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Speaker 1: My next guest is a Grammy nominated recording artist, multi
Speaker 1: platinum music producer, and avid technologists and most importantly, a
Speaker 1: Harvard graduate. I'm a graduate of Universe Ust. At least
Speaker 1: I have the h Yes, Harvard, I have Houston. Please
Speaker 1: work with the money making conversation, Ryan Leslie, How are
Speaker 1: you doing, Ryan, I'm doing great. I am doing great.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful weather in New York City wherever you're listening from.
Speaker 1: I hope you're you're motivated. Read a way to give
Speaker 1: you some gems and get you on the pathway to
Speaker 1: even more accelerated success in your life. So I'm glad.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you tuning them may not appreciate the opportunity
Speaker 1: to beat your show. Thank you. We The great thing
Speaker 1: about it is that I'm you know, like I says.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that you're saying that, Hey man,
Speaker 1: it's time for the minority to be represented and have
Speaker 1: leadership in the tech, in the tech world, and why
Speaker 1: are we failing there? Right? I gotta ask you that
Speaker 1: before we get into the super phone talk and all that.
Speaker 1: Why are we failing in the tech world and why
Speaker 1: are we not being giving credit for participating in the
Speaker 1: tech world. Well, I think it's systemic. I think I think,
Speaker 1: I think where technology starts, it starts with uh, it
Speaker 1: starts with the dream and the ideation that comes from
Speaker 1: just knowing that you can take an idea and without
Speaker 1: you know, one of my good friends is Paul Judge
Speaker 1: from from Atlanta, and he's had he's had a couple
Speaker 1: of very successful technology exits, and one of the one
Speaker 1: of the greatest lessons that I've learned from him is
Speaker 1: that equal opportunity really is technology. So without land, without water,
Speaker 1: without steel, without brick and mortar, you can actually build
Speaker 1: services through technology that can create immense value. And so
Speaker 1: even for me, it you know, I'm coming from Harvard,
Speaker 1: I didn't actually have had the ability to take a
Speaker 1: computer science class, and nor did I have the mentors
Speaker 1: growing up that really impressed upon me the incredible opportunity
Speaker 1: that technology would empower me with in my later years.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's important now. The reason why
Speaker 1: I'm actually doing this podcast right now is just to
Speaker 1: let folks know that there is a digital age that
Speaker 1: is already upon us. There's an information age that's upon us,
Speaker 1: and in order for us to flourish in this age,
Speaker 1: we need to be prepared and we need to build
Speaker 1: a dream, the impossible dreams, because none of us know
Speaker 1: what twenty years from now is going to look like,
Speaker 1: which means we have the ability to build it. One
Speaker 1: of the one of my favorite sayings, is that the
Speaker 1: best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Speaker 1: And so that's what we're doing that super phone. You're
Speaker 1: inventing what we've the future should look like. And we
Speaker 1: are doing this based on the concept that without buildings,
Speaker 1: without without locomotives and steel and railroads and all of
Speaker 1: the all of the materials that were necessary to build
Speaker 1: value in the industrial age, the information age is really
Speaker 1: just about creating the most efficient way to exchange information.
Speaker 1: And we believe the superphone and success happened at the
Speaker 1: speed of communication, and so there's so much information available
Speaker 1: to us. It's about communicating information as efficiently as possible.
Speaker 1: And so I believe it starts schools, starts in our schools,
Speaker 1: it starts in it starts in our early childhood education programs,
Speaker 1: and I also believe in creativity, being the the first
Speaker 1: that planted in order to make us, to make us,
Speaker 1: to really make us the kind of success to being technology.
Speaker 1: I had a meeting yesterday where someone brought to my
Speaker 1: attention or made the comment that the job was more
Speaker 1: of an artist than he was a businessman. And when
Speaker 1: you look at the immensal set of Apple as a
Speaker 1: technology company, a hardware technology come in software technology company,
Speaker 1: the creativity that that the helm means that minorities as
Speaker 1: urban music and all the creativity and cultural influence that
Speaker 1: we have, when it's harnessed the right way and it's
Speaker 1: directed the right way, it means that you know, we
Speaker 1: already have the makings of being incredible technologists because the
Speaker 1: knowledge this requires great imagination. But that's imagination needs to
Speaker 1: be tied to actual, real tactical skills of being able
Speaker 1: to speak the language of computers. And so that means
Speaker 1: that you have to wake up in the same way
Speaker 1: you would learn another language, like French or any other
Speaker 1: language Italians, you need to learn the language of computers
Speaker 1: so that you can two computers exactly what you would
Speaker 1: like for them to do, and once you communicated, once
Speaker 1: they will do it. Over and over and over and
Speaker 1: over again at scale and be able to serve hundreds
Speaker 1: of millions and even in the case of Facebook or
Speaker 1: or what's that literally billions of people on the planet.
