Founder's Story - Evan Carmichael's Road to Over 1 Billion Views and Millions Impacted | S2: E33

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

In this inspiring episode of "Founder's Story," Evan Carmichael, a celebrated entrepreneur and motivational speaker, delves into the essence of achieving one's dreams. Known for his influential online presence and interviews with high-profile figures, Carmichael has dedicated his career to guiding others toward realizing their full potential.During the interview, Carmichael shares a compelling narrative about the transformative power of embracing challenges head-on, symbolized by his unique "damn the Doritos" strategy. This approach underscores his philosophy of strengthening one's willpower and maintaining focus, regardless of the environment. His story is a testament to the belief that personal growth often requires confronting and overcoming one's limitationsOur Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey everyone, welcome back to Founders Story. We have a special guest today who I had the privilege of talking to and meeting many years ago and I've been watching, following along, but Evan Carmichael, he is a renowned entrepreneur, motivational speaker. He's interviewed incredible people. He's built a massive following online, and he's dedicated his life to helping others unlock their potential. And I've heard you help them achieve their dreams. But Evan, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Daniel. I like

how we both have an amethyst kind of crouching behind our head. Yeah, you're hitting a little more. There it is. It's almost the same shape yeah people always see the doritos bag but they miss the amethyst so when i saw you always like oh i gotta show the amethyst too for amethyst right behind my head just gives me the energy what's the story behind the doritos and the amethyst the amethyst i don't know i just like amethyst i haven't really been into stones or crystals or any stuff but there's just something about amethyst that i like and i want to get one of those angel wing ones where it's like the giant six seven feet one that's that's uh i'm just trying to find the right one and like the right mine to go get it from uh the doritos bag this this looks small but it's like it's it's a big

bag it's just kind of far out and uh this is the Costco half-human size bag. And I have this because I have a strategy called Damn the Doritos, where most times when you're on a diet, what do they say? Get rid of the junk food from your house. And I think that's a crutch. It's a good first step. But this is how my brain works. It may not be a good prescription for other people,

but my brain works like that's making me weaker. I'm telling myself I can only win in this perfect environment. And then if I go to a cruise or a vacation or a party or whatever, I'm basically telling myself I'm not strong enough. So I don't like that feeling. So, uh, then the Doritos is a strategy and people ask like, why can't you get a healthier sponsor for your videos? And like, if Doritos knew why the bag was there, they wouldn't want to sponsor a video. So it's just a reminder to myself that I'm stronger than the Doritos so how do you translate that into business into the social media and stuff you're building is there something how you can translate like having that Doritos there to always remind

you to say something is there something that you do in business that does the same? It's doing the difficult things. It's like not accepting excuses or reasons for not following through. So how I bring it into social media world is making content. I'm an introvert. It may not come across, Daniel, in a show like this,

but I'm an introvert. I'd be super happy never making a video ever and just sitting on my computer and getting work done. But that doesn't ultimately serve my mission. And introverts want to serve too. And so just getting in front of the camera is a version of doing difficult things. And so anytime I'm scared of doing something,

I don't want that to be a good enough reason. The trick is trying to catch it because we'll often default into believing our reasons why we can't do it. And they're really good reasons. You know, like somebody wants to start a show. How long you be doing this show for? Four years. Four years. We will return to our show shortly.

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And make sure you use the code founders, F-O-U-N-D-E-R-S, founders, and you get your 10% off. So check out biooptimizers.com to learn more. And back to the show. How long was the gap between when you wanted to start the show and then you actually started the show? It was quick. It was COVID, so I had nothing else to do.

