Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - Expect To Suck - Interview With Evan Carmichael

Episode Date: June 28, 2020

In this episode, I play a fireside chat with Evan Carmichael from last years Your World Within Live event, where Evan sheds light on his experiences as an entrepreneur, author and Youtube creator. Delving into topics from handling criticism to building a personal brand to the ins and outs of effectively using social media, there is something here for everyone!

Like at the start, expect to suck. Nobody's going to show up and you're not going to be very good at it. Like, why do you expect to be great the first time you try something? Right? Like, you should expect to suck at the beginning. If you don't suck, then you should have started five years ago. Welcome to Your World Within Daily. This is Eddie Pinero. And today I'm going to show you an interview with Evan Carmichael, who is a speaker entrepreneur and a brilliant YouTuber. He's influenced a lot of people in this space and has been someone I've looked up to through my growth on the platform, you know, storytelling and just getting my

message out to the world. Big influence on that. So what I'm going to show you is I got the opportunity last summer to sit down with him at my event, your world, with you. live and ask him a few questions and then kind of facilitated the audience's questions to him. You know, primarily about entrepreneurship, growth, social media, mindset. And just it's really, it's a cool opportunity to hear about his outlook and how he's created the platforms and the, you know, hundreds and millions of views and people he's reached and helped so that we can implement that into our own world. So this is my interview at your world within live with Evan Carmichael.

I hope you enjoy it. So what we're going to do is ask Evan just a few questions and then open it up. We want this to be kind of an informal, casual Q&A, fireside chat type thing. And we'll take it from there. And I think the question that I would love to start with, this totally, when we were having lunch today, blew my mind. So you're talking about your channel and how much time you put into it, how much energy you put into it. It's your life. If it wasn't making a dollar, you said, you would still put the same amount of energy effort and time in every single day.

And I think that's such an important thing because there's so many people here that are embarking on new projects. and just to be able to explain the importance of loving and being immersed in what you do would be really cool. Yeah, so, hey, first off, I'm pumped for you, man. Eddie's been, how long we know each other? Five years, four years? Something like that, four or five. And when he reached out and said, I want to do my,

this chair of swivels. Got to be careful. I didn't know that. That's cool. Like, I'm so pumped that he's getting into live events and he's thinking bigger and doing, stepping outside his comfort zone back to lesson number one. and embrace this comfort.

So pump for you, and thank you. I'm honored to be here to close us off. Appreciate that. Listen, there's been a lot of people talking about purpose. There's been a lot of people talking about going through all of their struggles and the stories have been inspiring. I've been taking notes and having fun at the back. Your purpose comes from your pain, right?

Like, how do you find your purpose? Everybody says, find your purpose. Great, how do you do it? And for those of you don't maybe know a little bit about me, I have a YouTube channel and you've got 10 million subscribers, 300 million views, and I do profiles of tons of successful

different entrepreneurs where you can learn from their success and break it down. So I've studied more successful entrepreneurs than most people. It's how to break down the rules and give it to you guys. And the thing that comes up over and over

and over and over again is the question of how do you find your passion? So how do you do it? What's the process? Your purpose comes from your pain. Whatever you struggle the most with, is the thing that you want to help other people with. And typically, as entrepreneurs,

we can be optimistic and positive and forward thinking, and we don't want to think about the pain and what we went through. And the point isn't to live in that pain, but the point is to get out of it, and then make the world a better place, right? I don't know Terrence is still in the room, but Terrence is going through the hero's journey. Oh, you just walked in.

Good timing, man. He's going through the hero's journey, right? You had all these struggles, and you find a mentor, you go off and do all these crazy things, and then you're celebrated at the end. but the piece that I would add at the very end of that is great. You're celebrated and now you give back. And now you teach other people how to do it.

So I struggled so much as an entrepreneur. My first business, I was 19. I was making $300 a month. I was, you know, I was broke. I had no money. I was trying to figure out how to make this thing a go. And I quit on my business partner. It was the worst day of my life.

And I said, I love that. I said, I can't keep doing it this way. Like, I felt worthless as a human to hear me say, I quit on something I cared about. And so I said, I got to figure out another way to stand. And so I asked myself, who else has built a software company? I looked at Bill Gates, studied his story, and applied those lessons and started making money in my business.

And so because I struggled so much as an entrepreneur, now I want to help out other entrepreneurs for life. Like, that never gets old. So whatever you struggled the most with is who you, will want to help for the rest of your life. And then how did you get out of the hole? Is something that isn't just unique to you? It's teachable.

You can help other people through the same path that you took. So I struggled as an entrepreneur. The thing that saved me was modeling Bill Gates' success. How did he build Microsoft to zero to one? I don't care how he makes an extra million now, right? Zero to one. That's what I wanted to do. Study that.

Applied to myself, started getting success. And for the past 20 years, all I've been doing is teaching other people. how to model success. My purpose comes from my pain, and then the how of how I got out of it is something that now I can teach other people. And it's the greatest gift. And so I was telling Eddie over lunch

that I would keep doing it for me. I need my channel for myself. It's fulfilling. And if it never made a dollar, then I would have to find another way to support myself, but I would keep doing this. And that becomes the asset test. If you're ever showing up on Monday,

you're like oh you got to leave and and too often and if that's a job you can relate to it probably like oh my gosh you got to go on Monday and I'm not seeing you have to quit right away because you have to still pay the bills and rent and internet and all that stuff it's important but if that's ever your business where you show up on Monday you're not pumped to go do the thing that you're supposed to do then then you have to you have to switch and too many entrepreneurs for those who've been in the game for a while you end up buying yourself a job where then it be a It was exciting before, but now it's five years in,

and you're still doing the same thing. For a creative type, it's a death sentence. So I think you have to pay attention to your energy. If Monday morning you're showing up and you have low energy, you have to find something else. I still love making videos. But the day that I've done, I started on YouTube April 2009, so over 10 years ago, we've done 5, 6,000 videos across multiple channels.

