Welcome everybody to another YouTube Hangout.
So excited to be here.
I’ve got a special guest who’s all fired up.
Who woke up, it’s five a.m. for her, to do this interview.
So I’m super pumped.
It’s Kate O’Brien, from katemarieobrien.com.
You can check her out in the description below.
She’s going to interview me about
success and entrepreneurship,
and the bits that people don’t talk about.
But before I get into that interview and the questions,
Kate, maybe a quick intro for my audience
so they know a little bit about who you are
and what you’re all about.
– Yep, hey everyone.
Lovely to meet you.
So, Kate O’brien.
I have, you can find me on my YouTube channel,
on any social media.
One thing I really love to do,
and it’s about pushing people’s thinking
and the way the relate to themselves,
and the way they relate to each other,
and I suppose I do that in slightly controversial ways.
Ways in which has people kind of poking
on their own thinking, yeah.
So come over to my YouTube channel,
youtube.com/katemareeobrien.
There’s some videos there that could
possibly even challenge you a little.
– I love it.
And the Maree is spelled in an awesome way, M A R E E.
– Yes.
– Cool, it’s your show, fire away.
– Thank you, and also for those of you who are watching
from the Game Changer Global Summit, huge welcome.
Evan Carmichael, I just want to say
it’s a pleasure to meet you,
and I’ve been watching your YouTube channel,
and I love what you put together,
and I just love how you clearly have been a guy
who’s gone all in and been willing to have a vision
and then really grow something to match that.
And I had a little bit of read of
who you are and how you started,
and I loved the story of,
so you’re five years old with your sister…
– Yeah.
– And you guys are selling artwork.
This is a guy with born entrepreneurial spirit.
Can I ask you first up,
because I know you’re all about
helping entrepreneurs in the world,
what made you such an entrepreneurial little spark
at the age of five?
Was is a nature nurture thing?
– Uh, I don’t know.
That’s an interesting one.
So, the story quickly.
I was five years old.
I grabbed my three year old little sister,
and we both just started making drawings
on a piece of paper,
and I went to my neighbors and started knocking on doors
and selling it to them,
and I made my first 10 cents as an entrepreneur.
My parents were not entrepreneurs.
They had stable jobs.
My dad worked for the government for years and years
and eventually retired,
and then got another job.
So, I didn’t have my parents
to look up to for entrepreneurship,
but they always did encourage all three of us,
I have two sisters,
to do whatever we wanted,
and make us believe that we could do
whatever we wanted to do,
and that really,
all three of us kids went off to do crazy things.
Way different from each other,
and way different than our parents,
and went off to achieve a lot more, too,
and so I don’t know.
I think the entrepreneurship thing
didn’t really come from them necessarily,
but the encouragement and guidance and belief
and letting us experiment and try and fail
and not judge us for doing something different.
I remember my parents when to a parent-teacher meeting,
I forget how old I was, I was super young,
and I got a bad mark in art class,
and my teachers gave some instructions
about drawing a window with a tree,
and I did it, but then I added some other stuff to it,
and my teacher gave me a bad mark because I didn’t
follow her instructions exactly,
and then my mom got into a fight with her,
said hey, you said a window with a tree,
that’s what he gave you,
and then he gave you more,
so you can’t blame him for that.
So, like standing up to my teachers
and just always encouraging me
to do whatever I wanted do do.
So, definitely I think the parenting really helped me
in that role, too.
– Sounds like a lot of nurture as well.
So out of interest,
and I’m saying this selfishly
because I’m a parent and I’m assuming there’s going to be
a lot of parents on our platform who are watching us,
do you have kids, Evan?
– Yeah, I have a seven year old.
I don’t know if you can see in the video here.
– Ah, yeah.
– Little Hayden, so yeah.
– How does that influence how you bring up Hayden?
– I’m a big believer that everybody has one word
that defines who they are.
It’s what the topic of my new book is about,
and once when you understand who you are,
then you can start to live a life
and have a business that’s more on purpose.
And so believe is my one word.
It’s what I got from my parents.
They always told me that I was Evan Castrilli Carmichael,
and I could do anything that I wanted.
Even when I wasn’t successful,
even when I was getting bad report cards,
even, you know, I got into trouble,
sure I got punished,
but also I was made to feel like
I could do whatever I wanted.
I could do better.
I could always push myself.
And so I continue that same tradition with my son.
I think the best gift that I could give him
is for him to believe in himself
and not just follow in my footsteps
or somebody else’s footsteps.
Maybe he doesn’t want YouTube career
or an entrepreneurship career.
That’s cool.
Right now he wants to be a scientist,
so great, like you could do science.
Let’s go learn some science,
and when I pick him up from school,
we have this little tradition were I will say
I’m Hayden Carmichael, that’s his name,
I’m Hayden Carmichael and I can do,
and in the backseat he will go, anything.
And so I think my parents gave me that gift of believe,
and I want to pass that on, that believe, that support,
that appreciation, that non-judgement to my son
and make him feel like he can do anything he wants to.
– I can feel that from you.
It’s actually interesting, Evan.
I’ve had the total pleasure of interviewing
a lot of the big names in the industry on this platform
over the last four years,
and I got to say,
sitting here talking with you,
you’re almost exactly,
you’re pretty much exactly what I thought
you were going to feel like.
You are super, if you don’t mind me saying, super grounded.
You’ve got this real, you’ve got this very realness to you,
which is interesting given
the massive success of your audience,
and how much you’ve grown your business.
Can you tell me bit about how have you managed
to keep this grounded, human feel that you really do have
given the size of your success?
Because you’ve been extremely successful,
and it’s very easy,
I’m just going to segway into this
while you’re kind of thinking…
– Sure.
– Is that when people often get success and get fame,
sometimes people can actually get carried away
with the ideas of who they are,
and then sometimes they can kind of
loose a little bit of touch of the ground.
I don’t feel that from you at all, how?
– Uh, I don’t know, I don’t know.
That’s interesting.
I mean, I, thank you.
I try to channel my core values
through everything that I do,
and I think it also kind of depends on what I’m doing.
I can be very confident in what I’m doing.
I can turn up.
I can get angry.
If you want to debate something,
and I’m convinced this is the path to go,
not that it’s going to be demeaning or attacking
or anything to you.
So I can be really confident,
and I can also be really humble
just depending on the situation.
I think one of the things that has really helped me
is just gratitude on a daily basis.
One of the things that I do,
I’ve had a gratitude practice for a number of years
where I just think about three things that I’m grateful for,
and I think if you can remember the great stuff
that you have in your life,
and be thankful for it,
then when the bad stuff happens,
it doesn’t overwhelm you.
It’s really hard to be super angry and upset
and depressed and down in dark places
when you’re also grateful for what you have.
And I think as entrepreneurs we need that.
For the entrepreneurs who are watching and listening,
it’s a lot of down days being an entrepreneur, you know.
You can have a lot of success, too,
but there’s still going to be a lot of down days,
and I think the gratitude helps you stay grounded.
I think success and fame or whatever you want to call it,
I think it just exposes more of who you are honestly.
I’ve meet a lot of people who are at the top of their game
who are really genuine and personable
and just nice people as well,
so I know I still have a long way to go
from where I want to be and where I’m at right now,
and so I think the people who have a big attitude
when they’re famous,
they had a big attitude when they weren’t so famous.
They weren’t a great person
when they were not so famous, too.
And the fame and money and success
just maybe exposes more of who they were.
So I appreciate you saying that.
My parents would be super happy to hear that.
Yeah, and I think both of those things
just exposes more of who you are
and then just being grateful for what you have
makes a big difference.
– Yeah, I like what you said there,
I think it really magnifies what’s in there, thank you.
You’ve mentioned this before,
where your talking about entrepreneurship,
this, the days where there’s highs
and there’s the real successes that you can get,
and then there’s the days.
Can you talk a little bit about that,
’cause you know you hear people talking about
oh, wow, that was an overnight success,
and you know often people see the end result
and the product of what people have produced,
and then relate to that as if
that was their journey going in.
But the reality is,
my experience certainly has been
it’s the giving up a lot of my life.
Not having, I haven’t really had
a social life in a long time.
It just full commitment, you know.
Can you talk a little bit about
the reality of entrepreneurship
and the parts that possibly people don’t see
or don’t relate to?
‘Cause what I see when they’re just relating
to the end result,
then when they are personally experiencing
the not being able to see immediate success,
they then make themselves wrong,
and then that byproduct has them give up earlier
and struggle through it.
Not really getting it’s the long haul,
and it’s the patience.
Can you speak to a little bit, Evan?
– Yeah, I think it’s actually one of the biggest disservices
that we do to entrepreneurs.
I think we celebrate entrepreneurs and rightly so.
I believe all the world’s problems
will be solved by entrepreneurs.
It’s not going to be solved by government or corporations.
It’s going to be solved by us.
You know, world peace, natural disasters,
major health illnesses,
it’s going to be solved by entrepreneurs.
And so we are right to celebrate them,
but we don’t showcase the amount of work and pain
that goes into making a business.
And kudos to people like you
who are putting on summits
and trying to help spread education
and give maybe a little dose of reality,
’cause I think what ends up happening
is one, too many people jump into it too soon,
who maybe shouldn’t even be entrepreneurs,
who just, they like the,
they’re attracted to the glam and the fame and the glory,
and the idea of making a lot of money,
and maybe that’s not what they should be on the path to do.
And also for the people who do start,
what’s most saddening for me is
they feel isolated and alone.
This is what I felt when I was starting too.
That when I look at websites,
and when I look at magazines,
and when I watch videos
I see all these people having so much success,
and here I am grinding, working hard,
thinking I’m doing the right thing,
and I’m not getting results.
Like, what’s wrong with me?
How come these guys are doing so well
and I can’t make my thing take off?
Because it’s suppose to be easy and
it’s suppose to be the path,
and I’m not figuring it out.
And it crushes a lot of people,
and most people are too ashamed, too afraid to admit that.
You know, I was making $300 a month in my first business,
and I couldn’t afford to go out.
I had to pick one thing a month
that I could do with my friends,
like a birthday, or beer, pizza and beer, or something,
’cause that $20 was a lot to me.
– Um-Hum.
– And I didn’t have the courage to tell my friends
that I couldn’t afford to be there.
It was yeah, I’m living the entrepreneur life.
I’ve got so many things going on.
I’m so busy, busy, busy, busy.
I’m building my business.
I wanted them to see me as,
I wanted them to be jealous of what I was doing.
Not feel sad for me.
(both laughing)
I think that’s a lot of entrepreneurs.
We expect it to be easier than it is.
Nobody’s talking about how hard it is,
and then we set ourselves up for failure,
and we set ourselves up for massive potential depression.
You’re so isolated and alone,
and so I think talking about how hard it is
to be an entrepreneur,
and recognizing that lots of people think about quitting.
I told my partner I quit,
and it’s normal to think about quitting a business,
especially in the early days.
And a lot of people thought about it.
So if you’re thinking about quitting your business,
you know, you’re out talking to people and doing interviews,
and saying yeah, everything’s great, I’m so happy.
This business is all about x, y, z,
and you’re trying to promote.
You’re in hustle mode.
Meanwhile, you think,
I don’t know if I want to keep doing this.
Like, I feel bad about myself.
I’m not getting results.
Maybe I should quit.
Who do you tell that you’re thinking
about quitting your business?
A lot of people don’t have anybody to tell,
and they think that they’re abnormal,
and they think that they’re a failure,
where it’s totally normal,
and it happens to almost everybody.
And so just sharing that side of things,
I think will help a lot of people.
For people to feel like this is part of it.
To have that expectation,
and to know that they are not alone,
and that they are not worthless,
and that this is part of the path.
I think that will make it a lot easier for people.
For them to have success,
and also for them to feel good about themselves
and what they’re doing.
And so I think the work you’re doing is great.
To be able to ask these kinds of questions,
have these speakers on,
and not just talk about winning all the time,
but some of the things that go into it,
and the hard journey that people have to take.
