- Good morning Believe Nation.
Today's message is diversify your portfolio.
Over to you James Prince.
(rooster crowing)
♫ I wake up every morning
♫ Expresso keep me goin'
♫ I wake up every morning
- My first love
was boxing.
You know, I got distracted
with the music game.
Turned out to be a good distraction.
(Man laughing)
I got distracted,
but eventually I found my way back home.
You know I love boxing,
I love the fight game and ...
You know, I diversify my portfolio.
I remember when I done it.
I actually done it when
I was under attack.
You know I was under attack
by ...
the ...
The feeds and different people and ...
They thought I was one dimensional.
You know I was under attack,
because, and I have to talk about that.
Because, and I'm a talk about it,
not from a victim point of view,
but as a testimony.
- [Man] There you go.
- You know, because, once again,
no weapon formed against me shall prosper.
And ...
But yeah these guys put a full blown attack
on the movement of, you know,
our hip hop movement,
because they didn't understand it.
You know what I mean,
we was getting paid and making so much money,
you know, group of brothers that had gave up the game,
and came over, you know, in the music industry,
was getting paid and making so much money,
until they felt like something
was crooked about our money.
And therefore, you know it caused a lot of heat.
You know what I mean.
A lot of problems.
And at that time I diversified.
I said you know what I'm not one dimensional.
You know, if they going to be watching
and trying to affect this here,
then I made a move where I popped up on their TV on HBO.
You know, they looked up and turned their TV on
and I was right there in the ring with Floyd Mayweather.
So they're like, "Damn."
How he pull this one off?
So, you know, those are some of the obstacles
and challenges of life where, you know,
one have to adjust.
And you know, we were able to do that.
And, you know the rest is history.
- So this is an interesting one for me
because you hear a lot of people talk
about diversify your portfolio,
or don't put all your eggs in one basket
and it's just come across as typical
business advice that you get
and there definitely are some situations
where that is advisable,
but there's also a lot of scenarios where it's not.
And so I thought this would be a good opportunity
to go on my Evan rant
and then you guys can figure out
which point of view you agree with.
Or maybe both.
Diversifying really applies well
when you don't know what you're doing.
Or when you have multiple passions.
So if you look at the investing strategy,
why you hear it so much in the investment world is
when you're making an investment,
if you have X amount of dollars in your savings, right.
You have $500,000 or $10,000 in savings,
if you put it all into one stock,
and that stock crashes,
then you've lost all your money.
Where if you invest it into 10 different stocks,
then one may crash,
but chances are the other ones are going to do decently,
and so overall you've made some money.
You don't know what you're really doing in investing,
you're not involved in any of those companies.
And so it helps just mitigate the risk.
Diversifying typically is a way to minimize your risk
as opposed to going off and doing something great.
Right, I would every day of the week invest in myself,
put all my eggs in the Evan Carmichael basket,
then giving my money
to 10 different corporations as stocks
and hopefully that rises, right.
It's riskier, but I'll make that bet
a hundred times out of a hundred.
Because I feel the return is going to be much higher.
Andrew Carnegie was the richest man in the world
and he was famous for saying,
"Put all your eggs in one basket,
"and then watch that basket."
So diversifying just for the sake of diversifying
is not a fantastic strategy.
What happens, when you're an entrepreneur,
and you feel like okay, I need to diversify,
I need to launch new products,
or I need to start other businesses,
I need to get out of only having this one company.
Okay, so you start a second company,
and you invest in these other businesses,
and you're trying to run all these things at the same time.
What happens is you lose focus.
And as entrepreneurs in general,
focusing can be a challenge.
Focusing can be a tough thing.
And so the last thing you need is even more distractions.
Where it can work,
apart from just trying to minimize your risk,
is if you have multiple interests.
And then you can embrace the genius at the end
and find ways to go off and do those interests
and be great at them.
If you're following something
just because you want to diversify,
but you don't really care about that.
You don't really have a deep passion for it,
it's not going to work out.
And it's only going to detract
from your original goal and intention.
But if you really love what you're doing,
you love that new opportunity,
you see how you can make it work,
especially if it can integrate somehow
with what you're currently doing,
then there is an opportunity to potentially stand out
and have that be your unique differentiator.
And so, the advice,
I felt is worth having a discussion over,
because it's such common advice that you'll hear,
and I really want you to think about
the reasons why you're doing something.
And take it with a grain of salt and ask yourself,
"Is this really the best thing for me?"
And so again,
if you don't know what you're doing,
and you're just trying to minimize risk,
diversification is great.
If you love doing multiple things,
and see extensions that you are equally passionate about,
diversification is great.
If it's not those two things,
don't diversify.
Put your eggs in one basket
and watch that basket like a hawk.
So the question of the day today is,
what are your thoughts on diversification?
Good, bad, depends on the scenario,
leave it in the comments below.
I'm going to join in the discussion.
I also want to give a quick shout out to Gregg Fauceglia.
Thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book,
"Your One Word",
it really really really really means a lot to me
and I hope you enjoy reading it.
Thank you guys so much 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 en-spes-so.
♫ I wake up every morning
♫ Expresso keep me goin'
Hey believe nation,
we're working on a top ten rules for success
from James Prince
and so here is a quick sneak peak
at some of the clips we're looking at
that I thought you'd enjoy as a bonus.
(whooshing)
- [Man] I've been in situations,
especially, you know, as a young brother.
Situations with a woman or something.
It was just like, get a job,
get a job, go work for someone else.
I can't do it for anybody else.
- You know, I went through the same thing, you know.
Be like the average person.
But you ain't made out of that kind of material, you know.
You can only be you.
Don't let none of that get you down, you know.
What it's all about,
building a team around you.
You know, even if they don't see your feeling.
I know some other people, a lawyer.
I love to sit and listen to their opinions
and accept their opinions.
But, you know, a lawyer's a lawyer.
I'm a business man.
They don't know how to do what we know how to do.
And that's a whole 'nother game, you know.
Right investments and all that kind of stuff.
But what happen a lot of times is
people taste this success man
and they feel they invincible man.
They don't plan.
Ain't like if this happen,
shit I'm a just go get a job.
I ain't never thought like that.
- People say well what's your backup plan
if this film flops
and ya'll don't make no money.
I say, I don't have a backup plan
except to do something else.
To make something else.
- That's it, that's it.
That is the backup.
That's the plan A, B and C.
Something else.
Whatever that may be.
Now it's good if you can come up with it
you know, to have it in place,
but if you can't, that's part of faith.
You know what I'm saying,
you can't see the end of that road.
But shit, you believe.
- You know I been having obstacles all my life.
You know, all of my life.
And ...
You know I have a saying.
If God be for me, the world could be against me, you know.
- Amen to that.
(light clapping)
Yeah you can clap to that.
Ain't nothing wrong with that.
(audience clapping)
So, you know, every obstacle,
you know that was before me,
you know I dealt with 'em head on.
You know, I didn't run.
I dealt with 'em.
Triumph over all of 'em.
And you know they came from a lot of different areas.
From ...
The police department
to politicians, IRS.
You know, all the powers that be, you know.
It appeared that they were out to try and stop our movement.
But, you know, once again, you know we were fearless.
And no weapon formed against me was going to prosper.