A (2:36)

Thanks for having me. Kevin, I should have you intro me everywhere. That's great.

B (2:39)

Yeah, I'm getting better at it. So let's start with a little bit about you. I always start with guests, like what experiences led you to dedicate your life to helping entrepreneurs believe in themselves and take action. And we'll get to your book in a minute because I loved it.

A (2:52)

Well, cool, thank you. It means a lot. I think your purpose comes from your pain. So I think whatever you struggle most with is what you want to help other people through. So I struggled a lot as an entrepreneur and I struggled with a lot of self belief and still do for the next level. And so that's what I'm, I'm trying to do. I think the work we always do is trying to help the younger version of ourselves. And there's lots of people right now who are younger us and they, they need our help. And so I'm trying the best I can every day.

B (3:20)

I love it, man. Because when I first started my first business that we successfully sold for an eight figure exit a couple years ago, it was very successful exit. There wasn't anybody there for me when I started and we didn't even have podcasts when I started. So it was a while back we didn't have resources. If we wanted something, we actually had to go get a book and read it. I know it's totally old school, but that's what we had to do.

A (3:41)

I was in a fun era, right. I still remember being in high school and the Internet became a thing, but I had to go to high school and use books from the library. It was wild, wild and what an era. But now it's, I mean it's great. I spent the first. When did I start YouTube? 2008 or 2009? I think I opened my channel 2008 and had put up my first video, 2009. So it's, it's been a few minutes. And when I started, I had to convince people like you to try to make content like I just wish there was more. I spent the first 10 years maybe of my YouTube career fighting to try to get people who had been successful to share their message, to create a show, to get it out There. And like, why. Why would I do that? Like, personal branding was not a thing. Education on YouTube was not a thing. And it. It slowly came so that now everybody, I think, understands the value of having a personal brand. And I love the people who have had exits like yours are now sharing their wisdom, bringing on guests. I wish your show was around when I was getting started because I probably could have used a lot of the wisdom and advice too.

B (4:44)

Yeah, I wish I had discovered blind blaming before. But back to that and blind blaming, it's. We talk often about how people point the finger outward, like the market, the economy, others. I'm sure you probably found yourself doing it as you were struggling along with your YouTube channel, when the real issue could be something else in your work. How often does the thing holding someone back become something they're not even aware of, which is kind of at the core of the framework for the book.

A (5:07)

Yeah, like, forget my work. Me, my own, My own business. Yeah. I remember being at an event. Brendan Burchard, friend of the channel, invited me to his place. You're Brendan fan? Okay, great.

B (5:19)

Oh, yeah. The to be list changed my world. So just that one thing from his book, just creating a to be list changed my entire identity, especially the last few years. And that's what caused us to scale and grow and even lose £40. So, yeah.

A (5:32)

All right. Wow, what a story. That's great. So any. Brendan invited me to hang out with his friends. We did this for like three years in a row. And it's all the people and kind of thought leadership, entrepreneurship. It was me and Brendan and Mel Robbins and Lewis Howes and Jay Shetty and Ed Mylett and, you know, throw in 30 people, all the people in kind of entrepreneurship, personal development kind of space. And his format was really cool. So we. He booked this huge place, you know, close to his house. And it was just a huge table. And so you imagine like 40 people sitting around the table and it was over two or three days and everybody basically just had 15 minutes and that was. It was just hot seats the whole day.

B (6:12)

Oh, wow.

A (6:12)

As we ran around, that's just like whatever you're struggling with. And like the real. Because everybody is saying all the great things. You look at everybody's Instagram and life is perfect. And then like, you go here, like, this is what I'm struggling with. And I'd work with a bunch of these people over the years and just in the nature of what I do. And when it got to me, I had, you know, blind blaming glasses on, I guess. I didn't know the, didn't know the word for it yet, but thank you, Kevin, for the education. And I figured whatever question I ask is probably not going to be the right question anyway. Like, I'm so stuck in my own stuff that I probably even know what question I ask. So when it got to me, I just said, hey, a bunch of you guys, I've worked with you over the past X number of years. What do you think my biggest blind spot is?