– Thanks Evan, I appreciate that,
and I also appreciate your answer.
And for whoever is listening,
I just want, if you hear anything in this interview,
I would love it if you just really got that.
Like got it on a cellular level
that it takes something,
and that it’s part of the journey when you’re feel like,
on one hand, you’re putting out the smiley face,
but on the other hand,
you’re rocking in the corner sucking your thumb.
That that can be a part of it,
and that doesn’t mean anything.
You talked about the future of entrepreneurship,
which really fascinates me.
I’m really curious, what do you see, Evan,
as the future of entrepreneurship?
I mean, the world is changing astronomically
like we’ve never seen in history,
and I know it’s forecasting, crystal ball stuff,
but what do you see with the future of entrepreneurship?
– I think more and more people are going to do it.
I think everybody, I think everybody has always had an idea
for something that they want to do.
I think if you go back 100 years,
people are still thinking, ah I wish I could do that.
I have this idea for this new invention.
I think it’s just way easier now to do it.
Both from a money point of view,
100 years ago to start a business
you needed to have a lot of money,
you needed to have a factory and a store,
and it cost you a lot of money to get started,
where now you could just,
you could be a YouTube entrepreneur,
you could be an Instagram entrepreneur,
you can just get started from your phone.
You don’t need to have money to get started.
So because those barriers are going down,
it’s easier for people to get into it.
I think too, now as you see
more and more different kinds of people being successful,
then there’s more role models to look up to.
So, Zuckerberg making it big as a young entrepreneur
inspired a lot of other young entrepreneurs
to say hey, look what he did,
I could do that too.
You don’t have to wait until you’re 40, 50, 60
to do your own thing.
I’m 19, I want to go do it right now,
and as you see entrepreneurs breaking through
and having those successes,
they become role models for the next generation.
And you see that across all industries.
I’m a baseball fan, so Jackie Robinson
was the first black baseball player in baseball,
and after he made it,
they wanted to aspire to be like Jackie.
Now, most of baseball,
your going to have tons of black players.
It’s the norm.
And so when you see somebody like you hitting it,
then you feel like you could do it too,
and so there’s so many different kinds of entrepreneurs now
having success that inspires the next generation
to want to go out and do more.
So I think, like look at what you’re doing
it wouldn’t have been possible 20 years ago.
Here we are having a conversation
from halfway across the world talking business,
and this would have cost an exorbitant amount of money
to put together before.
Now we’re able to do it
just through a webcam and an internet connection.
And so people will see what you’re doing
and be inspired and say,
hey, look what Kate did Mommy,
look what Kate did.
Like a 10 year old girl looking up to you
saying I want to do that,
I want to do something like that.
And then she’s inspired to want to go and
bet on herself to do something.
So I think people have always had,
I think it’s part of human nature.
You’re thinking about opportunities.
You want to do something more.
I think now with how cheap it is to get started
and how many role models to look up to,
that we’re only going to see more and more people
try and start different things.
– I like that you said just before,
you talked about almost like, you know,
one person kind of leads the way with the torch,
which opens the door for a lot of people
who can look up to that person.
I stayed up last night watching some Will Smith docu-,
not Will Smith, Will.I.Am.
I love Will.I.Am.
That he’s just such an innovator,
and it made me think about Will.I.Am came from
that area of the, you know a harder upbringing,
and he’s totally opened the door for people and led the way
because he’s into robotics,
and he’s brought that to that generation.
Which is fantastic.
And he said something really interesting.
He said that you have to have the willingness
to fall flat on your face over and over again
and to constantly go to places that you don’t know.
See, it’s easy to be in the background and be in your head,
and keep saying the same stuff to yourself,
or keep having the same conversations,
but if you actually jump out
and go out on that skinny branch
and you have those conversations
that you don’t know how to have,
and do things that you don’t know how to do,
and be willing to fall on your face each time,
then you’re learning new stuff.
What do you think about the willingness
to fall on your face?
– Yeah, I think most people have
an unhealthy relationship with failure.
I think people see failure as this one final thing
that then, because you didn’t make it,
that’s it, you’re done.
And a lot people do that.
A lot of people shrink down.
A lot of people see an opportunity,
take their shot, doesn’t work out,
and then they say,
well that’s, I took my shot,
that’s it, I’m done.
And then they go back to the other life
that they didn’t like working for somebody else
or whatever it was that they wanted to do.
And I think that’s wrong.
I think if you look at any successful person,
not even entrepreneur,
a musician, athlete, whatever it is,
they failed tons of times.
They failed more than they succeeded,
and that’s why they succeed.
So failure is just part of the path.
Failure is part of the journey to success.
And it’s only really failure if you stop.
If you learn from it, you can find another way to do it.
Like okay, that didn’t work.
Let’s find another path and how to do,
and each time you get a little bit better.
So whoever you’re, if somebody’s afraid of that,
if somebody’s really, they are afraid to fall on their face,
and that’s why their not doing it,
if somebody watches this interview,
and looks up to what you’re doing and says,
hey, I want to do an interview in my field
of figure skating or whatever it is,
but their too afraid to do it,
I would go and look at whoever is the most successful person
that you respect and look up to.
You know I have a bunch of people on my wall behind me.
Whoever it is for you,
a figure skater, a musician, Will.I.Am, a politician,
and entrepreneur, you know, an athlete, whoever it is,
look at their story
and look at how many times they failed, and failed,
and failed, and failed, and failed,
and use that as inspiration.
Especially if you feel an emotional connection
to that person, you know.
Like I could have Howard Schultz behind me.
His story inspires me.
You may not know who Howard Schultz is,
so that’s not going to,
like don’t do what I do,
do something that’s inspiring for you.
And so I think there is
an unhealthy relationship with failure.
And I think alongside of that,
one of the biggest things
that people worry about with failure
is not so much failure of it not working,
it’s the judgement of other people
because you failed, right?
I think if people could fail in private
then they would be much more open to it
than failing and your husband sees it
or your friends see it, or your people in community see it.
And I think an amazing skill to get used to
is practicing not making decisions
based off of expectations of other people.
And the story that I like to tell with this
is my son, we’ve talked about a little bit already…
– [Kate] Hayden.
– Yeah Hayden, good memory.
– He likes to wear different color socks.
That’s his thing.
(Kate laughing)
He will never wear the same socks.
You bunch them together, he will take them apart.
He has to wear two different color socks.
That’s his thing.
I like it, I support it.
Like I love it.
I don’t want to judge him and say hey, wear the same socks.
Like those are the things sometimes parents do.
Well like, why?
Why is it actually important that he wears the same socks?
Is it really the fight that we want to have?
I encourage it.
I love it.
And I was moving to my new condo,
and I was throwing away some stuff as you move,
and I had these mismatched socks,
and I was all set to throw them away,
and I thought, huh,
Hayden likes to wear different color socks,
maybe I’m going to wear some mismatched socks.
And the first thought that came into my head was
oh, but what if people see me in my socks
and they’re not same color, you know.
I go, maybe I’ll do it at home,
but if I go out, I have different color socks on.
That’s not cool.
And because I had that thought,
then I had to go out and do it in public.
Because I was so worried
about how other people would judge me,
then I had to go out and do it.
To build the muscle to stop making decisions
based on how other people would potentially see me.
I would walk to, I’m an owner of a dance studio
here in Toronto.
We teach Salsa.
And I would walk to the studio,
and most of the path is on side streets.
And so I’ve got music playing in my ears,
and I’m dancing, I’m like grooving out,
I might be singing as I’m walking down the street,
and as I get closer to the main intersection
and there’s people there,
it’s like oh.
– Yeah, yeah.
– I go back to like, conforming with everybody else.
And as soon as I caught that,
Most of that is just subconscious.
As soon as I caught that,
like, why am I stopping?
What do these people care?
I’m not doing something that is offending them.
I’m not trying to make their lives worse in any way.
That’s a different story.
And so as soon as I caught that,
like okay, now I need to go to that intersection
and dance on the street with my music on.
I got to stop shrinking down
because of how somebody might judge me.
And I think that’s a really important muscle
to start to build for anybody,
not just entrepreneurs, for anybody.
That the reason you don’t do something
should never be because you are afraid
of somebody’s judgement.
You want to do things because you want to do them,
and failure is okay,
and it’s part of the path to success,
but if the reason is you’re worried
how somebody’s going to look at you,
it’s not good enough,
’cause you should care more about
your opinion of yourself
than other people’s opinion of you.
– I feel like going amen.
(laughing)
– Do it, amen!
– Amen!
(laughing)
– I don’t want to wake up my kids.
They’re sleeping, so.
Mom, on you another interview being loud again?
– Well that’s another thing.
That’s another muscle to start to build,
and you’ve had a ton of practice with it,
but for people listening, watching,
when you catch yourself doing that,
I feel like I should just do that.
Just do it.
I feel like yelling amen.
Yell amen.
Like if you go to a seminar or a conference,
or you’re watching you know Kate’s next thing online,
in your home office or whatever,
and you say, I feel like yelling amen,
like yell amen.
Get used to doing that.
Get used to trusting that little voice inside your head,
and stop shrinking down.
– Yes, and I’m just going to go again, amen.
– There you go, I love it.
– Very cool.
I hope, if you don’t mind me asking,
can I ask you about, like,
so you just talked about that little thought
of noticing how you shrink.
How you’ve shrank yourself down.
If you don’t mind me asking,
where does it show up now in your life
in terms of business?
Is there anything that you like, that next level,
’cause we’ve always got a next level,
of what we want to push to,
and I know someone like you,
who you’re clearing connected into your passion,
and so passionate people are always like,
oh my god, it’s the next level,
it’s like your hungry
for whatever you can create in this world.
So the next level for you,
is there anything that comes up for you now
were you have to still build that muscle,
and you notice the thought of wanting to shrink down,
and your like, alright because of that I will?
– Yeah, the biggest one that will help me
get to the next level,
I don’t know it.
‘Cause I’m doing it subconsciously.
And that’s the thing.
That’s the hardest part.
You are doing so many, we all are,
doing so many things subconsciously
that are holding ourselves back,
and we just do it out of routine.
And we don’t question or catch it enough.
Once you start to catch it,
then you can start to make changes.
One of the biggest ones that I did was
I like to give value to people,
and I like to make sure that their time is respected,
and so that’s a really good thing,
and that I’m always early for a meeting,
I’m always on time,
I’m always prepared, if anything over prepared,
but the downside would be
I would be too afraid of not providing value,
that I would say no to things,
or I wouldn’t take the opportunity
or I would cancel potentially on people,
or wish that it would get cancelled.
– Um.
– Where this is a thing that I love doing.
Like I love talking to you.
I love doing interviews.
I love spreading the message.
I love reaching more people.
But the Evan of 10 years ago
would’ve probably said yes to doing this meeting,
but then secretly as it comes up,
like it’s coming up in half an hour,
like, oh, you know, I hope Kate cancels on me.
– Haha.
– Like secretly I’m sabotaging myself.
– Uh-Huh.
– Where I know this is what I love to do.
This is what I love doing,
and so sometimes it makes sense for a bigger thing,
if I commit to a big speech in front of an audience
that’s bigger than I’ve ever done before,
it’s going to be on national T.V.,
it’s natural to feel nervous
because you’ve never done it before.
You know, I would still feel anxious
and if somebody would cancel on me,
I would feel like okay, no worries,
yeah, yeah, cool, great.
We’ll schedule another time.
Don’t worry about it at all.
So it makes sense for the big things that you’re scared of.
For me it would happen on the smallest of occasions.
Like it would happen with an entrepreneur
who wants to meet for coffee,
and it’s a start-up entrepreneur,
and I know I can help her.
And I’ve helped tons of people like her,
and I love helping.
I know I’ll come out of the meeting feeling so great
that I was able to help this person with their business,
but going into it,
I’m hoping that she’s going to cancel on me.
And I remember there was this one women in particular,
it was this scenario.
