This LIMITING Belief Gets MOST People STUCK Before They Even START!

YouTube isn't just about the numbers or even about content creation alone it's about leverage it's about strategically using your time and resources to maximize your impact not just on your channel but in every aspect of your business now you might be thinking but Evan the space is so saturated there's already someone doing what I want to do and here's the deal most people get stuck there they see the competition and They think it's game over before they've even started but let me tell you that is a limiting belief the truth is most niches are far

from saturated and even if they were it wouldn't matter why because it's not about being the first or even the best it's about being you your unique perspective your story your experience that's what people connect with and when you bring that to YouTube backed by smart strategic thinking you're unstoppable so when you're Looking at those massive subscriber numbers and thinking I could never get there remember this it's not about chasing numbers it's about creating something that resonates that builds a community that adds value and when you do that the numbers will follow YouTube is where

people go to learn to be inspired to grow and if you can meet them where they're at with content that serves that challenges them that pushes them forward you'll not only grow your Channel you'll grow your business your impact and your legacy I'm thrilled to dive into this conversation today and showcase not just the Tactical side of growing YouTube but the mindset the strategy and the belief system that fuels real lasting change let's get into [Music] it hey hey guys welcome back look I'm super excited today uh we have a man who has been super

important in my life he's been a business Mentor he's been a YouTube Mentor more importantly he has over 4 million subscribers on YouTube alone one of the things that I'm hoping to Showcase today for you guys is not just his YouTube Savvy we'll cover that as well uh but his business savvy he is a business genius and I'm hoping to Showcase that for you guys today so guys help me welcome the one and only Evan Car Michael what a what a setup okay I hope I deliver something here well the good news is I get

you you and I get to Have all these great conversations behind the scenes and I kind of wish the last couple days we'd had a camera on us the entire time like us brainstorming like business initiatives and stuff like that and I do want to touch on that I absolutely want to get to the business savvy part because uh you are a one-of-a-kind mathematician of sorts in your in your brain of how you see things and piece things together and you've really challenged me to think bigger Okay right and really and really like think strategically

and and and use leverage properly as far as like time versus income and Roi and all kind offf I don't get there but more importantly I want to touch based on YouTube right so cuz I know that's obviously um one of the big feathers in your cap it's one of the things that you've done really really well with um obviously you've bought and sold a business you you've done a lot of really amazing things um But in the YouTube genre specifically there's been a mass growth spike in YouTube um amongst media platforms why is YouTube

uh such a viable platform and why should creators consider YouTube more than anything else it's just where everybody's going to learn I've been on YouTube since 2009 and in the first 10 or so years of my career I was focused on trying to get people just trying to convince people to come on yeah like there's so many people here like make Content if I met someone like you like Stephen you so your business you built an almost nine figure business it's like that you got to get making content on YouTube and most of my conversations

were just fly over people's heads yeah and a lot of people maybe had a channel and posted a video or two but nobody was creating consistent content and I I felt like I was beating my head against you know the door and just nothing was happening but it's caught up like people Are seeing others build their brands Gary probably had a big role in that at least in our world Gary V in terms of building his brand and making content and being consistent at it uh and people started seeing the results that they were getting

and then said okay like I I know more than that guy or I could do this too or like I should be building people go there to learn yeah and the demand's been there for a long time the supply is just starting to catch up cuz Whatever problem you're facing you're probably going to YouTube to go and look for you're not going to the library you're not asking your mom like you're searching on YouTube how do I blank and there's videos and other people are showing up where that could be you and so people are

now seeing it so the past few years there been more people coming to me he like okay this is important yeah how do I do this what am I supposed to be working on and so I don't have as Many of the conversations like you should be on YouTube that's like okay I know I need to be on YouTube how do I how do I do it right yeah yeah that's awesome and the crazy part is is your Client List is pretty strong like the the YouTube channels you're involved in I'm a big believer in

a lot of the programs that you've got I know you're helping a lot of creators at a high level um and I invite everyone seriously to check out Evan uh his move and maker Program is a as a prime example of a way to really get a firm understanding of what to do and how to do it when to do it uh when related to YouTube but one of the things I want to touch based on YouTube specifically is how is YouTube strategy of success changed when you know if you go if you were to

do a a Google or chat GPT search it's like okay you know how many people are active actively creating content on YouTube and it's a it's a lot of folks right so if I'm if I'm a newbie and I'm coming into YouTube I'm like okay well there's already somebody talking about my my Niche my genre my thing how do I how do I kind of open up my my ability to perform or you know have an audience on YouTube if there's other people in my Niche depends on the niche most niches are not saturated MH

so if you go to your construction business that you're just sold who's making killer construction Content mhm like not that many people yeah even now not that many people there's some but who are who are making like decently high quality videos in construction five people I am guessing like you probably put on one hand yeah and then if you are an expert like I work with people are experts at theirt in the field yeah like you're an expert at your thing it's I'm not the Slime Channeler yeah like I work with thought leaders who are

Like the exerts in their field and they're trying to build their influence and make more money doing it so construction you could look at the Five Guys who are doing okay it's like oh like I know yeah more than these guys yeah these guys haven't built and sold a business before I could I could do that and so it's like Norm this this is what I would do with people when they say oh my market is really saturated like is it let's tell me what what what would People search and we do a search and

there's not that many channels showing up it's the same two or three channels popping up over and over and over again it's like okay so there's three channels cool and then we look at the content it's like do you know more than this person yeah like yeah okay so what are you talking about right for so for most Industries it's like that inside of speaking businesses that's more competitive because speakers should be On camera making content so a lot of the personal development speaking side of things is that's harder and more saturated in a lot

more competition and so if you're just talking about mindset stuff you're well you're up against Tony Robbins and you're up against Mel Robbins and you're up against Gary ve so that's going to be harder to win at and there's strategies around it but for the most part for most entrepreneurs for most thought leaders uh for most experts It's it's still super wide open in in your industry yeah absolutely you know there another thing I was thinking about too is content in general like one of the biggest struggles and you and you've helped me a great

deal with this uh even with repositioning of our brand uh recently content they say content is King what they don't necessarily tell you to do is what content to create that suits you that kind of suits your so how does someone we'll do we'll do three Different levels we'll start with someone who's just getting started at YouTube somebody that's maybe at the 10,000 subscriber Mark and then somebody at 100,000 subscriber Mark how do you know what adjustments to make to make your content um more valuable to your audience to serve them in a better way

so before getting to a subscriber account I will look at how do we how do we try to make money from this mhm because if you're making money you're Going to stay more consistent on it if it's just the sinkhole that you're pouring money into you're you're less likely to stay consistent on right this is the problem and even if you have a lot of money Achievers they don't like just pouring money and losing money on something that's true so whether you have zero subscribers a th000 10,000 100,000 whatever or million yeah well million we're

St get more opportunities but even 100,000 the opportunities Aren't giant yeah uh and so it's like how do we build a business model around your channel I remember the first YouTube event I went to I got invited and I was one of the smallest channels I like 300,000 subscribers it was only creators and I was talking to the the keynote speaker who had Millions sub subcribers at this point like oh my God this my I get to learn he wasn't in thought leadership but nobody in thought leadership had yeah a million Subscribers at that point

and uh like I'm excited to learn about his business what he's doing and he's like yeah I'm like I'm working on hiring my first assistant for my company uhhuh it's like what You' got millions of subscribers already and you're just making enough money to hire an assistant at this point and it's because it was his first business and it just didn't know how to turn subscribers into dollars and I had already built and sold the business and Venture capital and all that before coming into this and so I was already this is business yeah that

I'm trying to impact the world but the way to impact the world is to be able to have team to help me do it right we just did a headcount I'm presenting at my Mastermind tomorrow 63 people on the team so I could do a lot more damage a lot more impact a lot more good a lot more reach with 63 people helping me versus me trying to do this on my even Here being here right I mean Alex helping set up Danny behind the camera Catherine on on the audio like I don't know how

to do any of this stuff if it was me it'd be like with my phone trying to figure out how like it would be terrible it be the worst right we we would it would it would I would not have impact or reach and at the beginning it was me doing everything and I was making one piece of content a week because I was doing Everything myself and the first hire I had in this business was an editor video editor who allowed me to go to video a day cuz cuz he could edit better and

way faster than me and so I'm always thinking how do we turn this YouTube thing into a business and it's usually when they already have a business so I'm not mostly working with influencers who don't have a business and they're just trying to get famous I'm working with people who have a business and they They're trying to take their knowledge and bring it to the world and also grow their business so usually regardless of how many subscribers they have uh we're thinking how do we take this business of yours and how do I generate more

business for you because if we can bring in the extra seven figures for for your business yeah at 10 subscribers like let's go and do that first so that you can hire team to then help you scale cuz to go get the million is going to be a Lot of work and a lot of team and that's going to cost money so let's get you money first and prove that it works and then we can worry about the other type of content so that's how I'll usually approach it if you're hitting a million now we

can start now we're starting making money probably off of AdSense like it starts to be a meaningful number the channel itself is generating Revenue but I 100,000 still it's like you're you're not paying your It's you're not paying yourself very much you're not really hiring team yeah for most people at 100,000 subscribers um so it's still the number one problem is like how do I make money yeah and I'm a passion purpose-driven first guy yeah but in order to realize your purpose you need to have money to fund it yeah no I was thinking about

that too you know there's an old term called there was no margin there no Ministry like if you want to scale an organization it does Require team those people turns out like to get paid at least to pay their bills anyway you know um you know so there's you and I were talking about briefly about this uh some of I would say some of our friends maybe a couple a couple mutual friends um I know I struggle with this early on with uh selling without serving or serving when selling you know like just like how

do I position you know kind of think through and one of the things you challenged me on uh that Was a a Monumental shift in my mindset is I don't have to go out of the come out of the gate and make money on YouTube specifically but YouTube drives lead sources towards avenues for me to make money and monetize to then reinvest and scale when it comes to actually creating a monetization path um I want to dig in a little bit deeper because and at least showcase it because I feel like that was a Monumental

ship from me so you were Able to help me understand that you don't necessarily have to monetize based on viewers and subscribers that will come in time by being consistent but thinking outside of the box a little bit on monetization path you know we've brainstormed a few different things and using YouTube as a conduit to bring in lead sources and to develop you know uh develop value for the audience but then shaping up a an outside a B2B or b2c play in in regards to monetization um What are you seeing right now that actually works

for a lot of different thought leaders and I know it's going to be a little bit different for each one but what are maybe three lanes that you see that people aren't really thinking of so I I would look at it as I'm I'm trying to make a meal from the ingredients we have mhm where if we're trying trying to make money from our views and subscribers that's like we're trying to grow new crops yeah and we got To get out there we got to tilt the soil we got to like it's going to take

a while before that starts producing wheat to then be able to grow to make something with where we already have ingredients like how do we eat off of the ingredients that we got right now that's that's usually the creative challenge at the beginning to think how can we take our ingredients and make money so I'm always asking what what what do we what are you selling what do We've got right now if I look at your journey I don't know how much the audience you can share as much as you want my audience knows I'm

