How to Embrace DIVERSITY | Your Input Matters!

Does my channel need more diversity? I want your opinion. What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. I'm, uh, struggling with a question and I want your feedback on it. I'm looking forward to reading the comments and before even getting into it, I just want to tell anybody who's gonna leave a comment, listen, be respectful. I know we're gonna get a difference of opinions on this one. I'm not trying to be inflammatory or controversial. I generally want your feedback. But, uh, keep it nice, keep it civil. We're all part of Believe Nation, one big happy family, and so, uh, just play nice in the comments, guys. So something I've been thinking about for a while is how much diversity do I want to have on my channel, and do I want to make diversity an important part or not? Traditionally, I haven't. Traditionally, I haven't done anything with a focus of trying to be diverse. It's always been just about having the best possible content possible. If we're doing a profile of a famous entrepreneur, it comes from you guys. You guys vote on who you want to see me profile, and then we start doing research and see if there's enough. Really, the only barometer is, one, you guys like it, and two, I've learned something from it. There's some people you guys have voted on that I haven't been able to find a good message that I, like, could find 10 rules on, so we haven't done them. But for the most part, like, that's the combination. You guys like something, I like something, I mix it together, we get great content. For all the mashups, uh, How Billionaires Think, or any of those kind of mashups together, it's never an intention to include or exclude anybody. I've always taken the approach that I can learn from anybody. I can learn from old white guys, and I can learn from Kanye West, who's on my wall. Just because somebody doesn't look exactly like me doesn't mean that I can't learn from them, and that's always been my approach in going into any situation. It's not just about skin color or gender or anything else. Like, Steve Jobs may not have been the greatest father, but I can still learn something from him. Just not about fatherhood, maybe. I'll learn that from somebody else, right? So just taking the bits and pieces from people that serve you. That being said, I know there is a real— there is a real feel that if somebody looks like you, then you can go off and have similar success. And that if you see somebody who has the same issues as you do and they overcame them, then you can too, and that can be a source of inspiration. So I'm on the fence as to what to do. If I look at my top 10s coming up as an example, at the date/time of this filming, we've got Lee Daniels coming up tonight, and then the next 5 that I've been working on today are Tony Fadell, Mel Robbins, Kygo, Demi Lovato, and Lisa Nichols. And again, it's based off of your feedback, based on what's been working. So in that mix, we've got what? 3 women. We've got 5 Americans. We've got one, uh, I think Kygo is from Norway, Norwegian. Um, what, how else can we classify people? Uh, Lee Daniels is gay. I don't know if any of the others are gay or not. I don't know what kind of religious breakdowns we have here or not. You know, as far as I know, nobody has a handicap. Um, you know, Demi Lovato was, had drug abuse and eating disorders and was bullied a lot when she was growing up. I mean, all of these things, I don't try to check the box. I don't say, okay, hey, you know, we need to have at least one woman or at least one person of color or at least one gay person or at least somebody who's from a different country. It's never been part of our process. And what I'm asking is, should it be? Because I love being able to champion people without having to put another group down. Like, I believe you can celebrate one group and what makes that culture and group different without having to slam another group. So when I put up my book as an example, the new one coming out, Top 10 Rules for Success, around 10%, I think, are women. And in my test audience, I got a little bit of flak for that, saying, "Hey, why aren't there more women here?" And my response to all of this always is, that's what— those are the top— you know, we took the top 50 videos. That's what they were. And luckily there was some diversity. Luckily, right? I mean, you've got On the COVID you got Dalai Lama and Oprah Winfrey and Maya Angelou and Will Smith and Les Brown and Priyanka Chopra and a bunch of all great, amazing people. But I didn't pick who went in. It wasn't like, I really love this person, so he or she is going to get in. And I've been okay with that. Like, hey, this is how— this is what the market wants. This is what the audience has been voting for. And luckily, there's been some, again, mix of of backgrounds and colors and religions and beliefs. And what I like about it is that success is defined in different ways, right? Like how Steve Jobs sees success may be different and is different than how the Dalai Lama sees success. And so being able to pull from different backgrounds, I think, is interesting. When I evolved my channel, I started off with just entrepreneurs and then moved to other non-entrepreneurs. I think the first person was Michael Jordan. And Michael Jordan is a billionaire. Michael Jordan is an entrepreneur, but he's not seen as an entrepreneur. And as I watched some of his content to see, hey, can I pull out lessons that can help you guys? I realized, hey, there's a lot of what he talks about is just related to success. It's not, it's not only about athletics. I'm not going to show a clip on how to be a slam dunk champion or how to shoot the perfect free throw, right? That's not relevant to entrepreneurship necessarily, but a lot of his views around success and work ethic and habits are relevant. And then we applied that same philosophy to a lot of other fields. So actors and actresses and singers, a lot of