It will probably not come as a surprise that today’s guest, Evan Tardy, was born with entrepreneurship blood running through his veins. His grandfather took the risk years ago to walk away from the already-in-place family farm and started a company, which is now run by his own father. Both men played a pivotal role in instilling a strong worth ethic in Evan, and further supporting those roles with phrases like,

With this in mind, it was inevitable that Evan started his own entrepreneurial career at the ripe age of 16 when he created his own mobile car wash service. Of course, hours upon hours in the sun washing cars gets tiring after a couple years, so with a successful run he sold the business to a friend to pursue other adventures on his entrepreneurial path.

While there were moments of discouragement (and still some today), he just kept hustling and getting things done with the mentality that you “learn in your 20s and earn in your 30s” thanks to the idea from author Keith Ferrazzi.

So after trying a lot of different things, volunteering and learning about various areas, he ended up meeting a dentist who was moving to town. Seeing the need for some marketing help, Evan offered to help him at no cost (it was the perfect opportunity for him to cut his teeth on the new things he’d learned). Not only was he successful, he increased the dentist’s monthly income by more than three times than when he began. Evan also helped another friend with his marketing at no cost and had similar results.

Did he need to give his work away for free? Certainly not, but for him,

After all, why would you not practice/hone your skills with a smaller (safe) audience before you have to do it for a much larger group?

Fast forward to Evan’s raging success as the President of Dr. Axe, the 2nd largest natural health website in the world. Now in a leadership role, he focuses on bringing the right people onto their team and ensuring that everyone is bringing their best selves and creative problem-solving skills to work each day.

But what else contributes to the fact that Dr. Axe has been recognized as one of Inc. 5000’s fastest-growing companies?

And while that mission is super important, he also knows that money, personal growth and friends play a factor, in addition to reinvesting in their employees, hiring more great people and focusing on the same things. There’s really no “secret sauce.”

Evan is a shining example of what it means to be a true entrepreneur – both in work ethic and generosity. And he feels that we’re all here to aspire to some amount of greatness. Whether you make millions or just get by, he truly believes we should all just,

And what a great lesson for us all.