B (6:55)

I love it.

A (6:56)

And then basically in front of everybody, it was mostly Brendan, Dean Graziosi, Tom Bilyeu, Lisa Bilyeux and Jamie Kren Lima, I think were the, were the ones who just, you know, poured into me in a, in a swift kick to the butt but loving hug at the same time way. And what they came up with was not what I would have asked anyway. But if they're all saying it from working with me, then, huh, maybe that's the thing I should actually work on. And their advice was like, you should charge more and be clear on what you're selling. It's like, sell your. Like, I don't know enough. We hired you, we've worked with you, it's great. But I want to know exactly all of your offerings and I want you to charge me more. Like, oh, okay, that's great. I wasn't even thinking about that.

B (7:41)

I can do that.

A (7:42)

And so I've tried to take that into other events. I don't always do the best job, but assuming somebody has a little bit of context on me, I try to have people from the outside just poke holes, like, hey, instead of me asking you a question, like, ask me questions and, and spot my mistakes and where my logic is wrong because that's probably where we're going to get the most learning instead of whatever, you know, limited question I think is the most important right now.

B (8:07)

Well, sounding is important because you're demonstrating what I like. What's called a growth mindset. You're open to feedback. You don't take it as a personal attack. It's usually something I have to start with before I'll work with a client. Say, listen, you know, I'm going to tell you some things that you may not believe in, you may not see because you're blinded and you're blind spots. But I need to make sure that you adapt a growth mindset and you're open to feedback and you're willing to take action on it. So I love that you're doing that and I love that you said it on the show because I think more entrepreneurs need to be open to feedback. Because in the book that I wrote, there's several things in there. One of them is when you actually become blind to solutions. And it's when you think, you say, yeah, I'm totally open to new ideas. I think that's a great idea. I'm totally going to do that as soon as I get back. And you can see it in their face that they don't believe a word you're saying. It's not going to work for you, even though you've been doing it for 20 years. Have you ever run into that over the years where people are like, I don't think that's going to work?

A (8:58)

Yeah. It's something I. I even talk about with my sales team. When we. We have our programs, movement makers and brandlytics and our sales team, it's like just catching the people who are like, they're coming on a call because they're trying to improve their personal brand. They're trying to make content that they want to win on YouTube. But there's always a. There's the reluctance, there's the fear, there's getting people to make a video at the beginning. I don't know how long you thought about making this podcast.

B (9:21)

I've been working on my studio for seven months, and I've got a YouTube coach and I've got the podcast going. We got everything going all crazy. It's just a totally different career for me and it's very different. It's been very hard and very frustrating, so. Yep.

A (9:32)

And it's especially hard for somebody who's had success. It's very humbling to then start over from the beginning, from scratch in the field that you. I'm sure you've done interviews and such from your entrepreneurial career, but it's different than hosting a show and then making a bunch of mistakes and things not going well. It's like, it feels like it's amatro all over again. It's like. And you had a lot of success. It's very humbling. It's why a lot of people can't do it. They can't start over because they just want to win out of the gate. And when you're doing something brand new, you're very rarely going to just win out of the gate. So, I mean, kudos to you for doing that, investing in team and hiring coaches, et cetera. But we see that when we're working with clients, too. It's like they have this ambition, they have this mission. They want to inspire the world. They want to get their message out to people. They want to learn the practice and the methodology to do it. But then they're saying, yes, even saying, yes, I'll do it. But then they get in front of the camera, and it's just deer in the headlights, completely freeze, forget. And then. And then they overwhelm themselves with, like, oh, but, okay, once I get the right microphone, then I'll make the video. And, like, once I get the right lighting set up, then I'll make the video. It's just always this search of perfection that never happens. And a good coach calls that out. It's like it's holding their mission in their heart. It's not just about making the videos. Like, why are you doing this? Like, what? Why make this podcast, Kevin? Like, who cares? You have money. What's the point? Well, it's trying to reach people. Let's try to inspire other entrepreneurs. Right? It's like, we lose sight of the mission and we get stuck in the weeds of what microphone and camera and light and everything else. And so a good coach, I think, will hold the person's mission in their heart and remember it more than you do sometimes. And then that becomes the push. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah. I'm getting stuck in, like, details that don't matter, and my first video is going to suck anyway, so let's go. And we're going to get better each time, right? I mean, that. That becomes the process.