I'm I'm very vulnerable with it so so let me you go back we've known each other for how many years about three and a half four years yeah okay so if we look at the early days if we were having this conversation at the very beginning which I think I had maybe a thousand Subs maybe maybe when thousand Subs Zero Subs 10 sub I'm Thinking of starting this channel whatever right you had a lot of success in a real estate business you still had your real estate company going but you're now like I want to

serve I want to help I want to I've learned all these mindset hacks and shifts and I've become a better person I want to give back and and that's what we all want to do we learned something we want to we want to teach and we want to help we want to serve and you went down the path of okay We're going to have a live event we're going to I'm going to have my funnel all set up we're going to have our my course all set up and everything and the challenge with that is

it needs you need big audience to make it work and it's a hard industry to break break into because you're up against a Tony Robbins and every and they have crazy ad spins they can out spin me they can out you they they have out branded you already doesn't mean that you can't catch up you Can't close the gap you you'll get there you're you're you're a worker you're a grinder you'll get there but that's I don't want to at the beginning like that is the path of you're out like tilling the soil and planting

seeds right yeah it's like I don't want to do that at the beginning yeah because it just takes too long be to your credit you didn't quit mm M this is what I told um Tom Bilu in the early days was like I hope you keep going cuz I loved his start and I loved His energy what he was trying to do and I see so many people who are like him come from I've I have a billion dollar exit or whatever exit now I'm going to start a YouTube channel I've seen it so many

times and then three months later six months later like they fizzle and they quit because they're not actually committed enough to it they they're takes too long to generate Revenue yeah so so I told him like just I hope you don't quit like you need to keep doing This MH not that my words were the thing that making it's just like my own desire to see him win was let's be clear for a second a lot of people listen to you when it comes to YouTube uh very successful people with big channels so let's let's

be clear so I know you're humble and all but let's be clear we've helped Tom but yeah but it's I'm sure it's not my word saying please don't quit that but it's just my desire to see him win right so like to Your credit you didn't quit where most people would in that situation cuz it looks like you're doing everything the right way it's like this is what this is what Tony's doing what other people are doing so I'm going to model this path is what I'm going to do so I'm going to launch my

event and I'm going to have my course and I'm going to have my and and and then it's hard it's like the that's all great but there's no audience and so you have to do the work To to till the soil and all that which I just don't want to do at the beginning MH so I would look at how we leverage your like what could we actually sell that's in service of the new vision that we're trying to create yeah so if your background was in construction and that's where you're at it's like okay

how do we how do we turn this construction thing into something how do you I would try to spin it as like how do you take equity in some construction Companies that are starting up now you don't have to deal with the mess of construction but you just have to Mentor the people and then you make content around that and so the excuse to get to know them is to make content but then you're also taking a percentage of their company and so we're we're making money so that as these guys not just Equity but

hopefully some kind of royalty Revenue percentage or something so that you're making 1002 200 $500,000 whatever from that that then can continue to fund the channel what that then gives you the funds to go and start hiring people to till the soil and do everything else right that's what you had to work with cool then you went and you opened an event center right hey I did okay with that one but it's great right I I I love it like I wouldn't tell you to do it cuz it's again it's like we're starting a new

business and it that one worked out and fairness I Already own the property so that helped you own the property but but you needed to learn a whole bunch of stuff that you knew nothing about yeah right coming from construction sure you could build it and all that but the cameras and the gear and the setup and the it was fun expensive fun see fun is is great and we want to have we want to have passion I like I love what I'm doing too yeah but there's a difference for me of like if you

treat it like a business I try to Actually treat it like a business instead of a hobby right so like you can have fun go play badmington or crochet or learn learn something else right versus we're I need to make this because if you came like I want to make this a business fun H yes has to be part of the equation I'm not going to tell you to do something that you hate MH but that's a risky long shot that most people don't hit on just like the courses like not that the course thing

couldn't work you Could have dropped a million dollars in ad spend and maybe it works out if I'm looking at you from the outside I wouldn't bet on that working yeah I wouldn't bet on the event thing working either MH and you proved me wrong and not that we even had that conversation but like it's not what you come from and now you're tilling the soil and trying to figure out how to build something new that could it work for somebody sure would it work for you probably not cuz You don't know anything about the

production business and you don't know anything about gaining the clients you don't you're not connected enough to the people who are it's not like people are banging down your door Stephen we need to have an event center we need to have an event center and it's like in North Carolina right hey right now you I mean I did learn I did learn that moving to Utah it's going to be a whole lot different With that with that facility there so just well now you're much better set up too right now it makes more sense then

you wield it into existence MH this is great Bill Gates quote where he's uh he was in the early days of the computer industry and software the standards hadn't been set yet for like what what the computers would be what the software is going to be operating systems all that and um Bill said his greatest compliment that he ever received was When one of the guys in the industry said uh we think Bill is wrong but he's just going to make it happen yeah and then he made it happen yeah right and so like that's

some like I would never tell you someone like you open an event center mhm M because it's just too long to get a payoff and it's probably going to fail but you made it work so that's great but I'm it's like that wasn't part of our ingredient list yeah right so you made that happen but I'm always looking for what is the ingredients so now that you have that and it's working cool let's expand on that do the events you know now you're way better connected you're going to make fewer mistakes you have contacts awesome

go off and do it um all the while we're we're starting to build our thought leadership and our brand and our content Etc but now that you've you know your whole um serve don't sell concept you've now helped people with their Launches and help them generate millions of dollars through their programs cool you've seen that that's now an ingredient we can work with leverage that to go do it for other people and do do more you didn't have that when you're coming out of the construction industry sure so at the beginning I'm always trying to

find what's this what's the thing that we can work with to start bringing you in six seven figures M because most people with the amount of Money you've spent to figure this out right it's been a dollar or two most people even independently wealthy invested right would would not spend that much would not invest that much they would quit along the way and it doesn't mean like you quit you suck they just okay this isn't working I'm going to move on to the next thing you hang in anything long enough and you're a fighter like

you are and your audience Like you'll figure it out mhm but most people just don't have the patience for it so Ely all I want to teach people to do is how to get their message out to the world like I think people need to hear your Unstoppable mindset and all of your methodologies people need to hear that yeah the the challenge that I found with people was that they just they stop yeah they need to see a return faster yeah so I've had to be I've had to adapt yeah and so when I'm talking

to somebody Again back to your original question of like 10 100 thousand whatever subscribers um well how do we we need to start making you money first mhm let's show that cuz people say what I don't have time for YouTube yeah great that's that like the time is always the most the higher up you are the more successful you are time is even harder yeah to get access to but if it was the number one driver of revenue for your business you spend more time on it yeah That's true well you know it's and again

I think the major shift for me recently has been I don't have to make money on YouTube through subscribers and AdSense and stuff right away that can be a long-term play and it'll build and it'll be there but I could actually use it as a source to generate interest in know the things that we do that therefore make money yeah um and I wasn't thinking like that at all and I was looking at YouTube especially for the first two Years I like good Lord have mercy this is a lost leader takes a lot of my

time a lot of my energy um I love the people and I love serving I love helping I love giving aha moments but this is expensive you know and it wasn't until we started talking about how do we build a business model around around the Endeavor of content creation that kind of goes out to the next ring of businesses I already own or accumulate in or work around that it really made a lot of sense now you Brought up a lot of um a lot of insight into relationships and collaborations and things of that nature

I'm a firm believer especially being around this industry now for for several years this this quote unquote fought leadership World personal development world that relationships are literally they're vital from my perspective how do do you determine nowadays um who to collaborate with who not to collaborate with um as you know To to revent from getting burned but also increase the chance of a win-win success how do you how do you see that relationship how do you see relationships what's there's a line um um um like when somebody says something great then they say I'm going

to steal that yeah it's like well it's a gift so you can't steal it yeah I don't feel like I've ever been burned mhm but other people might look at the situation say that I was burned mhm I Work with people for as long as it's fun and I'm helping and it feels congruent yeah and the second that it doesn't I'm on to something else right I mean there's been lots of people who we've helped and you didn't get paid at all or you didn't get paid what you're supposed to get paid mhm like oh

I guess I don't know I guess I didn't okay yeah I don't know I don't I don't care enough about the money I guess I'm I'm we make money yeah and I want to make more money But there's no like we've I've never fought a lawsuit we've never gone to court we've never even had to yeah you don't you don't like what we're doing cool like we'll move on I think I've been fortunate to be around people who keep wanting to come back and we try to do good work and try to support them I

think that brings in the right kind of people but I I I don't know I don't uh I don't I don't I don't even think about it yeah I don't even I don't go into Anything thinking what if the guy Burns me yeah it's not ever part of my maybe I'm too trusting yeah um and maybe then I have been burned and uh I just wash it away I don't know I just don't it's not really part of my equation I do a lot of work so like I say Friday afternoons to help my friends

and Friends of Friends MH hey suanna no barking so Friday afternoons I I spend with my friends and helping friends of friends and it's just It's just giving MH and I'll I'll have the whole afternoon and I'll just be on calls with people and that I I would give to the point where like I didn't have any control over my schedule anymore so that's been my like can you help this person you help this person yeah happy to help yeah but that became my solution like I'm going to save it for Friday afternoons MH but

I don't keep track of who it was or like what they owe me or I know and if like if we Did a deal together mhm and I delivered my part mhm and then you screwed me over or burned me or whatever like okay whatever like yeah it's not going to stop my career for me like my mindset going in would be like okay whatever I'll I'll just I'll just replace Scoggin with somebody else man I thought I was special to just right about about now it's like and that might sound egotistical but I just

it's more I guess Just an it sounds more like an acceptance It's just abundance like there's so many there's so many opportunities that if if we're fighting over something yeah I don't want negative energy yeah I will pay to get rid of something yeah well one of the things you taught me is and that we were doing that you and I were going on a walk somewhere and you know when you step into the personal development space there's there's all kinds of things to Learn um from the people to nuances to Tech to all kinds

of stuff and we were talking about specifically about relationships and one of the things that um one of our mutual friends told me before is some people are are scuba diving people and some people are snorkelers snorklers Randy gar Randy gar quote right there that's right yeah and um you know and it got me thinking a little bit because you know you kind of said the same thing in a different way And you said hey some relationships are transactional that's okay it's cool it's like you're doing business and you know business is done it's cool

you move on and other relationships you kind of have a lot more of a relational undertoe or you know kind of front of mind and stuff like that and it gave me a different perspective to you know to as someone who's been burned a lot in business over 25 years I mean I'm just you're in business long enough you're you're going To have things that don't meet your expectations I have lots of things that don't meet my expectations I just don't interpret that as being burned yeah well that's what I'm getting at that's one of

the reason I wanted to bring it up is because I think your approach to relationships is a little bit different than what you would see in natural human behavior okay natural human behavior natural human being you're unique Evan for Sure like if we did a business we're going to do um I'm going to uh being an investor in your event space in Utah right cool uh and think I don't I don't like how it's being run things don't go well I'd just be try to like okay how how Stephen this isn't working for me how

do we I need to be out of this business what what's the best way yeah and any any agreements if I brought clients in I'd have to let them know like we just How do we navigate it yeah and say well but I still like you still owe me $50,000 here is that is that what's here's $50,000 yeah did I get burned like and then I'm not even thinking about you or anything and I'm on to the because that thing takes 7 months of stress and calls and late nights and just that seven months I

want back cuz I'm going to create something awesome in those seven months yeah and so a $50,000 check or whatever is going to get me out Of it I'm out of it but I don't see that as being burned it's like I just that if you if you screwed a whole bunch of people over and I made the wrong call like I also just assume I can always make it up to somebody yeah so if you launch your event center and then I say to Tom Tom you should go to this event center and then

you just crap the bed and you like God forbid hear you like it just you just give a completely terrible experience to Tom and Tom's like WTF Evan you told me Stephen was a guy and like I lost all of this okay I just I would make it up to Tom to the point where he's okay it it we're even now or whatever it's like or or more yeah I don't want anybody ever being unhappy with me so it work hard to make sure that they're not and whatever we need to do to overd deliver

even if it was not my fault it's like it's your fault but I bet on you so now it's my fault right yeah that's how it approaches is I can Always make it up to somebody um if I wanted to and then when I'm working with somebody we always I always start with some small project to see what we can do and see how we work together before going on some big thing yeah I mean Danny here who's filming us yeah we met how many years ago six years seven years yeah he was a former