I still like making videos. But the day that I stopped liking videos, I'm going to do something else. Because you'll never win doing work that you hate. So what was your process for getting there? Because you came from a pretty conventional background, at least according to some of the bios I've seen, where you went to college,

you were thinking about financial services, and you pivoted, you know? Was it a learning? Was it experimentation? Or was it you made videos right out of the gate? You were lucky, and you're like, you know, this is something that I love and I'm going all in. So I started videos as an experiment. I think we need to taste more, test more.

Right. Like, how do you know the thing that you're supposed to do? Well, you won't know by just even sitting here. You've got to go off an experiment. Right? My boy, DeVazio over here, we're talking outside. So he's driving truck. And can I share the story?

You might? So he's driving truck, and he wants to help inspire a lot of kids to have a little more respect. Because he grew up wanting to have a father figure with teaching him a little more respect. And so he said, well, I don't know how to, I don't know. I listen to the podcast all day long, I don't have time to actually go off and do something because he's in this truck.

It's like, listen, first off, the fact that you're already consuming education instead of entertainment, you're already way ahead of most of America. Most people spend our time just binging on Netflix instead of listening to podcasts, watching Eddie's videos, my videos. But now you've got to just listen to the podcast,

just watching Eddie's video, it's not enough. You've got to do something. Who's like, well, what do I do? Anything. Like, the thing that's missing for most people is just momentum. I think as a starting point, everybody has Michael Jordan level talent at something.

Like, you're the best, in the world, at something. The best in the world at something. The thing that's missing is momentum. What's the next step? Something. So I said, go on Instagram Live and coach somebody from your truck. Do you know anybody who can coach? Like, yeah, yeah, I think I got a guy.

Like, great. So message him and say, What are you doing on Monday? Can I coach you from my truck? And then the immediate responses are, well, I don't know how to get on Instagram. Okay, great. And this isn't just, this is everybody.

This is like, don't laugh at him, laugh at yourself. This is all of us, right? Like we come up with the reasons why. You're looking for the reasons why you can't do it. Great, I don't know how to get on Instagram. Awesome. Like, go to Google, ask somebody here, how do we create an Instagram account?

Right? Well, he might be in school. Okay, great. So, you're, you're, driving truck all day long, there's got to be an hour somewhere he can do it, right? Okay, yeah, yeah, that can make sense. Okay, so message him. Yeah, yeah, I will.

I don't know, like right now. Right now? Yeah, message him. And he did. Right there on the balcony, right outside on the balcony. He messaged him. Nice, nice. And then he wrote back, right?

He wrote back like right away. So on Monday, did you figure out of time? No, yeah. So figure out of time today, dude. Pressure's on. Right? So on Monday, you know, he's going to be driving truck from here to South Carolina to Ohio or wherever, and somewhere in there he's going to go live and do his first Instagram.

Right? And listen, like nobody's going to show up. That's okay. Right? Like at the start, expect to suck. Nobody's going to show up and you're not going to be very good at it. Like, why do you expect to be great the first time you try something? I think this is a big problem.

I think we need to have a conversation around it. You expect to make a video and crush it the first time out. Right? Like you should expect to suck at the beginning. If you don't suck, then you should have started five years ago. Like, if you make a video, if his first IG Live isn't totally embarrassing for the first 15 minutes, I'm actually pissed. Because, like, you should have started that three years ago. Right?

Like, you're supposed to suck at the beginning. So he's going to go off and do his first IG Live. And I said, you know what, this is the step. Like, if you went and did this every week, driving truck, coaching young men, teaching about respect, one hour, every Monday, you'll be on stage at the next year world life. You'll be on stage here next year. But that's how it happens.

That's how it happens for people who are ambitious to create something and are taking in all the knowledge. But without momentum, you stay where you are. and you don't know what the first step is. Maybe that is not the path, right? Maybe it's better, I suggested he has somebody drive next to him. So, like, he drives in the truck, and there's some kid next to him who takes a six-hour drive, and he coaches him and films it.

There could be a thousand iterations of that, but the key is just to go and test. Like, how do you know until you do it? And you don't pay attention to the results, you pay attention to, did I enjoy the process? Did I love it? I sucked at it, but did I love it? But did I love it?

Because if you love it and you keep doing it, you'll get better at it. So I just, I love doing small tests. So I just started on YouTube. I just made a video. I never, when I started in April 2009, YouTube was a different beast. There was no Eddie Panero. There was no motivational content. There was no education.

It was old man slips downstairs, right? Like cat vomits on the couch. These were the short. That was YouTube. This is early days of YouTube. So I never had ambitions to go and have 2 million subscribers and 300 million views. It was just, I'm visual. I'd much rather see something, so I want to see it.

So I wanted to create something visual for visual learners like me. So for all the podcasts and the hype, and I listen to Zero Podcasts because I'm, auditory is the worst. If I couldn't see you or see Eddie, I'd be like really focused here trying to listen to what you're saying because I don't learn auditory very well. And then people are asking me questions, so I made a video response, and I thought a video, I'll send it to that one person,

and maybe they'll like it, and maybe it inspires another 100 people who might be watching it. That was it. That was the start. Just try. If you got any, listen to all these amazing speakers here today, you've written a whole bunch of ideas down in your notebook. The worst thing you can do is go home and just have an idea's notebook. Like, pick something and just start on it,

and expect to suck. and go, right? Like the idea with the baseball, fine, great, go home and do some kind of Easter eggs. Right? And expect it to suck. Awesome, post. Next. Do the next one.