Speaker 1: And so I think for us as the people, we
Speaker 1: we just got a dream bigger. We've got a dream
Speaker 1: outside of the confines of whatever we believe our current
Speaker 1: circumstances are. And when we dream big and we apply
Speaker 1: creativity and ingenuity, because the technical skills that we can
Speaker 1: learn for free online, we can really touch the way
Speaker 1: that we should. Because that's what you did, because your
Speaker 1: degree is in government, correct, that's right? And so but
Speaker 1: you you you went to Code Academy and you learned
Speaker 1: online code and programming, and that that's what you're saying.
Speaker 1: That's what you're saying to us. Do allow your your
Speaker 1: direction or that where you've been pointed, or your degree
Speaker 1: or what people expect of you to stop your ambition?
Speaker 1: And so how just wrapping it around, how did you
Speaker 1: perceive that that was the right place to go there,
Speaker 1: to Code Academy, to put you in the right direction
Speaker 1: for to really deliver all the technology that you're achieving
Speaker 1: right now? Correct? Yes, I don't say this in every
Speaker 1: in every sense of the word, sir, you always look
Speaker 1: for the highest value proposition for the time if you're
Speaker 1: gonna put in. So even before technology, when I was
Speaker 1: doing music, I didn't want to be searched. And I said, okay, well,
Speaker 1: how much does it cost for me to actually go
Speaker 1: get a beat from Jermaine Debris? And I think at
Speaker 1: that time was the heyday the music industry, you know,
Speaker 1: hundred thousand million dollars. And I looked at my make
Speaker 1: account of the pilots, you know, a hundred thousand, quarter
Speaker 1: million dollars to get one beat. I might as well
Speaker 1: teach myself how to me and and and that's and
Speaker 1: that's exactly what I did. And that is a resource
Speaker 1: that all of us you have, so in the absence
Speaker 1: of an end and when we apply time, and we
Speaker 1: apply time and in in an intentional way to achieving
Speaker 1: processing want to achieve. It's about a either finding a
Speaker 1: mentor or a teacher that is going to invest that
Speaker 1: time for you, or finding online resources. And at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't have online resources, but you know
Speaker 1: I had digital resources and listen to domain repeats on
Speaker 1: TVs and to sit there and do my best to
Speaker 1: replicate it. And so the beauty of the information age
Speaker 1: is that a kid right now has more information at
Speaker 1: their fingertips than Bill Clinton had when he was the
Speaker 1: President of the United States and office. And so it's
Speaker 1: important for us to actually take the access that we
Speaker 1: have that information and leverage it in our favor. And
Speaker 1: so that means that whether you have money or not,
Speaker 1: there are free resources online that can teach you how
Speaker 1: to basically do anything. You want to become a photoshop expert,
Speaker 1: if you want to become an Adobe Premiere Pro expert,
Speaker 1: if you want to become a pro toose expert, if
Speaker 1: you want to become a quoting expert, if you want
Speaker 1: to become an expert on science, or an expert on
Speaker 1: literally any topic. Wikipedia, YouTube and online resources can give
Speaker 1: you that education for free, and you can become an
Speaker 1: expert even without spending forty or fifty thou dollars a
Speaker 1: year for that piece of paper that gives a certificate
Speaker 1: that says you're an expert. And what you do with
Speaker 1: that knowledge is really up to you, and it's not
Speaker 1: to you, but it's also about how you share the knowledge, right,
Speaker 1: so you can amount the knowledge and all I would
Speaker 1: say that any new value that's created in the world
Speaker 1: has become someone creatively put their spin on it and
Speaker 1: soup the phone is. You know, it's uh superphone, the
Speaker 1: novel concept, and I'm driving to New York Cities. You
Speaker 1: can hear it. You can hear the cyber wings in
Speaker 1: the background, New York Brother. Yeah, for sure, superphone is
Speaker 1: a novel concept because of the ingenuity and creativity that's
Speaker 1: being applied to an existing technology which is at the
Speaker 1: night right. So I'm interested in just enabling and empowering
Speaker 1: and encouraging that next generation of creatives to be as
Speaker 1: creative as possible and look at problems that and challenges
Speaker 1: that the human race is going to be facing in
Speaker 1: the future, and making sure that you've shock in your
Speaker 1: mind so that you can solve for challenges that we
Speaker 1: don't even know at this yet. And that's how you're
Speaker 1: going to really create value for the world. And when
Speaker 1: you pray value for the world, the world turns around
Speaker 1: and creates value for you. We're in the phone listen
Speaker 1: to Money Making Conversation. I'm your host with Sean McConnell.
