Diversity Empowers You

0:04This is the Ed Milet Show. Before we get started, I just want to remind you of something, my friend, and that is this. You were born to do something great with your life. I just had that on my heart today before we get going. I just feel like maybe there's an awful lot of you during this time right now that wonder whether that's true. And maybe you need to be reminded of it. Maybe you're not even sure how you're going to do it again. And I'm here to help you with all of that. But I just want to begin by telling you, you're special. You were born to do something awesome with your life in big ways and in small ways.

0:37And that's the whole purpose of this show, is for me to help you max out your life. I want you to write this down if you can, if you're YouTube or you're not driving your car right now, and that is this. Today's theme is very simple. Diversity is the pathway to richness. Diversity is the pathway to richness. And I mean diversity in two forms, the people in your life and the experiences of your life. And without that diversity, I'm so concerned in our culture today that I see us become more and more tribal, less and less diverse, both in our friendships and our relations. We don't talk to each other.

1:09We talk at each other. And more and more, we hang around people just like us, don't we? And they kind of reinforce our beliefs and our way of living. And we just kind of go in this circle. It feels good. It's like eating cake. You know, it feels really good, but it doesn't grow us. And then the second thing is the lack of diverse experiences that we're giving ourself access to. And so I looked up diversity, by the way, in the dictionary, and basically it means variety. We've all heard the saying that variety is the spice of life. That spice, that variety, comes through diversity. So the experience that I had this week that I wanted to share with you, and I can only talk about it for a few minutes because every time I get going, I can't finish sentences.

1:48but I dropped my son off at college yesterday and can't do it. Sorry. I just, my boy left me yesterday. It hit me much harder than I thought it would. And it's hitting me even harder again today. And I think one of the reasons is, is that I liked our kind of lack of variety, our lack of diversity. I had him under my roof every single day. But what I keep reminding myself of is how amazing these next four years can be for my son. Why? Because he's about to have the most diverse experience of his lifetime, isn't he? He's already meeting people that he didn't grow up around, people from different backgrounds, different countries, different economics situations, different religions.

2:27He's going to be introduced to different ways of thinking. He's going to have decisions and choices to make, good and bad, isn't he, during these years? But any of you that went to college or have sent a child off to college, it's four of the best years of most people's lives. Why? It's the most diverse years of their life. So if that's true for Max, I got to be excited for him, don't I? As emotional as I am for myself. But it's also true for you. It's true for me. There's a direct correlation and connection between the amount of diversity in our life, variety, and how happy we are, how much we're growing.

2:58By the way, how wealthy you'll get too. And so when I dropped Max off, I want to tell you first about making decisions. I said, Max, you're going to have a lot of decisions you're going to have to make in your life when you're here for the first time. And when I say diversity and variety and chase diversity, right? I don't mean things that you are knowingly aware of could be harmful to you. So when you're offered a drug or a particular drink or some situation or decisions, you got to make max, there's only two things you need to remember. So this is the next thing I'd have you all right now. I said, Max, you need to remember who you are as a man, your identity, and number two, what you stand for.

3:32And if every decision comes your way, you just remind yourself, who am I and what do I stand for? And is this choice, this decision consistent with that, then you'll make the right decision. And I know that for a fact, by the way, for you in your life, who are you and what do you stand for? And have you been living that way recently? Because I think you love all people. I think you want to chase experiences. I think you want memories and moments in your life and you want to be happier. All of that is in this place that most of us avoid as we get older, which is new things, diverse things, different people, different ways of thinking.

4:07You're taught in the world right now, aren't you, man. These people are different. They're your enemy. Everybody in the world, both the left political party and the right political party, I'll tell you, your life's messed up because of these people. It's not your fault. It's their fault. Both parties do it, right? It's interesting. So many people say, you don't know what it's like to be me, but they seem to be an expert on what it's like to be you. Maybe those of you that think you're an expert on what it's like to be somebody else, or you've got an opinion about somebody's life, ask yourself if you've walked in their shoes.

