Leadership Lessons from Entrepreneurs
Evan Carmichael is passionate about helping entrepreneurs. He built and sold a biotech software company at 19. He raised millions as a venture capitalist at 22. And then, he started EvanCarmichael.com as a website to help entrepreneurs. He is, by his own admission, “obsessed” with this passion.
His YouTube channel has millions of views and is the leading channel for entrepreneurs. You may have seen during one of his numerous media interviews or his many keynote speeches.
Recently, I caught up with Evan in Madrid, Spain. Having followed his career online, I wanted to learn more about the entrepreneurial mindset.
Even if we don’t own a business, what can we all learn from entrepreneurs? Here are a few lessons from Evan that inspired me. Since I am all about encouragement and empowerment, I wanted to share some of his most inspiring words.
6 Lessons from Entrepreneurs
All of us should:
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Embrace the entrepreneurial mindset.
This is a mindset of dissatisfaction with the status quo, of solutions, of challenge, and of driving to a more sustainable, successful place.
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Adopt a mindset of empowerment.
We should aim for a feeling of empowerment. It’s not about a title or a position. It’s about how we think. Finding a way to make a difference and to drive change is key to success.
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Assess and take appropriate risks.
Some entrepreneurs bet everything, but you can be pragmatic. You can take measured bets. Evan’s take on risk was eye opening. He thinks it’s “crazy risky” to assume you will have your job for 25 years and that your company will still be around. “Why not bet on you?” is a challenge we should all learn from.
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Embrace failure.
Failure is a subject I love to study because it is a component of all success. Evan adopts failure as part of the process, as something to embrace and encourage.
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Stand out with a personal brand.
Personal branding is important today. Whether you are deliberate about your brand or not, we all have one. Cultivating one today is different, but more important than ever.
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Model the masters.
This has driven me since I was a kid, learning from the masters. I have personally made it my goal to learn from all around me from the ordinary to the extraordinary. All of us can learn from others. Evan models others and learns from their success. His default is to model the success of someone who tackled the same problem previously.