B (11:17)

Yep. And it was the same thing I went through, because the first time I got on videos 40 pounds heavier, I was like, oh, my God, this is awful. I look so bad. They're like, you're.

A (11:25)

You killed your video. You're so good.

B (11:26)

And I just kept watching it going. I am going to get on the treadmill right now. It was so bad. I kept them up on purpose because now people can see the journey, and it's actually kind of fun to look back. And the coaches were like, no, you are not taking these down. You are not reshooting these. You leave them up as a reminder. I mean, I even had to have him. I got so frustrated trying to put the damn cameras together and all the crap. The guy got it. It was just all in one big pile that actually flew a guy out, and he helped me put it together. But once we had it together, it got easier, and then it gets better, and then people are like, hey, I really liked your video, but the fun thing for me is Evan, and maybe you can tell me if something is wrong here. Is the crappy videos is what people seem to like sometimes.

A (12:06)

It's also like, if you think about what is your message, is your message, don't do anything unless it's perfect. Right? It's like, no. Okay, so then you're not living your message if you take those videos down. So it should be. I should be able to see you suck at the beginning and be 40 pounds heavier. And like, the lighting. I was just on a podcast before this. It was his 21st episode, and his, his whole thing crashes. Like, it goes away. Like, Riverside crashes on him. Hopefully doesn't happen here. And it just f. He is, like, probably panicking now. Oh, my God, what happened? Like, we waited months to book this thing, and now 20 minutes in, the whole thing crashes. I hope, like, if I will probably reschedule because, you know, that sucks when it happens. But I want whatever happened at the beginning to be in the original. Like, to show that it crashed and that, like, he was then panicking, trying to figure what happened. And then we kept going.

B (12:58)

Right.

A (12:59)

I've had interviews where people just forgot to press record.

B (13:04)

How do you make me look again? Because I'm usually pretty bad, bad at that.

A (13:07)

I've had to remind other podcasts that, like, hey, are we gonna, Are you gonna press record? It's like, oh, my God, thank you. It's fine. Like, it's just part of the journey. But be able to see those messy moments. Be able to see your first. My first video on our channel now has a lot of views because people want to go back and see what the first video was. Right? It wasn't. I was a great video, but I, I, I was trying to be perfect too. I had my friend come in and film it because I thought you needed a professional videographer. And I'm in a suit and a tie and I'm trying to memorize my script and I'm sweating and like, I'm not a suit and tie kind of guy. If you watch all the other videos. But I thought I had to be perfect. And so people go back and watch those videos. Like, a lot of people will see my journey. And on the website, it shows our year over year subscriber growth. Like year one, I had 25 subscribers. And like year six, I had 9,000 or something. Like, the first six years of making content, I got 9,000 subscribers, but then the next six, I went to 2 million. So, like, something changed in there, obviously. But to see the, to see the journey and see the story, and people will tag me and post to say hey, I'm ahead of Evan Carmichael by year three. It's like, okay, great. Like, go.

B (14:11)

I love it. Go for it, man.

A (14:13)

People want to see the journey, right? And so unless it's something that is just not ethical or, you know, you don't believe that thing anymore, there's very rarely a case to take down a video. And if it's just that you're a little overweight and the camera didn't look good and you were stumbling on you, I think, like, that's the best because it shows how far you've gotten. And this is episode, you know, whatever number for you, you keep going for five years. You look back on this and say, oh, my God, I was so bad on that episode. That's the whole point, right?

