I have what I call play bigger trigger words. So words that trigger me to play bigger and hard is one of them. So scary, difficult, hard. If I say them, I would think them, I feel them, then I have to go do that thing because I don't want hard to be a good enough reason for me not to move forward into the thing I want to do. Even if I don't really care that much about doing it. Today, I'm obsessed. You are going to get obsessed with your life. You are going to understand the power of life, death, trauma, victories, shame, success, family, relationships, love, hate, and so much more. Start leading your life as a warrior. You have the keys to live the life you never dreamt of. It's time to stop making excuses and start getting obsessed with your life. Jules, what's hitting the fan today? And we are going to talk to somebody who, somebody that really blows our mind and is someone that speaks our language, I think you're at obsessed. The personal development language. The personal development language. Self-help. Self-help. And it can sound like gibberish a lot, but I don't think it sounds like gibberish with, he doesn't know this, but he's going to be the fourth host. I'm obsessed by that of this. Evan Carmichael. Hello, everyone. Look at these smiling faces. I love it. Evan. I'm great. It's been a wild day and now we're here. I did say that you very possibly are going to be the fourth co-host of the obsessed podcast. Wow, look at that. This is a lot of commitment I'm already standing up for here. All right. And you're here with Mika, Tia, and me, Jules. Mika, you want to say hello? Yes. Hey, Evan. Welcome. Welcome. Really excited for you being here. And we've got Jules in Chicago, representing Chicago. We have Tia representing Wisconsin. Minnesota. Minnesota. I get to know your co-host. Minnesota. I know. I'm going to be the fourth co-host. Better not mess up my city. You know, I don't know. You're in South Africa. Wow. You're in Canada. It's close enough, right? Elon Musk was born in South Africa, moved to Canada anyway. See? There we go. And where's home for you, Mika? Florida, Central Florida. Nice. All right. Winter Haven, they're Legoland. So bring your kids and come to our vegan cafe. Oh, I like it. Yes. So, Jules, do you want to kick off the question for Evan? I do. And I love that Evan is standing. So he is just ready to pounce. He's ready for all the intensity that is the Obsessed podcast. But we really connect with Evan's message. And typically we ask every guest, what are you obsessed with? But I thought I would shake it up a little bit and ask Evan today, why are you obsessed with us? You told us to make it about us because we watched your video. I like the brashness. I like the boldness. I like the thinking bigness. I think a lot of people are missing that. And I think a lot of people when they're on their journey and creating a show and creating a podcast are too afraid. And you never know until you ask. You never know what will happen. Like the worst is that people will say no. So I don't remember how this all happened. I guess somebody probably messaged me on Instagram or sent me an email or that was Coach Jules just pointing to herself. And there was something in the message. You know, there's something in the vibe. But I'm very much a vibe person for doing shows like this. So it's less about how many views you have or who's been on the show or whatever. It's just, I don't know, there was something in how you outreach. Like, okay, yeah, let's chop it up. Let's see what happens. Maybe we'll make some magic. So now we're here. I literally have to go look at the message. What did I write? Yeah, you should look at that message. I don't remember. But it's always, you know, time is the most valuable asset and is always a massive crunch on the schedule for, yeah, like we're recording this on a Thursday. My Thursdays are always like five minute break, 25 minute show, five minute break, like the whole day. Wow. And so people are like trying to squeeze in and my team is always going crazy booking people out for months, but they're used to it by now. It's like, hey, we've got this big opportunity, but what's this other show you're doing? Like this one I was on earlier today, it was this first time doing an interview. Like, okay. And meanwhile I'm turning down other stuff, but I'm just a vibe. There's something about the vibe. So yeah, I'd say go and look at what you wrote because there was something in there that maybe you had some amicus vegan food before showing up and it just put you in the right zone and pow, you know, here we go. We got a yes. Awesome. And so Tia, did you want to ask Evan the number one, just kind of lay down the format for today's interview? Well, I know when we watched that video, he said, ask the question that we want to know most about. So I'm just going to give it to you. This is some serious stuff, Evan. So yeah, I'm smiling, but it is. Yeah, I'm ready. Okay. So I really felt like last year was like, I started to see my growth and like the seeds I had been planting the years prior within like my personal life, my career, all that stuff. I started coaching more. We launched this podcast together. I became a published author. Thank you. I married at the level of my life. We were in the