uh truck driver for UPS I keep saying FedEx I was gonna up for UPS like hated his life yeah quit Became a videographer turns the hot truck unboxing packages right and so I caught him like at the early part of his career he had a different business partner at the time I think I posted on Craigslist or something I don't even remember how we got connected Instagram Instagram and um I said okay like I was trying finding out a bunch of different guys cuz part of it is the vibe and how you get along I

said okay well I don't I don't even know what I'm doing yet so Why don't you come over for a day and film and uh we'll just see what happens yeah so he came over with his with his business partner at the time and uh they filmed me for the day and they we turned something out and it I mean we used it wasn't ultimately like what we were going to make yeah but uh I just love Danny yeah you know and then when we did our tour in 2019 it was me nah and Danny

for 90 days just the three of us do he have to hold your neck like when you Going I mean Danny was already doing a lot but then when I broke my neck he had to do like a lot more than he was even doing before right and nah too cuz I was all I could do was talk ever since then he like okay we're doing an event whatever hey Danny you you free on whatever time and he's mostly here I think one time he couldn't but he he found somebody else to come and do

it so I I always start with some small thing with somebody Maybe that's maybe I me I'm not guess strateg about it but thinking backwards you know my Friday afternoons when I'm helping people that also gives a good sense of do you want to do something yeah you know did you was it a good vibe with these people or not yeah so we start with something small and just see was it like you date before you get married is there something there yeah I love it it's interesting you know I was thinking about in the

last three and a Half four years you know I was already really working hard to build you know we it's refer to as a thought leadership organization you know just I'm sharing my ideas my Concepts my strategies my tips my tools what work for me right and in doing so um you know our mutual friend Tim Schmo actually want that refer me to you and give him a shout out because that was a pretty important I love Tim yeah I loved Tim a pretty important thing uh but when I first met You one of the

first things you told me was you need a bow and uh I got to thinking about Bo is a huge part of our team a huge part of your team a huge part of his own entity and all that good stuff stuff love the guy to death he's got great ideas it's always he's always been relentlessly in my corner and when I think about the kind of people that I've been introduced to and it's taken time like you know to to the dating respect you you don't just Dive in and say okay well here's all

my contacts and joy um kind of thing but when that Dynamic began to shift everything about personal development thought leadership and things of that nature uh other key folks that came into my life as a result of our connection first of all I want to thank you for it's been a huge huge blessing in my life very grateful for it um you were the first I not even get emotional a little bit um you were the first person To actually quote unquote believe in me and I know belief is a huge part of what you

stand for why is belief in so important to you and why is it like at the core of everything you do I mean it's it's it radiates through everything how how does that how did that become your battlecry well thank you um I think everybody has a most important core value mhm I wrote two books on it yeah you bought a whole bunch of bought bunch of both them Because they're great books like they're they're legitimately great books uh and it's always something your most important core value is always something positive and that's what you

want to spread to the world it's it's Al something you're working on so belief is mine uh it's been a thread throughout my whole life whenever I I couldn't do something my parents would tell me your K you do anything you believe that you Can and my favorite movie is SE biscuit which is about a horse that's too small and a jockey that's too big and a owner that's broke and they somehow all find each other and like win all these races it's like the belief story um and so the best parts of my life

is all looking backwards all have this threat of belief and so it's and it's still something that I'm working on mhm the belief to do the next thing yeah right so even looking at my I have a slide tomorrow For The Mastermind or did my head count and there's 63 people on our team now mhm and then the slide is me with like my head exploding because I like that's crazy I didn't think it I don't think I have 63 people on my team but then saying that it's crazy also means like how well how

you going to get to 600 or 6,000 yeah 63 people is a small comp it's like it's a nothing tiny little if I'm trying to solve the world's biggest problem people don't believe in Themselves enough I'm going to need a lot of help way more than 63 people so but don't I don't know how to do that like I don't believe in myself to to build a 6,000 have no concept of what that even looks like and so I still need it myself and so whatever your most important Cur value is it's what you're trying

to give to the world and it's also what you need yourself yeah and then people ask well isn't that impostor syndrome like how are you helping people With the thing that you haven't figured out yourself and I think of it as a where this mountain that we're climbing mhm and you're never reaching the top but you're taking steps and I might be at step 200 and there's still 8,000 more steps to go now I can't get somebody get I can't help them get the step 8,000 because I'm only at 200 but I can help them

get to 199 MH yeah right so like I have a lot of belief in myself to do the things that I've already done where most People are still most people are stuck at Step Zero yeah so I can I can pour a lot of belief in the people I just don't believe myself to get the step 8,000 and so I'm working on it constantly trying to get better yeah dude I always love it's funny it's anytime you and I sit down and chat like whether it's you know in front of a camera or just in

quiet time um I'm always inspired with how your brain operates okay you see things from a Totally different perspective I get around we're around a lot of entrepreneurs at different St in fact I would say that's we love entrepreneurs in general both of us do like we we love to see them win and and help them get there and I think you know for me it's always been and I don't want them to fail because they don't know any better when we there's insights and information they can get to get there but in the perspectives

that you share you always See things from a different angle that always Spurs additional conversation additional thought additional wisdom additional steps um you know you and I have been talking about a couple business con Concepts and ideas and my brain's already like still even now while we're talking because my ADHD it's kicking in and Computing like all right how does that how does that how does that work right kind of thing um I say all that to to say I know mentorship in General uh you and I both believe in we've both had mentors that

have poured into us there's been I know a huge part of your early days um if not even more important now is uh you're researching some of the the most important people on the planet to figure out and reverse engineer how did they do what they did the top 10 list came came from a lot of those what is it about mentorship that you feel like anchors in results for people that they can't get anywhere else I think it's the one belief that is possible mhm you know to be able to see somebody who's done

it yeah and they probably came from a worse situation and had less resources than what you have right now and they see that they made it like huh okay so that's that's possible yeah because when you look at your immediate family yeah you don't think anything is possible um and then two is the actual strategies like what do they do how do They think how did they get there MH and that's what I call aspirational mentors I've learned a lot from people from videos y that uh you know I've never met yeah I may never

meet um I just finished almost finished 80% finished watching the podcast of Howard Schultz it's like a three and a half interview with Howard Schultz Howard Schultz is one of my guys like if you go in my basement there's five people on y on the wall hang on the wall uh my Parents and one of them is Howard CHS and unfortunately he doesn't have a ton of content so it's like he did three and a half hour interview this is I got to watch and uh I like the way he thinks and the way he

sees a lot of things and seeing how he reacts to things makes me like I I don't know that I would react that way it's like that's an interesting way to and I hope I have the courage to do that the next time yeah I get faced with something like That yeah right there's a great Elon Musk video where he's on um some major News Network CNN or whatever and he's this is maybe 10 years ago we he's talking about how AI is going to mhm kill the world robots are taking over way before AI

meanwhile they're building a robot but yeah go ahead right like way before it ever hit right yeah and then uh so is like outlandish claim and then uh they ask him okay well how's it going to happen he's like I don't know And then they ask him follow-up questions he's like he doesn't know mhm a lot of these guys are not great at distilling their own lessons m M and so you have to read between the lines and take the lesson that you want to take from it so some people might look at that and

say well Elon Musk is crazy or he's a egomaniac or he's just making yeah outlandish claims or whatever the way my weird brain I guess looks at that is like wow this guy like believes this Goes on national news and says this bold claim yeah but then doesn't know how to answer the follow-up questions so he just says I don't know yeah where I feel like if somebody asked me a question I would try to stumble for an answer stumble where you're into an answer right it's like isn't that what you're like I just feel

like that would be my default is that yeah especially if I said something and then you ask me how and then I say I don't know it feels Like that's really bad yeah but he guess what for whatever reason self- cof and self-belief he just says I don't know when he doesn't know well I feel like I would stumble through an answer and so my what I take from that is I hope that if I get in that sit situation I say I don't know and so it's the willingness to like if you watch how

somebody operates you learn through osmosis and so I'm trying to even in a virtual world Hang out with people who I'm trying to learn something from doesn't mean you you take everything I don't want to be Elon Musk but I also don't want to be my dad and I don't want to be like I want to be me I want to be my best me yeah and I can take one thing from Elon mus to make me a better me and so I've learned a lot through aspirational mentors um maybe because I'm introverted or shy

or whatever and I'm a visual learner so I See it I'm the same way yeah but a lot of it is is whether it's reading between the lines or taking your own interpretation of it maybe for Elon it's like oh that's no big deal okay well for me that's a big deal turns out it's a billion dollar idea Elon but it's fine so I've learned a lot of super important lessons from those videos that when other people see it don't they don't see the same thing yeah uh and maybe it's just the decision To look

yeah you know yeah it's like the choice especially somebody that you don't like I often find my best learnings from people that I don't like yeah because the people who are exactly like you have less to teach you than the ones who aren't so true but it's hard it's hard to watch a video of somebody that you don't like yeah you know yeah um you look at uh I remember back like when Trump was running against Hillary and we're Canadian so you know it's it's Always from a different perspective than you guys a lens you

know it's a politics is politics Blood Sport for you guys I mean it's it's a thing for us but you guys think a whole it hasn't always been that way but you look at the if you think back to like Trump Clinton what was Trump standing for like well we're going to build the wall and Mexico's gonna pay for it right it's like it kept coming up okay what what did Hillary stand For I don't know and I'm obviously she had some kind of platform but I just don't know it didn't hit mainstream so whether

you agreed with the wall or not whether you thought Mexico was going to pay for it or not the ability for somebody in a completely different country to know what your message was is worth modeling yeah right like that's pretty cool yeah I don't know that I could name any other Campaign from any of the other presidents I don't pay super close attention to either right I'm I'm not I don't know what you guys are doing with your politics but he whether you agree with him or not he did a great job of getting his

campaign message out um he did uh a lot of nicknames mhm which I don't agree with how he did it right like he he gives people nicknames in a really negative disparaging way which I just wouldn't do um lying Ted and Crooked Hillary and like how many years ago is I still remember crooked Hillary from a decade ago or whatever it was um I don't agree with the methodology but like that's cool like what if you gave people nicknames so that's how I'll look at it it's like okay you may not like he's doing something

that is working and if you love him cool learn from it but if you don't love him you cool like still go learn from him just make it your own yeah and so that's what I love Doing like anybody who's had more success than me has something to teach me yeah and if I am not willing to learn from them because they're not they've done these bad things or whatever MH then I'm limiting I'm hurting myself yeah right like one of the events that I held here I used to hold events here mhm and we

had I don't know we had like 60 70 people just kind of standing around while I was I was speaking and like we ran out of seats for people to come and Hang out and the first question okay so who's got a question the first this guy was like he's on it ready he came ready to fight which is weird for me I don't get people ready to fight yeah right it's like it's a I'm trying to spread belief and positivity if anything people are too nice but like this guy came he's getting his question

answer and he's ready to fight he's like I can't believe that you would profile a criminal on your Channel like okay okay where's this going talk to me what do we deal he's like you featured Jordan Belford on your channel and I lost all respect for you and I'm now paraphrasing what he said but he was angry and livid and in his mind you know if you're a criminal then you um you should have no platform and like I don't learn from you like okay well so did you watch the video that I did on

