Evan Carmichael argues you should study controversial figures like Kanye West, Donald Trump, and Steve Jobs not to copy their flaws, but to extract their boldness and willingness to defy convention. Bill Gates called himself a bad influence for encouraging dropouts. The point: find people who challenge your thinking and steal their useful traits.
Good morning, Believe Nation! I want you today to add more bad influences to your life. I'm going to explain what I mean by that, but first I want to show you an interesting clip from Bill Gates.
I want to thank Harvard for this honor. I'll be changing my job next year, and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume. I applaud the graduates for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, I'm just happy that the Crimson called me Harvard's most successful dropout. I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class. I did the best of everyone who failed. But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school. I'm a bad influence. That's why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I'd spoken at your orientation, Fewer of you might be here today.
So it's time to add some more bad influences to your life. And let's be clear, I don't want you to go out and rob some store, get arrested, and say, Evan Carmichael told me I needed more bad influences in my life. But what I want you to do is have some influences in your life that help you stretch, that help you get uncomfortable, and ultimately help you become the best version of yourself. See, growing up, you were conditioned to act a certain way, to think a certain way. You're conditioned to think some things are good and conditioned to think some things are bad. And it's really, really, really hard to break free of your chains of conditioning. Where if you want to be the best version of yourself, you want to have a big impact on the world, you want to build an amazing company, you're going to have to break free. You're going to have to expand your comfort zone and not just live in the bubble that you grew up in. You know, I'll get criticized on my channel for posting videos of Kanye West. People say, "What a douchebag that guy is." I'll get criticized for posting videos about Donald Trump and say, "What an egomaniac that guy is." I'll get criticized by people for posting videos of Steve Jobs and they'll say, "That guy treated his employees like crap and was such a micromanager." And people say, "How do you look up to these people? You know, I thought you had a good moral compass. How do you look up to these guys and you're making them your heroes and posting them on your channel?" And the thing for me is I don't want to be those guys, right? People ask me, "How do I want to be like— why do I want to be like Donald Trump and Kanye West?" I don't want to be like that. I want to be the best version of me. And when I grew up, I had certain conditionings myself as well. And those influences, you know, Kanye West and Donald Trump and Steve Jobs and their ability to think bigger and push boundaries and push against the establishment, that wasn't what I grew up in. And so learning from them helps me be the best version of myself and helps me have a much bigger impact. So while other people might be looking at those guys and saying, "Man, those guys are bad influences on me, bad influences on my kids, bad influence on my friends," you can take elements from them and apply it to your life to have a bigger impact and make you a better person. So I want you to go out today and find more bad influences, people who might challenge how you think, people who do things a little bit differently, and by learning from them, apply it to your life in a good way that can have a positive impact. Belief. Thank you guys for watching. My question of the day today is I want to know who the bad influences are in your life. Bad influences, but in a good way. Share in the comments below. I'm very curious to see what you guys come up with. And of course, if you like this video and you want to see more, don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter and the channel. Thank you so much for watching. Have a fantastic day. Continue to believe, and I'll see you again. Start your day with me tomorrow morning for another inspirational Entrepreneur video belief.
