The Dr. Josh Axe Show - If You're Not Happy, You're Not Serving | Evan Carmichael's Keys to Fulfillment

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Evan Carmichael transformed himself from a shy teen into a bold entrepreneur and inspirational force. Through viral YouTube videos and uplifting messages, he empowers millions worldwide. In this exclusive interview, Dr. Josh Axe explores the mindset secrets behind Evan's success. You'll discover: Tactics for resilience when facing failures How to maintain a growth mindset and avoid complacency Why serving others fuels personal growth Advice for dreaming big and achieving goals Let this conversation inspire you to believe in your own potential. Gain Evan's wisdom on defying expectations, uplifting people, and achieving greatness. Want more of The Growth Lab with Dr. Josh Axe? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook Tik-Tok Follow Evan Carmichael Instagram Twitter Facebook YouTube Follow Leaders Instagram Twitter Facebook Email Newsletter ------  Links:  Where to start on Evan Carmichael’s channel: Evan Carmichael’s FIRST VIDEO: The MAGICAL Journey of Walt Disney Kanye West’s Top 10 Rules For Success How Elon Musk OUTWORKS EVERYONE! Steve Jobs MOTIVATION Tony Robbins MOTIVATION Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you were to go back and talk to the person you were five years ago or 10 years ago or 19-year-old you or whatever it was, and just imagine that they're on a park bench and you got five minutes to go and talk to younger you. Could you help that person? It's like, yeah, you know, I know what I would say. I can go back and help that person. I can give that person some great advice. It's like, okay, well, if you can help that person, recognize that there are millions of people right now who are younger you. And they need your help.

People will learn from you, but they won't learn for me. We might even say similar things. but the way that you say it, it just connects with people differently than the way that I say. We are wired to serve others. We all want to feel like we matter to somebody else. To ourselves is not enough. We are built to serve. And some of us, you know, you and I, we want to serve the world. We have big missions. We want to have a big impact. We have content that we know can help. And if you woke up every day and felt like you don't matter and you're driving to a job that you hate and nobody cares if you show up or not or give your best and you're doing. work that is meaningless. If that was what you were doing every day, which I think is most people,

then that's the path to unhappiness and stress and sadness and depression and suicide because you feel like you don't matter. But if you woke up every day and felt like this might matter, like what I'm doing today might matter to somebody, whether it's a big thing like making a video, I'm going to come on the growth lab and we're going to inspire millions of people, amazing. Or just I'm going to show up for my wife today, like just one person. If you felt like today was going to matter. You show up with a completely different energy. Hey, everyone, Dr. Josh Axe here. Welcome to the Growth Lab podcast where each and every week we cover the science behind how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, and take your career

and relationships to the next level. This week as a guest, I want to welcome Evan Carmichael. Evan is a self-made entrepreneur and YouTube sensation with over 3.7 million subscribers. and at only 19 years of age, he challenged himself by building and then selling a successful biotech software company. And at 22, he pushed further outside his comfort zone, raising up to $15 million in a venture capitalable firm. And then he also has launched his YouTube channel, which, by the way, I've been watching over the years where he posts a lot of incredible inspirational and motivational content, especially highlighting a lot of entrepreneurs and leaders that are in the entrepreneurial space. And so Evan, hey, welcome the show.

Thanks for having me, Josh. Excited to step into the lab. Awesome. Well, I mean, you have had so much success, so early on in your life. I'd love to hear from you sort of your mindset and strategy about how you were able to become so successful so early on in life. I probably give a lot of credit to my parents. My mom especially, she would always tell me that I'm Evan Christrily Carmichael. I could do anything I believe that I can. And even though I wasn't necessarily the best student, that wasn't failing,

and B's and C's in school. But somehow my mom with the voice in my ear kept reminding me that I could do anything I put my mind to. And it's really cool to be an entrepreneur now. I'm 43. So when I was getting out of school, you know, to be an entrepreneur, you kind of had to be unemployable. And so I thought I wanted to be an investment banker.

So my high school yearbook says. But I give a lot of credit to my parents, who fed a lot of great positive information into my mind. Even though I wasn't getting the societal results of straight A's at school, they helped me believe in myself to go off and do the crazy things that I had in my mind. And now, luckily, you know, we've got my channel, your channel, and we are that for a lot of people now. You know, people are watching Growth Lab

and they may not have parents who believe in them or people around them tell them they can do great things, but they're tuning in to your show and learning from you and say, hey, you know, if Josh says I can do it, maybe I can. Yeah, it's so true. You know, I think it's so important that we let certain people speak into our lives and not let others. You know, I think that a lot of times people never get started

because they have this fear of disappointing other people or somebody says they can't and this builds these limiting beliefs in their life. And obviously you had, as you mentioned, supportive parents and so did I. And that's, I think, just really, really can be really important, whether it be parents or someone else that's sort of cheering you on. But even in spite of that, you know, I think that obviously there are people who have gone and done it, even though they had almost everybody saying no. You know, one of the other things I wanted to ask you about was just your great. I know you started your YouTube channel back in 2009 with the goal of helping entrepreneurs through video. And I saw you say something once where you said that you only had like three total comments on your first several videos you posted. And I think a lot of people, maybe they start posting and trying to build a brand on Instagram or YouTube or Facebook.

And at first, they just don't get any any posts. So they sort of give up on that dream. Talk to me about how you continue. you to have that sort of resilience and positivity and hopefulness in building your brand, even when at first you really weren't getting, you know, many views at all. Yeah. So when I started, YouTube famous wasn't even a thing, right? I mean, I don't know when you, you're kind of OG on YouTube too.

