Success Mindset: 10 Lessons on Perseverance and How To Stick With It | Evan Carmichael

persevere I come from I come from a small county outside of Washington DC called PG County meet my mom my brother we moved so many different places growing up and it’s not like a box felt like it was no getting out I love basketball so much I love planning I just never thought that I would make it to college NBA or standing up here today and find you guys a big NBA MVP so many people believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself so many people doubted me and motivated me every single day to be Who I am I feel so many times and got back up I went through the toughest times with my family team but I’m still standing I always felt like an outsider because I knew of people you know that were in the industry I just didn’t know how to get into it and I remember going to cast a different agents when I was 9 or 10 years old I was rejected twice I remember there was like this sort of cattle call of kids and I lined up it was like a prison photo or something like that I’m standing there like this and I had I had this crazy breakdancing haircut when I was breakdancing and I kind of dressed in hip-hop clothing and they remember they went yes yes went to me went nope yes yes no and that was it so I got rejected a couple times and then I just kept asking and asking and asking I remember my dad saying just stick with it someday you’ll have your day and I and then I came back I think two years later and finally got an agent I think I’ve been doing this long enough to realize that no matter what people perceive of me I always shine through at the end of the day so I’ve had a lot of people try to tear me down but I’m here and I’ve always been myself and I’ve always wanted that and I’ve been graceful and I’ve tried to handle myself with as much class and it’s only because I know how hard I work and I’m not gonna let any of that get to me I often get asked by younger readers what I would advise if you want to be a writer this is the way I did it so that’s the only advice I can give you’ve got to read as much as you possibly can because that’s the best way to recognize good writing and to learn what makes bad writing and those are very good things you’ll probably go through a phase where you imitate your favorite writers that’s perfectly okay that’s another learning process you resign yourself to writing lots and lots of rubbish you just got to write that out of your system and sooner or later you’ll hit what you know you really should be doing and what is your genre and perseverance you’ve got to persevere because it is a it’s a career with a lot of knock backs but the rewards are huge I don’t mean in the sense that if that’s what you really want to do to be able to do it life long is the best thing in the world very rewarding but it’s not a career for people who are easily discouraged that’s for sure and to their parents don’t tell them it’s unrealistic never to never say that because even if they’re not published writing well writing is the passion of my life so it’s an important thing to do success is nothing to do with potential it’s all about the perseverance of somebody that will override any endeavor if you throw it against the wall eventually something will stick you guys that are had this potential don’t hesitant you know that dies what continues to last forever is a perseverance to always show up that’s what champions do every single champion the same as every ordinary person knowing differentials that they show up to the event every single day they see failure as a learning curve they welcome failure you learn more from failure than you ever will from success so showing up and get knocked on your ass finally test one four to stand back up Andrea they said endeavour it’s gonna be the overriding factor that makes a difference how do you know when you’re doing those things the small things in life add up to those big monumental things why say the small things it’s a character building block that your name means something you hold value to your name if you drop trash from the ground you pick it up that’s the responsibility you hold value to yourself when you shake someone’s hand you look them in the eye you give a firm a handshake because you’re here for purpose everything you do you do to the best of your ability doesn’t know what you’re doing is it that that you’re doing it so therefore it means something to you that’s going to build a legacy let’s you know the title out there doesn’t mean you win the title fine that title will not get you another title what you’re trying to build its legacy you know footprints behind you there are left motivation for someone else to follow legacy is built daily to the character the real power the code of conduct in somebody and that’s the perseverance showing up every single day that will always achieve the goal it doesn’t matter what you’re born with it doesn’t matter potential how much you know silver spoon or money you have all that can be attained if you show up and you’re willing to to risk failure for success it could also remind us of success of Alexander Bell the inventor of telephone who had a stack of notebooks where you recorded every failed experiment so if you work really hard you can find the winning spot even you know in the midst of your numerous failures I think the ex speaker of US House of Representatives Newt Gingrich hit the right points when he said that perseverance is a hard work you do after you get tired of doing hard work you already did one of the things that happens especially when you’re starting out is you write stories and you send them out in my head as a young man whenever I would send out a story what I would expect to have happen was the following morning a limo would show up at my house and people would get out of it and they would say this is yours we loved your story so much you never have to work again just thank you thank you for writing this story which we are going