Good. Well, like a lot of people go the other way, right? And it's like, well, who's going to want to talk to me? And what kind of founders that want to come on my show? And I'm not,

I'm not insert whoever. I'm not Gary Vee or Joe Rogan. So they're not going to want to talk. This is the conversation that we have in our head. And then it goes down to, well, and I don't know what camera to buy and what Mike to buy and what lights to buy in my background. And do I put an amethyst there or not? And all of this stuff that logically we tell ourselves are good enough reasons, but really it's like, just start the show, man, just make your first episode

and expect to suck and keep going. And so there's a lot of things that I have in my life. Like there's a neck brace above here. It's a, it's a reminder constantly of, I want to be the person who does difficult things that he's afraid to do. Even if other people don't see it as difficult. Like for some people, what do you mean? You just start a show. You just get in front of the camera and you press record. Like what's the problem for some people? Like that's super easy for me that was really difficult and so it's not what other people think of your difficult choices what you think about your difficult choices and the willingness to step into them i've heard a few people having this

argument recently similar to what you're saying where one was saying don't start a podcast unless you're famous or you have a following the other other one is, you know, social media is just so complicated or there's so many people doing it. How am I going to separate myself? Why would I want to start now? What do you think about those two? My headline reading, I disagree, but I would be curious to know what's underneath them. So that's the conclusion point. What are the assumptions that are leading them to get to that

outcome? I think the ability to have a podcast and meet people, even if it never takes off, just the people that you can meet can be tremendous for your business. We have a bunch of programs where we teach thought leaders how to get their shows off the ground. One of them is called Movement Makers. And in there, we'll teach a biz dev show concept where whatever you're selling, find the people who, if you knew these people, like make a list of 50 people that if they knew who you were, liked you, trusted you, could lead to seven figures in your business, assuming you have a business, right? So who are the people that you need to get to know that if they knew you and they liked you and said, Daniel's awesome, that would lead to seven figures in your business, right? Who are those people? Great. So the number one way to get access to those people is to

interview them. If you message them and say, hey, I'd love to take you out for coffee or I'm in your town, it's like you're probably not going to get a yes, like maybe, but it's probably not a yes. But if you do an interview with them, they're much more likely to say yes to the interview. And now you've just spent half an hour with them, an hour with them, and you're building a relationship where they're going to want to know, okay, what is it that you do, Daniel? And you tell them and they pass business off to you. So you could make seven figures off of 200 subscribers on a YouTube channel, right? It's completely doable through an interview podcast strategy. So I don't know what the context is. Like on the surface, I don't agree with it, but there might be specific context that they're trying to address.

I'm Canadian. And so I see both sides of everything and I don't like to, I don't, I always hedge everything. So, but I'd love, I'd love to have a conversation to see, um, you know, where they're coming from with that point of view. No, I think that's great. I think people are, are, we're too many times are too focused on the following and building it up in that process, but not realizing that you can do it for other reasons. And I love that biz dev podcast interview, social media style versus like, I need a million people. I need a million following and I need to get sponsors.

There's so many other ways to make money. If you were to start over today, right now with your social media, if people didn't even know who Evan was, or maybe you want to start a new channel in a place that nobody knows who you are, what would you do right now? It all depends on my goal. So is my goal to try to get famous? Is my goal to try to generate revenue for my business uh is my goal to like sell a coaching program i so whenever i meet with somebody who's like hey help me grow on my youtube channel cool what are we trying to accomplish because depending on what you're trying to accomplish it's a different strategy that we will put into place so if i'm starting from scratch uh the entrepreneur in me is like okay i want to generate sales generate sales, right? I mean, even if you have

a big mission, which I think everybody listening to this show, you have a big mission, you want to change the world in some capacity, amazing. You need a team to do it. So I've got 52 people on my team right now who helped me do all the stuff that we need to do for our business. I can do a lot more with 52 people helping me than I can me trying to do everything by myself, evenings and weekends, and having to have some job to kind of pay the bills. And so you need to figure out how to turn it into a business so you can invest in team to help you scale and go make a real impact. So I would start with what am I selling? And what am I passionate about selling? And then what's a