4:34Ask yourself if you've had their experiences. And if you haven't, why don't you start to get to know people like that. And maybe your opinion could evolve or change. Or at least you'd have an experience, wouldn't you? That's unique and different than the one you're having with the same three, four or five people you talk to that go to the same three, four or five places. And so you can have diversity right now on no budget. And I'm going to talk about those things with you today. I felt compelled to share that experience with you. Because it was life changing for him. And it's life changing for me.

5:02And the lesson there is it can be life changing for you as well. So diversity in all forms. Remember I said diversity in people in your life. And I want you to really evaluate that. The last 90 days or so, how many diverse conversations you have with people that grew up completely differently than you? Different background, different race, different religion, right? Different experience. They're in your business. How many people that are around you are very different than you? Right? They look different. They talk different. They come from somewhere different. They bring different experiences, perspectives, thoughts, opinions, nuances.

5:35to the table that are beautiful. See, as a country, we are better together. We're not all the same. People say, we're all the same. No, we're not all the same. And that's what makes it so beautiful. We're not all the same. But together, we're stronger. Some people ask me if I'm going to run for office. I don't know, but I doubt it. But one of the only reasons I would is I would do it to bring people together. I'm so tired of these political parties, the media, everybody, social media, putting us against each other. And the other people, well, we're not the same. We're beautiful combined, our combined experience, our combined skills, our combined thoughts, our combined lives, our combined souls are better together, are better.

6:14I'm not saying everybody's good. I don't believe that. I don't believe everybody should be in your circle. But one of the things that's confusing to a lot of people is they say, well, wait a minute. I listened to you. I listened to social media. It says, hey, keep your circle small. Only have people there that support your way of thinking. You're not understanding what that means. So let me clarify it for you. I mean, people that support your dreams, that support you, that support who you are and what you stand for. To go back to my conversation with Max, I don't want anybody in my life who doesn't support who I am and what I stand for, right?

6:44But I want them to express it. I want them to challenge me. I don't want everybody to think politically the same as me. I don't have the same personality as me. You're a really serious person. Wouldn't it be more spicy, more diverse to have some hilarious people around you? If you're a complete right winger, Wouldn't it be just more diverse and interesting at lunch, at dinner with someone who's on the left or vice versa? Man, have some women friends, women. Hey, guys, how about have some conversations with some ladies that you're not just dating? Just get to know their experience, what they're thinking about, what they fear, what they worry, what they want, what they chase, what their anxieties are, what their dreams are, what their insecurities are, and vice versa.

7:25That's how we get better. And so your life, right? If you go, I want to be happier, one of the ways is more diversity. And so if you haven't had a lot of that lately, chase it. There's someone at work that you could reach out to you don't know, say, I want to get to know you better. Let's have a conversation. Let's have a Zoom. One of the things that drives my friends crazy is that if they get in an Uber with me or a limo, they know I'm not talking to them, I'm talking to the driver, anybody who drives me or anything like that, because I believe human beings are gifts. And only is that revealed to you when you open them up.

7:55And so I know I interview kind of one of the things I do here is I interview, but I get to know people. I love people. It drives my friends crazy because they know we get in a car if it's an hour, Eddie's talking to the driver the whole time. I want to know where are you from, what's your upbringing, right? Because they're diverse. That's spice. I already know these other three. I could talk to them later. I want to talk to this person. I was driving last week, example, a guy picked me up. It's from Lebanon. I said, hey, man, what's it like there? Take me through it. And I learned a lot. My life's better because I'm not from Lebanon.

8:22I've never been to Lebanon. but I had this picture what it was like and he's like actually where I grew up man gated community middle class Christians Jews Muslims agnostic all on my street and we had street parties and we all got along great I said you're kidding me that wasn't kind of my image he goes well there's places where it's not like that but where I lived just like where you would live here I said you're kidding me no way and we had a great conversation he's got three children one of this guy's from Lebanon one of his kids that immigrated here one of his kids is at Harvard It's kicking butt, man.