You've been around for a couple minutes. Yeah. You know, when I started in 2009, nobody had a million subscribers. There were no thought leadership videos. There was no podcast. It was just throw up some random. videos and so the idea of being YouTube famous or this even being a million subscriber channel this has never even crossed my mind um that being said I always just focus on who I am serving

instead of who I'm not and when I got 50 views on a video it's like 50 people saw this video I was so jazzed that 50 people saw a video it's like if you were to go and give a speech at the beginning of your career at a library and 50 people showed up you'd be freaking out like 50 people are here to come and see me talk is crazy. And yet when we just see a number on a screen, we feel like, oh, that's nothing. Only 50 people saw it. I must suck.

I'm not as good as Dr. Ax or Evan or whoever, right? And so we tend to quit it on ourselves. So the Who I'm Not game never ends, right? I mean, I've got three point whatever million subscribers. Why is it not five? Why is it not 10? Why is it not 50? And that's a growth opportunity.

But if we're only looking at what we're not instead of all the things that we have done, then I think that's what leads a lot of people to quit. So I just always focus on who I was serving. So to your point about the three comments, my first video in one year had three comments on it. It was my mom and my older sister and in some random guy, you know, like one guy, he left a comment. And one year of my video, my first video being up, this random guy left a comment. And I held on every one of those early comments as just proof that, you know,

that, okay, this is helping people. You know, may not be changing the world yet, but it's helping one person at a time, which is why I always encourage also, you know, people, you know, your viewers watching this. It's great to support me and great to support Josh. But if there's some small creators who you follow and you like their content, leave a comment.

Just let them know. Because that comment might make the difference between them continuing on this journey and quitting, right? Like, I'm going to keep going. Josh is going to keep going. We're on our journey. I'm excited for you, new venture, this pivot into mindset and person development. But for a lot of people, that one comment,

if they don't get it, they might quit and even though you'd love them. So any small creator out there that you follow, just to call the action or a challenge, just leave a comment, let them know what their content means to you. And that might mean the difference between them quitting or continuing on. Well, Evan, I love what you're sharing here because I think this is a really big deal. I think most people start focusing on, well, people didn't compliment me or I didn't have very many views at first, but you said, your goal was you wanted to serve people. You want to improve their lives. You wanted to add value to them. And I do think that's the most important thing. And I think if anybody's watching this who is saying, hey, I want to be an influencer on social media and

pit pack people in a big way, it's important to understand that mindset that I've been shared. I think is so important is that I am here to serve people add value to them, and that is your number one focus. Now, one of the things I know that holds people back, and I've actually, I know one of the things that you've said before, something that held you back in a way, was trying to be perfect. It was being a perfectionist. Talk to me about how you overcame being a perfectionist and what being a perfectionist can do or how it could actually harm your ability to influence others. Yeah, well, I'm a recovering perfectionist. I'm still working my way through it, but I lost a $40 million deal when I was 21, 22,

because of I was being a perfectionist. And I had a chance to sell my company. And it's like, okay, not yet, not yet, not yet. I need the perfect plan, the perfect plan. And then I was too late and we lost a huge deal. And from there, I vow to value the progress over the perfection. And that's something that you learn as you get in the personal development and watch videos and learn from, you know, legendary entrepreneurs.

I'll always talk about the progress. the perfection. But when I was 19, I had no idea. And so that ended up really hurting me and losing a giant deal. And sometimes you learn the best lessons through painful moments like that. I think when people are trying to get started in this career, they're trying to create content, we default to saying, well, I need a professional camera. Look at how good Josh looks and look at how good Evan looks and what's that microphone they're using and look at their camera and it looks so professional and they're so polished and their background is so set up and it makes them feel like they can't do it where I'll still film videos off my phone for my channel right it's not ideal but

if I'm traveling I'll still just videos have to go up and I think if you expect to suck at the beginning it doesn't mean you suck as a human but it just means you don't have the skill sets yet how do you get the skill sets well you practice and you get better I think the challenge is we know what looks good you know what great looks good you know what great looks looks like. You can watch Dr. Axis' videos here and say, wow, that looks really good. I'm not going to make anything until I can be that good. Well, unless you make, you won't get that good. And so when you start, a lot of times we know what, you know, if you have, if you have Dr. Axe at an A plus, you think, okay, I might not be his level, but I could be like a B. If he's an A plus, I could be

a B. And then you go and you make your first video and you realize, oh my God, I'm an F. Like, I just totally suck at this thing. I'm not even, I'm even close to a B. And so we have these difference of expectations where if you just expect to suck at the beginning, if you just think, hey, I am, I'm going to suck. It's not going to work out at all. But it doesn't mean I suck as a human. I just don't have the skill set yet. How do you get the skill set? Well, by practicing. So when people are on their journey of content creation, I say, don't even judge yourself in the first 100 videos. The first 100 videos, just make it and then make another one and then make another one and you'll get better. If you don't get better over 100 videos, then you suck. But I've never seen it not

happen. Like you're going to get better in that process. And I think, you know, the pursuit of perfection or the fear of not being perfect kills more dreams than almost anything else. It's so good. It's so good. I was reading and you're, I think you're familiar with her. Carol Dwex, she wrote a book called Mindset, right? And she gets into fixed versus growth mindset, this fixed mindset of, I've got to be perfect is paralyzing. It keeps people from even getting started versus the growth mindset's all about. Well, the goal is not to get a million followers or this. The goal, is just, I want to get better over time, you know? And so really focusing on just doing it and then getting better over time rather than focusing on the A, just focus on, no, I'm just going to try and get

better. I think it's just such a powerful mindset. You know, I think one of the other things that I know that I've experienced, I'm sure you have as well, is anytime you're trying to grow your business or have more influence and influence others, you know, life happens and we've got to be resilient. What are some of the things that you have done? And by the way, I'd even be curious, have you had anything happen in your time of going from zero to 3.7 million followers, any sort of valleys or trials or tribulations that you thought, well, how I'm going to overcome this and you were able to as you've been building, you know, building your brand?