And it may be the greatest gift of all time, or that idea may suck for you. Awesome. How are you going to know? You won't know by thinking through it. You know by doing it. So what did you, because it seems like vulnerability and volume, like talked about a little bit embracing that discomfort. is something that you're constantly attacking, right?

And so for people that maybe haven't done that or want to, want to take that step, like what will they experience and what's your advice is someone who's been there, right? You know, we talked about your first video versus where you are now. There's a big difference. Yeah, so embracing vulnerability really is

stop caring so much what other people think of you. And that's the thing that holds so many people back. We're afraid of judgment. We're not afraid of failing. You're afraid of failing in front of people. right you'll sing in the shower at home but you won't sing on the balcony out here because you're afraid of judgment so I like to as soon as I feel myself playing small because of somebody else's opinion of me I have to go do that thing even if it has nothing

to do with my business just because so I own a dance studio in Toronto salsa dancing largest salsa dance studio maybe in North America but definitely Canada and my team won a Bacada dancing competition and it was mostly women so I took them to a nail salon after and we painted their nails and one of the one of the ladies asked me hey ever you're going to get your nails done that's not an expression of myself I'm guessing you walked out with painting nails yeah right and and the only acceptable answer is that's not an expression of myself but in the back of my head is I can't get my nails that's ridiculous it's fear of judgment Right. Right? And I'm thinking, how long do nails last? A week? Two weeks? I don't know. Like, how many videos am I making in that time? How many meetings or seminars or speeches am I doing? I make three to four videos a day, right? So times two weeks. It's a lot of videos. And if you're growing a YouTube channel, 80% of your views plus should be from non-subscribers. So people who don't know who you are. And so they're going to see this guy with painted nails. And I can't explain the story.

in every video that I'm putting up. And so because that was part of the reason, then I had to go off and do it, just because. And so I said, my brain color's orange, can you match my orange, and then put white racing stripes on it just because. And so we did it. And then ladies and know what you go through,

because as soon as we left, my wife was in there, she got her nails done too, but I asked her to open the door for me because I didn't want to ruin my nails. It's a turning point. It's really wild. She's like, well, I got my nails done too. I'm like, but you're used to this.

I don't want to... Anyway, it's super wild. But then they started to scratch off. And so my lady friends now are all, you have to... You have to, what, ladies? It's starting to scratch off. What do I have to do? You're like, get them done again or take it off, right?

Which was more what? More... Well, not the money. More judgment. More judgment. which now means I have to keep the nails on all the way until they fade to nothing. And so I'm walking around with like, I look like a diseased animal with like these chips of orange blocks on my nail, just because, just be, and like what does it have to do with business?

Well, nothing technically, but it's the self-confidence that comes from that, that I'm not going to live my life by what other people think of me. And so I have a heartbeat test, like the boom, boom, boom test, I call it, that when your heart's beating like this, boom, boom, boom, that's go time. That means you do it. So back to earlier, we're saying, hey, go talk to somebody. If you're worried about the challenge is go talk to somebody, introduce yourself, and your heart's beating like, you have to do it.

Even if you suck, right? Like, even if you come up to me and say, hey, Evan, and then you just vomit on me. Right? I'm pumped. kind of like it's because it's the effort of trying because the worst thing you can do

is find yourself feeling that you're afraid and then not doing the action because now you've taught it's better not to catch it at all because if you catch it and then you don't do it you're teaching yourself that you suck to Eddie's like self-belief right I forget the exact quote but about being able to look yourself

in the eye right remember the eye thing up you're teaching yourself that you suck And so I want to teach myself that I'm awesome. And so whenever I feel my heart beating like this, boom, boom, boom, boom, I go off and I want to do it. Within reason, right? Like don't just jump from the balcony here, right? That's stupid.

But when it's regarding other people's judgments or opinions or feelings of you, then you have to go off and do that thing, just because. Right. So something I've experienced and been asked, right, along that same lines as a YouTuber. I put out a lot of videos and I experiment and I try to do that. things. And so I have a fairly good idea of what will do well and what won't, not always, but sometimes, and like vlog type stuff. Like we discussed earlier, it's the most uncomfortable to do because it's the newest, but it also has the least impact, right? So for anyone in that type of

situation where they're trying something new and they're not seeing the result, what's the fine line where you say, no, I'm going to keep doing this until it picks up, because I believe in it versus that pivot that, you know, maybe this isn't my strength. Maybe there's something else that I can, a better way to articulate. So this isn't my strength is interesting because usually that's just a skill set and skillsets can be learned for the most part, right? I suck at making video. You can go back and watch my channel, watch my first video, it's still all there, my first video sucked, right? I watch it. It was 350 videos until I wasn't absolutely embarrassed by myself where I couldn't watch it back.

I watched it back. 350 public videos, right? So I sucked at the beginning. And I think that has to be part of the process. You quit when you stop loving it. That's the asset test. That's the fact. That's the test.

If you love the process and you're not getting results, keep going. Because what's going to happen? you're going to end up quitting and then in five years, ten years, thirty years looking back and regretting it and saying, I should have just you know what, I gave on that too early

and then you're going to hate your life and that's most of America because you have Michael Jordan level talent at something and you're not living it. You know you're capable of more but you're not doing it. Now there's also the camp that a lot of entrepreneurs start their business and they stop loving it in which case you need to move on

because you'll never win doing work that you hate. Again, I still love making videos, but if I stopped it, I'd have to move on and do something else. It's interesting about making a product that you love doing, if it's only for you, but nobody else loves it, you have a hobby. And that's great, it's a hobby. It might fill the soul, but it's not providing the service. So you're not going to make money doing it.

If you're only chasing opportunity, but you don't love it, you're going to lose because you're going up against people who love doing that thing. It's in that mix of where you love, plus what there's an opportunity, that you start being able to make an impact. It's interesting that you talked about impact, though, because when you showed your videos, you showed five videos, Rabbit Hole was the one you said was the most important, most proud of, but didn't get the views that the other videos got.