8:52He's driving Uber to help support tuition. My life was richer because of that experience. Didn't cost me any money. My life got better. So were yours if you chased diversity. By the way, so will your business. So I want to talk to you entrepreneurs for a minute. Diversity is the key. I don't believe, by the way, hiring on skin color, one way or the other. I don't go, well, your skin's darker, I'm hiring you. Or your skin's lighter, I'm hiring you. I don't hire on genitalia or gender either. I hire the person that's the best for the job. having said that one of the mistakes entrepreneurs make and we make in our lives that I made when I was young is I started to look at my business when I was younger everyone around me my clients the people that work with me were all just like me you looked around my business when I was 25 26 years old they're all guys all former athletes or military or police all kind of the testosterone masculine crowd they loved my messages they loved how I talk the veins sticking out getting all fired up, yelling and screaming, and I'd get this reinforcement, so I thought I was doing it right.

9:51One of the mistakes you entrepreneurs make is you keep getting reinforced your way of thinking. You do it in politics too, don't you? You watch on TV exactly what you already believe, right? Your phone's programmed now that what you've clicked on, they're going to feed you more of what you like. And in work, we do it too. Why? Why is it that those guys all were like me? you know why because we like people that are like us we just do it's an unconscious bias everybody has it black people have it white people have it old people have it young people it's an unconscious bias we like people like us it's not horrible to have it's horrible not to be aware of and so you have unconscious bias in your friendships in your politics and in your hiring and training and work and so I had all these guys they love what I talked about it was great.

10:39You're great, Ed. Thank you. And we were all fired up all the time about how supposedly great our company was. But guess what? That's a limited segment of the world. So is people just like you. You have a limited slice of life if everyone around you looks like you. My white friends, how many conversations you had in the last 90 days with a really good friend of yours that's Latin or Chinese or black? My black friends, last 10 phone calls you've had, last conversations, how many of them were with a white guy or a white girl? And I hate skin color. I hate judging that. I'm talking about diversity of experience.

11:11Unfortunately, we live in a world where this has become, you better pick a tribe. It's terrible. The truth is most of us are mixed with something. Drives me nuts that we even have to have this conversation. But the truth is we have become tribal. And the truth is you got to get to know people that are different than you. And so I started to evaluate that. So stay with me on this. And I started to realize I needed to bring more people to the table that could express who I was and what I stood for in their unique way. I can express it my way. I need people's experiences, backgrounds, memories, nuances, personalities, ways of thinking that I don't have.

11:50And so let me give you a couple examples of what my business life looks like. I've been named one of the 50th wealthiest men in the world under 50 years old. That's pretty cool. My podcast and my show that you're watching if it's on YouTube, fastest growing show in the world millions of people around the world listen to my content and my audience is unbelievably what diverse 52 % women 48 % men 48 % of my audience is under 35 years old 52 % of my audience is over global and in the United States I have entrepreneurs and non entrepreneurs I have Christians Muslims Jews agnostics I have people that are you know trying to win financially in life and people that want to win spiritually in life.

12:35It's diverse. Why is that? Because obviously I'm that same guy that when I was 25, it's who I've surrounded myself with. So many of you may not know this, but I want you to think about something. I'd love to tell you that all that stuff's grown because I'm so incredible and so wonderful, but that's just not the case. The reason it's grown like it has is because of the diversity and the variety and the spice around me. Not only do I enjoy it, but it's tremendously changed my financial situation. By the way, I do all the social media stuff for free, as you know, but it's growing my brand. So let me give you an example.

13:05This social media, YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, wherever you're listening to me, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all of that enterprise of mine, my public reputation and brand, the CEO and president of that company, the leader of that company is a woman, a young woman, a young black woman, and one of my dearest friends whom I love named Trevi. So yeah, this entire thing you're consuming for me, turns out it's driven by someone different than me, someone better than me, someone who brings experiences and thoughts. So it's my message. It's my brand. It's what I stand for. I hire for people who understand who I am and what I stand for, but can help me express it differently.

13:49Maybe in your case, get to markets differently. Variety is the spice of life. I'm a better businessman. I'm a richer financially and richer emotionally and spiritually because of the diversity in my life. We can learn from everybody. So my challenge to you is take a look at your hiring. If you're running a company, maybe you need to get people together that are there that are very different. Why don't you encourage people that don't know each other to get on a Zoom or to have lunch this week and just get to know one another. Collaborate, connect, get to understand each other's backgrounds and nuances.