process of buying a house and starting our family. Like I really felt fulfilled in all of these areas. And then bam, like out of nowhere, my sister unexpectedly died. And that was like my person. Love my husband to death, but that was my sister and my best friend. That was my person. And it turned my world inside out. And then shortly after that, I found out I was pregnant, which is a great thing. But in the middle of grief, it's a really hard thing. And now we are dealing with more shit hitting the fan in our family. And it's really hard to stay positive and think of the future when you're in the midst of so much uncontrollable change in your life. So how do we become who we know we can be and ultimately who we desire to be, even though we can't clearly identify who we are now or really identify what the future may look like because it's so hard to even picture. Well, first, thank you for sharing. I mean, that's incredibly traumatic and maybe hard to admit on a podcast, which is the first question to a total stranger. So I appreciate your courage and even being willing because a lot of people just ask the same questions. The other stuff that you said is hitting the fan. Is that also grief or that's just other stuff? Other stuff that has to do with that grief and just her death in general. Now just dealing with family things. So, you know, grief is a special word for any negative emotion. I try to move through it as quickly as possible, except grief. Because grief, for me at least personally, I'm not trying to be prescriptive in advice, but I think for me personally, grief is just something that you have to deal with. And you will ultimately get through it and to not place the extra burden of having to be your best self when you're dealing with insane grief. If it was something else, if you are jealous or angry or frustrated or something else, are you like, Mika's got her caffeine. I don't have one and you're jealous. Like moving through, they're like, what says Coach? Moving through those emotions quickly, I think it's helpful. And there's strategies to do it. But grief, I think just has to be processed and there's no timeline. Like don't judge yourself for not being through it in a week. I mean, I don't know how long it's been, a year, a month. Like if you're like 15 years later and you're still dealing, okay, there's something that we haven't processed properly. Maybe it's time to probably earlier than that, you know, get some professional help on that. But it's totally normal and you don't need the extra burden. You know, if it means you don't show up for a couple of these podcasts, cool. You know, Jules and Mika got it. And if you have to let people around you know that you're dealing with this and it means that your book tour doesn't come out or your next book doesn't log, like that's okay. Don't feel bad. You're processing. Like grief is just has to be handled. And I mean, I'd say don't grief alone. If you have amazing friends like Mika and Jules and others that you can call up and hang out with that helps, but don't worry about being your best self when you're middle of grief. I have two sisters. I have never lost them. I haven't lost my parents yet. It's going to be devastating when that happens. I don't know what I'm going to do. No matter what plan I can come up with, it's probably not going to, it's not going to work when it happens. The closest I came was when my family dog died. Many years and it was super close. And that's the only time I didn't film videos for my channel. Like I've filmed videos through getting a divorce. I've filmed videos who break in my neck having a concussion. Like I've filmed videos through everything. You can go back and watch like these videos of me with my neck brace on and I gained 20 pounds and I got this giant scab on my head and I can't see the light because I've concussion and I still film videos. Like for me, that's not a good, like I want to give my best. The fact that I'm physically not 100% for me is not a good enough reason to not show up. So if I was, I would still show up and do this podcast if something happened. But grief, like you just have to, for me at least when my dog died, everybody left the room. My dad stayed in the room and just like, okay, we're putting Toby down and I didn't want my dad to be alone. So I went in with him and we were there together. Toby left us and I couldn't film. Like I couldn't bring myself to film coming out. And maybe for some people that sound stupid, like you're going to break a neck and still film, but then your dog died as a, but for us, like he was family. And so I didn't have it. It's the only time that I didn't film videos and I'm okay with that. You know, so expect to not be productive. You're probably already feeling a little bit better. Just maybe all the other stuff is now bouncing up and causing a lot of chaos and stuff, but in a year or two, better. And if you don't, you had the greatest year of all time last year, amazing, like cherish that whole onto that, right? Insane, great. You have these two beautiful ladies here. You have your show now with who will support you. Even use this show as your therapy session. Oh, yeah, you do. Right. But even here, like with me as a guest or bring on other guests to talk about