The first one was just getting help. So on my homepage, I show my year-over-year journey. and it was rough, Josh, at the beginning. Like year one, I had 25 subscribers. It took me five years to get to 2,000 subscribers. So most people are already ahead of me in their journey as they get started. So in the first five years, I went from zero to 2000. And the next five years, it went from 2000 to over a million.

I forget what the number was. But it's not a lot. So what made the difference? Well, one, I took it more seriously. And two, I got help. You know, I sought out people who can give me advice, who could watch videos and give me feedback and say here's where you can get better. Where at the beginning, when you're just creating and you're just doing everything all on your own,

it's really hard to grow. And I think back to the perfectionist thing, I was too afraid to join communities, to join programs, to ask for help. I thought, I got to figure this all out on my own. That's kind of what we're taught in school. Like, you memorize and practice and study on your own. And so, like, I need to do this all by myself. and it wasn't really until I reached out and asked for help and got feedback that I started to grow. And then we saw, you know, pretty quick results as a result of not just trying to do everything all on my own.

That's so good. You know, how do you deal with sort of this fear, uncertainty or even imposter syndrome, right? I think a lot of people think, well, who am I to be giving, you know, advice or telling people how to be successful if I haven't quite done it yet? You know, did you have that in your career? And how did you overcome that? Yeah, I'm still working through it, you know. We all are, yeah. You don't know what you're ever done.

You know, we're never done growing. That's why we all have to keep stepping into the growth lab. There's always a new thing to get better and improve on. But, yeah, I mean, when I first got it started, I looked up to the Tony Robbins and the Les Browns and the people who are, you know, making content and been in this space and realized, what am I going to share that Tony Robbins hasn't already shared? Like, how am I going to be any different? And it took me a long time to even tell my story. And we would do profiles of different entrepreneurs on a channel. And the number one request, we'd always say,

who else do you want me to profile next at the end of a profile? The number one request is always me. Like, what do you want to hear me? Like, I mean, sure, you know, you've listed a couple accolades at the beginning, but that's nothing compared to Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and Walt Disney and all the people that I'm profiling, like, why do you care about me? And so that was a big, uh, process to unwind to, to figure out, oh, like my story actually adds value. And so to get over imposter syndrome, what I realized was, if you were to go back and talk to the person you were five years ago or 10 years ago or 19 year old you or whatever it was, and just imagine that they're on a park bench and you got five minutes to go and talk to younger you, could you help that person?

It's like, yeah, you know, I know what I would say. I can go back and help that person. I can give that person some great advice. It's like, okay, well, if you can help that person, recognize that there are millions of people right now who are younger you. And they need your help. And people will learn from you in a way where they won't learn from Tony Robbins or Les Brown or anybody else because of your story and your background and the way that you position and the way that you, the words that you use and the way. way that you explain things will be different than somebody else. People will learn from you, but they won't learn for me. We might even say similar things, but like the way that you say it,

it just connects with people differently than the way that I say it. And so most people, I see us as we're climbing this mountain of growth and whoever you think is ahead of you. You know, Tony Robbins or Les Brown, they're at step number 10,000, you know, and I'm at step 800. They're way ahead of me. But even if I'm at step 800, where are most people stuck? Like step one. most people are at the beginning. Most people have no idea how to get started. So if you're at step 800, if you're at step five, you can get people to step four because you've done it.

Now, you can't help somebody get to step 20 if you're at step five, right? And that's where people might overpromise, overdeliverers, say they've done something that they have it done. So like, don't do that. But most people are stuck at the beginning. And however far you've gotten, you can reach back and help other people get to where you've gotten. And every time you take another step up on that mountain, you reach back and you help people get to where you're at. And so it's less about imposter syndrome of comparing yourself to, you know, less bound or whoever.

And it's more about looking backwards to say, holy cow, I've come really far compared to who I used to be. And there's lots of people who currently are who I used to be and they need help. I mean, you know, Evan, that perception is so important because I think if you start comparing yourself to Tony Robbins or Elon Musk, or Sarah Blakely or Ray Dahlia, whoever it is, you're seeing such a far distance you have to go. And it almost just seems an impossible distance, right? Versus if instead your focus is saying, okay, I was on step zero, but I'm on step 10 now. Well, I've actually come a, hey, I've grown. I've come a pretty long way.

And then also saying, hey, Josh and Evan, hey, they're not at, you know, this level of Elon Musk in terms of his wealth and his success. in business, but, you know, hey, they're not quite as far. So anyways, I just think it's such a good point that I think that sometimes, you know, people that aren't in that top, you know, 1%, you know, it's less intimidating to follow somebody oftentimes. It's just a few steps ahead of you. So anyways, I love that point. And I think it's a great one. You know, I remember watching some of your videos over the past few years of, as you did these profiles on unsuccessful people. And I'm curious, what are, what are a few of those profiles you've done that you felt like you learned the most from for yourself in terms of how to be more successful?

So the very first one that I did was on Kanye West. Now, Kanye's in all sorts of trouble now. I guess he's always been in trouble over the years, but it seems like especially in trouble now. And this is, this is where, you know, a lot of times we get these ideas and we just shut them down, but there's magic in those ideas. So I was never planning on doing profiles or top 10 rules videos. That wasn't really what I was thinking to do. And then I saw a blog post that a friend of mine, Mark, had posted kind of trashing Kanye about the whole Taylor Swift thing.