14:19I would challenge you to do that. I hope that's a breakthrough for you, by the way, on how to lead your company and in your life. Maybe reach out to somebody that's different than you this week, politically. Maybe for 20 minutes, listen to something that's not exactly what you already believe. You know what you might find out? There might be something they believe you ought to consider. Maybe one little part of it. And you know what the worst thing that would happen is? You go, you know what? I just, I listened to them. I totally disagree with them. I feel stronger about how I feel. Great. That's an experience.

14:45But I can guarantee if you had 10, 12, 20, 30 of these, your life would change. How about this? What could you do that's new for the first time? Think about your life. All the things that have been the greatest moments of your life were new in the first time and diverse. The second thing we teach in personal development is, man, you better have habits, rituals, and routines. I teach this. People take that to an extreme. That's a foundational thing you should have that gives you the anchor so you can go have variety and diversity and keep your life under control. If everything in your life is routine, if you and your spouse watch the same shows together, go to the same restaurants, order the same food, have the same conversations every single day.

15:23That's a relationship that's dying, not growing. Why don't you do something new and innovative? Walk somewhere different, work out together, try a different restaurant, have a different conversation, watch a different movie. Heck, do something that's just diverse. Don't sleep in your bed tonight. Grab a couple sleeping bags and have a camp out in the living room and a picnic and do something romantic, something diverse. Get creative. It's the spice of life. Your ability to create diverse and variety-based experiences will be the juice of your life, your relationships, and your business. But you can't go through the motions.

15:55You've got to force diversity, force yourself into variety. New conversations, new experiences, a new place you hike. I don't know, something new that's diverse and variety. We avoid it as adults. And it kills me. You can learn from everybody. Let me share this with you. You'd say, well, everybody? Yeah. You may not agree, but you can learn. You can learn. That grows you. You know, many of you know that my first job out of college, I worked at McKinley Home for Boys, which basically was an orphanage. My boys were all eight to 10 years old. My boys grew up in some ways like me, in some ways different.

16:37And so it changed my life because I got so much diversity in my life. My boys were wards of the court. So my boys, most of them were either molested by their family, their parents were incarcerated or dead. And so my, by the way, most of my boys were inner city boys and most of my boys were a minority of some type. Okay. They changed my life. You'd say, well, they must've learned a great deal from you, Ed. I mean, your mentoring and your way of living? They did. And I learned a ton from them. So if I could learn from eight and nine-year-old inner city boys, don't you think you could learn from someone who thinks completely differently than you?

17:17Wouldn't that be interesting? I learned to be grateful for the most simple things in my life from them. I remember one day I would walk the boys to school every day and little Marcus every day would start skipping. We always walked in a line and he would start skipping. I say, Marcus, get back in line, brother. Okay, Eddie. And he would do it every day. So finally one day he skipped again. I said, Marcus, you need to get back in line, man. I'm not going to tell you three times. And he looks at me with this beautiful little face. Marcus was an African American little boy. And he goes, Eddie. Okay.

17:49I said, what are you so damn excited about, man? He goes, no gunshots on this way to school. Every day there's no gunshots, Mr. Eddie. And I went, yeah, that is cool, Marcus. That is pretty awesome. And I thought something that simple he was grateful for. What a lesson for me. We're always grateful for the biggest things in our lives, the biggest things in our lives. What about the small things that we take for granted every single day that someone from a different background can teach us is so special. See, when you begin to get diverse experiences, you begin to get insights into life-changing variety in your life.

18:25It's also the key to making a comeback. If you're going to change things right now and make a comeback, you need to start to think different and act different and feel different about yourself. And that comes from all of these experiences. You know, I told Max, I said, Max, listen, there's going to be choices for you at college, man, that are going to be very difficult. This is not going to be all sunsets and rainbows, right? I said, my freshman year of college, man, I had some decisions to make. I said, let me tell you about my freshman year. I went away to college, which is already scary. So I know you're a little bit scared.

18:55I said, I went away, I get there and my girlfriend breaks up with me back home. That one hurt. Then my teammates didn't like me. I'm super introverted and shy. I was from California. Most of those guys weren't. They thought I was arrogant and cocky because I was quiet. So, but it wasn't, I was just super introvert. They actually nicknamed me Eddie myself instead of Eddie Milet because I was alone so often. And so my girlfriend breaks up with me. My teammates don't like me. Two months after I got there, the coach who recruited me quit and took a scouting job. So now the reason I went there is gone.

