How to Build Momentum | Evan Carmichael

Intro

I’m so honored and grateful to have you here. I really do appreciate your time. I feel like I know you just based on the conversations I’ve heard you have with other folks, as well as reading some of your books. Are you pretty used to that by now?

Response

Um, I guess it’s… it’s… I never thought it was weird. I don’t know why. I mean, my wife and I, when I started getting recognized, people would come up on the street and say, “Hey, how you doing? How’s Nah? How are the dogs? How’s the…” and insert whatever comment from a recent trip or something. And I… I don’t know, I just went with it. Nina was like, “Isn’t that weird that people are…” I don’t know, I just… I haven’t really had much of a filter or hide most things. So, there are a few topics, I guess, like my parents don’t like being too public, and so we don’t say too many things about that. But, I don’t know, I think it’s… I think it’s… I think it’s fun. I’ve never had any creepy like stalker or anything. So, we’re not going to manifest that on this show.

Discussion

Well, that’s a plus. Yeah, I don’t know. It’s… I think it’s fun. It’s an honor that people would want to spend time, value my opinion or whatever I’m up to. And super pumped to be on your show here today. Thanks, Evan.

Personal Interaction

No, I couldn’t agree more. I know I had my first moment where someone recognized me when I was walking here in Greenville a few weeks ago. And I was beyond flattered that the person was just sharing my work. And I just consider a new friend. I mean, that’s quite honestly how I get most of my followers. I’ll just go up to some random person on the street, and I’ll be like, “Hi, I have a Blog. Here’s my card. You should check it out.” So, I truly do love that personal interaction.

Fame and Normal Life

I’m sure at some point it gets… it gets too crazy. You know, when I go out, I’ll still wear… I mean, I wear this. This is what I wear. I’ve got 40 hoodies, and three of them are not this. So, this is what I wear around the house. It’s what I wear when I go out. And dependent on where I’m at, I get stopped. But I get stopped more frequently because I’m wearing, you know, the colors. I’m sure at some point when you get to, you know, whatever level, Kanye level, or Taylor Swift, or whatever, you just kind of want a normal life.

Remember, there’s a restaurant in New York, the Hunt and Fish Club that I went to, and they do these knife engravings that they put on the wall for their celebrity friends or whatever. So, I was there, and they made me a knife and they put it up on the wall. And they were just talking about how Bill Gates was there the week before or something. But he never books under his real name. He has a fake name. And I could just imagine, like, he’s there, and everybody wants to talk to him, and he’s like, at some point, I guess you can’t get work done. I’m not that famous yet, so I don’t have to worry about it. It’s still flattering. It’s still fun. Hasn’t interrupted any of my vacations or anything. So, good.

Momentum and Routines

I’m glad you’re in a good space. Good space. Well, Evan, let’s get right into it. I’m a big fan of your work, and you speak a lot about momentum. Right? In fact, that’s the title of one of your books that I recently just finished yesterday. And I know for myself that it’s easier to sustain momentum once I’m in that state. But oftentimes, it’s the getting into that state, right, that poses somewhat of a challenge. So, first of all, I feel like I’m going to use this conversation as a therapy session for me or as a personal coaching session, rather. But what are some simple steps that I could take to help put me in that flow state, be it related to a health goal, a business goal, or even just life goals?

Morning Routine

The biggest thing usually is just environment and routines, as boring as that sounds. It’s like, what do you do when you wake up? Yeah, and who is in your ear? Like, why I make my content, the channels, all the videos, is for me. Because I want Elon Musk in my ear or Steve Jobs in my ear or whoever, Maya Angelou, you know, like I want that in my ear every morning. Because we don’t wake up, or at least for me, I don’t wake up, thinking, “I’m going to go change the world today, guys. This is going to be the greatest day of my life. We’re going to go do…” That’s not how I ever wake up. And so, what makes a difference? Well, it’s the habits and routines and what we force into our ears. And so, most people will wake up and just go to the bathroom and load their Instagram and start Doom scrolling. And what just happened to the past 25 minutes, as opposed to being intentional about how you want to wake up.