And Beyonce had the greatest song of all time. And this was years after it happened. It's like, Mark, man, you could learn from Kanye. I mean, like he does a lot of things that you don't need to learn from. But, you know, he went from being a, a producer to a rapper, to an entrepreneur, to a billionaire. He won more Grammys than anybody in history at his age at the time. And he's had a ton of success. And so anybody who's ahead of you, you can learn something from. And just as an example, John Legend, his real name isn't

John Legend. His name is John Stevens. And John Stevens, he feels like a super nice, humble guy. you know, if you see John Legend, I don't know if you know him or seeing interviews or listen to music, but he feels like a really nice guy. He's friends with Kanye, which already seems weird. Like, how are these two friends? They feel complete polar opposites. But John Stevens and young Kanye are sitting at a bar in Chicago. And John Stevens says, I feel like I belong in a different era. Like, this isn't, this is, I'm an old soul. Like, this isn't my music right now. more like Sinatra-era kind of singer. And Kanye says, you should call yourself the legend.

And John Stevens says, but I'm just getting started. Like I'm at the beginning of my career. How do I call myself a legend when I'm just at the start? And Kanye convinced him to change his stage name to John Legend. So even if you hate Kanye and what he says and what he stands for and the stupid things that he does, and I'm definitely not defending all of all of Kanye, but are you? You was good of friends, your friends like Kanye was to John Stevens. Do you think big like he does and encourage people around you like he does?

And so there were stories like that around Kanye that said, I wish people knew this stuff too. And it doesn't forgive him for stuff that he's done. But you don't need to be the next Kanye, but you could take 1% of him to help you be better. So I was so upset at my friend Mark for that post that I said, I'm going to throw away the day today. Whatever I was supposed to do, video is supposed to make. I'm not doing those. And I'm going to make a top 10 rules for success video on Kanye West. And I included that clip and other clips that I found inspiring from Kanye.

And we put it up. And it did well. And it was really just a watch this video, Mark, you know, learn something just as I got you to my friend. And it ended up taking off. And then people said, hey, can you do Jeff Bezos and Dame Dash and Elon Musk and Steve Jobs? And it's like, okay, yeah, like, that was fun and put together. And so you never know where some of these things will take you. It was meant to be this one-off thing just to stick it to my friend Mark.

And it turned into this thing that I became known for. And so I love learning from people who have had more success in me. And there's one thing that you can learn. Like there's no perfect Josh Axe. You know, there's no one person to learn from. But you can take 1% from different people to make you the best you. And so that's why I love, you know, Growth Lab. you're bringing on all these different people, and they don't have to learn everything for me,

but you take one thing from each your guests. That's going to make you so much more powerful, stronger, smarter as an entrepreneur, as a human, to help you become the best you. Yeah, so, Evan, I'm remembering now when I first came across your channel, and I was doing a search on YouTube, and I was wanting to learn success principles from some of the most successful business entrepreneurs and from billionaires. And so I did a search for Steve Jobs, you know, success principles. And I did a similar one with Elon Musk.

And you came up. I watched your video and I thought, this is so fantastic. And I don't know, you know this, but just for the audience, you take clips of some of the most profound things they've ever said and some of the most important principles that they live their life by in terms of becoming successful. And it's just really, anyways, they're really incredible. So just bravo for the job you've done on those. Cool. And honestly, I make it for me. Like, I want to be around Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and have that in my ear daily. And some of them are great speakers. Like Steve Jobs is hard to find a bad clip of Steve Jobs. But someone like Elon Musk is not a great speaker. And a lot of the clips he has is not helpful to me as an entrepreneur. Somebody asking him about the, you know, the Tesla truck or whatever is not helpful to me. A lot of the interviews with Kanye where they're, they're trying to get gotcha moments to make him look bad or gossip and celebrity news. It's like, I don't care about it.

That's not helping me. So what our team will do is now go through hours and hours and hours and hours of interviews and just like pull out the clips that are helpful for person of all and for entrepreneurs, people with growth mindset that you mentioned. And I need it for me. Like I watched them every morning. And it's great that enough other people like it that we can hire a team and build a production, you know, studio around it too.

Yeah, I love that. You know, I know one of the things I'm sure you've noticed is you have profiled the most successful people of our lifetime is they have a really high bar for themselves, right? Really high standards. And I've read this about you as well, that you've continued to set really ambitious goals for yourself, making big plans and just continuing to raise the bar. How have you cultivated such this mindset of excellent? So again, we're talking about perfect. And I don't know if you have thoughts on this as well, but I think there's a big difference between perfectionism and excellence, right? So it seems to me like you started off and maybe holding you

back a little bit perfectionism, but over time you realize that it's not about being perfect. It's about doing things with excellence. Am I on to something there? Yeah, it's the pursuit. You know, like excellence is the pursuit of perfection. So we're never done. What's the perfect interview? What's the perfect question? What's the perfect thumbnail, who's the perfect guess. Like you're never done. It's never done. But that pursuit is how we become excellent.

What's the perfect workout? What's a perfect book? Again, it's never done. But in the pursuit, you become more and more and more excellent. And I think you'll see that across high achievers. Nobody ever says they're done. Nobody ever says this is it. It's perfect.

There's always new things that you want to add and tweak and change and people to confer with and help. And always new problems to go. off and solve. And so it's getting dedicated to the process and that you're getting better every day, which is hard because that means you're going to fail and you're going to suck and you're going to make mistakes and you won't know until you get out there. No matter how much market research you do, you don't know until you start going off and do it. No matter what recipe you follow or workout regimen you look at, you never know until you start going off and do it. And people get overwhelmed

by the options. This is the problem. You know, back to the world you came from, with all of the fitness and diet and everything else. It's like, okay, I'm going to, you start with a goal of, I want to get into a healthy weight, right? I want to get down to my high school weight or university weight or whatever. And that's a very clear, tangible, great goal. Like, let's get healthy. But then how do you do it? Do you go in the keto diet or the carnivore diet or the vegetarian diet or the vegan diet or