I was going to meet her in a local coffee shop,
and I was going to help her with her business,
and I was secretly hoping that she would cancel on me,
like I always do, or always did,
and then I came out of the meeting,
and I just sat down,
and it was an amazing meeting.
She was so grateful and so happy,
and you could see that she really made a shift,
and she was going to go off and apply this.
And I felt so good about myself.
And I remember thinking,
I wanted this to cancel.
Like this thing that gave me such joy and energy,
I wanted her to cancel on me.
I was secretly praying that it would cancel.
I’m like, this isn’t right, haha.
Like, this is, that was the moment where I realized
that I was sabotaging myself.
– Hmm.
– And so the more I caught that behavior,
we have an expression in North America,
Monday morning quarterback,
I don’t know if this same thing,
if that means anything,
but basically a football game is on Sunday,
and so then the Monday morning quarterback is,
you think the next day of all the things you could’ve done.
Right, so like after the presentation is over,
oh, I should have done that, and I should’ve you know.
So, fine, you reflect on what mistakes you made,
and what you should’ve done.
So, when you realize that limiting behavior,
then you’ll do a lot of that.
You’ll do a lot of the next day thinking,
ah, I should’ve, I did it again, right.
I held myself back again.
I should’ve done better that time.
And then slowly you get that closer to the point.
So instead of it being the next day,
it’s only like three hours later,
three hours after that meeting that you realize.
Then it’s two hours, then one hour, then 10 minutes,
and you slowly get closer and closer to that point
where you made that self-sabotaging potential decision.
And then something happens when you get that point.
You realize in the moment that
I’m sabotaging myself right now.
This isn’t the next day, looking back.
It’s happening right now.
I’m about to sabotage myself again.
And then having the courage to do the thing
that you’re suppose to do, but that you don’t want to do.
Having the courage to push through,
and say, I’m not going to do the thing that I always do,
I’m going to take this path,
because this is where I need to go.
And once you get used to doing that consistently,
then you can really start to
break down your limiting barriers,
and really start to make progress.
Every major growth that I’ve had in my business
has never come from a business strategy.
It’s come from me breaking through
a limiting belief that I had,
and then going out and executing against it.
– Amen.
– Yeah, I love it.
– This is stunning, Evan.
And I just want to say thank you for being willing
to share all that,
and I’m sure anyone who’s listening
is getting absolute gold from that.
I just want to share a little bit personally,
because I know you don’t know me
and the audience most likely doesn’t know me,
so I had massive social anxiety.
So I was extremely, years ago, social anxiety,
I also had anorexia for three years and depression.
So you know, the person you’re talking to today
feels very different from the person I was years ago.
In fact, total rock bottom.
I remember standing at a checkout,
at a supermarket checkout,
to buy like a packet of gum or whatever,
and standing there and I was forcing cue,
and literally the amount that my palms were sweating
and my heart was racing ’cause I literally had to speak
to a human being at the checkout,
and you know I was forcing cue,
and each person that went down
and it was counting down to me,
I remember I felt like I was going to vomit,
’cause I had to speak to a human being.
– Right.
– And you know, what was going through my head was
how would I introduce myself.
Would I say hi, would I say hello, would I say hey.
Those are my options, hi, hello, hey,
and the intensity that went into that.
And I got to say,
the only thing that’s got me from there,
which is total, it was insanity,
the experience that I had,
to here where I said yes to this live interview,
is actually when I have had these opportunities
is learning to say yes regardless of how I feel.
It is the only way.
I think sometimes people are,
sorry, I think sometimes people are wanting
to wait until they feel that they can
until they say yes to things.
I think we have to switch it the other way around.
We have to say yes first.
Which is why I’m so glad you’re having this conversation.
Thanks, Evan.
– Yeah, and especially when you can commit to somebody else.
– Yeah.
– And especially when it’s out in the future.
– [Kate] Yes.
– Right, like yeah, yeah, yeah,
we’ll meet in three months, sure, no problem.
And then those three months come
and then you don’t want to cancel on that person.
Like, it’s actually here.
Okay, here we go.
‘Cause there’s also the fear
of looking bad in front of that person,
so you want to, you’re going to do it.
Yeah, I agree.
I think, ah,
I’m a big believer in trying anything once
just to get the experience, just to see.
And if you’re not going to do something,
there should be a really solid reason behind it,
not just because you’re afraid to do it.
I’m just getting used to building that habit.
You know, I ask a lot of people,
so whenever I do interviews with people,
my default will be be,
hey, how about we do it as a YouTube interview.
– Hm.
– I want to promote you.
How about we give you some free promotion.
Does that sound like a good idea?
Right.
And some people say yes,
and some people will say no.
And usually the ones who say no
are just too afraid to do it.
And they’ll come up with a reason why they can’t.
Right, like oh, I don’t have a webcam,
so I can’t do it.
Well go buy a webcam.
That’s not a real reason.
You’re just afraid.
And I don’t push on somebody like that
that I don’t know.
Right, if you didn’t want to do this,
I would have said, hey, you want to do a Skype call?
However you want to do, let’s do it, Kate.
I’m okay with it.
But kudos to you for saying yes.
– Yeah, literally this was the one interview
out of all the interviews that I’ve done
that I was like, hmm, I felt it.
I felt it when the opportunity was there,
and I was like yeah.
Literally what was in my mind
was because it challenged me, I must.
– Yeah.
– So thank you for the opportunity
to literally practice that muscle again
in a different environment.
– I love it.
And the more you see that popping up,
getting used to,
it’s same with the multicolored socks,
it’s the same with the dancing on the street,
why are you shrinking down from this?
– Yeah.
– Is there a legit reason or is it just that you’re afraid?
And having the,
you know we tell ourselves really smart reasons
why we can’t do something.
We’re smart people and we tell,
we come up with really convincing reasons
why we can’t do something.
And getting used to calling yourself out
on your own BS,
to say listen, you’re just afraid.
Let’s do it.
– Hm.
– Getting used to doing that
becomes easier, and easier, and easier.
Like any other muscle that you try to build,
becomes easier, and easier, and easier, and easier.
And so maybe the first thing is something really small.
If you have social anxiety,
maybe it’s saying yes to a coffee meeting with somebody.
Oh, I don’t want to get out of my house,
or oh, who’s going to be a the coffee shop,
or whatever it is.
It doesn’t have to be some big huge goal
where you’re now speaking
out in front of thousands of people.
Just getting used to that habit will take you so far
in your business,
but in you life.
And it’s connected to when you think of something
you want to say or you want to do,
just taking some kind of action on it.
Like, why not say amen and yell it.
You know, okay, I’m going to wake up the kids.
That may be a legit reason, right.
Like, I don’t want to deal with the kids at five a.m.
When they’re sleeping,
but otherwise, why would someone be afraid?
Well, I’m on live camera.
I don’t want to say that.
There’s people watching,
and that’s not a great reason for not to do it.
So you stepped up again, and did it again.
So I think it’s one of the most important lessons
that people can learn to start breaking down
their barriers or limiting beliefs
and start living a life that’s
a lot more meaningful for them.
– Thank you.
I just want to recap that for everyone.
Noticing the areas where you go to shrink yourself down,
and be willing to actually go there anyway
despite how you might feel on the inside.
Evan, my husband, Henare and I,
we actually are in business together.
– Nice.
– We talk a lot about the conversational domains
that we have within our life
that we are not comfortable in.
So you know how I can operate in this area of my life,
and like this kind of narrow strip here
is where I’m really comfortable,
and this might be,
you know for some people this comfort zone
might even be success, right?
And the conversational domain
that they’re not comfortable in is family,
or relationship, or relating to people.
Or this conversational domain
that I’m comfortable in is whatever.
But then outside of that,
all the places that I’m not comfortable in,
I’ll just give a quick example.
For example, if someone is the nice person,
and the good person,
and they identify that as who they are,
then perhaps a conversational domain
that they’re not comfortable with could be their power.
And so like in a situation where
they are actually called to be really shwoo,
this is, to actually like,
called to step up to the plate
and bring some power to something
might not be something that they can do
because that’s not who they are.
Or sometimes conversational domains
that I find a lot of people can’t go to is around sexuality.
I know that’s a little bit outside of entrepreneurship,
but it’s a conversation of where can people not go to,
and that’s actually literally for me,
and I’ll just go there first,
I’ve been playing for myself in two domains
in the last couple of years
because they are uncomfortable for me.
One is my power,
and then the other one is sexuality.
I’m just curious for you,
is perhaps a conversational domain,
or an experiential domain that you haven’t been used to
that you’re perhaps not as comfortable in
that you want, that you expand to,
or you want to,
or you try at?
– That’s an interesting topic.
I have a couple of things to say on that.
First, for me if there is something that,
again, I feel like I want to learn and do
and I feel is important to where I’m growing,
then I force myself into the situation to be able to do it.
Just like the dancing in the street and the socks,
or having a hard conversation,
leading the team,
or letting somebody go.
I will force myself to do it.
What’s the reason why I’m not doing?
Because I’m just afraid,
so I’ll go out and do it.
There’s probably lots of areas, again,
that are subconscious that I am restricting myself
that I don’t know about yet
that I am yet to discover.
But as soon as I do discover one,
then I have to go out and attack it.
– Hm.
– I think what really helped me,
and what could help a lot of people,
is basically the topic of the book,
is finding out the one core value that you have
to give yourself the self-awareness
and the ability to build a life that is best fit for you.
So as an example,
my one word is believe.
We’ve talked about it.
I want to bring believe in all situations.
Believe gives me strength.
Believe allows me to also find a path
that may not be the same path
that other people take to solve that problem.
So as an example,
letting somebody go.
It’s important as an entrepreneur.
– Hm.
– It’s great to think
that everybody’s just going to work out, and hurray.
But some people are going to have to be let go,
and sometimes that’s your fault
because your a bad manager and you make the wrong hire,
and sometimes it’s their fault for not doing their work.
For someone who’s positive and optimistic,
how do you let somebody go?
My first letting somebody go was,
I was super scared about it.
So I had to do it, ’cause I’m scared about it,
and it’s the right thing to do.
But then it challenged me.
I think, okay, my one word is believe.
How do I fire in a believe way?
– Hm.
– All the stuff that I saw about firing,
I didn’t like any of it.
It was like, you need to fire on a Friday,
so that they can’t hack your computer
or take stuff with them,
or all of these reasons.
Like you got to fire with somebody there,
so there is a witness, and I don’t know.
Everything I read,
and I read ’cause I was anxious.
I was worried about it.
I read all sorts of stuff on firing.
And I didn’t resonate with any of it.
And so I knew I had to do it,
but I didn’t want to do it in the way that I read.
So I challenged myself to think
okay, I’m all about believe,
how do I fire with believe?
And for me it was having a conversation with them,
and really just understanding that this wasn’t even
the best fit for them, you know.
– Hm, yep.
– He wanted to be a baker.
His heart of hearts, he wanted to be a baker,
and he’s working for me doing marketing stuff.
And he loved me and the environment and the positivity,
but he wasn’t doing the thing that he was suppose to do.
And he had nobody pushing him to be a baker,
and he was too afraid to take that leap and go be a baker.
And so, understanding that,
it was about September when we had this conversation.
I said, listen, I’ll work with you ’til the end of the year,
and then I want you to go and be a baker,
’cause you want to be a baker.
And however I can help you get there,
if you need a reference.
If you need me to come in with you to the bake shop.
Whatever it is, you’re suppose to go off and do that.
You’re holding yourself back doing here.
And they can come across as self-serving
and listening to it if you just read it in the book,
because sure, it helps me.
The guy’s not working for me anymore.
It’s great.
I can get somebody else who’s meant for the position.
But it comes from a genuine love and care for him,
because I believe in him and his potential
to be something more than what I can give him.
I can’t give him a baking job working for me.
It’s just not going to happen.
I’d love to stretch my team and go into new areas,
but the Evan Carmichael bakery is not on the horizon
for what I want to do.
And so I discovered how to fire in a believe way.
– Hm.
– And I think understanding what your one word is,
your core value,
and then seeing everything that you do
in a business context,
as well as a personal context,
through that lens helps…
– Yeah.