Bel Walk

So, the most important part of my daily routine is what I call my Bel walk. And so, I get outside, even though I don’t want to. I live in Toronto, Canada. It’s snowy today, like a fresh dump of snow. It’s cold. I’m somewhat jealous. I’m looking outside like I…

Keep Going

Where people looking back don’t even notice the things that we notice. But the most important thing is that you just keep going. You know, you look at my YouTube journey, I show the numbers on my homepage of like year-over-year growth. I, for what it is, it’s like five years in, I still only had a couple of thousand subscribers. After five years of making content, you know, most people look at that and say, “Oh my failure, I should stop, I should quit.” Like, it’s not continuing. But, I think as entrepreneurs, as people who want to make an impact, we have a longer-term view than most people do.

Long-Term View

And most people look at that and they’re like, “Oh, well, it’s been five years, and you only have a few thousand subscribers.” And we look at it and say, “Okay, well, it’s been five years, but what’s it going to look like in five years from now?” And if you keep showing up, if you keep doing the work, if you keep improving, if you keep learning, if you keep trying to make a difference, eventually it’s going to pay off. And I think that’s the big difference maker. It’s just that commitment to keep going even when it feels like you’re not getting the results that you want.

Personal Growth

I love that, and that’s something that I can resonate with. And that’s something that I think about often is the long-term view. Because I feel like in the short term, especially when you’re just starting, it can be easy to get discouraged. You know, you’re not seeing the results that you want right away. And it’s like, “Oh, maybe this isn’t working.” But it’s that long-term view, it’s that consistency, it’s that commitment to personal growth and to improving and to getting better that really makes the difference in the end. And I think that’s something that I’ve learned from your content and from your books is just that commitment to keep going, to keep learning, to keep growing, to keep improving, even when it’s tough.

Impact and Legacy

Yeah, it’s really the people who make a massive impact, who have a long-lasting legacy, they’re the ones who didn’t quit when it got tough. They’re the ones who kept going even when it felt like they were failing. And, you know, I look at my own journey, and there have been so many moments where I wanted to quit. There have been so many moments where I doubted myself. There have been so many moments where I felt like, “What am I doing? This is not working.” But it’s that commitment to the vision, it’s that commitment to the impact that I want to make that keeps me going.

Passion and Purpose

And I think that’s the key. It’s finding that passion, finding that purpose, finding that why that’s greater than the obstacles that you’re facing. And when you have that, when you have that burning desire inside of you to make a difference, to leave a legacy, to have an impact, that’s what’s going to drive you forward, even when it gets tough.

Taking Action

So, I always encourage people, it’s like, find that why, find that purpose, find that passion, and let that be the driving force that gets you up every morning, that gets you taking action, that gets you moving towards your goals, even when it’s tough, even when it feels like you’re not making progress. Because in the end, it’s that commitment to the vision that’s going to make all the difference.

Conclusion

Absolutely. Evan, thank you so much for sharing your insights and your wisdom. It’s been a pleasure having this conversation with you, and I know that our listeners are going to gain a lot from it. So, thank you for being here and for sharing your knowledge with us.

Introduction

Like you only tried it for five weeks, it was five years, but it just kept going, and I kept focusing on who I was serving instead of who I wasn’t, and the fact that 50 people watch that video, I like 50 people watch that video, people, you know, um. So the only thing I had going for me was I, I just kept doing it, you know. I was introverted, shy, afraid to ask for help, super critical, judgmental, couldn’t watch my first 350 videos back without, like, I couldn’t watch the first 50 videos. I was that, look at it, um. And it took 700 public videos until I inspired myself, where I looked at it’s like, huh, like, that was pretty good. Yourself on the shoulder, you know what, like, okay, not bad Carmichael, not bad, 700 videos in, right?

Persistence and Courage

Yeah, I just kept going, and that focus on who I was serving and who I wasn’t serving really, really helped me. So I mean 34 episodes in, I would have never done this, I would have, I would have not had the courage to ask people to be on my show, yeah, they’d be like, I don’t know what I’m doing, um. So you’re already way ahead of where I was when I got started, thanks Evan, I appreciate that, yeah.

Inspiration and Purpose

And I think the thing with me, and I always, I share this with, you know, interviewees and my, my followers obviously know, but my inspiration is my mom. So she was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer back in 2018, and, well, and strong basically started as a platform for me to share all the research from an integrative standpoint that I was doing for her and all the complimentary therapy she was doing. And I mean, God touched it, and little by little, it just kind of grew. I built a community of doctors and then felt called to start a podcast last year because there was just so much I had to say.

