Managing the Spotlight and Your Confidence as an Entrepreneur with Evan Carmichael

When you think of people in business, you may think of people in the spotlight. Confident, outgoing personalities that seem to believe in themselves more than anyone else. Entrepreneurs may indeed have personalities that radiant confidence…but what if you don’t like the spotlight? How do you run a business then? 

Learn from Evan Carmichael, a recent guest on Making Bank. A successful entrepreneur, author, and YouTuber, Forbes named him as one of the world’s top 40 social marketing talents. Now, he goes around and inspires people to believe in themselves, but he wasn’t always that way.  

Learn how he battled with being in the spotlight and how he got over some of his anxieties about being in the spotlight, along with one of the biggest downfalls that you can fall into as an entrepreneur; the lack of belief.  

 

Struggling with the Spotlight 

Sometimes, being in the spotlight comes with success. And if you like all eyes on you, if you can manage crowds and work the stage, then that’s great. But what if you can’t? How important is the spotlight in the grand scheme of things? 

Turns out, quite important. Carmichael didn’t like being the center of attention, especially when it came to talking about himself. But if he wasn’t speaking his messages, who would be? Putting his life into perspective, he realized the importance of grabbing attention while you can.  

“Like I don’t like being the center of attention. It doesn’t bring me happiness…the problem was, I didn’t want to get famous. And I thought that was a good thing. And it was, until [my mentor] said, ‘if you don’t get famous, people won’t hear your message. You want to serve and help so much, but if people don’t know who you are, they can’t hear what you have to say,” Carmichael says of his mindset about attention on himself.  

Carmichael would attribute fame to being ego-driven, or extroverted, which he wasn’t. Being an introvert in the entrepreneurship world can be hard; you have a vision or a message, but you don’t exactly know how to convey it, and you especially don’t want to be the center of attention. Realizing that the more people that know you means that the more your message is being heard, and that’s what it was all about for Carmichael. 

So, Carmichael turned his mindset around, and it went from, ‘how can I avoid the spotlight but thrive’ to ‘how can I get my message out to more people?’ Going on people’s shows, speaking to different audiences, and grabbing opportunities that make you uncomfortable foster growth. Evan found himself in situations doing things that he’d normally turn down, and it paid off because at the end of the day, he was doing what was most important to him, and his message was getting out.  

 

Lack of Belief   

After conquering the spotlight and traveling, gaining more experiences, and learning from different people, Carmichael realized something big. That something was the reason why people didn’t succeed, and it came hand in hand with confidence.  

“I think everybody has a most important core value, that when you figure out it gives you a lot more clarity on how to live your life and the projects to take on. So, I see the world through the lens of belief.” Carmichael talks about how he encourages other people to view life through this lens and start believing in themselves.  

Carmichael says that the biggest problem in the world today is the lack of belief. If you have an idea, but you can’t bring yourself to wholeheartedly believe in it, then you won’t go after it. That idea will just stay in your brain until someone else has that same idea and makes it something.  

Finding out what you think is important is vital to finding your success. You build yourself, your company, your relationships off of the core values that you believe in. When you break down a business, the brand is the emotion of the company. A brand is how people feel about YOU.  

Carmichael’s core value is wanting people to believe. When they engage with interviews, or books, or videos, or any sort of content, Evan wants them to feel like they have more belief in themselves because they were around something he created.  

“If you’re afraid, that’s not a good enough reason Now that doesn’t mean you just go jumping from a helicopter with no parachute because you’re afraid, right? Like that’s just stupid. Don’t be stupid. But most of the things that we’re afraid to do, we’re not even afraid of failing, Josh. We’re afraid of falling in front of somebody else. We’ll sing in the shower, but you won’t sing on the street corner.” 

More times than not, we’re scared of the judgment that we could face. Failure isn’t as scary when you’re doing it behind the scenes where no one can see you. That fear, based on what other people might think, that’s not a rational fear. That’s not something that’s going to cause you harm or damage. Sure, it might be embarrassing, and your ego might take a hit, but you’ll survive.  

The most successful people define themselves – they don’t let others stop them short. 

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