Speaker 1: On the phone with Ryan leslie Um, the creative of
Speaker 1: the Superphone, and then incredible and uh, I said young
Speaker 1: and he's younger than me, and he's doing some things
Speaker 1: that in the creative world of tech. That is uh,
Speaker 1: flipping the strip, flipping the script. We're gonna be back
Speaker 1: with more. And when we come back, Ryan, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about superphone, how that idea really came out.
Speaker 1: I also want to talk about that Stevie wanted to
Speaker 1: see D. That then, but what Stevie wanted to see
Speaker 1: They see your bio. It just says Stevie wanted to
Speaker 1: see D and they say nothing about the actual CD.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know what songs really really when you sit
Speaker 1: you on the next level. We'll be right back with
Speaker 1: both Ryan Leslie bringing Man, Brian young Man. I know
Speaker 1: I didn't do sixteen hundred on my s A T.
Speaker 1: I can tell you that I will not telling what
Speaker 1: I did because six hundred is perfect and he was fourteen.
Speaker 1: I just was Sean McDonald on the line. Is uh incredible,
Speaker 1: Brian Leslie, Um, Brian, I want before we get into superphone.
Speaker 1: But and my degree is in mathematics minor and computer
Speaker 1: science sociology and in high school, UM, I was kind
Speaker 1: of like one of those chosen few they said I
Speaker 1: was smarter than everybody, and I resisted that. I resisted that,
Speaker 1: I resisted the fact that I was in that fans classes.
Speaker 1: I resisted I was in this group of seven that
Speaker 1: they said was smarter than everybody in school, and and
Speaker 1: and and the reason I wanted to bring it up
Speaker 1: because it's important, I think, to admit your talents and
Speaker 1: don't shy away from the opportunity. That's what you just
Speaker 1: said in the first break is that their knowledge is
Speaker 1: so much, it's so available, and it's free of free
Speaker 1: that you should take advantage of that. Being a young
Speaker 1: man at the age of fourteen who made a perfect
Speaker 1: score on the s A T, how did you deal
Speaker 1: with that? How did you deal being ahead of the curve?
Speaker 1: With with with students? Because I I'll admit that that
Speaker 1: I shied away from it. I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: special and you were you are special, and you were special? Then,
Speaker 1: so how did you deal with that? Before we move forward?
Speaker 1: I agree with you, my brother. I believe that you
Speaker 1: just have to embrace it. And I believe that we're
Speaker 1: all unique. And in the same ways that we're all unique,
Speaker 1: we actually are every day engaging in the exact same activities.
Speaker 1: We gotta we gotta eat, we gotta take care of ourselves,
Speaker 1: have some high giene, and the rest of the day
Speaker 1: is how you actually feed your mind and body so
Speaker 1: that you can you can deliver the most value to
Speaker 1: the world. And like I said, helping the most people
Speaker 1: in life is exactly how you're going to help yourself
Speaker 1: the best. Because you feel just as good helping people,
Speaker 1: or better helping people, then you set right. And so
Speaker 1: I believe that you we all can find what our
Speaker 1: special gift is and we and I think the way
Speaker 1: that we find what our special gift is is understanding
Speaker 1: how we impact people and how we impact our families,
Speaker 1: how we impact our friends, how we impact the people
Speaker 1: who matter the most to us. That is a gift
Speaker 1: that is very very unique, right because there is no
Speaker 1: one person on this planet who can actually personally help
Speaker 1: six thousand and sixty thousand, six million, six billion people.
Speaker 1: You know the people, And that's why I think friendship
Speaker 1: and close relationships are so important. And so even if
Speaker 1: you feel like your talent made made, there may be
Speaker 1: many folks who have the same talent that you have.
