- Good morning Believe Nation.
My name is Evan Carmichael.
My one word is believe.
I believe that entrepreneurs will solve
all of the world's major problems.
To help you on your journey, today's message
is turn your weaknesses into your strengths.
Over to you John Jocko Willink.
(rooster crows)
♫ I wake up every morning
♫ Espresso get me going.
♫ I wake up every morning
- A person's strengths are often their biggest weaknesses.
That also means that their weaknesses
can be their strengths.
Me?
I am weak.
In all those ways that I listed.
I am weak.
But I don't accept that.
I don't accept that I am what I am
and that that is what I'm doomed to be.
No, I don't accept that.
I'm fighting.
I always fighting.
I'm struggling and I'm scrapping
and I'm kicking and clawing at those weaknesses
to change them, to stop them.
Some days I win.
Some days I don't.
But each and every day, I get back up,
and I move forward
with my fists clenched toward the battle,
toward the struggle.
And I fight with everything I've got
to overcome those weaknesses and those shortfalls
and those flaws.
As I strive to be just a little bit better today
than I was yesterday.
- I don't really spend a lot of time thinking
about my weaknesses.
I think it's important to have the awareness
to know what you're not good at,
to know that you might suck at accounting
or you might suck at sales and marketing
or you might not be great in front of the camera
or you might not want to write copy,
like, you're not good at these things.
It's good to know what you're good at
and know what you're great at.
So you can focus your time.
This is your goal, right?
You're goal is to focus as much time on the things
that you can potentially be one of the greatest people
in the world at.
I'm not a big fan of focusing on improving your weaknesses.
I think you have people who you're great at this one thing.
You could be up here shining like a star.
You've got Michael Jordan genius-level talent at this
and you suck at all these other things.
And you either focus your time trying to improve
all these things that you're not good at
and spend time and improve and work on them
and slowly get better and maybe get average results.
Or you can ignore all this stuff and focus on this
and be amazing at it.
I want to be up here.
I don't want to focus down here.
The world rewards the people who play up here.
The world rewards the people who are amazing at something,
can provide insane value at something.
You get success by providing value to people.
If you are average at a whole bunch of things,
you're not really providing a lot of value.
But if you're great at this one thing.
If you are the world's greatest mechanic,
you can provide a ton of value to people.
You can make a ton of money.
You can have a huge impact
'cause you are the world's greatest mechanic
or surgeon, or basketball player, or coder,
or videographer, or whatever it is that you can be great at.
And who cares if you can't sing
or if you suck at math
or if you don't know you're accounting
or if your spelling is off.
For me, this stuff doesn't matter.
Focus up on here.
I think, too much, we talk about trying to work
on our weaknesses and trying to improve these sayings.
It's a noble effort but the biggest factor
is its opportunity cost.
You're taking away from doing this thing
that you're great at.
You're taking away from spending your time up here
being a star, working your craft,
because having a natural talent isn't enough.
You could be the world's greatest mechanic,
but, you need to practice.
Michael Jordan might be the world's greatest
basketball player, but he practiced.
Every day, he practiced.
He practiced, he practiced, he practiced.
He was the first one to come in and the last one to leave
and all the cliches.
He worked hard.
And that time, we all have 24 hours of the day,
that time, if he was spending it doing non-basketball stuff
that he didn't care about, he wouldn't have the leverage
even though he might have natural talent for basketball.
Because he wasn't working it hard,
he wasn't going to have success.
So, I think you need to have the self-awareness
to understand what your weaknesses are.
The best entrepreneurs in the world understand that.
They know what they're great at
and they know what they absolutely suck at.
And what they're great at is usually one
or two or three things, that's it.
Like, a really tiny handful of things,
that's what they're great at.
And then they build up a team to support them
in all the areas that they're weak at.
So, I can spend my time doing what I love to do,
what I could be world's best at potentially,
and I'm working towards.
I look at this YouTube channel.
When I started it, it was all me.
And you have to have that approach
that you're going to do everything yourself.
I will be an army of one.
I will try to enlist help,
get people to volunteer their time,
try to get people on board with what I'm doing.
But if I can't at the start,
'cause I don't want to spend money 'til I'm making money,
I'll be an army of one.
I will will it into existence.
I will just create it.
I will do everything.
I will film it, I will edit it,
I'll be in front of the camera, behind the camera,
researching, publishing, everything.
But I realize that my strength
and what I want to get better at,
is going to be the stuff in front of the camera, not behind.
I don't really want to learn
how to be a better videographer.
I don't really want to learn how to position the lights
and be the best lighting guy in the world.
I don't really want to learn about different microphones
and the technology and all of the stuff dealing with sound.