– Helps one, give you the confidence to do it,
and then helps you find your path
that may be different than everybody else’s path.
– Hm.
– So that’s a long answer,
but those are my thoughts.
I think that’s super important.
– I love it.
That one word can become like the barometer
on what to measure or decide through
all the different things.
Tell me, you’ve clearly found your passion.
A lot of, it can be easy when people really connect,
like really align with that thing
that they’re really passionate about,
then it is easier to then stay the course
and to dig deep.
If you’re passionate,
then there is really no other option.
Even though you might have the kind of wobbles
in your head.
How do people actually find
what they’re really passionate about?
Because I think sometimes people
can get a little bit overwhelmed
by the conversation around what am I here to do?
And then it can get a little bit over-thought.
So how do people really connect into what
they are passionate about?
– Yeah, I think the two most important exercises
that people can go through
is one, finding out what they stand for, right?
Finding their one word.
Finding their believe system.
And that is a lot of self-reflection,
that is a lot of personal time, a lot of thinking.
– Hm.
– You can’t thing your way to find your passion, though.
You can take like different tests and say,
well based on this, I’m supposed to be a teacher,
or whatever it is.
And that might be start,
but you can’t think your way into a relationship.
You can’t, you know, you’re married,
you can’t just sit there and put on a piece of paper
here are the ten things my husband has to have,
and then poof, here he is,
because when you get into that relationship
you’re going to realize that two of those things didn’t matter,
and you have to add four more to the list
that now do matter to you
that you didn’t even realize before.
And so, my advice in terms of finding you passion,
because it is one of the most important things
that you need to do.
If you look at anybody that’s had success in their careers,
they follow something they’re passionate about,
is to try stuff.
Is to explore, is to say yes.
I own a salsa dance company.
On paper it looks like a really silly investment.
When I first walked in to a salsa dance class,
it was just a fun thing to do,
and on paper, I’m too tall.
I don’t speak spanish.
I take big steps.
I didn’t hear the music growing up.
Like all of these things against me,
but I loved it.
I had fun.
I wanted to go back again.
And so I wouldn’t put so much pressure,
If I put all that pressure to say
I need to find my next business.
This has to be it.
I have to know on the first try and that’s it.
Then I probably wouldn’t even have gone to that salsa class,
and if I did, it would’ve been so miserable
because I’d be waiting for it to be this amazing thing.
And instead, I liked it
and I wanted to come back and do it again.
And I liked it and I wanted to come back and do it again.
And I continued to like,
then I became a regular student.
I became an investor,
and then I bought the business in January of this year,
and it’s the largest salsa dancing school in North America.
We’ll teach five, six thousand students a year
how to dance salsa.
And if I just didn’t say yes and take that one class,
I wouldn’t have known.
– Hm.
– And so, I think you may have some inklings.
It’s like one, listen to that voice.
Like, I want to say amen, say amen.
You know, I want to,
you pass by and you see that sign for piano lessons.
It’s like, well that’s interesting.
Well take the thing and call the guy,
and take a piano lesson and just see.
You never know where it’s going to lead.
A lot times it doesn’t make sense.
It doesn’t make sense looking forward.
You can’t figure out,
like if you try to plan your career with your head,
you’re never going to make it.
‘Cause your head only understands the world
that currently exists,
where your heart can make a new world for yourself.
– Hm.
– So you make the big decisions in you life with your heart,
and then you use your head
to figure out how to make it happen.
– Um-Hmm.
– And so you can’t think your way to something
that you need to make a decision with the heart.
And so it’s saying yes to things.
It’s trying stuff out.
Trying anything once.
If you don’t like it, that’s okay.
If you do it, then you keep doing it
until you find the path that feel like,
you know what, this is the right thing to do.
Now’s the time.
I want to devote more and more and more time to this.
I can’t put this down.
I love this so much I got to keep going.
And then that’s what you should be doing.
And some people that journey is longer than others,
but the people who can’t find their passion,
I would challenge them to look at their activities,
and I would say they’re not doing anything.
They’re going home and watching T.V. shows,
and have the same life.
They’re living the same boring life.
They’re not trying to do anything,
and to try and think their way out of it
they’re trying to read an article on
25 jobs to start in 2017,
and that’s what they’re going to do.
You got to try and feel it out.
You got to do it.
You got to say yes.
You got to go to meet ups.
You got to go to that event that you’ve never been to,
and just see.
I remember, you talk about sexuality,
now we’re going off topic,
I like going to trade shows.
I like just seeing how people
are promoting their businesses.
I like seeing how, you know, what’s happening in the city,
what businesses are up to.
And on the same day,
my wife and I went to the sex show in Toronto
and the R.V. show.
– Haha.
– And it’s like total opposite worlds.
The R.V. show is like motor homes and trailers,
all the the country stuff,
and then sex show is obviously totally different.
And honestly we didn’t enjoy either of them.
It was okay.
We enjoyed the company.
We enjoyed each other.
We enjoyed watching the things,
and going into the R.V. and learning something new,
but we wouldn’t go back.
But we went to both,
where a lot of people are so fixated on,
this is my life, right,
you did the head banging thing,
this is my life,
and that’s the lane I’m always going to stay in forever.
I’m never going to explore anything.
So someone invites you to the R.V. show,
try it, say yes.
See what happens.
Someone invites you to the sex show,
see what happens.
Now, you don’t want to do something that may put you in
massively harms way,
but most of the things in life aren’t that scary.
So at least so you know.
Maybe I go to the R.V. show and I love it.
Maybe I become obsessed with this R.V. and
now I want to drive across the country in my R.V.
on my book tour,
and then I start and R.V. company.
That could be a whole new business thing.
I wouldn’t have known unless I went to the R.V. show.
– Absolutely, I love that.
I absolutely love that.
And I love what you said about making decisions
with you heart,
and then think the follow through with your head.
So, Evan’s book is Your One Word,
and it feels like a real thing
on every conversation we’ve had, it comes back to this.
What is that word?
What is that core value that is driving you,
and given that you’re saying make your decisions
with your heart, that connects to that core value.
So I highly recommend whoever’s listening to this,
is to grab Evan’s book, Your One Word,
and have a read through it,
and then really apply it to whatever it is
that you’re interested in.
So thanks Evan.
Actually I just want to finish by asking you this question.
I see you’re standing up.
– Yeah.
– You’re standing up right?
– [Evan] Yeah.
– And I realize like I’m literally leaning on,
I’ve got a back and I’ve got arms,
and I’m fully supported on like,
tell me about standing up.
You’re into life hacking?
– I’ve been standing up for 12 years I think?
I’m just thinking how old I am now.
Yeah, so I was like 24, I’m 36 now.
I started when I was 24, 25ish, so yeah.
– Okay, tell me what’s the benefits?
Get me, I want to get out of this chair.
What’s the benefits of it,
so that I can get it.
So that I want to do standing up as well.
– Sure, so I mean I was standing up before
it was a thing to stand up.
Before sitting was cancer or whatever.
I was in my twenties,
and I was having really bad back and knee problems,
and I’m in like my mid-twenties, early twenties.
And I was going to see a chiropractor every week.
Getting the adjustments.
Getting the insoles.
Getting like the custom orthotics.
Getting like the electro-shock therapy.
Every week I had to go do this.
Now I spent a lot of time at a computer.
It’s the nature of my business.
I probably had terrible posture.
But come on, I’m in my twenties.
This isn’t suppose to be happening in your twenties, right?
And so, I think I read somewhere,
I forget how it first came on to my radar,
but standing up was an option
and not wearing shoes,
so I’ve been barefoot this whole time too.
And I started small.
I always like, test,
here’s the thing, right,
stand up desk.
Oh, I need to go get a stand up desk.
Oh, it’s going to cost me x amount of money,
and blah, blah, blah.
All these reasons why you can’t do it.
And so it’s like this big goal in the future
that you never get to.
I took my laptop,
and I took a bookcase,
and I just started working from the bookcase.
That’s it, just experiment.
Try it.
Like, I’m going to try something right now.
Okay, let’s get my laptop and go work from the bookcase.
Was the exact ergonomic height?
No.
Could it have been better?
100%.
I got tired after an hour of standing up,
’cause I’m not used to it.
And I liked it.
It was one small test on one day.
Like going to the R.V. show
and going to the sex show that led to zero.
The standing up desk led to this,
where it’s been 12 years of standing up.
Like, you never know.
And so, my back doesn’t hurt anymore.
My knees don’t hurt anymore.
That was the most immediate health benefit that I got.
I also find that I have more energy when I’m standing up.
When I did phone calls,
back when I had a phone,
I would always stand up and walk around,
because I had more energy.
And when I was doing the audiobook for this,
they put me in this tiny room,
and you’re recording the audio,
and there was a seat and the microphone,
and I sat down,
and I started reading,
I’m like, this doesn’t feel right.
I said can I stand up.
– Hm.
– Like do you mind if I stand up while I read this?
‘Cause I’ll have more energy when I stand up.
And he’s like, uh, yeah, you could stand up,
but you’re going to be,
we’re recording from 10 A.M. ’til five or six P.M.
You going to stand up that whole time?
Like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I stand up all the time.
Don’t worry, we got it.
It’s like, okay.
‘Cause they had to make a whole bunch of adjustments
to now move the microphone up,
and calibrate and all that stuff.
– Ha.
– But the audiobook was fire.
The audiobook was amazing.
It was so much better because I could stand up.
And doing this,
talking to you,
I feel more comfortable.
I’m much more energetic by me standing up
than sitting down.
So that was a side benefit that I came to realize later.
The real benefit was just for the health of my knees
and my back.
And So those two, being barefoot as much as possible,
and standing up.
And when I first started doing it at my old office,
it was kind of awkward,
because I would have a meeting at my desk,
and I would be standing,
and other people aren’t used to standing,
so they would be hunched over.
– Haha.
– I learned, and I brought them chairs,
but then their sitting and I’m standing,
and it still felt awkward.
– You’re like the presenter.
– Yeah, it was awkward.
So then I ended up getting a board room table,
and like okay, meetings are in the board room,
and I’ll sit down for that.
I still sit down.
It’s not like I stand up all day long.
I eat dinner, I sit down, right?
It’s not to the crazy extreme.
But yeah, you need to work your way into it.
You can’t just stand up all day long,
but I get a lot of benefits from it,
and I’m super appreciative of it.
– That’s awesome, thank you.
I’m hearing this thing throughout the whole conversation
is like, be willing to try new things.
Like if you have an invitation to something,
or if you have an inkling or a thought,
just try it.
There’s nothing to loose.
Try it, and you just don’t know.
It’s either, at the worst,
you just don’t like it,
and you just don’t do it again.
And at the best,
you just have no idea what door it could open.
– Yeah.
– Thank you so much.
I’ve loved chatting with you.
You’ve got, you’re so interesting,
and bring so much heart to what you do.
Which is interesting, ’cause you’re such a businessman,
but you bring a lot of heart to it,
so thank you.
– Cool, yeah, I appreciate that,
and you know I’ve done a ton of interviews recently
because of the book,
and I’ve really enjoyed this one.
You got an amazing vibe,
asked awesome questions,
and I know it’s been way longer than we planned for it,
but it’s kind of flown.
I’ve really sincerely enjoyed talking with you.
– Thanks so much, Evan.
And I just wanted to finish off by saying
Your One Word, those are the three words
you need to go search,
and either get it on audiobook
or in real hard copy,
but Your One Word,
go and grab that book.
You’ve obviously loved this interview,
and you’ll actually get full book worth
of Evan’s gems.
Download it.
– Haha.
– So thank you so much.
Evan, what’s a parting comment you want to share
with the audience to finish?
– Believe, that’s it.
Believe in yourself.
Believe in what you’re doing.
Believe it’s going to work out.
Believe.
– Alright, and I have to finish off on amen, brother.
Thank you.
– Haha, that could be your one word, amen, you never know.
– I think so.
– Take care, thanks Kate.