B (14:43)

That was fun. I put it off for five years, and then 20, 24 is when I did my first podcast. I was shocked at how well it worked, number one. Number two, it was actually jld. Do you know who that is? John Lee Dumas. Yeah. He helped me the most. Very early on. He wasn't picking on me. I just said, do you have any advice for me as a new podcaster? Because you're like, the expert. He's like, yeah, totally. Get into it. Read people's books, research them, cyber stalk out of them, and I think you'll have a lot of fun. And then all of a sudden, my producers are like, what happened to you? You're like 20 times better. I was like, he just told me to read books and research the guys. So we started doing it and coming up with great intros for people, and they seem we have a good time. It's a better conversation. So I'm glad you said great.

A (15:29)

Yeah, I mean, I was on. I was on his show a long time ago, and his shows are much shorter. At least they were at the time. And so we did a show in like seven minutes or something.

B (15:38)

Oh, really? Wow, that's fast.

A (15:40)

Are we done?

B (15:40)

That's it.

A (15:41)

Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. In and out. But maybe he's gone longer since. It's been a long time. My favorite thing when I'm doing an interview is to watch other interviews, and hopefully the person I have on has already done some other kind of interview. And then I'll always look for, like, where did the host not go deeper? So the host has the question, the guest, I respond. And there's a. I wish he asked, like, that follow up. Right. And so that's my favorite technique, is to watch those existing videos. A lot of times when you bring on authors. And we've had a bunch of kind of big name authors on the channel. They will get used to telling the same stories. So then your podcast is basically the same as every other podcast. So I'll summarize their story. So like I know you did this and you went from here, you did that. Here's what I want to know. And so you're shortcutting their story so they don't tell it again. But then you're asking the follow up question that nobody else asked. And so I'm always just kind of watching their previous interviews to just look for the spot. It doesn't mean that the host made a bad call, just I would have asked a follow up that they didn't. And so that's where my curiosity takes over.

B (16:41)

I love it. And our method that we teach is called the RCD method. It stands for reflect, connect and decide. In the reflect stage, we actually take people through what's called an obstacle DNA. It's an obstacle deep nexus analysis. And what we try to do is find we look at five different areas of people's life or what they're doing. And the first strand is health because we found that a lot of times people are just ignoring their health or even hormones, things like that. But the second one is purpose, which is what I enjoyed reading about your book and I wanted to spend just a little time there. How do you suggest people find their purpose? Or how do you know when there's misalignment? Or have you ever seen situations where people are struggling as an entrepreneur and you know deep down inside, even though they can't see it, that they have a purpose problem? Have you ever seen that before? And can you think of a story?

A (17:26)

I think your purpose comes from your pain. So we talked about that. We're like, whatever you struggled with is what you want to help other people through. The way to find out if you're misaligned is look at your calendar and see if you're excited by the things that are in your calendar. And so when I see I'm an introvert, I mean, it doesn't come across, Kevin, in things like this because I've been doing interviews and podcasts all day. But when I see my calendar and I look at, oh, this afternoon I'm going to meet Kevin and here's what the show is about. Oh, this is cool. We haven't had one of these before, you know, the two of us. But it's like I'm excited for. And so when people say, well, well, what's your work life balance? Well, I don't know. What's work like? Is this, is, is this work what we're doing right now? It's not work for me. It's just life. It's just all life. And so if you look at your calendar, I think most people wake up and drive to a job that they hate. And so if you look at what's in your schedule and you're dreading the stuff you're about to do, you're. You're doing work that isn't valuable, it doesn't feel meaningful to anybody else. You don't like the people you're working with. You feel like whether you show up or today or not, like, doesn't really make a difference. That's the path to depression and stress and anxiety and like suicide at the worst rates. But if you look at your calendar, you're excited about what you're doing. If you feel it's meaningful work, it's going to help somebody. The book is called Built to Serve. So like humans are. You are built to serve. You want to serve. We all want to wake up and feel like we're going to do something today that matters. It has a meaningful impact on people. And you and I want to serve the world. We want to have impact in a big way. Other people are not. There's just like the 25 closest people to them. But if you woke up every day and felt like you were serving somebody in a meaningful way, you're going to have a much happier, much more purposeful life. So your purpose comes from your pain, so that other people don't struggle like you do. And how do you know if you're in alignment or not? Well, just look at your. Just. Do you feel happy? Do you feel like you're serving people? You look at your calendar, does it feel like you're excited for the week ahead? And if not, it doesn't mean you have to like kill everything and go to Costa Rica for a month and find yourself. It's just you can slowly inject things in that bring more meaning by serving others.