content strategy that I can build around the thing that I'm selling to start driving sales for my business, even if the long-term mission is we're going to change the world in some capacity. Do you still think that YouTube is maybe one of the strongest, if not the strongest social media platforms? For entrepreneurship? Yes. It's the only place where people are going to learn. And so it's long form and education. And I guess caveat for your audience, that's all I specialize in. I'm not, if you want to learn, if you're making a slime channel or a prank channel or something, like I'm not your guy. I can give you some general guidance, but I'm educational thought leadership entrepreneurship

channel. And that's who we help. That's our clients. So when people are going to learn, where are they going? If you're trying to figure out how to do something, people go to YouTube now. They're not going to the library. They're not asking their mom. They're going to YouTube and say, how do I blank and videos pop up? As a business owner, that could be you popping up. And they've never heard of you before, but now they're diving into your world because they want to learn how to do something. So this has, this

has been a big shift over the past five years. I mean, YouTube has been around for a long time. And I started, I opened my channel in 2008, put my first video up in 2009. So it's been a minute, you know, since I've been on YouTube. But it wasn't education in the early days. It's only more recently been an education platform where people are going to learn so most entrepreneurs you need to put education in front of the thing that you're selling so whatever whatever you're selling you have to educate people on what it is how it works why it's useful pros and cons all of the stuff and anytime we're making a purchasing decision we're usually searching about this product this industry this service why i should or should not get it and you could be showing up or your competitors are showing up so uh for long form

youtube is the only place currently i mean i guess you could do audio only podcast as well as a maybe distant number two but youtube first and then you can clip everything for all the other platforms like the benefit of doing this long form i don't know how long we end up going for today, but hopefully I say a couple things that then you can clip. And then that gives you your TikTok strategy and your Snap strategy. Whether you're starting or scaling your company's security program, demonstrating top-notch security practices, and establishing trust is more important than ever. Vanta automates compliance for ISO 27001, SOC, GDPR, and more, saving you time and money while helping you build customer trust. Plus, you can streamline security reviews by automating questionnaires

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if you slice and dice the data. So yeah, super bullish on YouTube, as entrepreneurs who are trying to make money, build an empire and change the world. Man, I love that. And that's why I want to focus on YouTube. And I've been watching all the things that you've been doing for many years, trying to emulate stuff from you and other people that are on YouTube that I feel like fits into what I'm doing. How do you see AI impacting all of this? So we're using AI a lot. AI has been great with helping us design thumbnails, come up with topics. In terms of transcript, it's not great yet. Like in terms of copywriting, it's not great.

But asking how is AI going to be helpful is, to me, like asking how is the internet going to be helpful. Like it's part of everything. So we use AI in our editing. If this was my video on my channel, we would run it through ai and it would optimize the sound for us automatically and it might optimize the video you know the picture quality automatically and it might go between me being big and you being big like automatically there's so many tools that you can use that's just for the editing then when we're doing a release you can do show notes you can run it through ai the least get a first round of what

shown it should be come up with 10 suggestions what we're going to call this episode as a first draft. If we're going to then send it out as an email, you can create a first draft, what the email is going to be to your audience. If you're going to put it on YouTube and do a thumbnail, you can use Midjourney. Come up with some ideas for what a thumbnail would be based off of this. It's part of everything. It's an extra tool that you need to use or need to and encourage you to use. And it's just wild to see all the opportunities that are happening with AI. So I don't think AI is completely taken over yet, but a person with AI for sure in every business division that you have.

I love that. I love the editing. We use it 24-7, the editing, the captions, analysis. I want to go back to, you've interviewed amazing, incredible people. I mean, look at the people that are giving a quote to you about you. I mean, that's incredible. Like Tony Robbins. I mean, there's so many great people that you've had a chance to sit down and talk to. Is there something that you heard? I know this is a tough question, like AI and the internet, but is there something that you had, you heard at

one time at one point that has continued to stick with you? The best piece of advice I got from my guests probably is from one of my least known guests. And her name was Beth Handel. And she's Gary V's life coach. And when I first heard about her, I mean, what And she's Gary Vee's life coach. And when I first heard about her, I mean, what do you mean Gary Vee has a life coach? Like, isn't Gary Vee the life coach as part of what he does? Well, she's his life coach and the coach for a lot of people on his team, his executive team. And I had her on the show. And one of the things that she really helped me with is I like to believe in the plan.