– Thanks Evan.
So excited to be here.
I’ve got a special guest who’s all fired up.
Who woke up, it’s five a.m. for her, to do this interview.
So I’m super pumped.
It’s Kate O’Brien, from katemarieobrien.com.
You can check her out in the description below.
She’s going to interview me about
success and entrepreneurship,
and the bits that people don’t talk about.
But before I get into that interview and the questions,
Kate, maybe a quick intro for my audience
so they know a little bit about who you are
and what you’re all about.
– Yep, hey everyone.
Lovely to meet you.
So, Kate O’brien.
I have, you can find me on my YouTube channel,
on any social media.
One thing I really love to do,
and it’s about pushing people’s thinking
and the way the relate to themselves,
and the way they relate to each other,
and I suppose I do that in slightly controversial ways.
Ways in which has people kind of poking
on their own thinking, yeah.
So come over to my YouTube channel,
youtube.com/katemareeobrien.
There’s some videos there that could
possibly even challenge you a little.
– I love it.
And the Maree is spelled in an awesome way, M A R E E.
– Yes.
– Cool, it’s your show, fire away.
– Thank you, and also for those of you who are watching
from the Game Changer Global Summit, huge welcome.
Evan Carmichael, I just want to say
it’s a pleasure to meet you,
and I’ve been watching your YouTube channel,
and I love what you put together,
and I just love how you clearly have been a guy
who’s gone all in and been willing to have a vision
and then really grow something to match that.
And I had a little bit of read of
who you are and how you started,
and I loved the story of,
so you’re five years old with your sister…
– Yeah.
– And you guys are selling artwork.
This is a guy with born entrepreneurial spirit.
Can I ask you first up,
because I know you’re all about
helping entrepreneurs in the world,
what made you such an entrepreneurial little spark
at the age of five?
Was is a nature nurture thing?
– Uh, I don’t know.
That’s an interesting one.
So, the story quickly.
I was five years old.
I grabbed my three year old little sister,
and we both just started making drawings
on a piece of paper,
and I went to my neighbors and started knocking on doors
and selling it to them,
and I made my first 10 cents as an entrepreneur.
My parents were not entrepreneurs.
They had stable jobs.
My dad worked for the government for years and years
and eventually retired,
and then got another job.
So, I didn’t have my parents
to look up to for entrepreneurship,
but they always did encourage all three of us,
I have two sisters,
to do whatever we wanted,
and make us believe that we could do
whatever we wanted to do,
and that really,
all three of us kids went off to do crazy things.
Way different from each other,
and way different than our parents,
and went off to achieve a lot more, too,
and so I don’t know.
I think the entrepreneurship thing
didn’t really come from them necessarily,
but the encouragement and guidance and belief
and letting us experiment and try and fail
and not judge us for doing something different.
I remember my parents when to a parent-teacher meeting,
I forget how old I was, I was super young,
and I got a bad mark in art class,
and my teachers gave some instructions
about drawing a window with a tree,
and I did it, but then I added some other stuff to it,
and my teacher gave me a bad mark because I didn’t
follow her instructions exactly,
and then my mom got into a fight with her,
said hey, you said a window with a tree,
that’s what he gave you,
and then he gave you more,
so you can’t blame him for that.
So, like standing up to my teachers
and just always encouraging me
to do whatever I wanted do do.
So, definitely I think the parenting really helped me
in that role, too.
– Sounds like a lot of nurture as well.
So out of interest,
and I’m saying this selfishly
because I’m a parent and I’m assuming there’s going to be
a lot of parents on our platform who are watching us,
do you have kids, Evan?
– Yeah, I have a seven year old.
I don’t know if you can see in the video here.
– Ah, yeah.
– Little Hayden, so yeah.
– How does that influence how you bring up Hayden?
– I’m a big believer that everybody has one word
that defines who they are.
It’s what the topic of my new book is about,
and once when you understand who you are,
then you can start to live a life
and have a business that’s more on purpose.
And so believe is my one word.
It’s what I got from my parents.
They always told me that I was Evan Castrilli Carmichael,
and I could do anything that I wanted.
Even when I wasn’t successful,
even when I was getting bad report cards,
even, you know, I got into trouble,
sure I got punished,
but also I was made to feel like
I could do whatever I wanted.
I could do better.
I could always push myself.
And so I continue that same tradition with my son.
I think the best gift that I could give him
is for him to believe in himself
and not just follow in my footsteps
or somebody else’s footsteps.
Maybe he doesn’t want YouTube career
or an entrepreneurship career.
That’s cool.
Right now he wants to be a scientist,
so great, like you could do science.
Let’s go learn some science,
and when I pick him up from school,
we have this little tradition were I will say
I’m Hayden Carmichael, that’s his name,
I’m Hayden Carmichael and I can do,
and in the backseat he will go, anything.
And so I think my parents gave me that gift of believe,
and I want to pass that on, that believe, that support,
that appreciation, that non-judgement to my son
and make him feel like he can do anything he wants to.
– I can feel that from you.
It’s actually interesting, Evan.
I’ve had the total pleasure of interviewing
a lot of the big names in the industry on this platform
over the last four years,
and I got to say,
sitting here talking with you,
you’re almost exactly,
you’re pretty much exactly what I thought
you were going to feel like.
You are super, if you don’t mind me saying, super grounded.
You’ve got this real, you’ve got this very realness to you,
which is interesting given
the massive success of your audience,
and how much you’ve grown your business.
Can you tell me bit about how have you managed
to keep this grounded, human feel that you really do have
given the size of your success?
Because you’ve been extremely successful,
and it’s very easy,
I’m just going to segway into this
while you’re kind of thinking…
– Sure.
– Is that when people often get success and get fame,
sometimes people can actually get carried away
with the ideas of who they are,
and then sometimes they can kind of
loose a little bit of touch of the ground.
I don’t feel that from you at all, how?
– Uh, I don’t know, I don’t know.
That’s interesting.
I mean, I, thank you.
I try to channel my core values
through everything that I do,
and I think it also kind of depends on what I’m doing.
I can be very confident in what I’m doing.
I can turn up.
I can get angry.
If you want to debate something,
and I’m convinced this is the path to go,
not that it’s going to be demeaning or attacking
or anything to you.
So I can be really confident,
and I can also be really humble
just depending on the situation.
I think one of the things that has really helped me
is just gratitude on a daily basis.
One of the things that I do,
I’ve had a gratitude practice for a number of years
where I just think about three things that I’m grateful for,
and I think if you can remember the great stuff
that you have in your life,
and be thankful for it,
then when the bad stuff happens,
it doesn’t overwhelm you.
It’s really hard to be super angry and upset
and depressed and down in dark places
when you’re also grateful for what you have.
And I think as entrepreneurs we need that.
For the entrepreneurs who are watching and listening,
it’s a lot of down days being an entrepreneur, you know.
You can have a lot of success, too,
but there’s still going to be a lot of down days,
and I think the gratitude helps you stay grounded.
I think success and fame or whatever you want to call it,
I think it just exposes more of who you are honestly.
I’ve meet a lot of people who are at the top of their game
who are really genuine and personable
and just nice people as well,
so I know I still have a long way to go
from where I want to be and where I’m at right now,
and so I think the people who have a big attitude
when they’re famous,
they had a big attitude when they weren’t so famous.
They weren’t a great person
when they were not so famous, too.
And the fame and money and success
just maybe exposes more of who they were.
So I appreciate you saying that.
My parents would be super happy to hear that.
Yeah, and I think both of those things
just exposes more of who you are
and then just being grateful for what you have
makes a big difference.
– Yeah, I like what you said there,
I think it really magnifies what’s in there, thank you.
You’ve mentioned this before,
where your talking about entrepreneurship,
this, the days where there’s highs
and there’s the real successes that you can get,
and then there’s the days.
Can you talk a little bit about that,
’cause you know you hear people talking about
oh, wow, that was an overnight success,
and you know often people see the end result
and the product of what people have produced,
and then relate to that as if
that was their journey going in.
But the reality is,
my experience certainly has been
it’s the giving up a lot of my life.
Not having, I haven’t really had
a social life in a long time.
It just full commitment, you know.
Can you talk a little bit about
the reality of entrepreneurship
and the parts that possibly people don’t see
or don’t relate to?
‘Cause what I see when they’re just relating
to the end result,
then when they are personally experiencing
the not being able to see immediate success,
they then make themselves wrong,
and then that byproduct has them give up earlier
and struggle through it.
Not really getting it’s the long haul,
and it’s the patience.
Can you speak to a little bit, Evan?
– Yeah, I think it’s actually one of the biggest disservices
that we do to entrepreneurs.
I think we celebrate entrepreneurs and rightly so.
I believe all the world’s problems
will be solved by entrepreneurs.
It’s not going to be solved by government or corporations.
It’s going to be solved by us.
You know, world peace, natural disasters,
major health illnesses,
it’s going to be solved by entrepreneurs.
And so we are right to celebrate them,
but we don’t showcase the amount of work and pain
that goes into making a business.
And kudos to people like you
who are putting on summits
and trying to help spread education
and give maybe a little dose of reality,
’cause I think what ends up happening
is one, too many people jump into it too soon,
who maybe shouldn’t even be entrepreneurs,
who just, they like the,
they’re attracted to the glam and the fame and the glory,
and the idea of making a lot of money,
and maybe that’s not what they should be on the path to do.
And also for the people who do start,
what’s most saddening for me is
they feel isolated and alone.
This is what I felt when I was starting too.
That when I look at websites,
and when I look at magazines,
and when I watch videos
I see all these people having so much success,
and here I am grinding, working hard,
thinking I’m doing the right thing,
and I’m not getting results.
Like, what’s wrong with me?
How come these guys are doing so well
and I can’t make my thing take off?
Because it’s suppose to be easy and
it’s suppose to be the path,
and I’m not figuring it out.
And it crushes a lot of people,
and most people are too ashamed, too afraid to admit that.
You know, I was making $300 a month in my first business,
and I couldn’t afford to go out.
I had to pick one thing a month
that I could do with my friends,
like a birthday, or beer, pizza and beer, or something,
’cause that $20 was a lot to me.
– Um-Hum.
– And I didn’t have the courage to tell my friends
that I couldn’t afford to be there.
It was yeah, I’m living the entrepreneur life.
I’ve got so many things going on.
I’m so busy, busy, busy, busy.
I’m building my business.
I wanted them to see me as,
I wanted them to be jealous of what I was doing.
Not feel sad for me.
(both laughing)
I think that’s a lot of entrepreneurs.
We expect it to be easier than it is.
Nobody’s talking about how hard it is,
and then we set ourselves up for failure,
and we set ourselves up for massive potential depression.
You’re so isolated and alone,
and so I think talking about how hard it is
to be an entrepreneur,
and recognizing that lots of people think about quitting.
I told my partner I quit,
and it’s normal to think about quitting a business,
especially in the early days.
And a lot of people thought about it.
So if you’re thinking about quitting your business,
you know, you’re out talking to people and doing interviews,
and saying yeah, everything’s great, I’m so happy.
This business is all about x, y, z,
and you’re trying to promote.
You’re in hustle mode.
Meanwhile, you think,
I don’t know if I want to keep doing this.
Like, I feel bad about myself.
I’m not getting results.
Maybe I should quit.
Who do you tell that you’re thinking
about quitting your business?
A lot of people don’t have anybody to tell,
and they think that they’re abnormal,
and they think that they’re a failure,
where it’s totally normal,
and it happens to almost everybody.
And so just sharing that side of things,
I think will help a lot of people.
For people to feel like this is part of it.
To have that expectation,
and to know that they are not alone,
and that they are not worthless,
and that this is part of the path.
I think that will make it a lot easier for people.
For them to have success,
and also for them to feel good about themselves
and what they’re doing.
And so I think the work you’re doing is great.
To be able to ask these kinds of questions,
have these speakers on,
and not just talk about winning all the time,
but some of the things that go into it,
and the hard journey that people have to take.
– Thanks Evan, I appreciate that,
and I also appreciate your answer.