Correct, yeah. But after you played it, it was the only video that got a round of a class coming here. Right, right. Right? Because that's the thing that's going to tie people to you. So in figuring out, not just for all of you, but using Eddie as an example, who are you? Do you want to be the face of the brand? Do you want to be able to do challenging, artistic, creative things?

Or do you want to say, no, I like being pigeonholed here and I'm going to stay here forever? Because if you want to be out here, that's the group that then people will watch, and those are the people who are coming out to your events and support you on your book. tour and support you on everything else you end up doing. Right. So that's a, I know we want to answer to or open up the question. So, but one more that I feel like is really pertinent, and I know a big part of your brand is your one thing, right? So you've written a book about that. And sort of along your journey, there's your one word that you identify as, what was your process there? What's the significance

and how can we all find our one word as we make our way through life? So I think everybody has a one word most important core value I take people through a who, why, how process. So the why is your purpose comes from your pain, the how, how you got out of it is a recipe to teach other people. We kind of touched on that, we can go deeper if you want. The first part is the who. So everybody has a one word, most important core value.

Mine is believe, everybody has something. You know, these guys have legacy and perseverance, and what's yours? I've got to think of one. You've got to figure it. So great, we can work through it. So, think about, well, let's go through it. Think about who is your favorite teacher of all time? Favorite teacher of all time.

Growing up. Mr. Catawar, third grade, hands down. Third grade. He was great. Okay, so why? Because he was fun. He was fun, and it was the first time, like, you know, school's very sort of procedural.

You go and you get a good grade. And he made it, like, an experience as opposed to a check. Okay. What's your favorite movie of all time? Probably The Patriot. Because? It's just badass. The hero's journey, and it is amazing.

Just, yeah, I'm a history buff, and I just really enjoy this stuff. And who's your favorite musician of all time? Probably John Mayer. Oh, because? You can do everything. He's a brilliant guitarist, brilliant songwriter. does that right with the ladies. So in that mix

becomes the seeds of what makes Eddie Panero tick. So he likes creating experiences just like his third grade teacher is, right? Right? So like, but this is an experience. Your videos aren't an experience. You're taking people on

a sensory experience, right? Right. I want to say visual, but it's not just visual. It's a sensory experience of what you're doing. You're creating badass content. just like the patriot. You want people to feel like a badass walking out.

And so these are seeds that then, moving forward, you can now use to help you create more content. Your stuff should be an experience. It shouldn't make people feel like a badass. You should be able to make people feel like they can do everything. They can be the John Mayer of their own life. So these things that have, like,

why pick him from your grade three teacher of all the teachers that you've had growing up? it wasn't because he taught you home room, right? Right? It's because your teacher taught you something more about yourself that you love, that you then want to bring to other people. And so when you figure out that path, and then we narrowed down and end up getting to one word,

that allows you to build a life and a business for the entrepreneurs here with a lot more purpose. So mine is believe. My parents just always teach me that I'm Evan Christreli Carmack. I could do anything that I believe that I could. And so now I want to hire people who like believe. Right? So when I'm hiring a videographer, it'll be,

I want a videographer who believes in entrepreneurs. That's the subject line of the job ad. And then I'll lead with what believe means to me. Oozing like four or five lines of believe. And what ends up happen is some people see that and say, that's the stupidest job ad I've ever seen in my life. This guy wants a videographer, and all he's talking about is believing in yourself. great don't apply right like it's not going to be a fit go go work somewhere else and other people

will see that and say this is the craziest thing I've ever seen I love it and that person will work harder to be with you and so now you're putting out it still goes back to your slide that you had you're putting it out and then people respond to it and so figuring that process out yes you know I have the book you can go through but thinking about all of the best moments in your life and so encourage you. Think about who your favorite teacher was. What did you love about your parents? What's your favorite song? Favorite movie? Your best friend. What did you love?

And write down three descriptive keywords for each and then see what words pop up over and over and over and over again. You want more of that in your life. And you can have it with intention. I'm coming back to you with an answer. I love it, dude. That's great. All right. You ready to open it up for questions? Yeah, yeah, sure. All right, cool. Anyone that has anything they want to ask, feel free.

Joe's got the mic. So you touched on momentum, and that was one of the things we were talking about. And one of my questions is, how do you deal with a break in momentum, whenever you feel like you're executing and then certain things situationally in life kind of put barriers in your way? I hate it so much, and then I have to get up the next day and just destroy it. The caveat is, am I proud of the reason why not? Right.

So earlier this year, I did a 90-day tour, 23 cities across. to US, a speaking tour, and if I was sick, I had a broken neck. I did it. I broke my neck in two spots, compressed my spine, concussion, four stables in my head, and I still went off and did my speech. That actually made me feel better about myself, even though the speech was worse, because I'm sitting here at the front with pillows and I can't move and a neck cast on. It really comes down to you're proud of your effort.

So on the tour, I had a guy in Columbus who said, Evan, I have a goal to six days a week, do a cold shower. Six days a week. Like, okay, great, awesome. But today I didn't do it. Because it's Columbus, it's January, it's freezing. It was a really cold winter this year. And the cold water, the heat was off in the house.

So I've been freezing all day long, so I didn't have a cold shower. So should I have one? It's like, I don't know. Are you proud of yourself for not doing it? No. Then you have to do it. And then tomorrow's your day. up, you have to do it tomorrow too. Just to show yourself. So the real question is, it's an inside

game. Are you proud of the reason why you've lost momentum? And if not, then you need to double down just to do it. Interesting. Thank you. Cool. Thank you very much. First and foremost, thank you so much for speaking. I actually value both of you. And I've been following you for a long time. One thing that I found really interesting is that we had a conversation earlier about on Twitter, used to have your Twitter as Your World Within, and then you went to I Am Eddie Pinero. So it's a shift away from the Your World Within to I am Eddie Pinero, more personally you.

