. But also it gave me specific strategies that I could use to implement into my business. So my main business is my website. We've got tons of articles on there, hopefully some ideas and resources to help you grow your business and motivate you to keep going. And our business model is selling advertising and also partnering up with corporations who are trying to reach into the small business community. So we do a lot of work with TELUS as an example. And other companies and provide value-added content for them and create blog posts. And you may have seen some of the posts that I've done if you're a fan of the YouTube channel. So that's my main business. In terms of what inspires me, I really like helping the little guy. I love the come-from-behind stories. I love the rags-to-riches stories. One of my favorite movies is Seabiscuit, which is a movie about a horse that everybody ruled out, thought was going to be too small and would never be a successful racer and went on to be a really successful racer. So I love those stories, and that's why I love entrepreneurship, because a lot of times it's the little guy trying to take on the big companies, and nobody gives them a chance, and you're battling against all odds, and you're putting in crazy hours, and you don't know if it's going to work or not, and hopefully you come out on the other side. So I love those stories. Whenever I see somebody who's had that success, if it's within the entrepreneur circle or any field, If you look at the top people in any industry, any endeavor of sports or whatever it is, you'll usually find that they had to overcome a lot of hardship to get to where they are. And reading those stories, interviewing those people gets me inspired, makes me want to do more, makes me want to help more people as well. So I tend to focus on the entrepreneurship world. We have all these profiles of famous entrepreneurs, and I find reading those help me stay motivated and inspired. And reading their quotes and seeing how they came from nothing, that keeps me going every day. And also the feedback from you guys. I love making these videos. I'm right now standing in my house talking to a camera, but what gets me motivated is seeing the comments come in and seeing the likes come in and people saying how these videos help them with their business and change their lives. And so that inspires me every day to want to get up and keep doing more to help out entrepreneurs. So thanks for the question. Hopefully that helped answer it. For those of you watching, again, if you want to give it a thumbs up below, please do. Makes me want to do more of these videos. And if you have a comment or question, please leave it in the comment section below. I always read those, and hopefully I'll be able to answer your questions if you want to leave one below. So thank you, and we'll see you on the next episode.