Jordan Belford like no because it's Jordan Belford like I refuse to Watch anything Jord okay well if you watch the video like the video is not about how to commit a crime and how to screw people out of their money and how to you know I mean if that if I did that then let me know but the video is about um persuasion and confidence MH right and uh he did it at a a extremely high level he's teaching a very powerful tool that you can use for good yeah like you learning how to be

more persuasive would probably help you in a lot of situations In your life and in your business and he's one of the guys who's actually broken it down the most and I learned something from his content mhm so I don't want to go to jail and I don't want to rip people off either but you can use that tool for good and that's just how I that's how I see the world yeah and it calmed him down a little bit he still wasn't happy that I profiled him he said he proba I guarantee he went

back and actually watched the video Maybe maybe I don't think I heard from him again but but um it's just I'm okay to learn from other people I enjoy the challenge if there's something in here that I can learn to make me better they're using a tool and they're using a they might be using tool for something that I think of is bad but I could learn to use a tool for something that I would think of is good yeah right so we'll profile almost anybody the only one um that we haven't is Putin and

that's because my editor long my Christina has been with us for over a decade and uh she got kicked out of her home and she's like and to her credit said hey if you if you this is before this was like years ago not just the recent War um that if you if you do him it's okay but please don't ask me to edit that video so I was like you know what I don't yeah I don't like love the man so much that you know it's like sort of respect for the team cool but

but I Think I am open to learning from anybody who's had more success me something's jumping out at me that um you know I had one of your really close friends some I got to meet uh the last couple days uh who just now that I've met him I'm like this guy's awesome that's Joe polish okay and we were talking about um briefly uh in the kitchen area about the difference the subtle difference between influence and manipulation and this Jordan bord is what kind of bringing me Up like there's sometimes the skills the same skill

set that's required to build influence in the wrong hands can be used for manipulation and I think it comes from selflessness versus selfishness when you were looking at how content is positioned how do you choose to position like how are you deciding the position content yourself to make sure it's of The influence caliber and never in a man I've never there's nothing about you that's manipulative I've never experienced that from you whatsoever but I'm just curious you because there are people in the industry that I would say or use don't necessarily put selflessness in front

of their service uh and this is an ad hoc question just me no I think it's easier to answer the question in a one-on-one Scenario until do that and then if we can maybe break it out to something bigger when I'm helping somebody MH I have a concept I called wearing I'm trying to wear their skin mhm so not just walk in their shoes and like trying to be them sounds like a horror movie yeah try to like wear their so like basically be them this is one of the um in our Movie Makers modules

we have on coaching people and that's one of them is because I think the the what you Would do in in their scenario is actually almost always not the right advice yeah cuz I'm not you yeah what I'm trying to help you do is you're you but you know what I know mhm now what should you do mhm what should you do know KN what I know not what would I do knowing what I know mhm and so that's where whenever I'm coaching or trying to help somebody okay what again what are the ingredients we're

working with and knowing what I know about you So the beginning I'm always probing and asking questions trying to get to know the persons like and I have a willingness to give advice that I would never follow like this is I would die in this business I hate this but it's right for you right yeah because it's like and I think that's the best form of mentorship is like you're you're telling people what they should should do knowing what you know mhm not what you would do yeah and a lot of people I Think struggle

with that cuz you it's like well if I were you like that's not how you should approach you're not me yeah right um and so if you are approaching it then like a a a less effective Mentor would say oh if I were you do this then you leave it up to the student to then figure out okay how do I take what they told me and make it my own MH because you can't just copy what somebody else's it's just not going to work as well you as it did for them you Have to

customize it and so a better Mentor would help you customize it mhm and then that then there's a willingness to give advice that you yourself wouldn't follow yeah because it's right for that person so that's where my brain went when you kind ask a question I think that's a great lens because I think there are best even as someone who's trying to Mentor well and trying to teach others well right the What you just explained about you know using what you know but also being in their skin to do what that was a that's a

shift at least for me and I'm sure it'll be a shift for the audience because I think there are best intentions like we know that they need this outcome we know that these Road it appears like these roadblocks are on their way but often times we pursue the content that we're sharing with them as if we know what we know and we would do It differently right so that's a huge shift and I think that's that's a very valuable piece of information in the because you think about parents you think about um employers all these

different folks are like you know from their perspective the E the expectation or the outcome should be XYZ and in many cases the person saying well I want to achieve the same XYZ outcome or expectation you know and then you're like but a lot of times when we when we Deliver we think we're delivering value we're actually delivering a roadblock because of kind of how the lens in which we're using to communicate it yeah intention is a great starting point because without intention you don't want to listen in anybody who doesn't have your int an

intent to help but that alone that's not enough like we get tons of well-intentioned advice that is counterproductive MH you know like your mom loves you yeah probably yeah like There's a good chance your mom loves you probably there's a great chance you know this is like a assume it's like a 99.99% chance your mom some that are crazy and dop right but like for the most part your mom loves you but is she giving you the best career advice mhm you know when she said don't start a business well because her lens is different

than yours yeah she she likes security she values other she wants you to be successful and be safe but she Sees it through the world of get a get a job whatever the world that she grew up in or your dad or your grandparents whatever so the intention is there but the they're telling you what they would do yeah and so people really struggle with that because they don't know how to make the leap to then figure it out for themselves yeah like what you're saying is I want you to be successful I want you

to be happy yeah she doesn't know how to do it because she hasn't done the Thing that you want to go off and do yeah that's a per you know as me thinking like like you know I went and built that construction business from literally nothing trash piles on a construction site and I remember my father coming to me in the moment acting like I was crazy but it was something I knew I had to do and he I remember him saying Scoggin don't get H they get by and that was a clearly a lifel

that he was believing so the lens in which he Was trying to he was trying in his mind to love me well and teach me well was actually casting a roadblock directly in front of me and I think that's an important distinction because I find that a lot of the people closest to us when we're trying to shift gears and become something more if the people around us haven't done something more it's impossible for them to understand the vision or even or even the attempt at creating a strategy to get there you Know and that's

another reason why I love the masterminds and and community group so much and I want to talk about Market Movers for just a minute what was the passion behind creating the program and you know and having like tomorrow we're going to have amazing Mastermind with with several of your members and you know I've been around you long enough to know that value is going to just fall like it's just going to be there you know why is it why do you see It as such an important tool to have a mastermind environment on a community

of Believers so to speak yeah I mean so we have our our big Community I guess is just anybody who watches the videos and that still I see as a responsibility like some people leave comments like you're the only one who believes in in me yeah like I don't even know you like I've never even seen right and so like that's how so I take it as a responsibility that hey somebody needs a Video today so we're making a video today we haven't missed an upload in over a decade yeah every day making content movement

makers is our thought leadership Community we training people to to build their movements and then the Mastermind is like the upgraded version of that and we meet four times a year that's that's what we're doing here yeah um the intent behind it was what what could I do with somebody if I could like got their got my hooks In them and help them along MH where we've helped a lot of the biggest names do their thing but the people who are like the next wave yeah who's helping them yeah and they can't do it alone

mhm and basically what I wish I had when I was building my journey in my career I wish somebody who I wish somebody had a group that I could have joined where they had done it and they believed in me and it was positive and encouraging and like Gave me what I needed um and we have some awesome people so it's it's fun Vibes it's like when you're making content and trying to do when you're trying to do anything different in your local Circle there's two things there's one like the actual skill of learning the

thing like you're making video you're uh how old are you Stephen you're making YouTube content what are you doing again it's like it's just weird yeah but then also you're probably the Most ambitious person in your circle like most people watching if you're watching my channel Stephen's Channel you're probably the most ambitious person and you're pouring into other people where do you go where you feel one like accepted like like oh these people also like talking about YouTube and videos and thumbnails and content it's like this is great but then also that you get pushed

that you're not you're not the best and you're just Poting other people but like you almost suck and there's other people kicking you forward it's like come on Scoggin what are you doing here man P let's go right it's like it's a yeah think bigger think bigger right it's like in a loving push forward mhm so I've gotten some great experiences being parts of some groups where like I'm on the plane right home like man like I'm just thinking too small like because you when you're in your cocoon you're you're thinking the Biggest of you're

build and but that will often State your own grow when you're around other people who are doing more better it's like just lights the fire again I like how long I'm going to wait to do this come on let's get this thing going yeah so to be able to gift that to other people and I just like it I like seeing momentum and I like seeing progress and I like seeing people make shifts and it's Always been a multiple day thing mhm uh and I used to do it as when we were setting up like

we used to hold them here mhm but it was only like a two-day thing it wasn't a full year experience and when we were setting up it always even inv people to like Hey we're setting up the night before if you want to come help set up come on out and we'd always have some people yeah come on out and set up tables and chairs even though they're paying to be here but It's just the vibe it's the fun it's like we're going to I'm meeting people here today we're going to go for dinner it's

going to be great uh cuz it happen s the two days fly so quick mhm and then I miss everybody so it's like I'm already sending DMS in advance yeah we were at the mall was sending some DMS to people uh while you're in the stores just to like it's coming this is happening like I miss you already and you haven't even come here yet that's Like I love that Vibe because it energizes me to see people connect and I think together you can do a lot more so if anything I I I I wish

I had it sooner I don't know that I would have even joined the group necessarily because I'm too shy and introverted and it would have it would have taken me a long time to get comfortable even joining the group so I'm trying to create a group that I would have joined and found valuable yeah no I love it and I think You're doing that like I've met a handful of folks that are part of your program and they're all phenomenal human beings doing all fantastic stuff and all kinds of genres and it's interesting because they're

you are the nucleus but they're also collaborating amongst themselves based on content that everybody's discussing so it's it is a family-like environment it's a really cool experience it's funny to be kind of Watching and just kind of seeing how it all plays out and kind of you interact yeah from from the the masterminds I've been a part of one of the things that I enjoyed the most was the actual masterminding and I found that they didn't do enough of it they been like one segment on on two days where you're actually talking yeah yeah it's

like you could talk over lunch or whatever but when we're actually trying to help somebody and when you're in a room full Of uh givers who are trying to pour into each other it's really cool like it's sometimes hard to ask for help it's like you're so used to helping that's like I don't even oh you want to help me wow what do I need help with right and so yeah I love that part so much that we we have it on both days so we I mean you'll see it tomorrow we'll put you in

a group uh and there'll be uh three people and usually three people and like a helper um and everybody gets 20 minutes it's Like okay here's what I need help with and you just pour into that person then you switch Yeah and we do it again on the next day but your groups will switch so you with different people and it you get advice you get connection friendships get built businesses get built MH I I never wanted to be uh the almighty whatever coming in and just come and watch a keynote for 16 days straight

I hate that it's like but obviously I have information to Share so yeah we're going to do that that um but that was my favorite part is the I think if you get connected to other people who are also doing their thing MH regardless of me yeah I could form a connection to people but that's that's really limited if you then get connected to 10 other people who are also trying to do cool things MH that allows you to go and do more cool things which is great I'm going to Pivot just slightly just for

a hot second um this Is a hot second a hot second it might be like closer to 2 minutes but we'll see one of my greatest memories um that we've had in our friendship and relationship mentorship as a mentee um actually came at one of my more challenging moments so um I've talked about it openly before so that's not a big deal but uh right before one of my events um my now ex-wife um basically left me like the week before um and I sent out a you know I had a lot of money invested

in the event I had a lot of uh people like yourself that were speaking in the event and you know I chose to go out and make a video for everybody was like hey guys this is what's going on I'm just letting you know what's going on in my life um I think it was not even 15 minutes and you had already responded hey dude let's get on a call and that meant a ton to me I wasn't Expecting that I was you know I was actually expecting to get hate mail from a lot of

the the thought leaders which I got absolutely none of they all were amazing human beings and and um I remember one of our mutual friends am logo saying one or none I'm coming like kind of concept and it just it filled my cup but one of the things I didn't appreciate then that you taught me in that moment that I appreciate now is the importance of surrounding yourself with A good partner like you you had made a comment about you know some of your early days and you even gave me like a screenshot of your