I don't really want to learn about a lot of the stuff
that has to do with my YouTube channel.
I want to be in front of the camera
and be as good as I can be
and practice and work hard
and make thousands of videos, 5,000 videos I've made,
to improve, to get better, to work on my craft.
And I want to improve every video that goes out.
I want to make sure that it passes my quality test.
I see every video that we have before it launches
and I say, "Yes, I'm proud of this.
"I will show my grandkids this.
"This passes the Evan Carmichael test."
I want to keep raising the bar on that.
For me to focus my time on making more videos
that practice my skill, and to review the videos
that are coming in, the amount of time that that takes,
I can't be spending it on other stuff.
When I was doing everything all myself,
I was lucky to make one video a month
and eventually move to one video a week,
maximum 'cause I was doing everything.
As I hired my first person who was an editor,
I could move from a video to a week to a video a day.
And as I started building up more team,
as I made more money, then I could hire more people
and I could make more videos to two a day
to now three a day.
So, think about it.
Three video a day versus one video a week.
How much better am I going to get in front of the camera?
I hope a little bit better, right?
How many more videos am I going to have to review
to keep raising the bar on the quality
and hone my eye on what I think makes a good video.
I'm getting the repetitions in so my muscle gets strong
and I get better at the thing that I want to get better at.
If you're not spending any of your time,
if you're spending 80% of your time, 95% of your time,
working on the things that you suck at
just to try to get to mediocre level,
and only five to 20% of your time
with things that you have a chance to be a star at,
you're never going to reach it.
You're never going to get there.
You're going to be average at best.
I want you to have an allergic reaction to being average.
I want you to find the thing that you
have the amazing ability to shine at,
to be Michael Jordan-level talent, genius-level talent at,
and try to spend as much time doing that as possible.
Put in the reps so you could feel
like you're having a big impact.
So you can feel like you're growing,
you're making a lot of money,
you're doing a lot of damage in your industry
and you fulfill it.
So, the question of the day today is two part.
I want to know what your greatest strength is
and what your greatest weakness is as well.
Leave it down in the comments below.
I'm super curious about that.
I also want to give a quick shoutout to Gavin Anderson.
Gavin, thank you so much for picking up a copy
of my book, Your One Word.
I really appreciate your support
and I hope you enjoyed the book.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
I believe in you.
I hope you continue to believe in yourself
and whatever your one word is.
Much love and I'll see you again tomorrow morning
for another shot of entspresso.
♫ I wake up every morning
♫ Espresso get me going
- Knowing your strength and weaknesses
and knowing what you enjoy doing.
If you look at it as a job, you've already lost.
It's not going to be your passion
and you're going to count the hours.
If you look at it as something you love to do
and then you know what your strengths are,
then you can leverage those strengths in your business
and in helping others.
Once you recognize your weaknesses,
then you can work with people that complement you.
Every one of my businesses,
I've had a partner who is very anal.
Martin Woodall, Todd Wagner.
I mean, incredibly anal people, perfectionists,
'cause I'm a slob.
I'm a big picture, think about what's around the corner,
how's technology going to change things?
How can I change this industry?
Making sure that there's somebody there to dot the i's,
cross the t's and keep me in the baselines.
Recognizing my weaknesses is just as important
as recognizing my strengths, my core competencies,
and having a passion to do 'em.
- Being intuitive is important.
Surround yourself with really smart business people
that can support your weaknesses.
Know what they are.
I know I don't know how to create an e-commerce platform.
I'm well aware of that.
So, I surrounded myself with people who can
and who do do that.
As far as mentors go, countless.
I was not shy about making phone calls to many people.
I've been fortunate enough to know people like Tori Merch
and Diane Von Furstenburg.
They got lots of emails and phone calls from me
along the way with tears in my eyes saying,
"I don't know if this is possible.
"Why is everyone telling me, 'No'?
"What do I do?
"What does it even mean to go to get venture capital?
"What is venture capital?
"What's a board?"
I just didn't know all these business terms.
They helped me understand it.
- It's very important, and I also come back to chess,
to learn how to recognize your own strengths and weaknesses.
This is, in fact, the vital part of preparation
for a big match and for anything in life.
We always try to study our opponents.
We always try to study the battlefield.
We always try to study all the circumstances
surrounding our venture or endeavor.
But, very often, we forget to study ourself.
And this is very important because any choice
of a ground for battle
or, you know, type of strategy you want to employ,
depends on our recognition
of our strengths and weaknesses.
And this is process of constant re-evaluation
because life is changing very fast.
Our opponents, looking at our success,
studying it and trying to be smart
and outsmart us eventually.
We can look at the history just to find
a number of situations where
the inability to recognize strengths and weaknesses
led to an eventual disaster.