Charlamagne tha God explains his Rule of 10: any statement gets liked by three people, disliked by three, and leaves four neutral. He shares how he survived multiple firings in radio without a college degree by refusing to quit. Long-term business success requires your unique voice, not copying others.
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Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is be authentically you. Over to you, Charlamagne tha God.
It's this thing called the rule of 10. The rule of 10 is 3 people gonna like it, 3 people not gonna like it, and 4 people just gonna be on the fence about it. Like, they're just gonna kinda remain neutral and just wait to see what happens. I use that whenever I say anything in life or however I approach anything, like a TV show or, you know, the radio show for that day or a statement I might make. Like, 3 people gonna agree with it, 3 people not, and 4 people just gonna be on the fence about it. So you just have to take all of that into consideration, and that kinda goes into something my father told me a long time ago. My father said, you're never as good as they say you are. And you're never as bad as they say you are. That's a fact. Personally, I just don't carry the weight. Like, you know what I mean? The only thing I can do is be authentically me.
The only way you're gonna truly win is if you're authentically you. That's it. That's the only way you're gonna win. Everybody else is taken. There's this great clip of 50 Cent being on stage and talking about investments he's making and young artists who are pitching him new records and how often he gets people that sound exactly like somebody else. People sending in their demos and they sound exactly like Lil Wayne. And he says, yeah, you sound exactly like Lil Wayne. That's crazy. If I heard him and I heard you, I couldn't tell the difference. But the world doesn't need another Lil Wayne. You're never gonna make it to the big time if you're just a copy of somebody else. It's why I don't worry about people who copy my stuff and copy my channel, 'cause I'm just spending time looking in the rearview mirror trying to play defense instead of going out and doing more. 'Cause you're never gonna out-me me, and I'm never gonna out-you you. And so at the beginning of your journey, it's okay to copy. At the beginning. Because you're getting your feet wet, you're still trying to figure out who you are, trying to figure out what style you can bring to it. But somewhere along the line, you have to figure out, okay, here's what I stand for. Here's what I want to add. Here's how I'm different, and I'm not just going to copy somebody else anymore. The goal of this channel is to learn from all these famous entrepreneurs to help you to be the best version of you, right? I don't need you to be the best, the next Steve Jobs or the next Howard Schultz. Be the best you. I want to be the best Evan Carmichael. I'm going to put a piece from all these people to help me be the best me. And I want you to do the same. Don't try to be the next anybody. Just be the best you. That's where you're going to win. The people at the top are authentically themselves. They may have learned lessons from other people. They may have collaborated with other people. They may have asked opinions of other people. But at the end of the day, they're doing the thing that is unique to them. They are injecting their art into what they are making. And if you don't do that, you're always going to play second, third. You're always going to be way down on the list. It takes a lot of guts. It takes a lot of courage to be authentically you. And it comes by doing it with practice. The more you do it, the more you take a stance, the more you try to inject a little bit onto something, the more you're going to start to win. The more it's going to feel right. The more you're going to get people on board with your crusade. That's where you're really going to win. So start being authentically you. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, what have you added recently into your business that is authentically you? You added your mark onto it. What did you do that was different? Leave it down in the comments below. Super curious to find out. I also want to give a quick shout out to Randy Wilson. Randy, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. Really, really, really means a lot to me, man, and I hope you're enjoying the read. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso. <LYRICS>I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going.</LYRICS> How'd you come up in radio? How'd you start with radio?
I started off as an intern in 1998 when I was 18 years old. I mean, I'm 32 now. I've been doing radio for— this will be my 15th year in radio. I started off as an intern when I was 18, so I've worked in every aspect of radio. I've worked in the promotions department, you know. I worked in programming. I was an intern for a year and a half. This is the 7th radio station I've worked at. I've been fired 4 times. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, that's why when I saw William, like when William came back out there to perform, well, for everybody who wasn't at the show, William was a rapper who got booed, but he forced them to let him perform again. I just like the determination. Like the never-say-quit attitude. 'Cause that's what you have to have. 'Cause man, like I said, I've been fired 4 times. I could have quit a long time ago, but I don't have no backup plan. I didn't go to college. I don't have a degree, you know, I don't have anything else to do but radio. And I used to want to rap until I realized that rap was just a bullshit pipe dream. It's just, it's so many things that you go through in this game, man. So many ebbs and flows, so many ups and downs. Just the people that truly keep going that make it. But the reason I made it is because I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
Tell me what your vision board looks like and can you share some of the things that are on there?
I used to have a traditional vision board where, you know, you would take, uh, things that you want and put them up on poster board, whatever, whatever. That's cool. I did that when I did The Secret, but to me, the best vision boards are when you write down your long-term and short-term goals. Write down everything that you want to accomplish and keep those things in your mind because your mind is what makes it manifest into reality. Like, your thoughts really do become things. Like, I don't have a college degree or anything like that. All I have is back in 1998 I said I want to be a super jock. I said I want to be one of the biggest radio personalities on the planet. I said I want to be, you know, in that Wendy Williams, Tom Joyner, Doug Banks, Howard Stern, you know, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh. I want to be in that number, you know. When they think of Charlamagne, I want them to think of me like that. I want to be my generation's that, because all of those guys, it's the natural course of things that power eventually fades and weakens. All of them, it's just like the NBA, music. It was the Magic Johnson, Larry Bird era, and it was the Michael Jordan era, now it's LeBron James era. That's just the way things are in the game, and I knew that eventually it would be my time if I wanted that, and so I claimed it. So my vision board is really just a notebook with everything that I want in my life. People move on. They dope. I mean, 50 actually put out some great records earlier this year. The joint he had with Kendrick Lamar Then he had another record, the joint with Too Short, I thought was dope. But when people are off you, they're off you. I mean, he got his pocket of fans that'll still support him, but you'll never see 50 Cent selling 10 million records again. Hell, you'll never see 50 Cent selling a million records again. Not one album. He might do it as a single. And that's not, that's not a diss to him. It's just, that's the way hip-hop is. Nobody cares no more. You know what I'm saying? Like, A thug changes, love changes, and best friends become strangers, man. Like, it happens all the time. It happens in cycles. Everybody can't be Jay-Z, you know, because— but, and the reason Jay-Z is Jay-Z, because Jay-Z has been consistent. Jay-Z dropped the album every year since 1996.