grief and how to push through it or strategies, like use it as you're, as you're talking, a lot of people suffer alone and like that's the worst, that maybe you can't talk to your husband or you can't talk to your friends or you feel you have to be stoic for everybody else in the family or whatever. And then that's just makes it insanely impossible or maybe everybody's great, but there's a pace to it and you'll come out of it and it's okay if some of the balls drop and just think about how much I'm meant to be built in one year. You're still that woman. You know, she'll come back with even more fire than before and you're still got like years ahead, more amazing things will happen and then you hit another speed bump. So like, you know, if my sister passed or my parents, I don't know how long I won't be 100%. I might have to cancel. Like if this show was happening and my mom died, I would cancel this show. And some people may understand, right? Like some people may think, why are you taking so long to get it again? Is like it happened last year. What's wrong with you? Cool. It's like, stop hanging around those people for a little bit. No, I love that. And we, and we know that you teach people how to be successful on their own terms. And Tia has gone through very difficult time. Mika, I know you wanted to say something. So I did. Great feedback, Evan. I love that. For some reason, the last thing that you said, I don't know, you said, well, Tia, come back with more fire and maybe think of the least to keep song this girl is on fire. So Alicia Keys, I was thinking that too. Mika, this, I could sing, but we're getting Alicia next week. So, okay. So Evan, and I know you've been an entrepreneur for a very long time. You've had so much success. It's awesome to see like your growth from where you started to where you are now. Because you inspire so many people, myself included as a small business owner, as a business owner. When you are growing and learning and developing and doing your craft. And you have personal things happening at the same time, like what Tia did describe, where the hits the fan, but you still have to go out and smile. You still have to go out and perform. And it's a challenge. Do you think this affects a lot of business owners, small business owners to where it causes them to fail because of that imbalance, because of so many pressures, so many things happening in the home front, or they're dealing with the imposter syndrome, and they're dealing with their own insecurities. Maybe they're great at what they do, but then it's kind of hard to manage a business and manage yourself or manage your home life. Like what advice would you give? There's a lot in there that we can dissect and pull apart. But first let me just unpack that. I want to check in with Tia. Like after all that, how does it sit? What's going through your mind? What are you feeling in your body? It's very true. And I mean, it's only been nine months right now. And like the first three months, I couldn't do anything. I think finding out I was pregnant really pushed me to do more stuff again. Having that motivation beyond just myself that has gotten me to this point where I am today. But I do still give myself a lot of grace. Like I've changed so much in my life. I have put up boundaries. And I think that that's really kind of what you're talking about. Like saying no to things, having those firm boundaries and sticking to them has helped a lot. And having those people in my corner who tell me, like, no, you don't have to show up fully. Like that's anymore. Like nobody expects you to. And just having that kind of community around me has helped a lot too. So everything you said brings true. And so I hope that other people out there kind of experiencing anything in that similar realm can really hear that and take that to heart and run with it. Yeah. And like that woman is still inside you. Like the badass kick ass, boss babe, entrepreneur is still there. And she's going to tear the world up when you're ready and you're already getting there. So the follow up, I guess on Mika, there's a bunch of stuff in there. First off, I don't know that you need to show up any differently. Like I think the best thing to do may not be to show up with a fake smile and lean in on the thing that you're actually struggling with. We could have done this podcast totally different. I'm showing up. I don't know what we're going to talk about. You know, even if you send the list of questions, I'm not reading them. We just show up and you see what happens and hopefully create some magic. Tia could have easily asked me, so how do you get started? Or what's your new advice for as podcasters who are like the typical questions and she decided to lean in and not pretend to be the happy like everything is fine and say, Hey, you know what? I'm struggling with this thing. And it actually leads to a better conversation. Right? Like I'm more connected to you guys. Your audience is more connected to you guys. You're more connected to each other. So I don't know that you need to show up with a fake. I think it makes it harder. I'd encourage you to show up more yourself and some days you're happy and you lean on that. And some days you're not. And it's okay to share some of that