Now, me as an entrepreneur, I built a business, eventually I sold the business off. I purposely have been building businesses without using my name, because ultimately, I can roll it off and doesn't need me anymore because it has its own identity. What you present is a very unique, very personal, thing. And I wanted to, I just want to commend you on that, but I also have had a challenging time,

because if I am putting myself out, and my content, I also have a YouTube channel. And a lot of it, I put myself behind this blanket of the firm that I'm building rather than myself. So I wanted to get your experience of this, you know, just the intimacy of what you're doing, because the fact I saw your videos when you had the neck brace and everything, and the fact that you put all those things. So tell me more about that, just basically, It's your bacon, essentially. I'm what? Your bacon, you're committed, is what I'm saying.

Oh, sure. Listen, if you can bring yourself to your business, it's going to have a much greater connection to the people who are following you. When I'm looking at a business, I'm looking at something that I want to run forever. I'm not trying to build and flip anything that I'm doing. I'm bringing myself.

Like, this is my purpose being lived out. The execution might change. YouTube may not be around in five years. Awesome. It'll be VR Evan and hologram Evan beaming into your living room with content. Or maybe I do get sick of it and sell it off and somebody takes over.

But it's not my game plan from the beginning. The more you can share of yourself, why I love these guys with the hyperconscious podcast, I was on my tour. The first time we did a podcast together, I was on my tour, did my first stop in Pittsburgh, I'd done all day podcasts with different people, and we had 20 minutes, 20 minutes scheduled with my assistant, because I was just banging them out. And they were the last one on my calendar for the day, and we'd get to Pittsburgh, and I'm talking to him while.

Like, we're going overtime. I get to my hotel. We're, like, going up, and I'm still talking to him. And we end up going for an hour or something plus. And I love it because their whole thing is taking the shine off of people. Like, tell me the thing behind. We see this. let me understand what's like down here.

Right? And I love that. I'm like, this is great. Because all I want to do is take the shine off. Because I think we look to the people on Instagram and YouTube and say, man, these guys are so perfect. I can never be like that. But those guys suck.

Right? Like, do you know with the same thing that you are? Right? I mean, and me too. Like, I'm on Instagram. I have these, you know, fancy pictures and stuff. But I want to take the shine off. I want to show.

I want to show me sucking at stuff. When I told my agent, this is hilarious, when I told my agent that I broke my neck in Denver, he said, okay, so are you coming home? Because I was only, I saw the month left on my tour. It's like, no, I'm going to try to stick it out. Like, I might have to, but I'll try to stick it out. But I can't do anything.

Like my wife, she was with me on tour. She had to do everything. She had to change me. She had to, like, I couldn't, my neck was broken, right? She had to help me get out of bed. She had to push me. push my butt into the suburban that we were driving, right? Everything.

She was superwoman. And then my agent, she's laughing on the other side of the phone. He's just laughing at me. It's like, your wife has to change you every morning? Yeah, dude, all I can do is speak, which is good for a speaking tour, but that was the only skill set I had. He's like, you need to film it. I need to film what?

Your whole morning routine. What do you mean? You want me to film my wife changing me in the morning? morning, yep, okay. Right? Great. The boom, boom, boom test. I'm nervous, right? I've gained some weight because now I have a broken neck and I haven't been able to do anything. And my stick isn't really shirtless videos, right? Maybe Alan over there. That's not why people watch my content. But because I was nervous and I did it. And so I woke up the next morning, I took up my phone and we did an Instagram live.

And I said, okay, here we are. I'm super scared. Here we go. And we set up the phone and my wife slowly lit. She's this five foot four, you know, Chinese woman, like picking me up and slowly putting me out. And I kept my underwear on. But otherwise, like, putting my pants on and then slowly getting ready and pushing me into the car.

And then we left. And then I saved it and put his YouTube video. And my agent, Steve, this is a New Yorker. said, did you do it? Like, yeah, man, I do it. I love that stuff. Those challenges are what I eat. It's the best. And then he said, send me the link. And so I sent them the link and then he just starts laughing his face. I showed it to everybody at the office and they all laughed at you. I was like, okay, great. I love it. But that personal doesn't mean for your, you know, blockchain business, you have to, you know, wake up in your underwear and film it. But the more you can show the reason,

I think this is the advantage that you guys have as entrepreneurs. You're going up against big competition. Whatever you're doing, this is somebody bigger than you. How are you going to win? Your story. You care more than the big companies do. So why are you doing this thing? Why is it so important to you?

If you don't have a strong why, then that's going to be a problem. I'm assuming if your purpose comes from your pain, there's a strong reason why you're doing this thing. Tell me the story. Tell me the insecurities, the vulnerabilities, what you went through. Because there's a lot of people who are currently going through the thing that you went through, and they're going to resonate with your story. So you have to share it.

Yeah. You want the back. Oh, we got one here too. Hi, Eddie. Hi, Evan. I follow you, Evan, and I've actually done a live with you on Instagram before. I love your videos. They're very inspirational.

So thank you. Thank you. I have a question for both of you, actually. It's the same question. I'm a YouTube creator as well and my channel is growing pretty rapidly and I wanted to know from you both in growing your channels

what is the biggest personal obstacle that you had to overcome being a creator on YouTube? Probably scalability I think there's a lot of for me emotional investment in what I'm making and so I have this thing where I want to have control over the entire process. And I want to be writing the background music

and capturing the footage and speaking and editing, creating this thing. And, you know, but being pragmatic, just kind of being an entrepreneur, it's like, okay, but then you're gonna grow at this rate versus, you know, the possibilities out there. So that's what it's been for me, being able to take my thoughts and articulate them

in a way that's still authentic, still powerful, still means the world to me. but utilize different tools around me to scale that so that I can grow the way I want to grow. I don't know. What was the biggest problem for me? I think the way that I think is as soon as I figure out the problem, I want to destroy it.