the Mediterranean diet? And are you fasting, intermittent fasting, water fasting, coffee fasting, you know, or are you doing working out are you cross-fitting are you yogaing are you doing high intensity low-intensity it's just it's just this never-ending cycle of more and more and more things to learn well you will never learn everything it's impossible to know everything and so you need to just start and you learn more in the process of doing than you will just researching researching researching and like planning to get a plan and so that's what you find with the at least that's what i found with the world top achievers is they have this north star that they're shooting

towards. And that is a bold, noble, excellent, even perfect goal. And then how you get there is super messy and very chaotic and full of mistakes. But they're willing to go and make mistakes because the goal itself is noble. And so that's what I'm trying to do. That's what you've got going with Growth Lab. Interview, whatever number this is, is already better than interview number one and you learn your mistakes along the way. Like nobody is Joe Rogan out of the gate, right? And you make all those mistakes in that process you learn. That's so good. Again, I think this so much of this is about your mindset, right? Again, I think so many people are afraid of failure so they don't try or they start trying, but then they also don't say, I'm going to

get better and better and better over time. You know, what are some things that you have done over time? You think about 2009, right? That's when you start. It's, almost 14, almost 15 years later, right? 15 years, wow. And so over that 15 years, what are some ways that you went from an F to a D to a C to a B to an A in your content creation? So the most important are just the habits and routines, rituals, and environment, because if you woke up every day and felt like you want to get better today, you want to strive for excellence today, you may not achieve excellence on any day, but if that was your constant mindset, you will accomplish great things. And so for me, I make my videos for me. Like, if you listen to Steve Jobs

and Elon Musk and all these people every day, you're going to want to get better. Like, it's, if you listen to a growth lab every day, you may not love every single guest, but like, you're going to get better every day. It's going to happen. So if you, I don't know how many, how many episodes of Growth Lab have come out? I mean, so this is a newer show, but we probably, my guess is about 25 or 30, probably about 30. Great. So like 30 episodes, you've listened to one a day for the next month. You're going to be a different human out of 30 days than when you started. If you're swapping out a Netflix show and sub it in a Growth Lab show, you're just going to be feeling different, more confident, more powerful, have more skills. And that mindset shift permeates into the work that

you're doing every day. So the translation for me into YouTube world would be, okay, how do I, how do I make more powerful videos, how do I change my opening, how do I tweak my thumbnails, what am I going to call this video, what's my next piece of content going to be? And we can dive in all those specific YouTube tactics, if you'd like. But on the high level, it's even feeling worthy of being a YouTuber, even feeling worthy of being an author or an entrepreneur or great husband or whatever it is. And so most of the people who are watching, this show, you're probably already the most ambitious person that you know. Like, you're the one, if you follow Dr. Ax, you're probably the one already pouring into the people around you. You're

the happiest person in your circle. And that's great. Like, continue to pour into people. And, like, who's pouring into you? Who's making you better? Who's making you feel not inadequate that you suck and you're, like, so far away from being a less brown or whoever, but that you are capable of doing more. And that's what I found by either being in groups. And I don't know if you're around, you know, part of any groups or masterminds or communities. But when you're around people who are thinking bigger, it just forces you to want to play a bigger game. And if, and if you're not, and you can't afford that and you're just getting started, content makes a huge difference. Because you will emerge differently if you listen to an episode a day, right? It's like going

to the gym. If you go to the gym for an hour a day and even if you didn't follow a, uh, a plan. Like, don't, don't injure yourself and do things incorrectly. But if you just went to the gym and spent an hour there running and trying out of different machines, you're going to get a little bit healthier after 30 days, right? Nothing happens after one day, but after 30 days, you're going to start to see a difference. And so the same thing with what you feed into your mind. There's the tools and strategies and tactics which are helpful.

But without the mindset that makes you believe that you're even capable of being the person who could do these things, then no tool or strategy is going to be helpful because you just won't do it. Yeah, wow, that's so good. You know, one of the things I've really appreciated about you, Evan, is I have watched your videos and read up on you and even, you know,

taking a peek at a new book you wrote. And that is, you know, you're a believer that we're called to serve others. We're called to add value to others. We're called to contribute. And I think a lot of people sort of pursue this idea that I'm going to pursue happiness and that will make me happy.

Well, I can tell you because I've done a lot of research on these medical studies and what they found in study after study is if you just pursue happiness as an end in itself, you actually become less happy and less fulfilled with your life. And so talk to me a little bit about your philosophy around how we actually become happy and fulfilled with our lives. Yeah, I would split happiness into excitement and fulfillment. And I think we often get these things confused. So when you're excited, that's happy. And you can get that by going on a roller coaster. You can get that by having a sugar rush. You can get that by playing a video game.

Like, there's a lot of things you can do to give you this excitement. And that's happy. Like, you're happy in a short run eating that delicious donut or doing some throw ride or doing some kind of momentary thing. That does bring you some moment of happiness. But it's the fulfillment that is a sustained long. term happiness, at least for me. And fulfillment comes from feeling like the work you're doing means something to somebody else. We are wired to serve others. We all want to feel like we matter

to somebody else. To ourselves is not enough, except for some like 0.000 of people who enjoy like doing harm to others. We are built to serve. And some of us, you know, you and I, we want to serve the world. We have big missions. We want to have a big impact. We have we have content that we know can help. And even the fact that you're pivoting and starting Growth Lab shows that you're willing to constantly learn and adjust and improve and not just do the same thing over and over and over again. We want to have a big impact. Other people like my wife Nina don't have a giant mission, but they still want to serve. And she's the glue for our family. She's remembering everybody's birthday. She's following up and asking people how they are. She's asking about their relationship.

things that I don't always remember. But either way, we want to serve. And if you woke up every day and felt like you don't matter and you're driving to a job that you hate and nobody cares if you show up or not or give your best and you're doing work that is meaningless, if that was what you were doing every day, which I think is most people, then that's the path to unhappiness and stress and sadness and depression and suicide because you feel like you don't matter. But if you woke up every day and felt like this might matter, like what I'm doing today

might matter to somebody. Whether it's a big thing like making a video, I'm going to come on the growth lab and we're going to inspire millions of people, amazing. Or just, I'm going to show up for my wife today, like just one person. If you felt like today was going to matter, you show up with a completely different energy. And so it's not enough to do something for yourself. When you can tie it to this is going to help somebody else out, you have so much more power and motivation. And I think that's what leads to long-term happiness through fulfillment.