Passion for Podcasting and Mental Health

But I think the cool thing is that with podcasting, I think everyone should have a podcast. I don’t necessarily think listeners or viewers matter. I think it’s just a wonderful channel to just, you know, say what you want to say and have a voice out there. But I’m really passionate too about mental and emotional health, right, and motivation and well-being. So that’s why I’m super excited to have guests like yourself on.

Balancing Ideas and Focus

But going back to the add comment, so once I’m in that flow state, I often want to go full speed ahead, right, with every idea that comes into my mind after that morning podcast, where like, all right, let’s go seize the day. But as the saying goes, Evan, it’s like, if we’re chasing two rabbits, we’re not going to catch either one, right? So something I’ve been struggling with is trying to figure out where to focus my time when it comes to which ideas to pursue.

Staying in Flow State

Do you have a process that you found to be helpful when it comes to abiding by that 80/20 principle and really discerning where to place your focus? Yeah, um, so when I’m in flow state, I try to stay there as much as I can for as long as I can, and I’ll, I’ll push other stuff to make that happen. My challenges might not be prescriptive to others is that it’s, it’s, I’m not always in flow state. It’s always like, this is the thing that I have to do today, oh my God, right? And so I have my calendar, and I find it helpful to do different things on different days. So every day of the week, I have a different theme.

Daily Themes

So today, that’s all I have to worry about is doing different shows and spreading the believe message and trying to help support people in their shows and their channels. Some of them are for me, and some of it is just, I mean, I don’t know why. I don’t know how this all happened, and you probably reached out, and, um, my team is always like, why do you say yes to these people and not to these people? Like, I don’t know. I just, I like there’s something in the message that I like that it’s much more vibe thing for me than anything else.

Pursuing Ideas

So sometimes I might give my team, um, heart problems of trying to figure out like, what’s he gonna say yes to yesterday, uh, but there are other moments where, like, I, I get, I get an idea and, like, wow, this would be really cool, and I just start working on it, and I’m, and I’m willing to throw away, I’ll throw away a whole day to work on this thing because that’s where the magic actually gets created. And this might be not great advice for most people, I don’t know, but it works for me. So if you look at my YouTube channel, one of the things that I, I’ve been known for, I guess, is doing these rules for success for different people that we profile.

Creating Content from Inspiration

That was never part of my plan. That came because a friend of mine, Mark drer, made this blog post about Taylor Swift and Kanye West, about how Kanye interrupted Taylor Swift at the years after the thing happened. And like, Mark, dude, like, you might not like Kanye, but you could learn a lot from him, like he, and now he’s gone extra crazy recently, but he, he went from being a producer to a rapper to an entrepreneur to billionaire. Like, you might not like him, but you can, like, choose to learn from people who you don’t like as opposed to just seeing the negative side, because there’s lots of negative things you can find, but you can learn from him.

Embracing Inspiration

And so I threw away my entire day to make a video about Kanye

West and 10 lessons that you can learn from him. And I don’t know what else I had scheduled on that day. I had other stuff planned, like, this was not a, just who, what am I gonna do today, um. But I got so upset at my friend Mark that, that’s, that was the very first video that I made as a tribute to, uh, somebody that I wanted to learn from. And as a result, people said, hey, can you do Dame Dash? Can you do Oprah? Can you do Jay-Z? Can you do, like, yeah, okay, that’s cool. And that became part of this thing that I now do.

Balancing Inspiration and Routine

It’s your signature random one-off, just to show it to my friend Mark drer, exercise that I was willing to throw away my entire day to do. I just don’t judge myself for that being a right or wrong decision. Like, that one worked, done. Other things that didn’t work, like, you know, momentum was great. Like, I, I wrote that book in five days. I, I did not have time to write. I didn’t have time to write the book, and I, I threw away other stuff to make this thing happen because I was in momentum, and the title was momentum, so like, I can’t write a book called momentum and then take three years to write a book called momentum, um.