And for whoever is listening,
I just want, if you hear anything in this interview,
I would love it if you just really got that.
Like got it on a cellular level
that it takes something,
and that it’s part of the journey when you’re feel like,
on one hand, you’re putting out the smiley face,
but on the other hand,
you’re rocking in the corner sucking your thumb.
That that can be a part of it,
and that doesn’t mean anything.
You talked about the future of entrepreneurship,
which really fascinates me.
I’m really curious, what do you see, Evan,
as the future of entrepreneurship?
I mean, the world is changing astronomically
like we’ve never seen in history,
and I know it’s forecasting, crystal ball stuff,
but what do you see with the future of entrepreneurship?
– I think more and more people are going to do it.
I think everybody, I think everybody has always had an idea
for something that they want to do.
I think if you go back 100 years,
people are still thinking, ah I wish I could do that.
I have this idea for this new invention.
I think it’s just way easier now to do it.
Both from a money point of view,
100 years ago to start a business
you needed to have a lot of money,
you needed to have a factory and a store,
and it cost you a lot of money to get started,
where now you could just,
you could be a YouTube entrepreneur,
you could be an Instagram entrepreneur,
you can just get started from your phone.
You don’t need to have money to get started.
So because those barriers are going down,
it’s easier for people to get into it.
I think too, now as you see
more and more different kinds of people being successful,
then there’s more role models to look up to.
So, Zuckerberg making it big as a young entrepreneur
inspired a lot of other young entrepreneurs
to say hey, look what he did,
I could do that too.
You don’t have to wait until you’re 40, 50, 60
to do your own thing.
I’m 19, I want to go do it right now,
and as you see entrepreneurs breaking through
and having those successes,
they become role models for the next generation.
And you see that across all industries.
I’m a baseball fan, so Jackie Robinson
was the first black baseball player in baseball,
and after he made it,
they wanted to aspire to be like Jackie.
Now, most of baseball,
your going to have tons of black players.
It’s the norm.
And so when you see somebody like you hitting it,
then you feel like you could do it too,
and so there’s so many different kinds of entrepreneurs now
having success that inspires the next generation
to want to go out and do more.
So I think, like look at what you’re doing
it wouldn’t have been possible 20 years ago.
Here we are having a conversation
from halfway across the world talking business,
and this would have cost an exorbitant amount of money
to put together before.
Now we’re able to do it
just through a webcam and an internet connection.
And so people will see what you’re doing
and be inspired and say,
hey, look what Kate did Mommy,
look what Kate did.
Like a 10 year old girl looking up to you
saying I want to do that,
I want to do something like that.
And then she’s inspired to want to go and
bet on herself to do something.
So I think people have always had,
I think it’s part of human nature.
You’re thinking about opportunities.
You want to do something more.
I think now with how cheap it is to get started
and how many role models to look up to,
that we’re only going to see more and more people
try and start different things.
– I like that you said just before,
you talked about almost like, you know,
one person kind of leads the way with the torch,
which opens the door for a lot of people
who can look up to that person.
I stayed up last night watching some Will Smith docu-,
not Will Smith, Will.I.Am.
I love Will.I.Am.
That he’s just such an innovator,
and it made me think about Will.I.Am came from
that area of the, you know a harder upbringing,
and he’s totally opened the door for people and led the way
because he’s into robotics,
and he’s brought that to that generation.
Which is fantastic.
And he said something really interesting.
He said that you have to have the willingness
to fall flat on your face over and over again
and to constantly go to places that you don’t know.
See, it’s easy to be in the background and be in your head,
and keep saying the same stuff to yourself,
or keep having the same conversations,
but if you actually jump out
and go out on that skinny branch
and you have those conversations
that you don’t know how to have,
and do things that you don’t know how to do,
and be willing to fall on your face each time,
then you’re learning new stuff.
What do you think about the willingness
to fall on your face?
– Yeah, I think most people have
an unhealthy relationship with failure.
I think people see failure as this one final thing
that then, because you didn’t make it,
that’s it, you’re done.
And a lot people do that.
A lot of people shrink down.
A lot of people see an opportunity,
take their shot, doesn’t work out,
and then they say,
well that’s, I took my shot,
that’s it, I’m done.
And then they go back to the other life
that they didn’t like working for somebody else
or whatever it was that they wanted to do.
And I think that’s wrong.
I think if you look at any successful person,
not even entrepreneur,
a musician, athlete, whatever it is,
they failed tons of times.
They failed more than they succeeded,
and that’s why they succeed.
So failure is just part of the path.
Failure is part of the journey to success.
And it’s only really failure if you stop.
If you learn from it, you can find another way to do it.
Like okay, that didn’t work.
Let’s find another path and how to do,
and each time you get a little bit better.
So whoever you’re, if somebody’s afraid of that,
if somebody’s really, they are afraid to fall on their face,
and that’s why their not doing it,
if somebody watches this interview,
and looks up to what you’re doing and says,
hey, I want to do an interview in my field
of figure skating or whatever it is,
but their too afraid to do it,
I would go and look at whoever is the most successful person
that you respect and look up to.
You know I have a bunch of people on my wall behind me.
Whoever it is for you,
a figure skater, a musician, Will.I.Am, a politician,
and entrepreneur, you know, an athlete, whoever it is,
look at their story
and look at how many times they failed, and failed,
and failed, and failed, and failed,
and use that as inspiration.
Especially if you feel an emotional connection
to that person, you know.
Like I could have Howard Schultz behind me.
His story inspires me.
You may not know who Howard Schultz is,
so that’s not going to,
like don’t do what I do,
do something that’s inspiring for you.
And so I think there is
an unhealthy relationship with failure.
And I think alongside of that,
one of the biggest things
that people worry about with failure
is not so much failure of it not working,
it’s the judgement of other people
because you failed, right?
I think if people could fail in private
then they would be much more open to it
than failing and your husband sees it
or your friends see it, or your people in community see it.
And I think an amazing skill to get used to
is practicing not making decisions
based off of expectations of other people.
And the story that I like to tell with this
is my son, we’ve talked about a little bit already…
– [Kate] Hayden.
– Yeah Hayden, good memory.
– He likes to wear different color socks.
That’s his thing.
(Kate laughing)
He will never wear the same socks.
You bunch them together, he will take them apart.
He has to wear two different color socks.
That’s his thing.
I like it, I support it.
Like I love it.
I don’t want to judge him and say hey, wear the same socks.
Like those are the things sometimes parents do.
Well like, why?
Why is it actually important that he wears the same socks?
Is it really the fight that we want to have?
I encourage it.
I love it.
And I was moving to my new condo,
and I was throwing away some stuff as you move,
and I had these mismatched socks,
and I was all set to throw them away,
and I thought, huh,
Hayden likes to wear different color socks,
maybe I’m going to wear some mismatched socks.
And the first thought that came into my head was
oh, but what if people see me in my socks
and they’re not same color, you know.
I go, maybe I’ll do it at home,
but if I go out, I have different color socks on.
That’s not cool.
And because I had that thought,
then I had to go out and do it in public.
Because I was so worried
about how other people would judge me,
then I had to go out and do it.
To build the muscle to stop making decisions
based on how other people would potentially see me.
I would walk to, I’m an owner of a dance studio
here in Toronto.
We teach Salsa.
And I would walk to the studio,
and most of the path is on side streets.
And so I’ve got music playing in my ears,
and I’m dancing, I’m like grooving out,
I might be singing as I’m walking down the street,
and as I get closer to the main intersection
and there’s people there,
it’s like oh.
– Yeah, yeah.
– I go back to like, conforming with everybody else.
And as soon as I caught that,
Most of that is just subconscious.
As soon as I caught that,
like, why am I stopping?
What do these people care?
I’m not doing something that is offending them.
I’m not trying to make their lives worse in any way.
That’s a different story.
And so as soon as I caught that,
like okay, now I need to go to that intersection
and dance on the street with my music on.
I got to stop shrinking down
because of how somebody might judge me.
And I think that’s a really important muscle
to start to build for anybody,
not just entrepreneurs, for anybody.
That the reason you don’t do something
should never be because you are afraid
of somebody’s judgement.
You want to do things because you want to do them,
and failure is okay,
and it’s part of the path to success,
but if the reason is you’re worried
how somebody’s going to look at you,
it’s not good enough,
’cause you should care more about
your opinion of yourself
than other people’s opinion of you.
– I feel like going amen.
(laughing)
– Do it, amen!
– Amen!
(laughing)
– I don’t want to wake up my kids.
They’re sleeping, so.
Mom, on you another interview being loud again?
– Well that’s another thing.
That’s another muscle to start to build,
and you’ve had a ton of practice with it,
but for people listening, watching,
when you catch yourself doing that,
I feel like I should just do that.
Just do it.
I feel like yelling amen.
Yell amen.
Like if you go to a seminar or a conference,
or you’re watching you know Kate’s next thing online,
in your home office or whatever,
and you say, I feel like yelling amen,
like yell amen.
Get used to doing that.
Get used to trusting that little voice inside your head,
and stop shrinking down.
– Yes, and I’m just going to go again, amen.
– There you go, I love it.
– Very cool.
I hope, if you don’t mind me asking,
can I ask you about, like,
so you just talked about that little thought
of noticing how you shrink.
How you’ve shrank yourself down.
If you don’t mind me asking,
where does it show up now in your life
in terms of business?
Is there anything that you like, that next level,
’cause we’ve always got a next level,
of what we want to push to,
and I know someone like you,
who you’re clearing connected into your passion,
and so passionate people are always like,
oh my god, it’s the next level,
it’s like your hungry
for whatever you can create in this world.
So the next level for you,
is there anything that comes up for you now
were you have to still build that muscle,
and you notice the thought of wanting to shrink down,
and your like, alright because of that I will?
– Yeah, the biggest one that will help me
get to the next level,
I don’t know it.
‘Cause I’m doing it subconsciously.
And that’s the thing.
That’s the hardest part.
You are doing so many, we all are,
doing so many things subconsciously
that are holding ourselves back,
and we just do it out of routine.
And we don’t question or catch it enough.
Once you start to catch it,
then you can start to make changes.
One of the biggest ones that I did was
I like to give value to people,
and I like to make sure that their time is respected,
and so that’s a really good thing,
and that I’m always early for a meeting,
I’m always on time,
I’m always prepared, if anything over prepared,
but the downside would be
I would be too afraid of not providing value,
that I would say no to things,
or I wouldn’t take the opportunity
or I would cancel potentially on people,
or wish that it would get cancelled.
– Um.
– Where this is a thing that I love doing.
Like I love talking to you.
I love doing interviews.
I love spreading the message.
I love reaching more people.
But the Evan of 10 years ago
would’ve probably said yes to doing this meeting,
but then secretly as it comes up,
like it’s coming up in half an hour,
like, oh, you know, I hope Kate cancels on me.
– Haha.
– Like secretly I’m sabotaging myself.
– Uh-Huh.
– Where I know this is what I love to do.
This is what I love doing,
and so sometimes it makes sense for a bigger thing,
if I commit to a big speech in front of an audience
that’s bigger than I’ve ever done before,
it’s going to be on national T.V.,
it’s natural to feel nervous
because you’ve never done it before.
You know, I would still feel anxious
and if somebody would cancel on me,
I would feel like okay, no worries,
yeah, yeah, cool, great.
We’ll schedule another time.
Don’t worry about it at all.
So it makes sense for the big things that you’re scared of.
For me it would happen on the smallest of occasions.
Like it would happen with an entrepreneur
who wants to meet for coffee,
and it’s a start-up entrepreneur,
and I know I can help her.
And I’ve helped tons of people like her,
and I love helping.
I know I’ll come out of the meeting feeling so great
that I was able to help this person with their business,
but going into it,
I’m hoping that she’s going to cancel on me.
And I remember there was this one women in particular,
it was this scenario.
I was going to meet her in a local coffee shop,
and I was going to help her with her business,
and I was secretly hoping that she would cancel on me,
like I always do, or always did,
and then I came out of the meeting,
and I just sat down,
and it was an amazing meeting.