So I've got a plan. I'm working on my plan, Daniel. Every day I wake up, work on my plan. And if I don't believe in the plan, then I'll come up with a new plan. Okay, this plan isn't working. Okay, a little bit of stress. Okay, a new plan. Here's the new plan I'm going to start working on. Boom. And then I believe in the plan. But there are some days where I don't believe in the plan and I can't come up with a new plan. And instead of spiraling down into despair, I'll just tell myself, great things come to me. It's fine. Like I'll figure it out. Great things come to me. Because otherwise, if I believe in the plan and there's no plan and I can't come up with a new plan, now I'm stuck. So I'll just tell myself, great things come to me. And I work my way out of it.

She said the difference between you and Gary is that he lives in great things come to me. So great things come to me is my last resort. My default is the plan. And only as a last resort, I'll go to great things come to me. Where she said guys like Gary, they default to great things come to me. And so I'm not living there. and I'm still not living there. But even the awareness of that being an issue is something that I can work on on a regular basis.

Just trusting that great things will come if you keep creating, keep making, even when it doesn't make sense. So that one really hit me. And I mean, I've had Tony on three or four times. We've had Deepak Chopra and Matthew McConaughey. And they've all been great. I mean, it's not to say that they haven't given me great advice and wasn't a good interview. But the Beth Handel one, for whatever reason, that really they're really stuck out.

So if I had to pick one, that's what I would say. I can totally appreciate that of having maybe a guest that no one's ever heard of or a guest that would be the least likely. But something that they say just continues to stick with you. of having maybe a guest that no one's ever heard of or a guest that would be the least likely, but something that they say just continues to stick with you. But I think it sounds easy to think the way of all great things, but it can be very hard. It's like we default as humans to negativity and we default to certain things, I think, that maybe separate us between getting to the greatness and not, even though we might all have the potential to be. Let's talk about you and your story. So going back, what was that spark in your life that made you say, you know what, this is what I want to do.

This is the mission I want to go on. I don't think there was one single moment. I don't think I'm that smart to have kind of planned it all out and say, Daniel, this is what I knew when I was 19 and this is where I was going to be. That would be a complete lie. And my journey to entrepreneurship began when I was in university and I was studying finance and had an opportunity to go work with some of the biggest investment banking companies in the world or go join a startup and earn 30% of the company and make 300 bucks a month and that was the toughest decision of my life which do i do like six figures out of school my dream job what all my friends wanted or 30 of a startup and 300 bucks a month because that's all

you know they could afford and i told myself you know what i don't want to regret my life i'm going to give myself a year and i figured there'd be there'd be jobs waiting for me in a year if this failed maybe not the same jobs maybe not as much money but i can kind of get another finance job in a year i thought at least but if i didn't take this opportunity to join this startup i don't know if that will be there or other opportunities like that would be there and i thought i'd be i'd look back on my life at 40 as an old man. I'm 44 now. But when you're 19, you think 40, like life is over, you're finished. Now you're falling apart. 40 is terribly old. When an old man at 40 and falling apart, I'm going to regret my life. And I said, okay,

I'm going to go and try this entrepreneurship thing. And luckily, I never had to go and get another job. I mean, that first business was full of hardships and tummy aches and all of that to build it up. But I didn't know. I didn't know that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I just didn't want to live with the regret of wondering what if. Well, at almost 41, I feel like I'm falling apart.