stuff. Like it makes you more human as opposed to always trying to be perfect. You know, when things get hard, hard is I saw I have what I call play bigger trigger words. So words that trigger me to play bigger and hard is one of them. So scary, difficult, hard. If I say them or think them or feel them, then I have to go do that thing because I don't want hard to be a good enough reason for me not to move forward into the thing I want to do. Even if I don't really care that much about doing it. Right? I had, um, I own a dance school here in Toronto. It's the largest salsa dancing school in the country. And, um, that's where my wife and my, my crew won a local dance competition. You know, I'm not like some giant thing, but it's a big deal for us. Congrats. Congrats. And so they're mostly women. And so I took them out to a nail salon to like celebrate, get your nails to dinner, get your nails done, kind of thing. And then when we're there, they asked me, Hey, I'm, are you going to get your nails done too? Like, uh, no, that's not how I express myself, which is the only like acceptable answer. But really part of the answer was I'm afraid it's scary, right? Like I'm going to go out and have my nails done. Like how many meetings do I have? How many interviews do I have? And because that was part of the reason, like, okay, I said, scary. Now I have to go do it. So I said, Hey, here's my logo. Can you have scary? Well, scary for me. Like what we think might be scary, like what's scary for me may not be scary for you. What's important is that like, Hey, it's scary for me. So I need to do it. So can you match my, my color? So they gave me like this and I put a little racing stripe on all of them. And then first thing I'm leaving the store and I don't want to touch anything. So I asked my wife to open the door for me because I don't want to ruin my nails now. Like you're a pro at this. I'm a newbie. So yeah, can you hold the door? I love that. And then I kept them on the whole time, you know, and going to go pick up my package from the dormant I had at the time and I found myself like this kind of hiding my nails. Like, no, like, bam, took a picture, posted on Instagram. With my nails. And then all the women thought it was amazing. All the guys thought it was nuts. But then the nails started the chip. And so all my, all my women friends were like, okay, well now you got to either like, go do it again or take it off, which was more like, I want to eat the judgment, right? So like, okay, because that's what you're supposed to do. Now I'm going to let it chip all the way to nothing. And so it like slowly chipped over a month. The little look like a diseased animal with like these little spots of orange on my fingers. Like what's wrong with this guy? But like that's, that's the point. Like what are we usually what we're afraid of our other people's opinions and judgment. And so I don't want to play small. That has nothing to do with my mission of serving entrepreneurs, but it does because it builds my personal character to take on the things that are scary, difficult or hard. So the end of your, your statement, their question was, well, when it gets really hard, it's like, well, I do hard. I like hard. I chase hard. I dive into hearts not a good enough reason. Grief is another thing. Right. As long as it's not grief, I'm going to show up and do my best. Broken neck, concussion, employees quit, I mean, whatever inflation, whatever, whatever's so hard. Entrepreneurship is hard. Life is hard. You show up for hard and then you inspire people with your story because then they can learn through you and say, Holy cow, if she can do, maybe I can too. Like hard, your great life is on the other side of heart. Just grief has its own, grief has its own bucket. And Tia, of course, respond, but I love what you said about you chase hard because so many people cower at any obstacle in front of them. And that's where the riches are in my belief. Once you get over the hard, not with standing grief, of course, because that's just a different. This is where you, you can hold each other accountable too. Right. Like what are your trigger words? Like you've got goals, you got dreams, you want to, you want to do X. Cool. What's that inner voice telling you why you can't do it? And I guarantee you, you've told yourself that same thing before. Like that inner voice is on repeat. So that sucks that you're telling yourself the same limiting things all the time, but it's great because you can catch it. It was a new limiting thought every time and it becomes difficult. But if it's always, for me, it was just scary, difficult, hard. Those may not be yours. Right. So when Mika said hard, it triggered me. Like I've trained myself. Okay, nope, not a good enough reason. Let's go off and do it. So if you figure out what yours are, you can then hold each other accountable. It's like Jules, you just said scary. You just said it. Now you have to do it, Jules. Now you said it. Remember, remember we agreed on this. Right. It's like, ah, I did because we won't catch it because it's subconscious. And so it's trying to bring the subconscious to conscious to force us to become the person we want to be. If you liked the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.