19:27And I said, Max, then the game started and I was overmatched. I wasn't good enough. I hit 220 my freshman year. I sucked. I played every game because the guy behind me was even worse than me. And I said, we went 15 and 45 that year, 15 wins, 45 losses. And a bunch of other crap happened that wasn't good that year as well. I said, when it was over, I wanted to quit. And I called my dad, which is his grandfather, we call him Gump. I said, Gump came up and I said, Dad, this didn't work out. Look, the guy who recruited me quit. The teammates don't like me. I'm not good enough to play here. You know, we're terrible.

20:03I just want to come home and I'll go to another school back home. And my dad said, well, you could do that. You got a decision to make. And guess what my dad said to me? He probably doesn't even remember this. He goes, is that consistent with who you are as a man? Is that what you stand for? the same two questions I asked you earlier I said what do you mean he said is that is that who you are you a quitter when it gets really difficult you run I said dad that's not what happened the coach quit he goes oh so what you stand for as long as people around you quit and give up make mistakes that gives you permission to do it that's what you're saying and when it gets really difficult you just run and um you really believe you're not any good that's why you hit 220 and you can't help the team get any better.

20:46It's fine. You can leave. I just want to make sure that that's who you are and what you stand for. You got me. And I thought about it really hard, Max. I thought, that's not who I am. I don't run when it gets tough. And you know what? Maybe I could outwork these guys this summer and get a little bit better. And maybe I won't hit 220 next year. Maybe we could win a few more games. And the fact that the coach quit, that doesn't give me permission to get weak and quit either. my dad was a diverse thinker and I stayed and you know what worked out pretty well next year I hit like 360 was a defensive player of the year we won some more games you're going to be faced with those decisions as well my my thinking is maybe some of you listening to this day are being faced with those decisions aren't you just remember is it who you are is it consistent with who you are and what you stand for and do you have enough diversity in your life this is how we're going to make a comeback.

21:40The last thing I want to talk about on this too is, by the way, it's good for your brain. Turns out diversity and new experiences are great for your brain. So let me prove it to you, okay? I want to prove it to you scientifically. It turns out that you get more of a dopamine hit, you're happier when you're under stress and pursuing a dream and a goal than when you actually achieve it. Is that not crazy that that's how the brain works? So I'm like, I want to check into this brain on this diversity thing because I got a feeling that this society, this culture could come together in a way it's never come together before, we'd have a richer experience as a world, as a country, in our companies, and in our lives if we would seek diversity.

22:15Learning a new skill at any age has a specific and definite impact on your brain that scientists now know a lot about. After you learn something new, your brain is never the same again. Here are some of the ways it can change, which, by the way, is new neurons and connections. So it turns out this diversity variety thing is the only way you change your brain. for the better. So it's not just better for you in the ways I've described. It's better for your brain, your mental health, your smarts, your ability to function and process information grows when you have these diverse experiences. Babies and children undergo massive brain structuring when they're maturing.

22:52Why? Because they're experiencing new things all the time. So our growth is only limited by our lack of experience and our lack of diversity. So why do I cover all these things with you? Because I want to remind you of something I keep telling you, which is that you were born to do something great with your life. And that's not going to happen if you keep doing the same things. Even those of you that say, hey, I'm achieving at a pretty high level right now. Your limitations will be the amount of diversity you can take on at any given time. Said another way, the quality of our life is actually the amount of uncertainty that we can deal with at any given time.

23:25Uncertainty is correlated to diversity and variety, doing something new. The caliber of our lives is actually, as it turns out, comprised of how much diversity we can take at any given time. And I'm not suggesting that you go to change your mind. I say you go to expand your mind, to grow your mind. Changing it is something altogether different. I don't agree with everybody on my team. Here's what I know. If you know who you are and you know what you stand for, you go into those experiences strong, ready, equipped. Here's the truth. You know why I struggled my freshman year? You know why I worry about college for all of you youngsters going out there?