The biggest problem is I don't know what the biggest problem is. Like the second that I hear, and I was thinking the same way before, same thing for me, right? I've got 24 people on my team now. And at the start, I did everything. And I quickly realized, I don't want to do everything. And then I hired a part-time editor, and then I hired a full-time editor, and then I hired a second editor, then I hired a researcher, and then community management.

The second that one of those things comes into my mind, it bothers me that I'm thinking that, and then I need to destroy it. So my biggest problem is I don't know what the thing is. Like, what's your thing? I think I have two things, handing it over to someone that I trust to build, because obviously when you start, you're the one that's doing everything. I mean, in the beginning, I even edit my own content. Now I've handed that over.

Actually, I think it's three. Now I'm leaving to L.A. next week to actually show people my personal story, why I became a coach in this industry, and that is very nerve-wrecking for me. And lastly, I actually talked about this with you in the live, is negative comments. And I'm okay with it. I don't think I'll ever get used to being not okay with negative comments, if that makes sense. Because with your business, you do it from your heart, it's your everything.

It's like your baby. And when someone attacks, it's like, whoa. So all of it still deals with, like, passing a boom, boom, boom test. The answer is just to do it. Like, if you want to grow big, you have to have a team. It's the story of every business, not just YouTube or any business. You want to go. I forget the other quote somebody had about,

If you want to go far, have a team. If you want to go fast, do it by yourself, right? So you need to have, if you want to go big, you have to have a team. Great. You're scared, awesome. Do it. Like training yourself. So if I hear from myself, but also in the people of my team, or if anybody here says it.

See? Difficult, hard, or scary? Awesome. I'm not allowed to say those things. As soon as I say, as the reason why you're not doing it. Like the reason why I'm not doing it is because it's difficult, hard, or scary. You love difficult, hard, and scary. What are you talking about?

That's all you do. If you don't have something in your calendar in the next month that is difficult, hard, or scary, you hate your life. Because what's the opposite? Total comfort. So then you're living inside your comfort zone only doing the things that you know you're good at. And you hate your entire life. That's boredom. So you want difficult.

You want scary. you want hard. And that's what all of this is. It's hard to hire somebody who you're going to trust. Yeah. And you're probably going to screw up the first four people you hire too. I've got some of them right, but yeah. But great, you're already ahead of the game.

Look at any giant company and look at who their first 20 hires were and see how long they lasted at the company. Right? The fact that you still have some of your people is awesome. And it's not because they suck. It just, you suck at the beginning, right? Not as a human. You just didn't have the skills.

You didn't know what you're doing. Awesome. Just like anything else. You're awesome for trying. And so, yes, it's hard to find the right person. You want to be here. You have to find the right person. Or you're doing this forever.

And if your ambition is, I want to be a solo artist and just make videos on my own, that's great. If that's actually your ambition, awesome. I don't want people to have to scale just for the sake of scaling. But if you're here, you want something more, right? Like, you want to do it. So it's either going to take you three months of dedicated time to do it, or you're going to procrastinate for the next six years to figure it out.

And then you're going to say, I wish I just went faster. And same thing for all of it. The second part was telling your story, same thing. Like, once you are comfortable with it, you'll love that you're there and you see the impact you're having on people's lives. But it's your choice. Do you want to get there in five weeks or five years? And then the same thing for negative comments.

Everybody's afraid of negative... I don't like negative comments. But the path through that is just empathy. Right? Like, I believe humans are built to serve. Period. Like, we want to serve. And so...

And I believe people are good. Right? Otherwise, we'd all be dead by now. We've had the tools for many years. So if somebody's built to serve and is good at their core, and they're coming to your video, and they don't know you, and they're leaving some kind of nasty comment,

what kind of negative situation they have to be in. Like, that's the higher of their day coming in your video and slamming you for something. How bad does their life have to be, right? So that removes a sting out of it. I made a post yesterday on Twitter where I showed the sunrise. I got up early so we can get here for this event.

I showed the sunrise, and I've got this philosophy around sunshine and rainbows, sunrises and rainbows, where when you see a rainbow, People often pull over to the side of the road, and they have to take a picture, and look at that rainbow. Wow, it's crazy, right? Snap the picture and share it.

But the sunrise happens every day, and we barely notice it. The sunset. We're all awake during the sunset. How often do you go aside and look at the sunset? Not very often. But a rainbow comes up. You're telling your friends, you're taking a picture. You're sharing it.

It's just a frequency. But I think a sunrise and the sunset is actually more pretty than a rainbow. It happens so frequently we're not paying attention. So I posted that to my Twitter, and then some guy writes back to say, hey, I don't think you're looking on Instagram because there's lots of sunrise pictures. Just people will always look for, to the point, right? People will, to his point of putting these Easter eggs and people will always look for something nasty because he hates his life.

Like whoever is putting, they hate their own life. So my response back is sending you lots of love, Robert. because when people are leaving nasty comments, I'm not actually trying to change that person who's responding to me, although it does sometimes happen. Sometimes the next day they write again, hey, I'm really sorry, man. Yesterday I was in a really bad spot,

and it has nothing to do with you. I was just messed up. I'm not even trying to change that person. I'm trying to change the people who are watching to the negative comments and then say, ooh, how's you going to respond? I don't want to dive into the toxicity. I just send love. And what it does is it gives tools for other people who are dealing with hate to handle it themselves.

So every time you get a nasty comment and you deal with it through love, you're actually given a shield to other people who are being creative to be able to receive hate and give back love. I see entrepreneurs and especially creatives as trees. Okay? Go with me here. We're all trees. What does a tree do? A tree breathes in poison, carbon dioxide.