YouTube channel it's like here's my YouTube channel here's where Nina got intered in my life and now now that kind of thing and uh I remember last night I was um I was trying to help nah um put together a bed frame and um by the way she's amazing like when you say you surround yourself with great people absolutely do and I I Like to collect good people well collect people yeah which which you have a whole Army of but I say all that to say that in that moment of duress in my mind in

my heart like I I was working really hard try to to try to impact lives at the end of the day like I don't need to do this from a monetary perspective I do it because I I want to do what you do which is like I want to help people right and in that moment I never forgot that Moment where you're like hey it actually makes a big difference in having a supportive partner in building out an Endeavor like to have them actually on board meaning not only are they not only are they cheering

for you but they're actively trying to create a ways to help and and kind of be part of that just for a minute if you don't mind maybe share a little bit of your heart of why that was so important and how you learned that lesson yourself that you share with me That changed my life so I stumbled into it mhm um I've been in three long-term relationships right five years 5 years now like 11 12 years and I always saw what I was doing as my thing mhm so you're doing your thing I'm doing

my thing and I think there's there's different phases of like somebody is is like actively against what you're doing mhm they're you know tolerant of what you're doing but kind of passive aggressive to yeah what You're doing like they're not happy about it but they're you know it's okay they're supportive of what you're doing yeah um or they're your cheerleader yeah it's like people fall into these four categories M and my other relationships where they're so suppor of what I was doing I wasn't I didn't have passive aggressive Partners or like actively again but it's

like even knowing the categories it's like huh it's like Interesting where does my partner line up because I think the ultimate test is like if you if you can't support your partner's dreams this a problem with that in both ways them you and you them yeah but supportive is I think the bare minimum for our relationship yeah um and there's some things that you might support them on that you know may not be that big a deal for them right just like nah is at her acupuncture right now cool I support That it doesn't mean

I have to like go cheer her on go through but but for their dream for their thing like if it's really important to them I think you should be actively helping them and and and the help might even just be a word of encouragement might just be asking questions like you may not be able to actually lend a hand but in my previous relationships it was just supportive mhm which is always I just thought that's what it was yeah I'm crazy you know you Say I have a weird brain I'm weird gu I didn't say

I did not say weird I actually used the word genius at one point just for the record whatever cool I like weird if my son says somebody called me weird it's like good that's awesome I think weird is a good word all right well we'll use weird for since you like the word weird but um I just thought that's what a normal thing was so I would go do my thing and then I come back home I like cool and Then I was doing an event uh just after I started dating nah and uh she's

like can I come like yeah but it's like going to be super boring like you don't want to you don't want to come we talk Business and Entrepreneurship stuff like you don't no I just want to I want to come and like and see what you're doing like but like why yeah I mean you can come but like I'm more worried for her she's going to be super bored like I just want to see It's like yeah okay come cool no come on out and she sat in the front row it's like man this is

really cool that n is here like watching this stuff you know this is fun this is a whole new world I didn't even know existed and then um you know she became more and more and more involved in the first five years of us being together she she had a job she had a she worked in HR at a 9o5 company and I had no interest in her being an entrepreneur or she didn't want to be One either yeah and then she just became more and more involved and when we did our tour in 2019

we did 23 cities in 90 days and I wasn't going to do it without her I'm not going 90 days on the road by myself mean Danny for 90 days at especially after the accident he's got to drive as well would be awesome after the 90 days she never like she took a leave of absence from work and then never went back like wow we work really well together too yeah And Nina compliments like I I don't think you necessarily have to work with your partner I think it's the best when people say don't work

with your spouse or your friends I love working with friends and my SP like as long as you can communicate I think it's the best yeah it is I love it I I mean I guess it just maybe how I interpret things and I've never been burned and whatever right I don't I don't get caught up on on those things but I think it's great Nina happens to compliment what I do in business super well as well all the details and organization and that's an question yeah yeah that's a famous line now like people ask

me something like well that's anina question I have no idea enina and to know that's kind of been taken care of and I don't have to worry about it but even if she wasn't ever involved in the business just having somebody be supportive of what I was doing but then be a cheerleader and Actively like can I help or you're going to do great or you know like Nina's not a speaker she's you know but just cheering me on or wanting to come to things and being sure ious about what I'm doing and why yeah

was a shift for me I had to get used to sharing yeah cuz I wasn't I just didn't think that was normal you know it's what I was used to for the past 10 years of being in relationships so yeah I mean and I I made that graph for you I got to find it Now again like it was five years or so of YouTube and not seen any yeah it was the YouTube analytic version not the not and then from the date like we got married you know it started to take off and you

know it wasn't all Nina of course but but uh man you can do a lot more when you're when you're in in a cheerleader kind of relationship and it's easy to like people watching you put uh that lens on your partner say well does my partner which category do They fall into are they actively like working against me are they passive aggressive tolerant are they supportive or are they a cheerleader you can already kind of bucket and for me if there're anything less in supportive like why are you with this person um but I would

also put it on self to say well where am I for them and I don't think most many people do that I guarantee people are watching right now put the blame like yeah well that person's I'm I'm out I'm out of relationship and then yeah and if you are not a cheerleader for their biggest things for their dreams what they want to go and accomplish well what are you doing and can you get there and if you if you can't get there then maybe you shouldn't be in that relationship either yeah right it's a filter

um I created that model mostly talking to Alex on you who runs this place his through past relationships yeah um I haven't released It or I guess we just did yeah we just did new car micro content yeah we'll write the book someday on that that's right um but I haven't really done a lot of research or homework or relationships is not really what I would think of as my expertise it's just life experience so that's where I came up with the model that served me and hered Alex and I maybe we can help some

other people too yeah dude I love it again I just uh I want to publicly thank you for that Moment um it has been a life-changing perspective um you and Nina know that I'm now in a a pretty solid relationship and yeah chass is incredibly supportive like she's scheduling stuff for me she's moving things around she's got her own thing her own brand we're building out and all this kind of exciting stuff but um I was telling nah last night as I was kind of helping her with that thing that like I can see now

how powerful it can be if your partner or spouse is actually Not just supportive but actually wants to see you win and and it's it's been lifechanging powerful just a distinction then when you said surround yourself with good people I said no I collect good people that's the difference for me of okay Stephen I like Stephen he's going through a tough time right now like we all will or have been let's hop on a call like it's not not just being around but like I I I want to MH see if I can Help yeah

and so I'll go out of my way to do things for people uh cuz I I just just something about them it's like I like I like their energy I want I want them in my life I like fight to find a way to do something I see it as a much more active role and trying to collect good people yeah um and maybe it goes back to the who do you surround yourself with and like your show me your five friends will share your future but you were asking about like burning and and With

the right people yeah just um so scuba diving versus snorkeling all that stuff it's more of a heart question unless of a brain I don't have a I don't have a checklist that I'm okay this person is this and this and this is like I don't know I'd like this crazy part is I think most of us until we learn a different Behavior think more of checklist well they did this thing wrong or they did this thing right um and they don't think that they take the time I I Mean I think human nature is

a lot of times when you're when you're looking at the lens of your relationships you're you're you have your positive check your pros and your cons you're very seldom look at yourself to say okay what are my pros and cons for them so I think that's a a very important distinction even like just the conversation of you know find have a supportive partner yeah like I think it's incredible yeah if you're not a cheerleader for them that's a gut Check yeah like well either you need to get your act together yeah or you're in the

wrong relationship yeah a liit of time we got left I want to touch on entrepreneurs we've actually been talking about this the entire time at different levels at different times what do you think is standing in most entrepreneurs way and now that you've worked with countless entrepreneurs what what do you what do you think that they struggle with most Lack of belief yeah I mean that's that's the way that's the lens to which I operate so it's always lack of belief I think um I think the the greatest gift you can give somebody is is

your belief in them that's very true more than like a tactic of we're here doing YouTube videos whatever more than just use this thumbnail or call your video this those are great but like the you you've given people the perfect strategies and they've not done anything with it Because of a lack of belief yeah that it's possible and just having one person believe in you uh can make all the difference and what I learned from Jordan Belfor I'll be expect to Jordan even though he went to jail guys not happy with me is people don't

need to believe that they can do it they they all they need is for them to believe that you believe they can do it and the fact that Stephen believes That I can do it like actually believes I can do it makes me think huh maybe I can do it mhm it's all they need yeah yeah I love that it's funny you you think you have a a signature quote or signature line that like and then it just gets used in different ways by all kind of people but my version of the story is I've

my my belief is the greatest purpose in life you'll ever have is serving the person you used to be which we've talked all about during Our time together today if you could put your hands on three things that are three reasons that you love entrepreneurship so like as much as you because you put a lot of time and energy into developing entrepreneurs I mean these are people that create something from nothing so what what is what is it about entrepreneurs that you appreciate or love so much so my version of that quotee is your purpose

comes from your pain you know Whatever you struggled with the most is what you want to help other people through so I love entrepreneurs there's a there's a head part of it but the heart is that it was me yeah I'm an entrepreneur and I struggled and I was making no money and I quit on my business partner and then went back the next day um and luckily he let me back in you know like it sucks and I just wanted to make life easier for other entrepreneurs like at the end of the day That's

the emotional reason you could say like I think entrepreneurs are going to solve all the world's major problems I don't pay attention much to politics and government and like it's never really hurt or helped me honestly it's just obviously they like if some if we're going to go to war with another country that's our leaders who are making the you know socis so sure I just don't work through that lens I think whatever problem we Face is Going to Be Entrepreneurs that solve the problem and even if I'm wrong we're going the entrepreneurs will be

part of the solution and it's just the framework through which I see the world and operate um so that's more the head like okay well if I help more entrepreneurs we can do more good you know I want people to learn more about Stephen scoggs and his message and think about if he had 100 million people watching his stuff like the Ripple effects that That has out to the world um but really it's like I I struggled so much with it I just want to make the road easier for the Next Generation yeah dud man

you're awesome all right final question with limit of time got left so we'll try to make it a doozy uhhuh if there was one question on the planet that you've always wanted to be asked it's never been asked what would it be and what's the answer I don't I don't know I don't I don't think that way dang yeah Unfortunately because this would have been the Banger uh I just want to be a service and that is different for whoever I have like my hope is that you ask the question that you really wanted to

ask MH and you know before um I used to get upset at podcast because I I do a lot of podcast with people and then once the camera stops you know I really want to know like this like god dude like you should that question this is the first Off this should be recorded MH and second lead with that question next time because we just went through 30 minutes of whatever thinking that your audience would care about but we didn't actually get the question that you wanted answered and so I made a video that my

assistant sends to people in advance of them doing an interview with me that lays out basically yeah I got the first one first did an interview a few years ago yeah okay so it's probably shifted a Little bit but it's basically five things whatever to to keep in mind before you do an interview with Evan right so it's like don't do an intro of him while you're on the call ask the question that you want answered yeah so and there's a few other things I don't remember um but I just want to be as helpful

as possible the person's in front of me I'm not even thinking like how many views is gonna get and whose channel is gonna like how do I be as Value valuable as possible in this time to the person in front of me and for that to happen you need to ask the question that you care the most about than like whatever my answer is to the question that I wish people I get lucky I got to ask a bunch but that that actually it's been like a shift over the years of helping of being on

podcast it's like giving people the confidence or belief to ask the question that they they personally What answered and knowing that by asking that question people think well it's too selfish like I want to help the audience yeah but like through your question you're going to help the audience the most instead of asking me like what would you tell your 18-year-old self or like the same questions everybody else ask right um and so as a lesson to myself too is trying to figure out okay when I'm if I'm asking a question what's the Question that

