In this interview, Evan Carmichael discusses how many people hold limiting beliefs about money—either idolizing it or viewing it as evil—and how those beliefs can hinder both personal fulfillment and the ability to serve others. He argues that money is a neutral exchange of value that, when embraced responsibly, can amplify impact. Carmichael explains that adding value (through coaching, speaking, content creation, etc.) naturally leads to paid opportunities such as speaking gigs, book deals, and board positions. He warns that rejecting these offers out of a “not for money” mindset can limit one’s reach. Using his own experience with Toronto Dance Salsa, he illustrates how charging for services enables scaling impact, while also offering bursary programs for those who cannot afford to pay. He emphasizes that accepting financial support from an audience is not a betrayal of integrity but a way to sustain and expand one’s mission, and that money should be used on one’s own terms without compromising values.
Chapters
I have a little, like, added question to this. You know, one of the things that kind of caught my attention in this is when she's like, "My goal is not to make money. I just want to make a difference." And I find, just based on the little that I read about what she does— she also has a nonprofit that helps women and children— like, I find that for anyone who's in kind of really, really has a heart for service, and I don't know how to put that in one category, but It can be uncomfortable to do what you love and then also have a desire to make money doing it. Can you speak a little to like anyone who has trouble with the part of like helping but also being able to be paid for what you do?
I think almost everybody growing up has some kind of belief around money that, that is hurting them. Almost everyone. You got, you You got some people who money is everything to them and they're just chasing it and they get all their meaning through money, which isn't great. And then you got other people who shun money and say and feel like they don't deserve it and that it's wrong. There aren't that many people growing up who have a balanced perspective on money, and somewhere along the lines we have to figure it out for ourselves, hopefully. And so if you're on that other side where you see money is almost evil, or you don't deserve it, or, you know, I'm just trying to give feed— I'm just trying to help people, you know, I don't want to get paid. There's nothing wrong with getting paid, right?
Yeah.
Like, there's nothing wrong with earning money. Money is good. It's not everything, but it's not evil either, right? And making money allows you to do better things, not just for yourself, but for the world, for the community that you're giving back to, for the impact that you're trying to make. First is just the mindset and the awareness, because most people don't have that, or they're on the other side again where they're just so all about money that they don't have any— they don't care about adding value, they don't care about the service and care. Understand that as you are adding more value, you're gonna start getting offers to get paid to do things, and then it's that mindset that will potentially hold you back or or changing the mindset will help you become the person that you can be. So what I'd be looking to do is, if you're doing sessions with people, as an example, if you're doing one-on-one and trying to help somebody out, or if you're doing speaking, right? If you film those videos and you get to be a good speaker and you put it up on YouTube, you'll get offers to go and speak and get paid to speak, and you'll get offers to have a book deal, and you'll get offers to sit on boards of companies, and you'll get offers to, you know, do a whole bunch of stuff that you may not have ever thought of. And I know because it's happened to me, right? Like, I'm in the same field as you are, just serving a different audience. And so if you're adding a lot of value, and as you get better, you'll continue to get more and more opportunities at you. But my biggest fear would be that you would turn them away because of the "I'm not trying to make money" thing, and that would limit your ability to have a greater impact. Money itself is not evil. Money is an exchange of value. If you get a book opportunity, if you get a speaking gig, you can still do this stuff for free. You know, there's a community of people who you know can't afford your services. You can still contribute and help back. I look at Toronto Dance Salsa as an example. We charge for people to come and learn salsa classes. If we didn't charge for people to come and learn, we wouldn't have a business. It'd be, you know, one person maybe volunteering their time. And so that one person could maybe reach, you know, how many people, you know, a couple people a week. Instead, we're doing, you know, 5,000 people a year, right? So because we charge, we're able to have a greater impact and reach more people. But not everybody is able to afford it. You know, we have people who are refugees coming to the country and they don't know anybody and they want to meet, meet people and kind of get an understanding of how the culture works, but they don't have any money to do it. Or university students, or there's a whole bunch of, you know, different people in different circumstances of what they can and can't afford. And so if people are really having a hard time, if they're asked for like a payment plan, or sometimes just for free, you know, we have a bursary program where we give away classes to people who can't afford them. For those people, it's great. They have an opportunity to still learn and benefit, but there are a lot of people who can also afford it, right? Like if you're dealing with people who are getting divorced or trying to inspire— I think it's women, right? It was just women?
Yeah.
Telling women your story, right? There's a lot of women who can afford to come and listen to you speak and would want to buy a coaching package from you and would want to support you in what you're doing. And you know, there are people who write to my YouTube channel saying, "Hey, how can I support you financially because I love what you're doing?" And if you say, "No, I don't do it for money," like, you're not just taking away from yourself, you're taking away from your audience because you could use that money to hire somebody to help you, and you're taking away from that person who wants to give you money, right? Wow. That person wants to give you money to support you. And you're taking that opportunity away from them. And a lot of times we don't see that. And so it's usually some kind of conditioning that comes early on in our lives about money is evil, or it usually comes from our parents, someone in our family. And so money itself, again, is not evil. It allows you to do stuff, but it doesn't mean you have to be a sellout. Do things on your own terms. Do things that always make you feel comfortable and that are sticking to your Integrity. Money is good, you know, for people who don't like, who shun money, money is good. Money is not everything. There's nothing wrong with making money and using that to go out and have a bigger impact in other people's lives too.