Embracing Inspiration and Adaptation

So those are examples that work, but there’s lots of other stuff that I did that didn’t work, or I wouldn’t do again. Um, but I don’t wake up most days super inspired by some idea that I need to go chase down today. And so that’s why I have my calendar, and the calendar saves me on most days, but 20% of days, I get inspired, and I might throw some things away, even if it might upset somebody, like if I had some crazy idea this morning, my walk, I might tell my assistant, like, Jenny, I need the whole day to work on something.

Staying in the Zone

And then she’s writing to you, saying, hey, sorry, we got to reschedule with Evan, and I feel like I can always make it up. Like, I, I can find a way to make it up if I need to because what I’m going to make today is going to be gold. Like, this is going to be magic. And so I have to stay in this zone as much as possible, yeah, it’s truly about experimenting. I mean, even for me, I found that like, I do these monthly self-care posts on my well and strong Instagram, and they have garnered, like, so much engagement, Evan, to the point where my account grew by, like, 40% in one month, just due to those illustrations. So it is, it’s about experimenting and see what resonates with your audience.

Balancing Content Creation and Presence

But one thing I did want to touch with you on, especially because you, you definitely will resonate with this, but being a content creator, right, we’re consistently creating content, and I found that the way I’ve looked at things has changed and not necessarily for my benefit. So for example, if I’m in a beautiful setting or experiencing something wonderful, my first thought is often, how do I capture this for my audience? What piece of content can I create from it rather than just enjoying and being in the moment?

Being Present as a Content Creator

Is that something you struggle with, and if so, or even if you don’t, like, what advice do you have for people like me out there who are content creators who, again, just struggle to maintain that sense of presence in everyday life? I don’t know, I, I just don’t judge myself on these things, you know.

Enjoying the Moment and Creating Content

So I just came back from two weeks in Texas and Mexico, and, um, it was great because now I’m back to the snow, it’s like, oh my God, this is so warm, and on my Instagram, for example, um, we do a morning post that’s scheduled and an evening post that I’m sometimes posting just what’s on my mind, and I told my team, hey, schedule the second post as well to take, like, an Evan clip and put it up because I’m going to be away for two weeks, I don’t want to have to post anything, uh, I’m just going to be on the trip and enjoy and have fun, you know, with my wife in Mexico and Dallas.

Balancing Content Creation and Enjoying Life

Um, I ended up for the first week in Texas, I ended up having to reschedule all of those posts because I wanted to post something, and then for the second week, I said just, can I, I’ll just post every day. I’m, I’m in a zone, I’m feeling it, I like posting, we’re sharing. I’m sharing the stuff. I’m looking at it, so just cancel all the things that I told you to please schedule, you’re like, I don’t know, I just, I, I felt like sharing, yeah, something always goes up.

Presence in the Moment

And so I think part of the trick of being a content creator is not having to be forced to have to make something, and so, um, whether it’s Christmas or break or I’m away or whatever, we’ll get ahead on content so that there’s always something going up. But in terms of the, like, do I share something personal or not or how do I enjoy the moment, I don’t know, I just, when I, when I’m when I feel like making content around it, I do, and that is part of the moment, yeah, and when I just feel like being there with my wife and enjoying, then I am. I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not thinking about it. Maybe that’s weird. No, it’s not. That’s actually that, that sounds pretty accurate, and that’s, that seems to be the key. I think the thoughts we have about our thoughts is what actually creates the anxiety.

The Value of Purpose

going to impact somebody else it’s not enough to just to do it for yourself yeah you need to feel like you’re contributing to somebody else in some way and if you actually felt that um I think if you combine that with all the health and exercise and diet and all that feeling like what you’re doing matters I think um well that’d be my definition of well and strong

Future Collaboration

I love that purpose of life is a life of purpose right Evan well who knows maybe I’ll have you back on for episode 300 50 so I’m looking forward to it you’re at what 3 34 34 episode 100 okay let’s do it when you’re getting close message my team and we’ll uh we’ll do episode 100 celebration together I’m always here for you always here for you Carmichael I appreciate you Evan thank you so much for your time today thank you Carmichael thanks for having me appreciate it well Evan thank you for joining me on the well and strong podcast and all of you for listening in today and as Evan always says be the hero of your own life journey take care everyone

Excitement for Future Conversations

excited Ian I know there’s still so many questions I want to ask you so I’ll start planning now cool I love it thank you for your love and energy and um can’t wait to see you for round two absolutely thanks Evan I appreciate it have a good one.