You have too much poison, it's carbon dioxide. It's poison for us. You breathe it in. What does a tree do? Eats it, grows from it, and then spits out oxygen positivity for the world. I think that's our job as leaders, as creators, as entrepreneurs. Your job is to eat the negativity, grow from it,

but not just make you stronger, spit out positivity for everybody else around you. So, I'll trick, now I don't get that much hate. I mean, I'm spreading believe on my channel. It's only positive. But we'll still get people who come in and leave nasty comments. I'll send, as long as it's against me and not against somebody else. Like, if you're attacking somebody in my community and calling them a racist name or whatever, I'll ban you.

But if you're coming after me, awesome. Sending you lots of love, Sheila. Right? And also on top of that, like, I recently saw an article that fear of, that type of online harassment is the number one thing that stops YouTube creators, right? Not cost or time or anything. That's literally fear of response. And so an effective way is to literally invert it,

where it's not only like, yeah, it comes and yeah, you deal with it, and yeah, you have empathy, which you need all those things, but it's almost like good. It's a benchmark because if you're not getting some type of pushback, you're not growing fast enough, right? I always chuckle when I go, like, you go to Bieber's latest music video, arguably a top five entertainer in the world right now. 90% of it's just him getting dragged in the comments.

It's just, it's par for the course. You can't have anything great without picking up some of that minutiaa that you don't want, or do you. That's the question, right? It's just par for the course. I want to dive into it. Like run, run, run into discomfort or the first rule. Amen, yeah.

Right? Run that rain. Because it allows you to show yourself. what you're made of, but also it allows you to be the shield for other people, and they'll be inspired by how you're responding to it. You do difficult things. You love difficult things. Hello, hi. Hey, man. Hi. I'm Ryan. Hey, Ryan. How's going? How's going? Good, man. Good, man. Okay, cool, cool. So I had a question in regards to, uh, so I kind of see the demographics in here, kind of like everything from like 18 up, everything. Sure. So for, say,

what is it like 80s people like advice you give because I see like a lot of people living life in reverse but as well as like you've seen like 50s year old thing and it's like

reaching 60 thinking it's like in like the business room was like yeah like planning conservative and then like my time so what's the question? Okay so I'll get to the point the question is how do you portray what you were saying like try a lot of things

for like the older crowd like that's kind of struggles I have is like from from what I see at my level compared to other levels like how do you portray to the older crowd this is like hitting them or not my message or your message no no I don't have a message well you do have a message but but my message hits just as hard for an older crowd. Are you representing the older crowd? Is that happening? Okay. Okay, here we go. This is the best. So I'm going to turn 58 and there are a lot of people in this room that my journey is just starting. You know, I was actually thinking about when I turned 60, I'm really like 40. You know, I have dreams that I'm first living.

And the power of being older is all the hard ache that I have experienced. I can stand up there and tell my story and have everyone crying. But I've taken responsibility and I'm first starting to live. And it's really powerful to stand on two feet being a woman, turning 58, completely. have raised my son on my own with no help. I'm really proud. And it's not, everyone said, this is work. This is hard, inner work, and it's worth it.

And I think about who's not here, and some of the people who have come, listened a little bit, and laughed, shame on them. because the content here today, and I've been to a lot of spiritual meetings in my life, this was outstanding. Hey! So for all the older people, I mean, we can name people

some of my best followers first started their journeys and accomplishments in their 50s and 60s. So I don't know if that helps. All right. Thanks. Oh, we had a question here at the front. Hello, my name is Reagan. Hey, Reagan.

So the question that I had kind of got answered a little bit, but you, Evan, made the statement earlier that you'll never win doing work that you hate. So my issue is I hate social media. I don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy the way it makes people act. I don't like, you know how people get so focused on how they look and all of those group think antics that come from social media.

But I need social media to promote my business. So how can I change my person? perspective on social media to be less of a, I hate this, to more of a, I need this. And both of you guys can answer that. It's be the change that you want to see. Be real. I'm looking at, so I'm doing a tour next year. I'm looking at doing another 90 days on the road, 20-something cities from my new book.

And I'm thinking of live streaming the whole thing, but eight to 12 hours a day. Everything. Like, here's my real life. And I was thinking about it because two days ago I was doing. in burpees at home? You know burpees? You know burpees? Okay. Sometimes I say Canadian things and people don't get it.

Like we're talking about butter tarts and nobody knows what the butter tarts are and like, I don't know what a butter tart is. Anyway, we all know burpees. Great. And if you go to Canada, you have to have a butter tart. And I'm dying on the burpees. Like I can't even get halfway through the burpees. And I'm still recovering because my neck, I'm not done physio and I can't actually,

you know, Alan would destroy me in workouts and stuff for sure because I'm still getting better. But I'm thinking, imagine that this was live streamed, like me dying doing burpees. And not a good dying, not like, yeah, I just crushed a thousand burpees and here I am. No, like I did 20 and I'm on the floor dying, right? And I'm thinking, I can't wait to live stream this. I can't wait to actually show the real on social. And I know some people in the live chat will be laughing at me to say, dude, this guy can't even do 20 burpees. Are you kidding? And they don't know the story. They don't know what's happened, right? And then other people might stand up, but then how I respond to it, to the point about haters, say, listen, this is what happened. This is the most I got. I'm proud of

my effort. Showing the real could be how you win. Social media in itself is not, it's just marketing. It's not bad inherently. It's the behavior on it that you're not a fan of. Great, so change the behavior. Whatever it is that you want to be doing, put it out there and show it. And not everybody's going to resonate with it, but the people who you'll connect with the most are the ones who will resonate with your content, and they're going to be the ones who end up buying your products and services. Yeah. We had one here. Oh, up front here. Oh, we got it at the back. Okay. Hi. Hi. My name's Tina. I wanted to thank both of you, Eddie and Evan. You're amazing. I do follow both of you. And I actually wanted to speak into two things. The first is I wanted to