B (19:30)

I love it. Well, you've also said that most people, and I think you just said it, don't believe they're good enough. How do you think that belief shows up in day to day decisions that entrepreneurs make?

A (19:40)

I think it shows up subconsciously, like it's a default pattern. I think everybody has imposter syndrome. Everybody. Like you sold your business for eight figures, but then took five years to start this podcast, right? It's like this is not a. I mean, thank you for sharing that because it shows how human you are. This is all of us. We all feel we're not good enough for the next step, which is why I think the biggest problem in the world is lack of belief. What I'm trying to help people through on a daily basis.

B (20:09)

I agree with you, my business partner, that we each partner go, we do masterminds together like you do and have a wonderful group of women that we work with. 40 people in the group, it's amazing. Had 100% reup rate this year, which was a huge compliment. But he's writing a book called Belief Breaking. So I'm, I'm so excited about it because he's done a couple of initial talks about it. I just think that. But it's hard though because they're so ingrained us. We ingrained in us some of the psychology behind the blind blaming stuff that we're talking about today. It really keeps us stuck for years. Have you ever seen people that are stuck when ended up being something completely different than they thought it was?

A (20:41)

Yeah, again, like me all the time. Probably right now. It's like, it's why I appreciate outside perspectives. So I mean, if you and I were having dinner, hanging out, I just said, hey Kevin, like if you said, how can I help? Like, I don't know Kevin, how can you help me? And then what I would love is you would then ask me questions. Well, okay, well tell me about whatever. And then however I answer, I try to just do the best to answer your questions. But you're taking me down your world and your path and you're going to ask me different questions. Right. So if you're in a breakout room with somebody. If I'm in a breakout room with you at some mastermind. Right. And it's like my turn on the hot seat. And you're going to say, okay, Evan, how can I help? It's like, I don't know, Kevin. I'm trying to figure out what I need help with. What would you say next?

B (21:22)

I say, well, I try to get more focused. Do you have. What are some of the things that light you up? Tell me about that. Let's start there.

A (21:28)

Great. That's a whole different direction. Right? That's a cool. That's how Kevin, Kevin would ask what lights you up? Nobody's asked me that in a breakout session. So you're taking me down your journey and I get to learn from somebody who sold his business for eight figures. Cool. And with them with somebody else they're going to ask me. They might ask me, what am I grateful for? Somebody else might ask me, well, what's your morning routine? Somebody else might ask me something else. And so it allows for better coaching. Instead of, I said, hey, I think this is my problem because maybe I find out nothing lights me up, Kevin. So then whatever question I ask, it doesn't even matter because nothing lights me up. And so hopefully, in talking to you, you're going to uncover something, because you're making me think a different way. You're making me think your way. I'm entering your world and you're going to make me think your way for our 20 minutes in our breakout room together. And then that's going to give me a whole different perspective and shift me out of whatever world that I was in for the moment. And hopefully, if you do that enough, you get all these different ideas that are way different compared to the limited world and question that you thought you had going in.

B (22:28)

Awesome. Love the advice. It's actually that C stands for connect. So once you reflect and figure out what's going on, it's important to connect with a coach or a mastermind group. That's what we teach in the book and the whole concept. Because I find that when you're in your sphere of influence, they're stuck in the same blame loop that you are. They can't really see. But when you get somebody who's out of your circle, like you just said, they can see stuff that you can't see, which is the whole point of us being here. That's what we're trying to do with the podcast as well.