She was so grateful and so happy,
and you could see that she really made a shift,
and she was going to go off and apply this.
And I felt so good about myself.
And I remember thinking,
I wanted this to cancel.
Like this thing that gave me such joy and energy,
I wanted her to cancel on me.
I was secretly praying that it would cancel.
I’m like, this isn’t right, haha.
Like, this is, that was the moment where I realized
that I was sabotaging myself.
– Hmm.
– And so the more I caught that behavior,
we have an expression in North America,
Monday morning quarterback,
I don’t know if this same thing,
if that means anything,
but basically a football game is on Sunday,
and so then the Monday morning quarterback is,
you think the next day of all the things you could’ve done.
Right, so like after the presentation is over,
oh, I should have done that, and I should’ve you know.
So, fine, you reflect on what mistakes you made,
and what you should’ve done.
So, when you realize that limiting behavior,
then you’ll do a lot of that.
You’ll do a lot of the next day thinking,
ah, I should’ve, I did it again, right.
I held myself back again.
I should’ve done better that time.
And then slowly you get that closer to the point.
So instead of it being the next day,
it’s only like three hours later,
three hours after that meeting that you realize.
Then it’s two hours, then one hour, then 10 minutes,
and you slowly get closer and closer to that point
where you made that self-sabotaging potential decision.
And then something happens when you get that point.
You realize in the moment that
I’m sabotaging myself right now.
This isn’t the next day, looking back.
It’s happening right now.
I’m about to sabotage myself again.
And then having the courage to do the thing
that you’re suppose to do, but that you don’t want to do.
Having the courage to push through,
and say, I’m not going to do the thing that I always do,
I’m going to take this path,
because this is where I need to go.
And once you get used to doing that consistently,
then you can really start to
break down your limiting barriers,
and really start to make progress.
Every major growth that I’ve had in my business
has never come from a business strategy.
It’s come from me breaking through
a limiting belief that I had,
and then going out and executing against it.
– Amen.
– Yeah, I love it.
– This is stunning, Evan.
And I just want to say thank you for being willing
to share all that,
and I’m sure anyone who’s listening
is getting absolute gold from that.
I just want to share a little bit personally,
because I know you don’t know me
and the audience most likely doesn’t know me,
so I had massive social anxiety.
So I was extremely, years ago, social anxiety,
I also had anorexia for three years and depression.
So you know, the person you’re talking to today
feels very different from the person I was years ago.
In fact, total rock bottom.
I remember standing at a checkout,
at a supermarket checkout,
to buy like a packet of gum or whatever,
and standing there and I was forcing cue,
and literally the amount that my palms were sweating
and my heart was racing ’cause I literally had to speak
to a human being at the checkout,
and you know I was forcing cue,
and each person that went down
and it was counting down to me,
I remember I felt like I was going to vomit,
’cause I had to speak to a human being.
– Right.
– And you know, what was going through my head was
how would I introduce myself.
Would I say hi, would I say hello, would I say hey.
Those are my options, hi, hello, hey,
and the intensity that went into that.
And I got to say,
the only thing that’s got me from there,
which is total, it was insanity,
the experience that I had,
to here where I said yes to this live interview,
is actually when I have had these opportunities
is learning to say yes regardless of how I feel.
It is the only way.
I think sometimes people are,
sorry, I think sometimes people are wanting
to wait until they feel that they can
until they say yes to things.
I think we have to switch it the other way around.
We have to say yes first.
Which is why I’m so glad you’re having this conversation.
Thanks, Evan.
– Yeah, and especially when you can commit to somebody else.
– Yeah.
– And especially when it’s out in the future.
– [Kate] Yes.
– Right, like yeah, yeah, yeah,
we’ll meet in three months, sure, no problem.
And then those three months come
and then you don’t want to cancel on that person.
Like, it’s actually here.
Okay, here we go.
‘Cause there’s also the fear
of looking bad in front of that person,
so you want to, you’re going to do it.
Yeah, I agree.
I think, ah,
I’m a big believer in trying anything once
just to get the experience, just to see.
And if you’re not going to do something,
there should be a really solid reason behind it,
not just because you’re afraid to do it.
I’m just getting used to building that habit.
You know, I ask a lot of people,
so whenever I do interviews with people,
my default will be be,
hey, how about we do it as a YouTube interview.
– Hm.
– I want to promote you.
How about we give you some free promotion.
Does that sound like a good idea?
Right.
And some people say yes,
and some people will say no.
And usually the ones who say no
are just too afraid to do it.
And they’ll come up with a reason why they can’t.
Right, like oh, I don’t have a webcam,
so I can’t do it.
Well go buy a webcam.
That’s not a real reason.
You’re just afraid.
And I don’t push on somebody like that
that I don’t know.
Right, if you didn’t want to do this,
I would have said, hey, you want to do a Skype call?
However you want to do, let’s do it, Kate.
I’m okay with it.
But kudos to you for saying yes.
– Yeah, literally this was the one interview
out of all the interviews that I’ve done
that I was like, hmm, I felt it.
I felt it when the opportunity was there,
and I was like yeah.
Literally what was in my mind
was because it challenged me, I must.
– Yeah.
– So thank you for the opportunity
to literally practice that muscle again
in a different environment.
– I love it.
And the more you see that popping up,
getting used to,
it’s same with the multicolored socks,
it’s the same with the dancing on the street,
why are you shrinking down from this?
– Yeah.
– Is there a legit reason or is it just that you’re afraid?
And having the,
you know we tell ourselves really smart reasons
why we can’t do something.
We’re smart people and we tell,
we come up with really convincing reasons
why we can’t do something.
And getting used to calling yourself out
on your own BS,
to say listen, you’re just afraid.
Let’s do it.
– Hm.
– Getting used to doing that
becomes easier, and easier, and easier.
Like any other muscle that you try to build,
becomes easier, and easier, and easier, and easier.
And so maybe the first thing is something really small.
If you have social anxiety,
maybe it’s saying yes to a coffee meeting with somebody.
Oh, I don’t want to get out of my house,
or oh, who’s going to be a the coffee shop,
or whatever it is.
It doesn’t have to be some big huge goal
where you’re now speaking
out in front of thousands of people.
Just getting used to that habit will take you so far
in your business,
but in you life.
And it’s connected to when you think of something
you want to say or you want to do,
just taking some kind of action on it.
Like, why not say amen and yell it.
You know, okay, I’m going to wake up the kids.
That may be a legit reason, right.
Like, I don’t want to deal with the kids at five a.m.
When they’re sleeping,
but otherwise, why would someone be afraid?
Well, I’m on live camera.
I don’t want to say that.
There’s people watching,
and that’s not a great reason for not to do it.
So you stepped up again, and did it again.
So I think it’s one of the most important lessons
that people can learn to start breaking down
their barriers or limiting beliefs
and start living a life that’s
a lot more meaningful for them.
– Thank you.
I just want to recap that for everyone.
Noticing the areas where you go to shrink yourself down,
and be willing to actually go there anyway
despite how you might feel on the inside.
Evan, my husband, Henare and I,
we actually are in business together.
– Nice.
– We talk a lot about the conversational domains
that we have within our life
that we are not comfortable in.
So you know how I can operate in this area of my life,
and like this kind of narrow strip here
is where I’m really comfortable,
and this might be,
you know for some people this comfort zone
might even be success, right?
And the conversational domain
that they’re not comfortable in is family,
or relationship, or relating to people.
Or this conversational domain
that I’m comfortable in is whatever.
But then outside of that,
all the places that I’m not comfortable in,
I’ll just give a quick example.
For example, if someone is the nice person,
and the good person,
and they identify that as who they are,
then perhaps a conversational domain
that they’re not comfortable with could be their power.
And so like in a situation where
they are actually called to be really shwoo,
this is, to actually like,
called to step up to the plate
and bring some power to something
might not be something that they can do
because that’s not who they are.
Or sometimes conversational domains
that I find a lot of people can’t go to is around sexuality.
I know that’s a little bit outside of entrepreneurship,
but it’s a conversation of where can people not go to,
and that’s actually literally for me,
and I’ll just go there first,
I’ve been playing for myself in two domains
in the last couple of years
because they are uncomfortable for me.
One is my power,
and then the other one is sexuality.
I’m just curious for you,
is perhaps a conversational domain,
or an experiential domain that you haven’t been used to
that you’re perhaps not as comfortable in
that you want, that you expand to,
or you want to,
or you try at?
– That’s an interesting topic.
I have a couple of things to say on that.
First, for me if there is something that,
again, I feel like I want to learn and do
and I feel is important to where I’m growing,
then I force myself into the situation to be able to do it.
Just like the dancing in the street and the socks,
or having a hard conversation,
leading the team,
or letting somebody go.
I will force myself to do it.
What’s the reason why I’m not doing?
Because I’m just afraid,
so I’ll go out and do it.
There’s probably lots of areas, again,
that are subconscious that I am restricting myself
that I don’t know about yet
that I am yet to discover.
But as soon as I do discover one,
then I have to go out and attack it.
– Hm.
– I think what really helped me,
and what could help a lot of people,
is basically the topic of the book,
is finding out the one core value that you have
to give yourself the self-awareness
and the ability to build a life that is best fit for you.
So as an example,
my one word is believe.
We’ve talked about it.
I want to bring believe in all situations.
Believe gives me strength.
Believe allows me to also find a path
that may not be the same path
that other people take to solve that problem.
So as an example,
letting somebody go.
It’s important as an entrepreneur.
– Hm.
– It’s great to think
that everybody’s just going to work out, and hurray.
But some people are going to have to be let go,
and sometimes that’s your fault
because your a bad manager and you make the wrong hire,
and sometimes it’s their fault for not doing their work.
For someone who’s positive and optimistic,
how do you let somebody go?
My first letting somebody go was,
I was super scared about it.
So I had to do it, ’cause I’m scared about it,
and it’s the right thing to do.
But then it challenged me.
I think, okay, my one word is believe.
How do I fire in a believe way?
– Hm.
– All the stuff that I saw about firing,
I didn’t like any of it.
It was like, you need to fire on a Friday,
so that they can’t hack your computer
or take stuff with them,
or all of these reasons.
Like you got to fire with somebody there,
so there is a witness, and I don’t know.
Everything I read,
and I read ’cause I was anxious.
I was worried about it.
I read all sorts of stuff on firing.
And I didn’t resonate with any of it.
And so I knew I had to do it,
but I didn’t want to do it in the way that I read.
So I challenged myself to think
okay, I’m all about believe,
how do I fire with believe?
And for me it was having a conversation with them,
and really just understanding that this wasn’t even
the best fit for them, you know.
– Hm, yep.
– He wanted to be a baker.
His heart of hearts, he wanted to be a baker,
and he’s working for me doing marketing stuff.
And he loved me and the environment and the positivity,
but he wasn’t doing the thing that he was suppose to do.
And he had nobody pushing him to be a baker,
and he was too afraid to take that leap and go be a baker.
And so, understanding that,
it was about September when we had this conversation.
I said, listen, I’ll work with you ’til the end of the year,
and then I want you to go and be a baker,
’cause you want to be a baker.
And however I can help you get there,
if you need a reference.
If you need me to come in with you to the bake shop.
Whatever it is, you’re suppose to go off and do that.
You’re holding yourself back doing here.
And they can come across as self-serving
and listening to it if you just read it in the book,
because sure, it helps me.
The guy’s not working for me anymore.
It’s great.
I can get somebody else who’s meant for the position.
But it comes from a genuine love and care for him,
because I believe in him and his potential
to be something more than what I can give him.
I can’t give him a baking job working for me.
It’s just not going to happen.
I’d love to stretch my team and go into new areas,
but the Evan Carmichael bakery is not on the horizon
for what I want to do.
And so I discovered how to fire in a believe way.
– Hm.
– And I think understanding what your one word is,
your core value,
and then seeing everything that you do
in a business context,
as well as a personal context,
through that lens helps…
– Yeah.