That's so good. Yeah, it's so good. You know, I, um, well, you know, I want to ask this question because again, you're one of the best in the world at this. Again, 3.7 million followers on YouTube. When you're creating something on YouTube, and feel free to get a little practical here. So if anybody here, you know, wants to create a great video in the future or a great brand, What are some of those critical components that you think about or some of the things that go into making an excellent video? Sure. And I'll caveat this with I'm great at thought leadership content. So I'm not the guy to call for your slime videos or prank videos or anything else. But thought leadership education is what I love doing the most. A couple things.

So usually we'll look at frequency. And frequency is minimum once a week. If you're not doing once a week, you're not in the game. So start thinking about how can I go make videos at least once a week. Two is length. And 10 minute plus is typically what we're looking at. And no maximum. It's like, well, how long should I go?

Well, as long as you can. People are going to YouTube to learn. And so how did Joe Rogan blow up? and how did Lex Frieden blow open? How did all these people blow up? Three-hour interviews, right? It's like the longer you can go, as long as it's still valuable,

don't go along just for the sake of going long, but length, people are now going to YouTube to learn. If I wanted to learn a lot of the stuff you talk about and Growth Lab, where am I going? You know, I'm probably not going to the library anymore. I'm probably not asking my mom. I'm going to YouTube. And if you can hook me in and get me interested,

I will watch a three-hour video. So how often are you doing it? at least once a week. How long is a video 10 minute plus? Three, the first minute really matters. When people say I have a short attention span, that's true. It's like, oh, I won't watch it a three hour long video. That's true in the first minute. So the first minute really, really, really, really, really matters. If you can hook people for the first minute, they'll watch the whole thing. And you just, if anybody has ever seen an audience retention curve, you've, you've probably known all about it for your own videos. But if you're new to YouTube,

the audience retention curve shows you minute by minute, second by second how people are falling off your video. And what you find is the first minute is where you lose everybody. So you get over a three hour long podcast and at one minute you've already lost 60% of the people on your video. And then it's a slow trickle down for the rest of the video. So what's the problem? The problem is that first minute. You need to fix the first minute. And so you need to have a powerful opinion. You need to have something exciting. You have to have a reason for people to watch you assume that they don't know who you are. We're not only making videos for your audience. So I've got an audience, you've got an audience.

We want to make a video for people who have never heard of us. And so if you're doing a show like this, for example, we need to have coming ups, either highlight moments from what this episode's about and put that at the beginning or the host will then intro it in a way that it's not appealing to the, you're not trying to just praise the guest, but in a way that the audience will make sure they want to watch. So, you know, this episode, I forget how we started, like, hey, I've got a special guest on, this individual has yada, yada, yada, great. That is not a great start, right?

You need to take some coming ups and put them, and you know this, but a lot of people don't know this. Because when you're making an interview, the beginning kind of sucks because you're building rapport. You know, you don't know where it's going to go, but hopefully in an hour long show, there's going to be a lot that you talk about. And so highlight moments and bring it at the beginning. So obsess with the first minute, that's where people have a short attention span. And if you can hold them for the first minute, then they'll watch the rest of it.

And then the last one is click through rate. So you could have the best videos, but if the thumbnail and title suck, then nobody's going to end up watching a video. YouTube will stop recommending it. And so there's a lot of work that goes into figuring out what the best title and thumbnail are and how to optimize for them. And the good news is you can always change it. You know, the best part about YouTube is that your content lives forever.

So I'm sure you have videos that are like five plus years old, still getting you lots of views right now on the channel, which unlike Instagram and Facebook and TikTok, those are much more of the moment platforms where nobody cares what you posted two weeks ago on Instagram, let alone five years ago. But YouTube, if you're making content that is evergreen. So a lot of the stuff you're talking about is evergreen content. Mindset will still be valuable in five years.

That is a great strategy to use. So how often are you doing it at least once a week? How long are the videos, at least 10 minutes, but the biggest growth is seen as the one or three hour? What's happening in the first minute? and the benchmark of excellence is 70% at one minute, which is incredibly hard to do to keep 70% of people at one minute. And then the last one is optimizing your click-through rate

and constantly testing your thumbnails and titles. We've done over 20,000 split tests at this point in our titles and thumbnails, and it's the pursuit of perfection. Like we still have a perfect thumbnail. But that's what excellence looks like is the constant testing. That's so good. And obviously there are tools and things you can do to do that. But also, I think if you're getting started,

it and Evan, I think you'd agree with this. It's like, see what other experts are doing, right? Watch Evan, watch Ed Milette or Andrew Huberman or, you know, or someone else who's an expert and say, hey, what are their thumbnails? How are they getting an intro? What's their audience hook? What's the question they're asking? And I think that's the fastest way to success, right? In a way, you have followed all these people. You've been able to, you know, create profiles on some of the most successful people, giving, highlighting their greatest pieces of advice of all time. And I think in the form, a lot of these things are modeling, right? Well, how do you become successful?