A (22:54)

Well, the people listening to this are probably the most optimistic, helpful, caring people in their circle. Like, the people listening to this are the ones pouring into the people in their circle, which is great. Like, keep doing that. But who. Who pours into you? And what's funny is most people don't have anybody who's pouring into them. And so if you join a mastermind group, you know, whether it's yours or whatever group, a very weird thing happens when you have a bunch of givers who have trouble receiving. Nobody's ever asked me that. What do you mean you want to help me? I'm trying to.

B (23:23)

I want to help.

A (23:24)

Yeah, but you can help me later. But I want to help you. And it's opening up the receiving muscle is actually really hard for givers because you're just used to giving all the time. And so the connection becomes really valuable. That last piece, because when you can Be in a room of people where you're not, like, who actually are cheering you on, who are not judging you and jealous of you and are actually willing to just. Just try to help, just because, like, they want to help without some other agenda. It's a very liberating feeling that, oh, my God. Like, I'm not alone on this journey. This is. This is amazing. It's incredible.

B (24:01)

Yeah. It's happened to me before. Like, why are you helping me? I was like, because this is my goal. We're trying to impact 100 million. We're trying to help 100 million people get to the root cause of what they're doing. If it's just a conversation, a conference, but let's go. Let's not worry about that. Let's go back to what I asked.

A (24:15)

Yeah, I mean, I know we're at time, but back to Brendan. Just. We started with Brendan, so we can end with Brendan. When I was in that group the first year again, it's all these friends and, like, I'm the believe guy, Right. But what I'm going to tell Brendan, Believe in yourself more. Like, what the heck am I going to tell Brendan about Believe? And so, you know, I was there to help on the YouTube side of things because I've done more with YouTube than anybody in the room. But then he said something at the end, hey, before, you know, before we start, make sure you ask for something. Like, make sure you ask. Don't just. Don't just. You're going to help people by default because that's who you are. But you need to ask for something. And I'm glad he did, because I didn't know if, you know, I might not have had the courage to ask. It wasn't even my back to being blind. It wasn't even on my radar to ask. It wasn't even my intention or my goal to ask anything until Brendan put it on my radar for that day. And I got incredible value because I did.

B (25:08)

I love it. We'll wrap it up. But we actually call that give and ask. And I would do it in your. I'm sure you do it in your masterminds. But one quick question I like to ask everyone that's on the show, how do you prefer to invest in yourself? You've clearly invested yourself. You've mentioned masterminds and coaching. Anything else you want to leave the audience with? I ask every guest this question. How do you invest in yourself? Because you clearly has. And then we'll wrap it up and see how people can get in touch with you.

A (25:29)

I mean, to get in touch with me. I'm on YouTube, you know, go check it out. Any social media, I'm probably there. But how do I. It's a daily video from someone who inspires me.

B (25:38)

Oh, I love it.

A (25:39)

Every morning I wake up, I go. I'm outside my house within the first 10, 15 minutes and I'm. I'm watching a video from some entrepreneur who's done so much more than me and enter their world for an hour while I'm walking and learn a whole bunch of things. So if you're every day listening to something, watching something, checking out an episode from Kevin, every day you're entering people's worlds. You do that every day, you're going to come out a different person.

B (26:03)

I love it, man. Well, thank you for being here. I know we're out of time. I know you only had 30 minutes. I really appreciate you doing it, Forest. The listeners are going to love it. We'll put all of your links in the bottom of the YouTube because we're doing a YouTube version and an audio version, so we'll have them both. And I just love to stay in touch with you, man. I think. I think what you're doing is incredible. I definitely. If I probably would have met you first, I wouldn't have as much frustration as I've had the last year. Vice versa when I first started.

A (26:26)

I wish I knew you, but thanks for having me. It's been a blast.

B (26:28)

You betcha. Let's keep in touch. Sam.