contribute possibly to the young lady that was speaking before that might support you. I myself, I just turned 50, I have three teenage kids, I have always been against social media. Can't stand it, don't want to know about it. And finally, I realize for where I'm going, I'm a coach and going to be a transformational trainer. I actually just flew in this morning from Lewis House Summit of Greatness. I was supporting that and those people there and working with one of the trainers. So I put myself on a stretch last month to go to go do a Facebook live every day at 12 noon for 10 minutes and use the social media as like a free playground and I would come out and say hey I'm doing you know this is free available for all of us come out share what you're up to you never know what

will come of it to create that consistency 21 days to change a habit so I started every single day for 21 days at noon on time trying to practice to keep it to 10 minutes, blah, blah, blah. And it's amazing what has already come of just doing that. So just do it. It's like one of those just freaking do it. I just decided on a Sunday night after floating an assault tank that what can I do to stretch myself and just did it.

So now everyone's like, oh, you just decided in the last three weeks. Now you're a social media queen and you couldn't stand it. So I don't know if that supports anyone, but it really is just doing it. had no idea what the what you guys were going to be speaking into today and this has created tremendous value for me so thank you again and my question actually was um there are so few women that speak in in speaking and and motivation and transformation and so that's the path I'm on but my question is why do you think from your perspective that there are so few women in the

space. I don't know. Like, this kills me. I hate it. I fight with my team every single week that we need more women. And it's a combination of, yeah, but, but like, it's great in theory, but then how, right? Because I profile a bunch of people every week, and I always want to have a woman on every week, and we can't always do it. Like, if we're doing billionaires, we got Oprah, we got Sarah Blakely, and, like, that's it. So there's a combination of one, there's not enough people doing it. And, even the ones who aren't creating a lot of content. I was so excited when Mel Robbins went daily. I don't know if you guys follow Mel.

Yes, they do. So I look at hers like a peer. But then she stopped. Like she stopped. Her content is fizzling out. Marie Forleo was another great, like, early shining star, and she's only doing interviews now, not really sharing her story.

I mean, there's some, but the volume isn't there and the quality isn't there, unfortunately. So I see part of my role as trying to shine a light on different communities. And so we're always looking and struggling and fighting to make that happen. But just to the last point, like, go be the change. Go be the person. Awesome. Then I get to follow up with you.

Yes. But you've got to be good, right? So like, let's go. Of course. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Let's go, ladies.

Let's go. Let's go. Oh, last question here? Oh, that was the last question? Oh, oh, oh. That was the last question? We have one more. One more.

Okay, okay. We want here. Okay. And I'll stick around after, too, if people want to hang out and chat. So she's had her hand up the entire time. Thank you. So my question kind of goes off the Instagram part of just in social media in general. How do you stay mindful and present in, like, what you're doing day to day and being, like, present in the moment versus also

sharing with other people on social media, kind of like your actual, like what you are doing and being real. So like with the live stream that you're going to do, also staying present, mindful in the moment, where you're at and who you're with. So with the live stream, I'm not going to be, it's not meant to be a show where I'm talking to the camera the whole time. It's meant to just show my life and what's happening.

Basically like you're my other friend that's with us. this as opposed to me hosting a show and not enjoying the moment. Yeah, I guess like also just like creating content and all this and part of it is it's your job, but like so you know I work a full-time job, I'm married, if a husband we're training for triathlon and then also sharing content it takes away from whoever I'm with. So like what would you like recommend or like I don't know your perspective on staying mindful but also being able to post content and share and Instagram. and all of that.

And Eddie, you might have... Yeah, I mean, it's a judgment call for you. If you're ever at the point where you're feeling like you're not enjoying your life because you're making content, you're going to lose. Right? I feel like I'm taking people on the journey with me, and it's like, imagine you're filming it... If your mom wanted to see what you're up to,

and you're going to film a video for her, what would you do? And then film that video for her, or your best friend who's in a hospital and can't come on a trip with you. You're going to film the video for her. That film that video. Most of the time I'm filming, there'll be sometimes where I just, it doesn't feel right or I'm too lost in the moment

and I either don't remember to pull up my phone or I just don't want to because I'm enjoying this too much. So I don't. You have to be happy with, it's a balance question, right? How much time should you spend with your kids versus your husband versus work? you have to be happy with the balance. You may not even have to have vlog kind of content.

Maybe it's talking head content. Maybe there's another format you can do. Or maybe you book times like every morning from 9 to 10 you film a video instead of showing your day. There's a million ways to, you have to test it and see. But at the end of day, for balanced questions, you try on a bunch of hats and you see what fits, you see what you feel good with,

and then that's what you release. and I'm big on experimentation. So I remember there's certain situations where I have not a lot of time where you have, you know, because of other obligations, you have that window. And I would always use that time to explore. Like if you sort of looked at the book of content that I put out, I mean, I have videos where I use Thursday, I'm like going to do a singer-songwriter thing, get my guitar, write a song, you know, compose background music, just do a speech, talk on the, you know, talk to the mic,

create a full cinematic thing. And every time I know I have this little window, it's like, well, let's try something new. And what happens is you sort of weed out the things that aren't important. You find out what it is you do gravitate towards, and then, you know, you make time accordingly. That's how I've always approached that. All right. So, hey, I want to thank everybody again for coming out being such a wonderful audience. Again, I can't articulate how much this means to me, the other speakers.

Thank you all. and there will be more. So I hope to see your beautiful faces again. We'll all be outside chatting and if you want to catch up. So have an amazing day and thank you.