We'll model somebody who's done it. Learn from them, right? Like I'm thinking about, you know, Socrates was the mentor of Plato and Plato was the mentor of Aristotle and Aristotle, Alexander the Great. And we see that with most people that have been successful as they've either had a in-person mentor or a virtual mentor, which Evan, I think you and I are probably in this boat. to where we've watched so many videos of people. And it's almost like we've had some of these virtual manners,

whether it be for me, someone like a John Maxwell or a Jordan Peterson or someone like that, and probably similar thing for you with some other successful individuals. How much do you think modeling plays into success? And is that something that you've done as well? Yeah, my channel initially was called Modeling the Masters. Oh, wow.

And if you go YouTube.com slash model, modeling the Masters or model the Masters? I forget which one. It still goes to Evan Carmichael. So that was my initial handle. So I'm a big believer. I literally didn't know that. That's amazing.

That's a super inside baseball that not very many people would know. You'd have to be OG subscriber to know that. But I'm 100%. That's what saved my business. My first business was modeling Bill Gates and seeing how we built Microsoft. And so how can I use that to apply to my company? And modeling won't get you all the way there. It gets you like 85% of the business.

the way. Right. It's like trying on a hoodie and it doesn't quite fit and so you got to make a couple adjustments. So if you want to be a great podcast host, so that's like somebody's watching, that's their next great ambition. Okay, cool. Listen to the podcast that you love. Josh has his questions and Rogan has his questions and Ferris has his questions and whoever else that you love listening to, they have their questions. You can't just ask the same questions that Dr. Axe is asking and Joe Rogan is asking, right? You have to add your spice and your flavor to it. But it gets you 85% of the way there instead of trying to feel like you have to figure this all out on your own. Back to the beginning of this interview where, you know, you said, what made the difference between your first five years you went from zero to 2,000 subscribers and then the next five years with 2,000 over a million.

It was mentorship. It was, it was modeling success. It was getting help. It was not trying to do everything all on my own. So at the beginning, copy. At the beginning, yes, copy Dr. Axe and copy me and copy whoever else and copy thumbnails and titles and intros. That's not all you want to end up doing because then you're just an Elvis impersonator and you're never going to be Elvis, right? So, but that gets you to the path, right?

That gets you way faster on the path to then, okay, I saw how he did it. Now I'm going to experiment and branch off and do my own thing. So I think Malin's success is the fastest way to grow, gets you 85% of the way there, and then you got to figure out that extra little secret sauce to add in for yourself. That's so good. I know you've been able to, again, do so many of these high-profile features. What is, you know, and so this is kind of a question you can answer it in one of two ways. One, what is the best piece of advice you've ever picked up from somebody on one of these videos? Or maybe you were having a mentor or coach or somebody well-known you were speaking with.

But what's the best piece of advice that you've ever received? Well, okay, best piece of advice I ever received with some of my parents, with my mom telling me I'm having a Grishvili Carmichael doing anything that I believe that I can. I didn't get that from a video, but I got that from hanging out with my mom. From videos,

sometimes it's direct and sometimes it's indirect and you have to read between the lines. And this is where I think it's also great just to watch how people carry themselves. So I remember we did a profile on Elon Musk and he went on

some big news network, CNBC or CNN or whatever. And he was saying that AI will eventually kill us all. Like the robots will take over. And this is way before the hype now of all the AI. And then they asked a follow-up question. Well, that's pretty scary, Elon. Like, how is it going to happen?

And he said, I don't know. And then they asked a couple more questions. And he just kept saying, I don't know. And for me, reading between the lines was, man, I don't know that I would have the courage to go on a major, you know, TV network. make some bold claim, and then every follow-up question say, I don't know. Like, I feel like if I was asked a question, like, if you asked me a question, I would try to find a way to answer it instead of just saying, I don't know.

Yeah. And so my lesson for that is I hope I have the courage to when somebody asks me a question that I don't have an answer to, that I actually just say, I don't know. So it's like it's in watching as well and being in somebody's, you know, energy and environment, seeing how they carry themselves that I think you can learn a lot from as well, in addition to the actual words that they're saying. Yeah, that's good. That's really good. You know, of all the wisdom that you've shared personally over the years,

what's one piece of advice that you've given to yourself or others that you kind of keep coming back to over and over again? So I'm a believer that everybody has a single most important core value. I give you head to pick, what's your most important core value? I don't kind of put you on the spot. Oh, wow. I mean, can I give you a hierarchy of a few? I mean, yeah, so I mean, I would say for myself, I do think, I mean, I think it's love. I think it's the golden rule. I think it's looking at somebody in my core value is, I want to add value to you. I want to do what's best for you so you can flourish long term. So I think for mine, it's, it's maybe that's cliche, it's love. And then after that, I think wisdom is another big one because I think a lot of people are operating without a wisdom. And for me, my definition of wisdom is very, wisdom is very rooted in the Bible. It's very much.

what does God say about a matter and then trying to interpret that for sort of, you know, use that in context for every decision I make? Those are probably my top two. And I'd think other things like humility is incredibly important in others. But I would say love is number one, wisdom number two. That's great. Okay. So for me, I'd say believe, right?

So I want to spread more believe in the world. And whatever our messages to the world is, is still what we need the most ourselves. and the next level of our breakthrough is on the other side of even more of that thing. So my next level breakthrough is on the other side of even more belief. If 95-year-old Evan was going to come and talk to me right now, he'd say, dude, believe in yourself more. Your next breakthrough is on the side of even more love. And people might say, Josh, dude, like, you're already the most loving person that I know.

Like, how can there be even more love? But that's the pursuit of excellence, right? Like there's, this isn't even the start of how much love you could potentially share. Both, both internally, like self-love plus love out. How do you bring more love to your audience, to the guests who come on, to the team who show up, to the people who buy your products and services, as well as to sell? And so that's a frame of reference that I use for myself at least to say, okay, like the, if I believed in myself more, what would I do?