But I appreciate you telling that story and the vulnerability that comes around with making decisions that can completely change the future of our life. And I think a lot of people want comfort, which they go to that six figure income or that job, which I, in my opinion, entrepreneurship is not really for everyone with the grit, the tenacity, all the things that come along with it, a lot of people might struggle. How do you feel about that? If a hundred people came up to you and said, I want to be an entrepreneur, would you tell every single one of them? Yes. Or what do you

share in your teaching and the learnings and stuff that you do? Well, I think it's worth trying. Like I think people prejudge things. So how do you know if you're going to be an entrepreneur or not, unless you try? Like, it's not something you can figure out by sitting on the couch reading about it. You had this idea to do a podcast in the middle of COVID. And I mean, you said the reason of, well, I had nothing better to do, which is great, but you still did it. Where a lot of people would hem and haw and overthink and overjudge. And then just, you won't know if you like podcasting until you start interviewing people. And even if you suck at it, I'm sure four years in, you're better as a host than you were when you first started. Right? And if you keep going for four years, you'll be better

in four years than you are now. Like that's just part of the journey. You keep getting better with every rep that you put in, but you don't know until you start doing it. And so my advice would be go try. It's like, should everybody try sushi? Yeah, you should try sushi. Unless you know you're deathly allergic to raw fish or something, try sushi because sushi sounds gross. It's raw fish wrapped in seaweed and rice and raw fish eggs with super spicy mayo you're going to put on top of it as a mustard like it doesn't sound very appetizing but just give it a bite and it's like oh my god that's amazing now some people may hate sushi cool but you don't know until you try it and so that's what i think about entrepreneurship is like you don't know until you try it so just start

and just expect to suck at the beginning that the metric of success isn't at the beginning how well you did. It's did you have fun doing it? Like in your first interview, if you went and you did it and you sucked and you struggled and your microphone fell apart and your camera shut off and you drooled on yourself or like whatever happened in the first episode. Like, okay, that sucked. But it was fun. Like, I can't wait to go do it again.

Because if you love doing the thing, you'll end up winning like four years of loving the thing and staying on it. You'll start to win where if you hate doing a thing, you're never going to win doing work that you hate. So like for anything, for any new thing that's in your mind, like start say yes, expect to suck at the beginning. It doesn't mean you're going to suck forever. And it doesn't mean that you suck as a human just because your first attempt at something failed like just expect it to fail and pay attention did you like it so that tomorrow you want to go back and do it again i think i had eight failed businesses and one time we were filming an episode in arizona and my car overheated during filming it so yes failure is like the only option to get better.

I just had some sushi, by the way, and it got me thinking about how much I loved my trip recently to Japan. I've seen a lot of your trips. I saw one that you just posted recently. Eating some waffles looked really delicious. What is a place that you want to go to in the future? Japan is a good story. I'm heading to Japan for a month in July. And my wife has never been. And it's been, man, it's been 20 years since I've been to Japan.

And there are 13 cities, I believe, 12 or 13 cities that have a million plus people in it. And the goal is to hit all of them. And we're gonna do a japan whirlwind tour have some fun try some authentic sushi and kabe beef and all of it and for me more important than any any uh destination or city is who i'm doing it with some people say is it the journey or the destination um for me it's the company and uh it's been it's been a pleasure doing this in your company for this show today. No, Evan, I love that. I can't wait to see and to watch so many more places I want to check out in Japan. But if people want to get in touch with you, I know you have an incredible program and you're helping a lot of people in YouTube and you have this great mission.

How can they find out more? Evan Carmichael, you can check out the website. I'm on YouTube. You can find me. It's pretty easy. Awesome, Evan. Well, thank you for sharing your Doritos, crystals, your stories, your wisdom, and so much. Thank you for being here on Founders Story. Appreciate you, Daniel. Thank you, man. Thank you for tuning in to Founders Story. Keep exploring, keep dreaming, and join us next time for more inspiring entrepreneurial journeys.