Jack Canfield explains how impatience sabotages success. He uses Evan Carmichael as an example, contrasting overnight success myths with years of actual work. Set realistic timelines, take small steps, and stay humble.
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Hi there, I'm Jack Canfield, the co creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and the author of the Success Principles. And today I'd like to talk about one of the most common ways we tend to sabotage our own success and why humility and patience are two of the most valuable, yet underrated and overlooked qualities for creating a successful life that a person can possess. But first, I'd like to tell you about this guy I was reading about the other day. His name is Evan Carmichael, and he's a successful young entrepreneur who has a YouTube channel with 3.2 million subscribers that he has leveraged into a lucrative speaking and coaching career. But when he first started out on YouTube back in 2009, he only had 25 subscribers and it took him five years to get that up to 9,000 subscribers. And then he started working with a mentor and learning a proven model from someone who had done the work before him. And from 2014 to 2021, he was able to grow those 9,000 subscribers into 3.2 million. And now he has grown his profile to the point where he is now reaching and helping millions of people all around the world. And after I read his story, it got me thinking. What separates someone like Evan from all of the aspiring entrepreneurs who have big ambitions but never seem to be able to reach their goals? And to me, it comes down to this. He wasn't afraid to roll up his sleeves and do the work. And he also understood that before you can become a master, first you have to be a student. Too many people think they're above doing the work or studying with someone else. They think they can just decide they want to be something, such as a successful motivational speaker, for example. And boom, as soon as they finish a six week course, they'll be able to start at the very top and charge top dollar for their services. Or when they're setting financial goals for themselves, they'll choose something that's wildly out of reach for them. So many people start a new business and automatically set themselves a goal of earning a million dollars in their first year. But that's not usually how success works. It's great to have that ambition if that goal resonates with you, and to commit yourself to doing the work to reach that goal. But it's also important to set a reasonable deadline for yourself. You have to be super realistic about what you need to do to achieve that goal and how long it's going to take for you to accomplish it. In my experience, most people overestimate what they can accomplish in one year. But they totally underestimate what they can accomplish in 10 years. So they give themselves one year goals that are realistically going to take them more like five or ten years to accomplish. And then when they don't achieve those goals within a year or so of setting them, they quit. They quit in frustration and tell themselves that the goal was impossible, give up. But it's never the goal that's impossible, only the unrealistic expectations of how much work it's going to take or how long it's going to take. I like to say that dreams are like baby animals. Some are rabbits, take just a few weeks to gestate before coming out of the womb. Others, like elephants, take two years before they're born. So you've got to be patient. The bigger the goal. Now, if you give yourself enough time to acquire the knowledge, the skills and the experience you need to achieve that goal, you will. It really is that simple. But you have to be able to approach your journey with humility of a student's mind and be willing to submit to the lessons life has to teach you and do all the work and learning necessary to create something that people will really find valuable. And that kind of success doesn't come overnight. Take Evan Carmichael, who I was talking about earlier. He's a pretty big deal in the coaching world right now, and if you don't know his backstory, you might think he came out of nowhere. But he's been working hard to achieve entrepreneurial success since the early 2000s. And along the way he learned a lot and then decided to take the leap and start a YouTube channel, and then spent the next 13 years learning how to be a master at it. That's the one thing about overnight successes, they never really are overnight. They're the result of years spent honing your craft and acquiring the knowledge, the skills, the experience, and the connections you need to make your big dreams a reality. So when it comes to goal setting, I really do encourage you to dream big. It's only by setting huge, audacious goals for ourselves that we're able to stretch beyond our limits and discover who and what we're capable of becoming. But at the same time, I want you to be realistic about the work and the time involved. Be patient, and remember, success doesn't come in huge, effortless leaps, but in the relentless progress of one small step after another. And the humbler and more open to learning from others you are, the more smoothly those steps will go for you. All right, well, that's it for today. And thanks for watching. And now what I'd love you to do is identify one action you'll take to move one small step closer to your goals, and then share that action in the comments below. And research shows that by stating your intention publicly, you actually increase your chances of achieving it. And if you found this video helpful, please take a moment to like it, share it with a friend who may need it, and subscribe to this channel. For more videos like this one, and for some additional tools and videos on how to achieve greater success in your personal and professional life, make sure to check out the resource page on my website. There's a ton of great free material there that can help you. Thanks again for watching and have an amazing rest of your day.