I really want to have answered if I'm meeting this person yeah yeah I love it man well in wrapping this up I I'll say that here's what I've learned in the last 48 hours not only the importance of thinking a little bigger uh in in terms of Leverage meaning I'm going to invest this amount of time and energy into doing this thing let's make sure it has a viable return for the amount of energy and leverage make sure it's you know Positive on the on the upside but more importantly I think a byproduct of that

is not only dreaming a little bigger but also believing a little bigger because in order to dream bigger you got to believe that that dream is possible and you challenged me in the last 48 hours to think and dream bigger and for that and all the thousands of other things you've done connecting all the different amazing people you've connected me with I give you my extreme gratitude I love Your brother and there's anything I can ever do to serve you I'm I'm in it for in it to win it uh ladies and gentlemen Evan Carmichael

amen let's go Evan it's a pleasure to be here thank you for having me man cool man Evan looking forward to it yeah truly happy to be here so today I just want to go over just a little bit of your story man just your your journey I don't know if every if anyone's really dove into that with you so want to explore some some of your Journey with you let's do it cool so as a kid we're going to rewind back a little bit oh we're going way back we're we're gonna start at the

beginning I'm curious did you find yourself having any sort of drawn like were you drawn to anything do you have an intuition speak to you of like I'm not really finding my flow in school but I am drawn to these certain things wow okay how how how give me a time frame for sure uh like we're going like high school we're going 15 Plus 15 plus is that high school yeah is start start of like the developmental stages of Life did you ever have like an intuitive thought or calling anything that you're drawn to I

was always a weird kid yeah and I'll go younger and then you can you can pull me into wherever you want to go for sure um I had uh undiagnosed hearing issue mhm so I couldn't hear properly right and my teachers all thought I was stupid and uh I Would hide under my desk like in class I'd sit under my desk right because I couldn't hear the teacher but I couldn't also explain I was too young to even explain like what was going on right and then they found out that I had I a hear

an issue they had a bunch of uh fluid in my ears that they gave me tubes to like drain it out like oh my God I can hear again wow but I was super introverted super shy always thought differently than most people yeah um and my parents Gave me cover which I was appreciative of totally so I remember being in I forget what great it was I'm going earlier in high school but that's all good uh I was asked to do a painting yeah and it was like a the instructions were like paint a a

window like you're in a living room with a window and curtains and a boat and so I did it but the teacher wasn't happy with how I did it and uh I got a bad mark on it and then my mom went to go meet with the Teacher and me and she like well what were the instructions and she like well he did he did what you told him basically blaming the teacher instead of blaming me for the I followed the instructions even though I didn't do it the same way that all the other kids

do it right and that I mean honestly that could have crushed me that could have made me feel like a super Outcast and I was but at least within my own family structure I was encouraged and supported And my parents always uh leaned into the things that I was curious about and supported it even when um like it didn't make any sense so you know I wanted to be a baseball player in the season and a police officer like in the off season like nobody does that right right they would take me to baseball games

they would uh I was selling baseball card my my first business was baseball cards nice you're flipping them flipping Baseball cards nice uh 92 93 I was 12 13 years old we're in Toronto the Blue Jays our baseball team won the World Series back to back so it was like the height of baseball card season but also here in Toronto baseball was everything because our teams were winning the World Series yes and so they supported me like we would drive a couple hours every weekend to this big baseball card convention that I would sell baseball

cards with um and I would be 12 years old and selling And negotiating with people people who are like 40 years old just making deals making over like nothing right like our our uh our dollar is a is a coin in Canada and I remember the guy saying okay I'll give you a dollar for that card but it's got gum on it like okay I'll clean a gum man it's a dollar like I'll still do that let's go and so that was my early journey into entrepreneurship I guess um or even before my first thing

was I was 5 years Old and I I made little pictures with my three-year-old sister and we went to our neighbor and sold it to them for 10 cents I feel you man I did door too watercolors as well five bucks knocking on the door hey five bucks that's a good deal I got 10 cents but uh I had this weird streak in me I guess for sure I didn't know anybody who was an entrepreneur it was not in my family it wasn't something that we did right um but my parents Encouraged and supported it

and so I ended up doing all sorts of different weird things as a result and I think a good chunk was they they gave me the air cover for it and they'd always tell me that I'm Evan CI Carmichael you know you can do anything you believe that you can yeah and um even now you go home go to my place you'll I've got five pictures on the wall and the one in the middle is me with my parents I love that just a rem reminder of uh the message they gave Me yeah man that's

incredible that foundation so I'm curious moving from that you're now 19 years old there's the university route the investment banker title and job and you decided to not go down that path and take the leap into the unknown on the software company that startup I'm curious what that was like to make that decision and in that moment did you have a belief in in the outcome or was it just like let's see how this goes that was the hardest decision I Ever had to make yeah and because I would I thought I wanted to be

an investment banker mhm in my high school yearbook it's like where you going to be they ask you where you going to be in 10 years or whatever B I was like at a bank like that's what I I like I like money I like making money mhm I like like playing Monopoly and all that stuff but the only way I thought I would make money was like go be a banker yeah so I'm going to be a banker so I Was on my path to go and do that right entrepreneurship wasn't a thing when

I was in university like you had to be unemployable or crazy to be an entrepreneur it wasn't a thing uh so I had this opportunity to either go get this invested banking job and make six figures out of school and uh this job was in uh Asia I so like wow new country it's going to be awesome you go live over there yeah okay and they they they recruited me out of University they flew me to the Waldo story in which is a famous hotel in New York City yeah and show you the life and

like they put on like the full this is it this recruit right and then they say I'm going to not do that and I'm going instead take 30% of a company and make 300 bucks a month at the start was uh was hard yeah uh the thing that I wish I could say like I knew it was going to work out and I was bold and like take the jump I don't I don't feel like that Was particularly riskier or bold although it might be for some people I thought you know what I could always

go back in a year mhm I may not get this job but I thought I could get a job right like I could get a job in banking I thought so the risk wasn't that big of a drop and some people are giving themselves a year to do whatever so I'm G to give myself a year to do this and um Jeff Bezos from Amazon had a line called the regret minimization framework Which is basically like don't live with regrets so when you're a 100 years old whatever you're in your rocking chair looking back on

life like would you what would you regret less I thought I'm going to regret not knowing yeah about this startup business yeah even if it fails I'd rather know and fail than not know so I'm gonna I'm G to go and do this and I gave myself a year you leaped into it and then you didn't see Results yeah uh things weren't seemingly working out as like high octane as you thought they would be yeah it was not working out I remember the first deal I closed that was sizable was like $135,000 and I felt

like I was rich yeah like Rich oh my God I close a 13 and 12K deal when you're making 300 bucks a month you close a 13 and 12K deal that was a huge Shi for me and more important than just that money was like I could do it again and again and again uh but the First year was yeah we like we were not making much money at all I'm just curious what your inner dialogue was like through that time where it's like I just pushed all my chips in I'm moving on this I

didn't feel the burden of that like I just pushed all my chips in I didn't feel like I took some big risk in doing this cuz again I thought I could go back and I gave myself a year so I was minimizing my risk but I felt like a failure and the hardest thing Emotionally was more that my friends had all taken all these jobs MH and they were making tons of money right what I thought was tons of money at the time and I guess it was um and I was they're making 120k a

year and I'm making 300 bucks a month it's like it a big discrepancy yeah and uh I isolated myself and that they would want to go out mhm and I I couldn't afford to go out yeah right so it's like pizza and beers that 20 bucks was my monthly Expense yeah so I had to pick one thing per month to go to and I would tell them I'm I'm hustling I'm living the entrepreneur life I'm grinding away like all the good things that we but really like I'm broke and I'm too embarrassed to say that

so I'm not going to come so then it made it just inel and just me and my business partners and I and I guess my family uh and I'm sure if I told them hey like I'm not making money yet M somebody could have spotted me or Um we could have done something cheaper like I'm sure I was just too embarrassed and too ashamed of my lack of success but it wasn't because I I regretted uh like I still gave myself a year to go off and do this so I like okay well we're just

going to keep going and see what happens can you speak to the essence of progress over Perfection linking to selling the software company and not Landing that larger deal at first yeah I'm trying to remember where That where that even started like when I first a lot of the things that I've learned have been an evolution so like what what moment uh that I start valuing progress over Perfection um it's a good question hav you guys were looking at being acquired by a larger software company and you were making sure all the back end was

seamless and perfect before you went to go pitch and then they ended up acquiring someone else and so the Core lesson was Progress over Perfection doesn't have to be perfect just get it done yeah yeah that's I started valuing I started getting rid of my perfectionist I'm a i perfectionist by default and a big chunk of that isn't from a good place it's from a negative place it's like I don't want to disappoint people so I'll just keep working on something to make it perfect before I'll I'll relase the world yeah uh but then yeah

I lost the $40 million Deal when I was 20 or 21 21 um because we were having too perfect a plan mhm you want me to tell the story I do I'm ready for it man okay so there was a lot of Acquisitions happening in our space and so we had a we had a window to potentially sell our company or wait another eight years for the next cycle to come through and so they go who's most likely to buy our software it was a biotech software company and we identified a couple of Key Industries

and players that we thought might buy our company right and we then spent I spent the whole summer working on the pitch the plan like how we would integrate why it makes so much sense for us to be bought by them and we got the industry right mhm but the company wrong so we went after the number one company in the industry it was like multi- multi-billion dollar company and we actually got a hold of them and they Said well not interested like what it's like it's perfect how are you not interested like this doesn't

like I was shocked CU it was perfect but by the time we went out it was perfect I thought it was perfect I spent the whole summer working on this thing and now we're finally going and it's perfect and they said no and I that I couldn't believe that they said no it's like okay well like now what do we Doh and so what I missed and it's also me not just Knowing enough was the number four company in Industry uh had just raised $800 million to go out and buy companies when you're looking to

get acquired it's usually not the number one player who does the Acquisitions cuz they're already number one it's the smaller guys who want to to become number one and they want the growth by acquisition I know that now but I learned it was a like painful lesson at the beginning and so the Number four company uh raised all this money was doing acquisition so we Tred to Pivot to go talk to those guys and we did and we got a meeting and they really like what we had to sell and they ended up coming between

us and our biggest competitor in the industry and they had already been talking to our biggest competitor for a couple of months doing the due d to buy them well I was prepping for the other company and at the end of the day they said those pros And cons we love you guys we love your software we love how easy it is to use and we love these things it's not we love these other guys for different reasons but the biggest thing is like we've already been doing to D de with them and we need

to move fast so we're going to buy them and not you and they bought them for $40 million wow if I had been there 3 months earlier it doesn't guarantee us a deal either like doesn't mean that they would Have gone with us but again like it was a 50% chance 50% chance of $40 million know I would like that's those are some good odds I'd like that because we were the it was just us and the other company the last two in the deal right um so we ended up selling to a different company

for for less than $40 million still did well but wasn't $40 million right um and that was just a lesson a hard lesson learned that okay don't be perfect mhm and it would have been better to to get Out there and at least know if we were out sooner and so I'm I'm a recovering perfectionist and still trying to learn how to release things sooner um even though it's not perfect I feel you man yeah I'm curious transitioning from you did have success in the software world then you you built a company and you successfully

sold it transitioning into the VC Arena the next stage of life after that company build I'm curious what skills transferred over cuz you did Have a successful run in the VC Arena uh from the software company to the VC what skills transfer over well definitely the hard work so so when I I mean we were I was working sun up to sun down every day trying to just grind out a living in my business right beans for lunch every day not seeing my friends just like no relationships just work the focus yeah so when I

sold my business I then had nothing to do right so the B the people Who bought the business mhm uh didn't need me in the company and I mean I didn't want to go either but they didn't need me MH where my two business partners were the were the techie people and they also had a personal desire to get to the United States and so they moved with the company to the new to the company that bought us okay I'm now by myself with having some money which is nice but like I wake up the

next day and like I don't I have nothing to do my Whole identity is gone in terms of work identity mhm so I didn't just jump into VC I was saying yes to a whole bunch of stuff and just exploring and one of the guys that I met with said hey I've got it I've got this firm do you want to come meet them and potentially work together I like yeah but I didn't have this plan I was saying yes to almost anything cuz the alternative is just stay home and be bored and what was

your age at this point like 22 okay yeah got you so I was getting some opportunities like um I got asked to do my first speak Eng game M um I represented Canada at this uh at the Apex Summit so they had Apex Summit and they were bringing the theme of the year or whatever was entrepreneurship and so they asked me to represent Canada as the young entrepreneur delegate to this event that's amazing and like okay I'm not a speaker I mean but because IID sold the business got some media Attention whatever young entrepreneur success

store y y y so they invited me to go to this thing which is cool it's my first time ever speaking Yeah how many people were you speaking to uh how many people were there couple hundred it's not giant but not like a tiny room for sure and I'm nervous out of my mind and like yeah but it was a great experience so I was starting to get some interest but I also didn't I didn't even think of that as a Career path right I had no idea and so I started making some website content