What would the next thing be? Because 95-year-old Evan is pissed that I'm not. not off doing the bigger thing and it took me so long to get here just like now looking back it's like how come it took me five years to get some videos going up to get past 2,000 subscribers not in a negative way like you sucked looking backwards but let's use that as fuel going forward to make the bigger play to leap faster into self-belief in my case to allow me to go and do more because another one of the things my mom used to say is if you have the ability you have the responsibility if you can then you must. And so I believe that if you're someone who's filled with love, you have the

responsibility to go off and share. Like it's not enough to hold that for yourself. You have to go off and do more with it. Like you can't settle for where you're at right now. My belief, right? And I think that's what achievers kind of hold themselves too, that it's great, everything we've done, and I'm capable of more. And more, not just for me, but more to serve and to help and to inspire and to spread more positivity around the world. That's so good, Evan. You know, one of the things you've constantly came back to over this entire interview from actually one of the first questions to at least a couple others is,

you know, bringing up how your mom has positively impacted your life, right? I mean, maybe your mom, maybe we need to get her a show, you know, in a channel too. Or maybe you need to, you know, and I don't know if you've done this already. Maybe you need to have her, you know, build a profile on her interview her. But anyway, it sounds like an incredibly wise woman. in your life, and that's just so important, right, that we got these people around us that are pouring into us, and so we can pour that wisdom, that love those beliefs out on other people. I love that. Well, I want to mention for everybody here, Evan has a book. His latest book is called Built to

Serve. And I think this book and the concept is so important because you were made for something, right? And I think we all asked this question of, what was I built for? What was I made for? And Evan gets this into this book, is Built to Serve. And so I encourage everybody, go to Amazon.com and check out his book Built to Serve. Also, Evan, where are some other places people can find you? And one other question I'd have for you is, what are a couple of videos you have on your YouTube channel that you think would be a great place for people to start, to start to learn about more of your teachings and how to become successful?

Wow. Okay. So, I mean, people want to find me. I'm Evan Carmichael, most places. is pretty easy to, pretty easy to find. There's one other Evan Carmichael out there who's a pastor in Hawaii. So we battle every now and then

for who gets the next Evan Carmichael handle for whatever platform comes out. At some point I'll do a collab with him. And we both spread belief. His is through, you know, the word of God and mine is through my channel. But so anyway, but you can find me on most platforms. In terms of video at the start,

there's so many. Maybe start with the Kanye one. We can give that to you. you if you want to put it up in the show notes because we talked about that is the first video for for the top 10 that kind of started things off and I can also share the very first video on the channel. My very first video, you know, talk about being a perfectionist. I opened my channel in November of 2008 and I didn't post a video I think until April 2009. Oh wow. I sat on my channel too. Like, I'm not perfect. I struggled. I was trying to be perfect. And my first video looks pretty good. Now, it's dated since it 2009. But I didn't start until I had my friend, who was a professional videographer, come in and film me. And I'm sitting there in my suit and trying to memorize my script. And he edited it. So it looked really nice and clean. And it was pretty good for 2009 quality. But it took me how many months, you know, from November to April before we even launched the first video. And then I started making it more just.

okay, I'm just going to do it on my own and just go and expect the suck at the beginning. So yeah, maybe the first video and the Kanye one are probably good places to start. That's great. And another idea here for everybody, we'll put this in the show notes. Also, you know, if there's somebody that you really admire that's successful as an entrepreneur and business, you might also just search something like Evan Carmichael Elon Musk or Evan Carmichael Steve Jobs. Those were a couple I watched. I got incredible value from. And so you could always just search someone successful. Tony Robbins is another example. Search Evan's name and see what he has done on them because it's incredibly concise, incredibly valuable. Evan, one of the things Evan does is he combs through the internet looking at sometimes, I mean, just hours and hours of video to find those most powerful clips of someone like Elon and then puts them all into one single video. So again, it's just absolutely incredible. It's been a great value to my life and I hope it adds value to your life as well. Well, again, Evan, hey, thanks. much for coming on. I want to let you know, I really appreciate you. You know, sharing,

just sharing so much of your wisdom with us today. Thank you, man. And maybe as a final thought, it feels like it's harder to win by being positive right now. You know, it feels like if you're spreading hope and positivity and optimism and belief and courage and love, that it's harder to win right now, where there's so much negativity in the system and it seems to be what everything is leading with. And so at least I feel that way. I don't know if you do. But it means to me that this show is needed even more. You like to be the light in the darkness that people need the growth lab. And I mean, honor to be in the first, you know, 30 episodes. I'm just super, super proud of what you're doing. And just my, I know you're going to keep going. And I'm just, you're doing good work.

and it's needed right now. And so if anybody watching, you enjoyed this session, let Josh know, put it in the comments, and let's all go be Warriors of the Light, because people need it right now. I love it. Well, thanks so much, Evan. And hey, thanks everybody for watching.

I want to encourage you. If you're not subscribed to hear the channel, hey, please subscribe. And we'd love to hear comments from you as well. Hey, share with me, what is the biggest takeaway that you had from this video that Evan shared? Hey, please share that in the comment section. And again, also, again, thanks to everybody who's been on mission with me, sharing the truth of how to grow yourself and so much more. Again, thanks to Evan Carmichael for all his wisdom.

I'll be back in another day or two with another video. Thanks so much for watching. Hey, so if you've liked this video with Evan Carmichael, you're going to love the video I did with Rob Dial on mindset and finding your purpose. Hey, if you want to check out that video, hey, click right here. I'll see you over there. And he says, yeah. So if the business succeeds, it's the CEO's fault. If the business fails, it's the CEO's fault, right?

And I said, yeah. And he said, okay, do you want to know what your problem is? And I go, sure. And he goes, you're not acting like the CEO of your life.