to publish and make sure everybody in the whole world reads and and instead you know six weeks later it would come back the little slip saying not quite right for us whatever um it was okay you know what what you do is um what I did two different things um what I did as a very young man was get things back and go either I’m not very good which I do not choose to believe although probably was kind of true um or I’m just doing this wrong and I need to find out how this all works so that was the point where um I became a journalist and I became a journalist specializing in publishing in books and I found out how it all worked and and you know two months later had sold two books and then got a quote from Muddy Waters which I stuck to my typewriter which tells you how long ago this was and it just said don’t let your mouth write note check your tail can’t cash that was my quote and I went how did I I just told to purse I’ve never written a book what am i doing and I got through it my tail cash those checks but um really I kind of dealt with it by just bowing to myself that you know I would try and write things that was so brilliant that nobody could reject them one of the greatest probably the greatest rock climber of his generation as you know I’ve been a climber most of my life is actually right now on side of El Capitan doing what will probably be the hardest rock climb certainly ever done in our lifetimes trying to free climb anything called the dawn wall on Mescalero side of El Cap young man named Tommy Caldwell who is using a category of one and I was out climbing with Tommy one day and I said to him Tommy what makes you different here’s a record of six climbs on El Cap that have never been repeated okay he’s just he is ten in extreme environments and he’s still alive I said tell me what is it that you have you’re not necessarily more physically gifted you’re not necessarily stronger right here certainly physically gifted all those things but you’re not this incredible athlete that that just it was born this way and in fact he had lost a finger in an accident he cut a finger off and so he’s doing this – one of his important things an important finger and he thought about it for a long moment he said I can remain focused on and suffer for the big thing longer than anyone else and I think that’s what did you obey the curiosity keeps me well but once they get their hands on what they see is the thing they don’t let go and they can stay with it and suffer for it persevere nothing worthwhile is easy no one of achievement has avoided failure sometimes catastrophic failures but they keep at it they learn from mistakes they don’t quit you know when I first arrived on this campus it was we had little money fewer options but it was here that I tried to find my place in this world I knew I wanted to make a difference but it was big how in fact I’d go about it I I but I wanted to do my part to shape a better world so even as I worked after graduation a few unfulfilled jobs here in New York I will not list them all even as I went from motley apartment to motley apartment I reached out and I started to write letters to community organizations all across the country and one day a small group of churches on the south side of Chicago answered offering me work with people in neighborhoods hit hard by steel mills that were shutting down and and communities where jobs were dying dying away the community had been plagued by gang violence so as once I arrived one the first things we try to do was to mobilize a meeting with community leaders to deal with gangs and I’d worked for weeks on this project we invited the police we made phone calls we went to churches we passed out fliers the night of the meeting we arranged rows and rows of chairs and anticipation of this crowd and we waited and we waited and finally a group of older folks walked into the hall and they sat down and this little old lady raised her hand and asked is this where the bingo game is it was a disaster nobody showed up my first big community meeting nobody showed up and later the volunteers I worked with told me that’s it we’re quitting they had been doing this for two years even before I had arrived they had nothing to show for it and I’ll be honest I felt pretty discouraged as well I didn’t know what I was doing I thought about quitting and as we were talking I looked outside and I saw some young boys playing in a vacant lot across the street and they were just throwing rocks up at a boarded building had nothing better to do late at night just throwing rocks I said to the volunteers before you quit answer one question what will happen to those boys if you quit who will fight for them if we don’t who will give them a fair shot if we leave and one by one the volunteers decided not to quit we went back to those neighborhoods and we kept at it we registered new voters we set up after-school programs and we fought for new jobs help people live lives with some measure of dignity and we sustained ourselves with those small victories we didn’t set the world on fire some of those communities are still very poor there’s still a lot of gangs out there but I believe that it was those small victories that helped me win the bigger victories of my last three and a half years as president every daily except my grandmother food so again I heard she was and I stayed in the United States my life probably would have been very different I’m very happy been very comfortable a very satisfying job and when I came back here Lou I mentioned the first eight years for frustration my masters thought the best way to teach me how to operate when I don’t think any one event down and totally I would be considered so it was on the shop floor shoveling limestone working the furnaces they can ask and so perhaps looking back the most significant incident in my life for just my obstinacy to remain here rather than to go back thank you so much for watching continue to believe or whatever your one word is and I’ll see you soon