I started saying yes to Opportunities the VC thing came with along and then I I ended up sticking with them for 2 years or so and just learning about I never had to raise of money for my business we got acquired before we needed to raise money okay so in the path is usually okay you you can grow slowly or you can scale through capital or you get Acquired and so we never needed to raise Capital we got bought before we needed so but I was curious about it it's like okay yeah I'll learn about

the VC industry so I think being curious about it helped mhm just working my face off and just being used to it it was actually like lighter hours working at the VC which was like a heavy work week was lighter than what I was used to working for your own business for my own business CU we like every week and hour just working on the business so this is This is relax mode while I in my extra time I worked on my website and in my speaking or whatever I'll just see opportunities you know like

I'm curious and so inside of the Curiosity start seeing patterns and seeing things other people don't see I only knew one industry which was my business at the time but the more I get exposed to different Industries and different businesses the more pattern recognition starts to kick in right I just studied And learned and it led to a lot of creative ideas um mostly for that business I was a sponge so the the three founders were all in their 60s or 70s okay you were like 23 24 I was 22 it was that was 22

to 24 okay um and these are ogs in the game they yeah yeah they knew the street it was it was kind of a retirement job for them they didn't want to just retire they want to be at home doing nothing so they still did the work but their massive connections they knew The street they knew all the investors but they didn't know were the entrepreneurs they didn't they weren't speaking they weren't grinding they weren't meeting the new entrepreneurs coming up okay I'll do that yeah so I went and I met a bunch of entrepreneurs

like I'll funnel deals to you and I helped bring in deals for them and then when I brought in the deal I helped see how they broke down the business and what they look for and so I was only Used to working with my single business and now I got exposure to all these different Industries um they would touch except mining they wouldn't do mining right so I don't know anything about mining uh that's the only one but the but every other industry like we have deal fls coming in just seeing how quickly they dissected

the business plan picked up on the pattern recognition and because I was young and a sponge they and they also had to kind of extra free Time they would pour into me and like teach me that's amazing all these things wow so end up being a a great scenario for everybody mhm um but I don't know that I brought a ton in apart from just being a hard worker and being curious and then they poured into me and taught me a bunch and you had that Insight from being a Founder to be able to relate

to these other entrepreneurs that helped a bit yeah for sure I mean I don't think I taught my VC people much like they were More teaching me but like in the acquiring of the deals like you could I could say I sold my business and here was my story um they what they were more curious about was okay I we need to raise $20 million how do we do it like okay I can I didn't have the answer but I could get them the answer right like I work with this company here's what we do

we raise money and I've never raised $20 million so I couldn't I couldn't tell you how to do It mhm but these guys have done it so you want to meet them the connection made yeah we want to meet them and it's a pretty easy sale I mean at least to get the meeting is not that difficult and then I got to see how they operate and how they deconstructed the business and how the founders explained what they were doing and then how the VCS kind of tore it apart and what they look for and

VCS and Founders don't necessarily look for the same Thing that's fine but even understanding that Dynamic and sitting in I got to sit in all the meetings and just be a sponge and learn so yeah I think just grinding it out and I think being an entrepreneur helped me a little bit in making those connections but not that much right you know like I told my story a little bit but it's more okay you need to raise five million bucks these guys have done it do you want to meet them and if it had to

be at least half a million they Don't want half they wanted like 50,000 it's not worth the time for VCS to even look at so as long as they wanted at least half a million and they had a business that's not just a ID on paper that was most of the problems like that I had to filter through I had to bring them good deals where most people just have an idea and they want $5 million for their idea like okay you're not going to get that funded you have to have an actual business um

but assuming You met the criteria you had over half a million you want need over half a million you had an existing business they may not want funding or they may not need it right now but they're still open to learning about it right and so I don't think me being a Founder had that much of it like I maybe I could I could pump myself up a little bit and make the case but I don't I don't think me being a Founder did much I don't know I got you transitioning Into your start with

YouTube uh so you had done the web page content you did a ton of posts on there and then getting on YouTube posting videos for one year and doing that consistently and only receiving three comments I'm curious what the core driver was to continue and stay consistent with that even before the external result was showing itself one YouTube was a different game at the time so nobody had a million followers There were no influencers what year was this 2009 okay that's what I thought yep nobody I mean some people had some videos up but it

was really just a place to put your videos like if you're a speaker or whatever you'd have if you look at the OG speakers they all have YouTube channels and some of older than mine but it was just a place that you put your content it was never Discovery and and education was a weird thing on YouTube YouTube was more kind of what Instagram is it's like inspirational videos or stupid videos like the First videos of guy of zoo and just this this is stupid why am I here as an entrepreneur people like how did

you know it was going to work out I didn't I didn't know it was going to work out but one of the things that's always helped me is um how do you keep going after one year and like three comments and the first comment was my mom the second was my sister and then the third Was some random guys it's really just like one comment on my first video in a year of it being up now that video has more comments but it's because people want to go back to the first video and see so

it's like it's not it's not real right um this curiosity at this point but I always just focus on who I am serving instead of who I'm not so you know 50 people watch the video this is a a prescriptive strategy people can use but I don't know why I Just defaulted to this like 50 people saw my video my God that's 50 people dude that's crazy yeah 50 people saw my video like if you were going to speak in front of 50 people at a library or something you'd be you'd be jacked up you'd

be nervous you be like okay I got to deliver for these 50 people right we got Mastermind tomorrow we got 20 something people I'm nervous to go speak to 20 people right it's going to be great um so I always saw that people see 50 people and then they say oh I'm it's not working but what if you assume that for two of those people it's like a life-changing video so that helped me I maybe that came from my parents or maybe I need to line on a couch and and figure out how to pull

that out um I don't know I'm just like why I defaulted to that cuz I never thought like I was a failure in looking at the numbers I never felt I never felt like a failure right so I didn't have This moment of Crisis like maybe I should quit YouTube MH I think part of it is because nobody else is having massive success either so there's no comparison to say well he's here and I here therefore I suck not in the early days um but then also just I just valued who I was serving and

didn't focus on obviously I want to grow and improve for sure um but who are we serving and if 50 people watch it that's cool like let's keep going coming from a place of how I Can help how I can serve people I haven't watched your initial content I'll be super honest but I'm curious what was the transformation like did you feel like as you got in the flow with it over the first I looked at the stats over the first 5 years it didn't seem to really like go exponential pretty rough and you just

and you kept going and I respect that consistency and yeah so why or I'm just curious like was that the core ethos of like who can I serve that That kept you going for that that initial 5 years of consistently putting out I just felt like not even who can I serve but that it was serving you know like 2,000 people I had 2,000 subscribers after five years I think I think I don't look back so like I had to put that number up there because people keep asking me like what was your growth most

of my I live more in the present I'm like 85% present 15% future and like 0% past I don't remember these things Looking backwards so I think it was like 2000ish after 5 years MH but I didn't feel like a failure for the subscriber number MH um I didn't like my own videos mhm so it was 300 50 public videos before I didn't absolutely hate my videos I I couldn't watch my own videos back right too critical look at the video my God you suck this sucks this is all terrible but people still were watching

it so okay I just won't watch it but they can't so it'll help them but I'm not going to watch myself back yeah uh and it was 700 videos until I inspired myself and then like I made a video and I remember I was at an event one a master friend that I was hosting and I got so upset uh leaving because I felt like I was giving people exactly what the right answer was but nobody was listening and I just got too frustrated so I came home and I just made a video about it

I'm like sitting on the floor and I just put The laptop like on the bed and I'm just ranting for 15 minutes or whatever I got to find that one uh and that was the first video I looked back I was like man like hey I can make videos this is great 700 videos later 700 public videos right so like why I keep going well I just it was helping people mhm so I never thought about quitting the channel and I felt like I was failing myself with the skills but I never felt Like the

whole thing was failing but I also didn't know it was going to work out so it was never like okay if I just keep doing this man come 2024 I'm going to be crushing it right no idea you weren't setting like that blueprint up yeah I I like I I I'm way more uh thoughtful and strategic now obviously but at the beginning it was just I just want to serve yeah I just want to help like it's helping people yeah and if every one comment that came in was was Gold like oh my God it's

helping people I made a PowerPoint that I would watch every morning and it had the background of Michael Bolton I would go the distance that played I you know that song and I would I would bring up some of the comments on my channel because I wasn't getting enough com I wasn't getting a lot of comments right right now we get it's like you can't keep up with all the comments U but at the beginning I wasn't getting any Comments so anytime I got a comment that was good I would put it in my PowerPoint

file and I would watch it every morning as a reminder like yeah see like people need this people like what I'm doing even though I'm not very good and don't think I'm making good content yet but the only thing that kept me going was I I felt like it was serving and helping people and I just wanted to serve and help people I think that's a really important method right there showing Yourself the the evidence and then having self- acknowledgement along the way of like hey I am serving people I am making progress and I

like I'm happy with myself for being this consistent in something 700 videos is is impressive I didn't value my consistency though I didn't look at it like as a badge of honor right I was just used to working hard mhm my first business I worked hard VC business I worked hard so YouTube I'm going to work hard my website I worked I Was just now I can look back and say okay yeah my identity like I would like to work hard on things that I care about but in the moment I wasn't like okay but

at least I got 700 videos up I'm working hard right it wasn't in my mental model at the time it was just this is this this video might help another 70 people so it was like full process focus and and coming from a place of who can I impact positively yeah I hope it helps I hope it helps somebody it's helping People we're getting a couple hundred views it's people keep going I love your quote uh of this inner Mantra of I do difficult things leaning into hey leaning into the discomfort of things consistently to

then build up that muscle of of immediately doing the tough thing first I'm curious like it sounds like that was forged very early and just kept going man where did that start from probably I think a lot of these things were kind Of forged early and only got vocalized when you look back the dots can connect in a line but it wasn't a game plan that I was trying to follow like I do difficult things now is uh okay it's a it it allows me to be more strategic going forward but it uh definitely took

time to develop where did how do difficult things come from um I mean probably my parents mhm And just all the still all the hard work of making the first company happen and struggling and it not working and just keep going at it but I can't pinpoint the moment where I started to say I do difficult things it's like this is what I want to teach people this is this is like my own Mantra to myself like getting over the hurdle of you know being nervous about making your first video let alone the first 700

and consistently doing that and over coming That internal dialogue of um you know I feel butterflies or you know for the first video I didn't tell myself I do difficult things for sure literally just do it yeah it definitely came later than that for sure the first video I did all the same mistakes that most people do like I thought it I I wanted to be perfect I wanted it to look good so I had my friend uh Mark drer who had a video production company come and spend the day with me to film one

video Mhm where we ended up doing mostly b-roll anyway because I was stressed about memorizing the lines if you go back and watch my first video I will I'm in I'm in a suit okay I'm sitting down tie all the way to the top stressed out of my mind to try to memorize like some key it's not a long video and I'm only on camera total time for like a couple minutes but I'm I'm trying to memorize the lines and I I suck at memorizing in General MH and so we ended up doing mostly b-roll