different fields. So this channel has evolved to not just be about entrepreneurs, even though entrepreneurship is my— that's what I love, right? The message that I give is always entrepreneur-related, but the people that we profile are not always entrepreneurs. They may be entrepreneurial, but they're not entrepreneurs. And so I'm just trying to figure it out for myself. I'm trying to get some clarity for myself. How important is it to champion the cause of, of, you know, the non-majority, I guess. And that's a lot of different backgrounds again, right? Like, if it's gender, if it's disability, if it's sexual orientation, if it's religion, if it's nationality, you know, to be able to see someone like you on this channel. I look at series like Advice from Billionaires, you know, it's mostly men. And that's just because most of the billionaires are men. And so do I go out of my way to specifically always pick an Oprah Winfrey or a Sarah Blakely? And yes, the content would have to be good, obviously. I'm not gonna throw somebody in just because. But, you know, every time we do that series, it'd have to be the same kind of limited group of people. And is that the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do? You know, which, uh, that's what I'm wrestling with, and I really want your feedback. The content is still gonna be great content. It's still gonna be content that I am moved by and I am approved I approve of, but it's do we want to make it part of our process to purposely include more diversity as opposed to letting it naturally rise up from what you guys are suggesting? So I have 3 options, at least that I, I can think of in my head. The first off is continue as is. I'm just going to make the best content I can, continue to write the best books that I can, continue to listen to your feedback, and take your requests and find the best content for those requests, and we fill it as we've been filling it, and we let the chips fall where they may. The level of diversity that we have is gonna be the same level of diversity that we have right now, you know, or maybe as we bring on new audiences, it'll grow slightly different areas, but it's basically keep going as is, everything is great, and, uh, congratulations, let's get our next 10 million. Option number 2 is more behind the scenes, trying to incorporate Specific groups, I don't even know what it would be, you know, if we're aiming for a certain number of women or a certain number of backgrounds or a certain number of, you know, sexual orientation or, or certain number of outside North America or, you know, religion or whatever the category is, trying to aim for that so that if we're doing 5 top 10s for the week, you know, at least one checks the box, some of these other areas. Traditionally, my perspective has always been if I am only including somebody in because they are X, I'm actually disrespecting them instead of respecting them, because they're only there because they fit a criteria. So I want to be cognizant of that and not do it that way. But I'm starting to shift. I want to think, you know, is it a service? Like, is it valuable for you guys to see people from different backgrounds? Well, option 1 is continue as is. Option 2 is more behind the scenes. Making sure that in every series, you know, there's somebody from a different profile that we could put in. And then the third option is to take a stance. The third option is to be more vocal about it. The third option is to say, "Hey, I believe we need more women entrepreneurs, and here's a series dedicated to it." Or, "I believe, you know, we need to showcase more gay entrepreneurs, and here's a series dedicated." Or handicap entrepreneurs, or young entrepreneurs, or, you know, whatever. Fill in the blank of the of the specific group. And I haven't made up my mind yet. And so that's— this is what I usually do before I'm kind of deciding on something. Once I made up my mind, then that's what I'm doing. You know, I'm open until I'm not, which is what I tell my team. I'm very open until I'm not. Once I decide, then I've decided, and that's what we're doing. So right now, I'm in my very open mode, and I wanted to include you guys in on the discussion. What do you think? What option do you like the best? 1, continue as is. 1) The diversity is what it is. As we keep getting feedback from you guys, that's how we continue to grow and evolve the channel. 2) Behind the scenes, we make our own checklist and try to make sure that in every video or in every couple videos, certain boxes are checked off. Or 3) Take a stand. I'm more vocal about it. I share more content or more specific series just about it. And obviously for any of these, I would have to feel comfortable with it. I'm not just gonna get up and do something that's not authentic to me. But, um, your thoughts would be appreciated. Any perspective you have, um, maybe what you would do is great. Just to kind of wrap my head around it and figure out the future direction of this channel. It's been amazing getting to a million with you guys and just seeing the force of good that the channel has done, the number of lives that have been impacted, the number of People who've grown in confidence, grown in abilities, gone on to build businesses. It's just been amazing, and I want to continue to be a force for good. I want to continue to help unlock people's potential and solve the world's biggest problem: untap human potential. And so to see more people like you help in that. And so any ideas, suggestions, feedback, comments you have, again, keep it nice, keep it civil. I'm okay if you guys disagree, that's awesome, but be respectful of others and their opinions. I really appreciate it. Thank you guys so much for all your ongoing loyalty and fandom and just awesomeness. Let me know what you think, leave a comment down below. Thank you guys. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon. 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