- I want to be bigger than Adele.
- That should be your goal.
- Yeah the word "Adele" is just something that no one
should (beep) with basically.
What's the worse that can happen?
The worse that can happen is you fail.
I've only written songs from the heart.
I want to keep having stuff to do everyday.
♫ Cause darling your soul
♫ could never grow old it's evergreen.
(screams)
- What's up Belief Nation it's Evan.
My one word is Believe and I believe that you have the
ability to do something special that can change the planet.
So to help you on your journey today,
we're going to learn from singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran
and my take on his top ten rules to success, volume two.
Rule number one is my personal favorite,
and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best.
(upbeat music)
♫ I'm in love with your body
- Now I read that your goal is to sell 20 million copies
of this album Divide, and you want to overtake Adele
in terms of record sales.
- Yeah and I feel like me saying this, a lot of people
will like, that's such an arrogant thing to say.
But I think you need to choose someone that's at the
top of their game.
Like I probably won't sell 20 million records and I
probably won't ever be as big as Adele,
but if you don't aim for the top of the mountain
how are you ever going to get halfway?
- Right, and set high goals for yourself.
- Yeah. But the problem is that my point never
comes across with that because that quote is now
just, I want to be bigger than Adele.
- That should be your goal.
- Yeah, the word Adele is just something that no one should
(bleep) with basically.
(laughs)
So if you put that into any sentence prepare to be
shut down.
I don't play with a band, I use a sound pedal which
is all live and built up so Wembley was always like
even an arena I thought I couldn't do an arena so
but then when I did an arena and it was fine I was like,
"Well we might as well try Wembley,
"what's the worst that could happen?"
The worst that could happen is you fail.
But you still sold Wembley so the worst that could
happen is that you fail and you move back to the arenas
which is not, that's what everyone else does so that's
quite a cool thing.
- [Charlie] How many people were there?
- It was at 87,000 every night.
- [Interviewer] 87,000.
- Yeah.
It's a big ol' stadium, but the thing is like if you
fail you've not lost anything, and if you achieve
and make it good the possibilities are endless.
- How imposing is social media on your life?
Did you just get sick of it?
You just wanted to detox?
- No I enjoy diving into it and kind of being on it
but it's just quite toxic to be, you just end up
getting really self conscious about yourself.
I wasn't a hugely self conscious guy before and then you
just read into everything and you kind of end up
searching for people slagging you off and like
looking for people saying mean things.
Yeah.
And since I've been off it it's been glorious.
I want a 30 year career not a five year career.
I don't want to do it, you know we could have done stadiums
a lot earlier on, we could have done arenas a lot
earlier on, we could have released five albums in five
years but it's a marathon and not a sprint.
And I remember being around a lot of my contemporaries
that were doing so much better than me and my manager
being like, "Just slow down, slow down, slow down."
And now I'm still here six years on and they're not and
I think the whole music industry you need to just
pace yourself.
Just take time to make great albums, you don't have to
stick out music all the time to stay relevant.
You'll stay relevant by making great records and to make
great records you have to spend a lot of time to do them.
I've only written songs from the heart.
I don't really see the point of making music if it's not
an expression of self or a form of therapy.
If I have a bad day I want to write a song, I don't
want to write a song to have a hit, I want to write a song
cause I wanted it to make me feel better.
It's never been about the audience or pleasing people
or trying to fit in, it's just been about myself and
my love for music and I guess that has come across.
I think that this album is very much, it's rooted in
my comfort zone but there are certain times where I step
out of the comfort zone.
And the reason I chose Sing as the sort of lead single
for it, that being a step out of the comfort zone
is I had an acoustic ballad song I wanted to put out
first and whenever I played it to people they were like,
"Oh, it's nice, yeah, really cool, really nice song."
When you played Sing to people it really polarized everyone.
They either hated it or they loved it but they spoke
about it a lot, you know you'd speak to people and they'd
be like, "Oh, yeah I heard about that song cause so and so
"is talking about it."
But no one was talking about the acoustic tune.
So I thought by sticking out a song that sort of makes
people talk it would be a lot better for the album.
I do work hard and I do try and keep going but it could
be a lot worse.
This is the best job that I could possibly have and I
could be working in a supermarket or something.
The days off that don't exist because I don't
want them to exist.
I want to keep having stuff to do every day.
It excites me to travel around the world and play for
people that genuinely love my music and smile and they're
all happy and people are nice to me when we do interviews
and stuff, it's good.
I've made this album on tour and I'm making the next
album on tour and it's about finding the time, like
I've got a producer to bring a mobile studio into
every dressing room that I go into, and every hotel room,
and on the tour bus, so.
In between doing meet and greets and the gig, you'll
try and write a song and then after the gig you'll
try and write a song and then on the bus journey
to the next place you'll try to write a song, so
it's about finding the time to make it happen.
For me success is always stepping out on stage and feeling
people genuinely happy to hear your songs.
Yeah, that's always been, when I know a song's a hit
is when you play it and you just see people
light up in the crowd and smile.
I think that's how you know rather than seeing stats and
figures.
- Right.
- Stats and figures are great as well to look at.
Everyone needs their ego massaged sometimes but I think
the gigs, gigs are the ones.
- [Cameraman] What's happening Ed?
- Just going to go sing a song.
Should I just roll up?
- [Cameraman] Just roll up, roll up.
♫ I know you will still love me the same
♫ Cause darling your soul could never grow old
♫ It's evergreen
♫ And baby your
♫ Smile's forever in my mind and memory
♫ I'm thinking about how
♫ People fall in love in mysterious ways
♫ Maybe it's all part of the plan
♫ I'll just fall in love with you every single
♫ Day, I just want to tell you I am
♫ So honey, now
♫ Take me into your loving arms
♫ Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars
♫ Place your head on my beating heart
♫ I'm thinking out loud
♫ But maybe we found love right where we are
(applause)
♫ La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
- Thank you guys so much for watching.
I made this video because Husam Ezzi asked me to.
If there's someone you'd like to vote on for the
next top 10 check out the link in the description
and go and have your say.
Finally I want to give a quick shout out to Jason
Bean, Jason thank you so much for picking up a copy
of my book, Your One Word, and for posting a video
about it on your YouTube channel, I really appreciate
the support man, and I'm so glad you enjoyed the read.
- [Jason] There it is, Your One Word, by Evan Carmichael.
- So thank you guys again for watching, I believe in you.
I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever
your one word is, much love.
I'll see you soon.
- Embrace your quirks, embrace your weirdness and
from a stuttering point of view don't treat it as an issue.
Work through it and get the treatment that you want to get
but don't ever treat it as an issue and don't see it as
a plight on your life.
The thing that makes you cool is as you said earlier,
not giving a.
And I'm never going to hide the fact that I'm a very
competitive person and I do want this to be biggest
album in the world and I'm going to make sure it is
the biggest album in the world.
There's going to be no stone left unturned.
- I love that you have totally stayed true to yourself
in your songs, with your style, just with your career
in general.
So if you could, I would like to know how you would
encourage other young twenty somethings to stay true
to themselves without letting other people bring them down.
- No one can be you better than you can.
I know that's quite an obvious thing but I think people
forget that people try to model themselves on what other
people are doing, and everyone has their flaws
and flaws are what make you human.