Speaker 1: The way, the way I really think about it is
Speaker 1: that when my mother would sing to me as a
Speaker 1: young as a young as a young man, it was
Speaker 1: a lot different than listening to somebody seeing to me
Speaker 1: on a radio. And that that personal connection, that personal
Speaker 1: uh equity that was being built in that relationship by
Speaker 1: her just sharing her gifts and talent of playing the
Speaker 1: piano at night before I would sleep, That was so
Speaker 1: profoundly valuable to me, and it made her life extremely
Speaker 1: valuable as well, knowing that she had that kind of
Speaker 1: impact on her young son. And so I think for
Speaker 1: anyone that that's struggling or thinking, hey, what is my talent?
Speaker 1: What is my gifts? You just need to look around
Speaker 1: you and look at the people that you're actually affecting,
Speaker 1: and the people that you're affecting that is the gift.
Speaker 1: That is the value of your gift. And the more
Speaker 1: you can temple you have an idea or you have
Speaker 1: a product or a service that can help more people,
Speaker 1: and you can start to scale it with technologies, you
Speaker 1: scale it by a building a business or an enterprise
Speaker 1: around it, then you start to see your value. That's
Speaker 1: what you do with superphone. Correct, Right, So, how how
Speaker 1: did the thought process initiate itself into your mind? And
Speaker 1: then how did you move it forward? Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: just understood very early on that communication in general is
Speaker 1: wildly inefficient. And what I mean by that is the
Speaker 1: number of young people are listening right now to this
Speaker 1: podcast who have great ideas and just feel like they
Speaker 1: just don't know the right people, or they don't have
Speaker 1: the money to start their idea yet. They probably don't
Speaker 1: even know a loan officer at a bank, or they
Speaker 1: don't even know the first thing about even being in
Speaker 1: touch with a bank to get a loan to start
Speaker 1: their ideas and get it off the ground, or or
Speaker 1: they feel like they don't have mentors, or they feel
Speaker 1: like they don't have a great sounding board that they
Speaker 1: can talk to them around their idea so that they
Speaker 1: can have examples or or or have lessons that other
Speaker 1: people have learned who have have gone down this pathway
Speaker 1: in the past. I think that, uh, I think that
Speaker 1: my my initial goal was always to make communication more efficient.
Speaker 1: And I think that when we when we leave ourselves
Speaker 1: to allow our relationships to be managed by third party's
Speaker 1: social platforms like basic work or Twitter or LinkedIn or
Speaker 1: whatever it is, it's a very very lazy way to
Speaker 1: approach life. And I think that when you're more proactive
Speaker 1: in life, you're gonna move the ball down the field
Speaker 1: a lot faster because you're calling plays as opposed to reacting.
Speaker 1: And so when you think about your social graph, and
Speaker 1: I'm talking to everybody's listing right now, you think about
Speaker 1: and when you think about, hey, I got this many
Speaker 1: followers on Instagram, or hey I've got this many friends
Speaker 1: on Facebook, or I have this many connections on LinkedIn,
Speaker 1: those connections, those followers, they're only as valuable as the
Speaker 1: conversations you're actually having with them. They're only as valuable
Speaker 1: as the competitions you are actually having with them and
Speaker 1: the ways that you're transacting your time and the ways
Speaker 1: you're transacting money with them. Right, And so it's very
Speaker 1: very important to have a direct line of communication on
Speaker 1: all the people you're connected to, because that's would be
Speaker 1: the most efficient way that you can communicate your ideas
Speaker 1: that you can build and you can achieve success in
Speaker 1: the most efficient manners possible. So you are to create
Speaker 1: the one on one, you're creating the one on one.
Speaker 1: I'm helping you. I'm helping everyone to to create that
Speaker 1: one on one. Same I'm at every single you mention
Speaker 1: you have on social media, those mentions are extremely weak
Speaker 1: unless you have a cell phone number on every single
Speaker 1: one of them. And in order to have a cellphone
Speaker 1: number and every single one of your followers connections, Facebook friends,
Speaker 1: YouTube subscribers, whatever you're building, you need a platform that
Speaker 1: is going to help you to manage those connections at
Speaker 1: scale so that you always have them at your fingertips
Speaker 1: and you can achieve success at the speed of communication.