of me reading a script and then like some inserts of me on camera and then I realized I can't have Mark I can't spend a day to make a video each time I can't have Mark come out each time and do this this is not going to work so at least I have my entrepreneurial mind going so then I I borrowed a video camera from my friend and made the next couple videos making all the mistakes like window behind me Super back lit no Lighting on my face right just silhouetted like it's so bad right

no microphone all the mistake watch like oh wow wow I can't even but there's here why can't you see my face it's yeah you need the sun on your face not behind you like all the all the things you don't know the production things yeah and then I got a a little flip camera I you even remember those little cameras that I remember I I would put on a a bookcase yeah and and film me And what I didn't notice was like I would film it but then there's still a little little wobble as it's

like adjusting cuz you touched it and then it's got a settle but I would touch it and then just I couldn't notice the wobble but I would just touch it and then film yeah but then the whole intro is like it's like you're seasick watching me so I was like oh wow okay don't do that next so all these little on top of me sucking on camera Right all the production stuff I'm trying to figure out right I have so much more respect for the people who do all of this stuff you I don't know

how to do any of this setup three cameras and lights and audio and the whole night all that stuff I didn't say I do difficult things I was just mostly so at that point when I was doing my YouTube channel I already had I was doing the VC business we're having some success there way faster success than my my software Company right like if I brought them a good deal we could start I'm learning right away we're closing deals ASAP like that yeah I started my website M and started building up we had 100,000 pages

of content on the website wow and YouTube was little fun thing I was doing on the side MH while at the VC while at the VC and while doing my website okay so the website was the website started to become a business so I was doing all I did everything on the website myself To generate leads for the VC business so I was writing articles about raising Capital right people would SEO find it through Google then they contact and I set them up okay then people said hey can can I write for your website and

we had marketing consultants business coaches whatever want to write for the website then so yeah okay you have content cool let's put it up it helps build the brand I guess helps more people no real Business model that behind it then AdSense came out and you can make money from advertising from traffic so the first day I earned like 30 cents or something but like oh okay but I could optimize this the entrepreneur brain starts going to work and then you know then I'm making 10 bucks a day and then 100 bucks a day then

300 bucks a day then whatever and so I started building up a team where now we're recruiting people to come right for the website hey Give us your content put on our website we have these people and so we got to 100,000 pages of content wow um while I was still doing the VC stuff this was my little side hustle inside of the VC business then YouTube I learned about YouTube because some of our authors you know were making YouTube videos I learned about it and so I was just curious about it it was just

a pure curious fun little like it didn't have to work out for sure and uh I just like That 50 people saw a video and serving people in that in that way sharing so we just kept going and then then it got to the point where YouTube became a business I I just shut my website down like overnight I just decided done yeah 100,000 Pages my whole business that business was gone and I just I told I I brought my team over I told my team like for me when I when I lose interest in

something mhm I'm out yeah yeah and and sometimes you can make I always want to Be able to make a fast pivot sometimes that involves other people so it's ethically not right to just like leave right but we'll figure out the transition path the the transition path totally cuz I want out um so I was loving YouTube yeah and I was not loving the website and just being a Content machine there and so uh yeah I moved we had eight people I think at the time M gave them all roles in my new YouTube business

and shut down the website the Website became it's like all about SEO and optimizing for keywords and everything driving tons of Google traffic and then the next day was a picture and it just said like new website coming soon or something killed everything just done done that was the the next touch point is the power of bringing on a mentor cuz you brought on Steve I'm not sure his last name but then you did 10,000 videos to together or he coached you I just wanted to jump Into that a little bit the power of having

a highquality mentor and what that did for you and the YouTube channel the brand yeah so Steve's my agent he's in New York okay and when I I first learned about him through one of the authors on my website and he said well my my agent wants me to do this like what do you mean your agent like I heard of a sports agent or a music agent but like you're a business guy why do you have an agent This is what does he do MH and so can I meet him and so he introduced

me and then I started working with Steve and uh Steve gave me a lot of a lot of love and a lot of push um he he'd work with a lot of bigname people he worked with Mel Robbins and Grant Cardone and some of these guys helping them build their brand and he said I like your message but you suck on camera like great man I'm 5 years in like I thought I was getting better and like I suck right and most of the new people he was bringing on he was bringing on people from

CNN and CNBC people who are like camera ready but most of people I bring on are great on camera but have no message they don't know what they're going to talk about because they're being used to giving a script and like you're the opposite you have a great message but you suck on camera so I'm going to take a flyer on you the first Homework he said was we got to tell your foundation story so like in a 20 to 40 minute video you got to tell your story MH and and we'll see we'll see

if we like keep you or not like he was just I think he just liked me and saw the spark yeah like hopefully like maybe something works out I don't know about this guy cuz they didn't fit the mold of what I what they typically look for yeah and then I I did it three times a day so I'd make the video in the morning I'd send It to him you give me feedback as your like Foundation story why you do what you do I'd do it again over lunch you send it back with feedback

I do it again at dinner he sent me feedback overnight the next morning I did it again I did it like 40 times this version of these videos and I started getting better cuz he gave me feedback and these were not like a 20 second video or two-minute video it's like you got to do the whole thing it's like 20 to 40 minutes each Time he pick one thing apart do it again do it again do it again like okay I'm put in the Reps and so it took 40 takes or so to finally get

my story out uh and still not anywhere close to perfect but just way ahead of at least I'm saying the things that he wants me to say um but then I just kept putting in the work and within a couple months I became I went from being the worst at the agency to being the one where people like he was using my channel as an example like Look what Evan's doing you should be doing what he's doing only because I was I was doing the work and I was listening to his advice right I mean

everybody else was they might have started off being more talented but they were making a video a month and I'm doing three videos a day so I just passed them and became the the best case scenario there I remember when when I first joined I said who's the biggest one here in your Agency on YouTube he said Grant okay I'm gonna pass Grant and we did not that Grant cares you know Grant's done amazing things um but that just became like okay we're gon to get we're going to get a bigger Channel than than Grant

um and now we've helped him grow his channel and like you know he's a friend of the channel been on a bunch of times uh but Steve was the right person at the right time and still still helps with a bunch of things in the company but he pushed Me to think bigger of what was possible and then also gave me the guidance of like here's what you actually need to do um and he was responsive to like I asked for help and he give it to me an hour later right so it ended up

being pretty quick like meeting Steve and then marrying my wife Nina both happened in the same year and then that's when we started to go from 2,000 subscribers to I forget what the next one was 7 to 20 To whatever and you just start see yeah so when people say Well when did it all take off I don't know what what there're the numbers what's taking off to you is it from 2 to 10 or 10 to 30 or whatever the numbers are but both having a mentor to kind of guide and get feedback as

well as having a a partner who was who was cheering me on and yeah those two things made a huge difference and uh start to see major growth in the channel that's amazing man yeah I'm curious but It's like I wasn't working any harder right I was just I was working like Steve gave me smarter things to work on and Nina gave me just more confidence and belief but I was still grinding in making content same work ethic yeah just applied to this different strategies and different mindset and it just did so much better the

right people the right strategies and then the work ethic applied outpaced any Talent it was just No Talent yeah I mean go back and look at the videos it's objectively zero talent I like any anybody in the space would look at that and say that's going to be a star right there with this wobbly phone and like can't talk properly to the camera yeah for sure time invested in doing the work man I'm curious if you had any wisdom for anyone that's looking to go from 0 to one meaning that they're about to Embark into

the unknown and maybe they're Afraid to to take that leap you know to not go the the standard route and to take the beted on themselves what you know core wisdom could you share there well that being afraid is in a good enough reason like you just start there with the question like what what advice would you give to somebody zero to one but they're afraid to take the leap well you're I Don't accept that fear is is a good enough reason so and if you just thought about it like what okay what like what's

the life that you're trying to build and the fact that you're afraid is the only thing holding your back really at the end of day it's mostly fear you can come up with all these re I don't know what camera to buy I don't know what the you can figure out almost anyhow if you dig deep enough they're just afraid and so you've Accepted that fear is a good enough reason for you not to do this thing and I want to constantly challenge that at least for myself yeah leading by example Le with with belief

deep inner belief I'm curious like someone that maybe they're at one they're looking to go to 100 or they've reached a plateau how can they turn it up a notch and and like maybe they found a good flow but they They want to take it to the next level what what can people do to to hit that exponential curve maybe so I'm just going to say there's the 10year growth on YouTube for you right maybe someone's at that like year five and they're not seeing the results and we are in a comparison age whether we

like it or not yeah it's it's usually then um better information mentors and then thinking bigger MH because when you have started to do Well this is something we talk about on the sales team it's like okay whatever whatever number they come up with like hey we have 35,000 subscribers we have a million subscrib cool it's a good start it's a good start it's always a good start because that's what they think like somebody who's coming to us and they're going to join Movie Makers and they have 50,000 subscribers on their Channel other people might

be saying wow you already have you have 100,000 Subscribers you already got the silver play button like you're crushing it man yeah he or she is not telling themselves that they're crushing it cuz they want to be greater they want to be at a million they want to be at whatever they or Revenue whatever the company goals are entrepreneurs and people we love progress yeah we don't want to stay stuck so no matter what we've done it's great to look back and say okay I've gone this far I'm grateful but he's like You I want

to do more so we'll always say okay that's that's a good start M and so what's going to change cuz doing more the same probably won't get you much better results so even me and my I don't know how many videos I made uh in the first 5 years like we can go back and look I guess so there but I made a lot of videos in the first 5 years yeah I was working hard but I wasn't getting the results mhm so what what changed was I Got I got mentorship and I was able

to start thinking bigger it's the same thing if you're going from one to 100 or whatever our metrics are looking at you want to you want to escape a plateau it's being around people who think bigger and then getting better ideas for actually how to do it right like whatever you're stuck at like if you're I'm stuck at 100,000 subscribers I can't break through it's like I don't know what I've tried everything I'm just Stuck and if you're hanging out with people who have millions it's like this is a nothing this is not a plateau

this is a fake Plateau for the group that you're inh this is like getting around those people who've done a lot more and just being around them is already inspiring that energy how they operate the energy um but then also their ideas for what to do it's always that combination like the energy the motivation the the bigger thinking plus The actual tactics of what to do that's very valuable and wise I'm curious last closing remarks fostering a deeper sense of inner belief when the world doubts you do you have or maybe your own internal dialogue

is you're coming up with self-doubt on the journey any steadfast foundational inner mantras quotes principles for people to Foster more belief yeah I think it's more inner than outer you know like I think it we we our own worst critic me hating my own Videos for the first 350 instead of saying okay I did this cool like I'm going I'm learning I got better I didn't have that lens at the time right the the biggest thing that's helped me is my own channel like watching videos being around successful entrepreneurs so if I'm part of my

daily routine is I'm watching a video of somebody who's doing something way bigger than me and in just seeing how they operate it it pulls me to want to do more and be bigger and get Better uh Zig Ziggler was saying you know motivation is like brushing your teeth like doing it once is not enough you got to do it daily and so uh no matter how great today is is awesome doing an interview tomorrow you wake up and you're starting over again right so I need that injection and so whatever problem I'm facing if

I then watch Elon Musk or Steve Jobs or whoever like man I'm this is not a problem like this is this is a Bab issue not in a negative Way in a way that that pushes me forward but I think you need to push most people will push themselves down mhm uh and people say don't compare yourself to other people right I I think that's that can be true if you push yourself down MH I like use as a push forward say well that's possible I may not get that far but like I could do

a lot more than I'm doing right now so that push forward is possible but I think you need the push mhm cuzz without The push stay still so don't push yourself down push yourself forward but push believe believe to watch me coach another entrepreneur check it out right there next to me I think you'll love it continue to believe and I'll see you there the biggest shift that's happened over the past 5 years with YouTube is it's become a place for Education people are going to learn if I want to learn how to get blank

I want to learn how to Improve my marriage