– Helps one, give you the confidence to do it,
and then helps you find your path
that may be different than everybody else’s path.
– Hm.
– So that’s a long answer,
but those are my thoughts.
I think that’s super important.
– I love it.
That one word can become like the barometer
on what to measure or decide through
all the different things.
Tell me, you’ve clearly found your passion.
A lot of, it can be easy when people really connect,
like really align with that thing
that they’re really passionate about,
then it is easier to then stay the course
and to dig deep.
If you’re passionate,
then there is really no other option.
Even though you might have the kind of wobbles
in your head.
How do people actually find
what they’re really passionate about?
Because I think sometimes people
can get a little bit overwhelmed
by the conversation around what am I here to do?
And then it can get a little bit over-thought.
So how do people really connect into what
they are passionate about?
– Yeah, I think the two most important exercises
that people can go through
is one, finding out what they stand for, right?
Finding their one word.
Finding their believe system.
And that is a lot of self-reflection,
that is a lot of personal time, a lot of thinking.
– Hm.
– You can’t thing your way to find your passion, though.
You can take like different tests and say,
well based on this, I’m supposed to be a teacher,
or whatever it is.
And that might be start,
but you can’t think your way into a relationship.
You can’t, you know, you’re married,
you can’t just sit there and put on a piece of paper
here are the ten things my husband has to have,
and then poof, here he is,
because when you get into that relationship
you’re going to realize that two of those things didn’t matter,
and you have to add four more to the list
that now do matter to you
that you didn’t even realize before.
And so, my advice in terms of finding you passion,
because it is one of the most important things
that you need to do.
If you look at anybody that’s had success in their careers,
they follow something they’re passionate about,
is to try stuff.
Is to explore, is to say yes.
I own a salsa dance company.
On paper it looks like a really silly investment.
When I first walked in to a salsa dance class,
it was just a fun thing to do,
and on paper, I’m too tall.
I don’t speak spanish.
I take big steps.
I didn’t hear the music growing up.
Like all of these things against me,
but I loved it.
I had fun.
I wanted to go back again.
And so I wouldn’t put so much pressure,
If I put all that pressure to say
I need to find my next business.
This has to be it.
I have to know on the first try and that’s it.
Then I probably wouldn’t even have gone to that salsa class,
and if I did, it would’ve been so miserable
because I’d be waiting for it to be this amazing thing.
And instead, I liked it
and I wanted to come back and do it again.
And I liked it and I wanted to come back and do it again.
And I continued to like,
then I became a regular student.
I became an investor,
and then I bought the business in January of this year,
and it’s the largest salsa dancing school in North America.
We’ll teach five, six thousand students a year
how to dance salsa.
And if I just didn’t say yes and take that one class,
I wouldn’t have known.
– Hm.
– And so, I think you may have some inklings.
It’s like one, listen to that voice.
Like, I want to say amen, say amen.
You know, I want to,
you pass by and you see that sign for piano lessons.
It’s like, well that’s interesting.
Well take the thing and call the guy,
and take a piano lesson and just see.
You never know where it’s going to lead.
A lot times it doesn’t make sense.
It doesn’t make sense looking forward.
You can’t figure out,
like if you try to plan your career with your head,
you’re never going to make it.
‘Cause your head only understands the world
that currently exists,
where your heart can make a new world for yourself.
– Hm.
– So you make the big decisions in you life with your heart,
and then you use your head
to figure out how to make it happen.
– Um-Hmm.
– And so you can’t think your way to something
that you need to make a decision with the heart.
And so it’s saying yes to things.
It’s trying stuff out.
Trying anything once.
If you don’t like it, that’s okay.
If you do it, then you keep doing it
until you find the path that feel like,
you know what, this is the right thing to do.
Now’s the time.
I want to devote more and more and more time to this.
I can’t put this down.
I love this so much I got to keep going.
And then that’s what you should be doing.
And some people that journey is longer than others,
but the people who can’t find their passion,
I would challenge them to look at their activities,
and I would say they’re not doing anything.
They’re going home and watching T.V. shows,
and have the same life.
They’re living the same boring life.
They’re not trying to do anything,
and to try and think their way out of it
they’re trying to read an article on
25 jobs to start in 2017,
and that’s what they’re going to do.
You got to try and feel it out.
You got to do it.
You got to say yes.
You got to go to meet ups.
You got to go to that event that you’ve never been to,
and just see.
I remember, you talk about sexuality,
now we’re going off topic,
I like going to trade shows.
I like just seeing how people
are promoting their businesses.
I like seeing how, you know, what’s happening in the city,
what businesses are up to.
And on the same day,
my wife and I went to the sex show in Toronto
and the R.V. show.
– Haha.
– And it’s like total opposite worlds.
The R.V. show is like motor homes and trailers,
all the the country stuff,
and then sex show is obviously totally different.
And honestly we didn’t enjoy either of them.
It was okay.
We enjoyed the company.
We enjoyed each other.
We enjoyed watching the things,
and going into the R.V. and learning something new,
but we wouldn’t go back.
But we went to both,
where a lot of people are so fixated on,
this is my life, right,
you did the head banging thing,
this is my life,
and that’s the lane I’m always going to stay in forever.
I’m never going to explore anything.
So someone invites you to the R.V. show,
try it, say yes.
See what happens.
Someone invites you to the sex show,
see what happens.
Now, you don’t want to do something that may put you in
massively harms way,
but most of the things in life aren’t that scary.
So at least so you know.
Maybe I go to the R.V. show and I love it.
Maybe I become obsessed with this R.V. and
now I want to drive across the country in my R.V.
on my book tour,
and then I start and R.V. company.
That could be a whole new business thing.
I wouldn’t have known unless I went to the R.V. show.
– Absolutely, I love that.
I absolutely love that.
And I love what you said about making decisions
with you heart,
and then think the follow through with your head.
So, Evan’s book is Your One Word,
and it feels like a real thing
on every conversation we’ve had, it comes back to this.
What is that word?
What is that core value that is driving you,
and given that you’re saying make your decisions
with your heart, that connects to that core value.
So I highly recommend whoever’s listening to this,
is to grab Evan’s book, Your One Word,
and have a read through it,
and then really apply it to whatever it is
that you’re interested in.
So thanks Evan.
Actually I just want to finish by asking you this question.
I see you’re standing up.
– Yeah.
– You’re standing up right?
– [Evan] Yeah.
– And I realize like I’m literally leaning on,
I’ve got a back and I’ve got arms,
and I’m fully supported on like,
tell me about standing up.
You’re into life hacking?
– I’ve been standing up for 12 years I think?
I’m just thinking how old I am now.
Yeah, so I was like 24, I’m 36 now.
I started when I was 24, 25ish, so yeah.
– Okay, tell me what’s the benefits?
Get me, I want to get out of this chair.
What’s the benefits of it,
so that I can get it.
So that I want to do standing up as well.
– Sure, so I mean I was standing up before
it was a thing to stand up.
Before sitting was cancer or whatever.
I was in my twenties,
and I was having really bad back and knee problems,
and I’m in like my mid-twenties, early twenties.
And I was going to see a chiropractor every week.
Getting the adjustments.
Getting the insoles.
Getting like the custom orthotics.
Getting like the electro-shock therapy.
Every week I had to go do this.
Now I spent a lot of time at a computer.
It’s the nature of my business.
I probably had terrible posture.
But come on, I’m in my twenties.
This isn’t suppose to be happening in your twenties, right?
And so, I think I read somewhere,
I forget how it first came on to my radar,
but standing up was an option
and not wearing shoes,
so I’ve been barefoot this whole time too.
And I started small.
I always like, test,
here’s the thing, right,
stand up desk.
Oh, I need to go get a stand up desk.
Oh, it’s going to cost me x amount of money,
and blah, blah, blah.
All these reasons why you can’t do it.
And so it’s like this big goal in the future
that you never get to.
I took my laptop,
and I took a bookcase,
and I just started working from the bookcase.
That’s it, just experiment.
Try it.
Like, I’m going to try something right now.
Okay, let’s get my laptop and go work from the bookcase.
Was the exact ergonomic height?
No.
Could it have been better?
100%.
I got tired after an hour of standing up,
’cause I’m not used to it.
And I liked it.
It was one small test on one day.
Like going to the R.V. show
and going to the sex show that led to zero.
The standing up desk led to this,
where it’s been 12 years of standing up.
Like, you never know.
And so, my back doesn’t hurt anymore.
My knees don’t hurt anymore.
That was the most immediate health benefit that I got.
I also find that I have more energy when I’m standing up.
When I did phone calls,
back when I had a phone,
I would always stand up and walk around,
because I had more energy.
And when I was doing the audiobook for this,
they put me in this tiny room,
and you’re recording the audio,
and there was a seat and the microphone,
and I sat down,
and I started reading,
I’m like, this doesn’t feel right.
I said can I stand up.
– Hm.
– Like do you mind if I stand up while I read this?
‘Cause I’ll have more energy when I stand up.
And he’s like, uh, yeah, you could stand up,
but you’re going to be,
we’re recording from 10 A.M. ’til five or six P.M.
You going to stand up that whole time?
Like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I stand up all the time.
Don’t worry, we got it.
It’s like, okay.
‘Cause they had to make a whole bunch of adjustments
to now move the microphone up,
and calibrate and all that stuff.
– Ha.
– But the audiobook was fire.
The audiobook was amazing.
It was so much better because I could stand up.
And doing this,
talking to you,
I feel more comfortable.
I’m much more energetic by me standing up
than sitting down.
So that was a side benefit that I came to realize later.
The real benefit was just for the health of my knees
and my back.
And So those two, being barefoot as much as possible,
and standing up.
And when I first started doing it at my old office,
it was kind of awkward,
because I would have a meeting at my desk,
and I would be standing,
and other people aren’t used to standing,
so they would be hunched over.
– Haha.
– I learned, and I brought them chairs,
but then their sitting and I’m standing,
and it still felt awkward.
– You’re like the presenter.
– Yeah, it was awkward.
So then I ended up getting a board room table,
and like okay, meetings are in the board room,
and I’ll sit down for that.
I still sit down.
It’s not like I stand up all day long.
I eat dinner, I sit down, right?
It’s not to the crazy extreme.
But yeah, you need to work your way into it.
You can’t just stand up all day long,
but I get a lot of benefits from it,
and I’m super appreciative of it.
– That’s awesome, thank you.
I’m hearing this thing throughout the whole conversation
is like, be willing to try new things.
Like if you have an invitation to something,
or if you have an inkling or a thought,
just try it.
There’s nothing to loose.
Try it, and you just don’t know.
It’s either, at the worst,
you just don’t like it,
and you just don’t do it again.
And at the best,
you just have no idea what door it could open.
– Yeah.
– Thank you so much.
I’ve loved chatting with you.
You’ve got, you’re so interesting,
and bring so much heart to what you do.
Which is interesting, ’cause you’re such a businessman,
but you bring a lot of heart to it,
so thank you.
– Cool, yeah, I appreciate that,
and you know I’ve done a ton of interviews recently
because of the book,
and I’ve really enjoyed this one.
You got an amazing vibe,
asked awesome questions,
and I know it’s been way longer than we planned for it,
but it’s kind of flown.
I’ve really sincerely enjoyed talking with you.
– Thanks so much, Evan.
And I just wanted to finish off by saying
Your One Word, those are the three words
you need to go search,
and either get it on audiobook
or in real hard copy,
but Your One Word,
go and grab that book.
You’ve obviously loved this interview,
and you’ll actually get full book worth
of Evan’s gems.
Download it.
– Haha.
– So thank you so much.
Evan, what’s a parting comment you want to share
with the audience to finish?
– Believe, that’s it.
Believe in yourself.
Believe in what you’re doing.
Believe it’s going to work out.
Believe.
– Alright, and I have to finish off on amen, brother.
Thank you.
– Haha, that could be your one word, amen, you never know.
– I think so.
– Take care, thanks Kate.
– Thanks Evan.
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