Speaker 1: And that's pieces of superb Wow. And so when you
Speaker 1: when you pitched that idea, who who told you you
Speaker 1: were crazy? Ryan? Who told you? Anybody seeing that? I
Speaker 1: think I actually just I think I didn't bust the
Speaker 1: search online because I had reached the stage in my
Speaker 1: life and career where I had the means, I had
Speaker 1: the financial re step out the way, step out the way,
Speaker 1: my to get out the way money, that's right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I ad ability to just say like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: if this already exists, I just paid for it. And
Speaker 1: I think that the real moment for me, the Eureka
Speaker 1: moment for me, was that hey, this concept in the
Speaker 1: way that I imagined and envisioned it, it just didn't exist.
Speaker 1: So I message didn't allow me to say, Okay, just
Speaker 1: show me all the conversations I'm having with the Talcoper
Speaker 1: because I needed to Talcoper right now, or just showing
Speaker 1: you all the conversations I've had. There were people that
Speaker 1: work at Delta Airline because I'm going later for my play.
Speaker 1: My message that didn't work like that, my text messages
Speaker 1: that didn't work like that, and I said, well, hey,
Speaker 1: we're living in century. My phone should just be able
Speaker 1: to do that. And so I thought it was more
Speaker 1: instead of someone telling me that I was crazy, I
Speaker 1: was looking at the world say as of this technology
Speaker 1: is crazy and the opportunity that this absence creates a
Speaker 1: an ability for me to actually create this value in
Speaker 1: this in the absence of the technology for which I
Speaker 1: was searching. Yeah, so this app, this is an app
Speaker 1: you can go to Apple Store and download the super
Speaker 1: phone app has been created by you. Now I want
Speaker 1: to go back for I know I'd said it earlier.
Speaker 1: If I don't bring up the fact that Stevie want
Speaker 1: to See d that you heard that friend heard Major Player.
Speaker 1: What was the Stevie want the song A C D Well,
Speaker 1: I would say, uh, st step Wonders CD that really
Speaker 1: change everything, that really to change the whole course of
Speaker 1: my life and career in life. Tast what songs in
Speaker 1: the key of life? Now you go? You go? What
Speaker 1: song though? What song though? That's a brilliant That's a
Speaker 1: brilliant c D. That's a brilliant c D. Which song do? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Really your brilliant body of work? And this all with
Speaker 1: love and need of love today? And I really believe
Speaker 1: that you know that's what we do. We are we
Speaker 1: are at creating the ability for people to have closer
Speaker 1: relationships and get to what we all crave in life,
Speaker 1: which is more love. And if you have more love
Speaker 1: around your ideas, if you have more love around the
Speaker 1: questions that you are asking to help, that you are
Speaker 1: asking for is so much more powerful to ask for
Speaker 1: help from someone that loves you as opposed to someone
Speaker 1: that doesn't know you. And you know what, I think
Speaker 1: there is a I think there's a there. I believe
Speaker 1: in the inherent good of humanity. And I believe, like
Speaker 1: I said, people feel better helping, even better helping than
Speaker 1: being helped. And so the ability for you to actually
Speaker 1: find empathy and find real death in your relationships is
Speaker 1: just gonna make your life that much more enriched and better.
Speaker 1: And that's that's that's the goal. That's that's the aim
Speaker 1: of superphone and so, and that means that whether that's
Speaker 1: that's your customers, because you want your customers to feel
Speaker 1: like you love them, you know, and that's why you're
Speaker 1: building a product to help them, uh, to have better lives.
Speaker 1: Whether that's your fans, whether that's your meends and family,
Speaker 1: or your colleagues. I feel like deeper relationships are really
Speaker 1: I'm going to extend your life. And only will they
Speaker 1: extend your life, they'll make your life that much more enriched.
Speaker 1: And so as we go into SO, I want you
Speaker 1: to think about your iPhone today and I want you
Speaker 1: to think about how much better your life to be,
Speaker 1: like having better organization and having a little bit of
Speaker 1: automation and having intelligence on your messaging that actually allows
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, Hey, my man, we know we're gonna
Speaker 1: take this show to TV. I've already been notified. Can
Speaker 1: you be my first test? Ryan? Absolutely, You're the best
Speaker 1: brother we may man, I would be. Anybody has any
Speaker 1: other questions for me to talk and cover anything, to
Speaker 1: go to text Ryan dot com and leave your number
Speaker 1: and I'll text you right back. Text Ryan, I'll leave
Speaker 1: your number. I will text you right back, and we
Speaker 1: can continue to die Love, Stay strong. Go to Apple
Speaker 1: Store you can download it right now. Listening makes us smarter,
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