WEBVTT - INTERVIEW: Rich Paul On Navigating His Career LeBron's GOAT Status, Hustle, Honor + More 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:02.480 Wake that ass up in the morning. 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:05.320 The Breakfast Club Morning. 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:09.720 Everybody's DJ Envy Charlamagne to God. We are the Breakfast Club. 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:11.600 We got a special guest in the building. His book 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:15.200 is out today. Yes, indeed, ladies and gentlemen, Rich Paul, welcome, sir, 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:16.599 Thanks for having me. 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:19.520 How's everything? It's great man, I see you in years, Rich, 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:20.200 long time. 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.239 Last time we was together, we went to we had 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:24.119 like a little brunch. 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:27.160 We had a brunch. This is like damn like. 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:28.880 That was a wild that was like that was over ten. 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:33.280 Years, twenty eleven, Yeah, twenty twelve, look at you now, Rich. 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:34.040 It's great, man. 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:34.680 Absolutely. 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:36.000 First of all, I will tell you how I love 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.360 your book lucky Me than I read it thoroughly, thoroughly, 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.919 thoroughly enjoyed it. But I need to know the process 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.320 of this book because I know the publishers probably. 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.280 Wanted more like your agent life. 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.760 Now you know what is what is your relationship with 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.120 Lebron But you didn't get him that. You gave him 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.480 all east Side of Cleveland, very detailed, and I appreciated that. 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:58.440 But how did you get the publishers to agree with that? 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.800 Well, this wasn't a published the book was my idea 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:06.360 along with my team, and you know, it's a timing thing. 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:08.400 So it was like, you know, would you ever do 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:10.039 a book. I'm like, yeah, if I do a book, though, 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.160 I don't want it to be a puff piece because 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:17.319 I think it's important for people to There's people inspiring 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:21.160 to be you or be in your position, and they 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:25.080 see the successes, right, they see courtside of games, the 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.640 negotiated deals and all that, and so people say, well, 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:31.360 you know, I can be rich Paul. You got these 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.399 companies looking for the next young black guy with a 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:39.720 cool jacket on to be their representation of a rich Paul. 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.480 But I'm like, now you're missing a lot. If you 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.000 want to be me today, let's start here. Let me 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.520 educate you on some of the things that I know 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:51.960 would resonate with you. I know it resonates with you, 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:55.000 you and everybody, and so I just didn't want to 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.320 write a puff piece. I wanted to be something that 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:02.160 was impactful education. You know, you know, because experiences are education. 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.160 People look at it and what I didn't realize and 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.520 I realized even more today. You know, when you're going 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:10.480 through shit as a kid, like you read about my mom, 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:14.359 you read about, you know, just some dark days. It's 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:16.560 like the world is coming to an end, right, you 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:21.040 think like everything is crumbling. But then in the position 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:25.000 I sitting today, I'm like, oh shit, like those are 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:30.239 like superpowers for me, right, because now these boardrooms. You know, 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:31.920 I'm on the board of Live Nation, I'm on the 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.040 board of Uta, I'm on the board of the Lakma, 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:37.400 you know, coming from this place, this kid, and so 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:43.520 it's weird how it shaped me and gave me just 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.240 this unbelievable molding, if that makes sense, right. And so 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:51.400 I think as we were writing a book, I wanted 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.720 to make sure that it was not exactly what you 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:57.600 what you was, because that's what people would think. And 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:00.520 when they hear the title, they immediately go to, oh, 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:02.840 he met Lebron in the airport, that's why he's lucky. 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:07.440 And I'm really being extremely sarcastic to those simple minded 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:09.840 thinkers like that. You know, I took some shot. I 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:11.880 guess I took a little page out of shot of 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:13.799 Mainz book with the sarcast. 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:16.000 But it's interesting when you said that, because when you 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.400 read the book, it's still luck. Because I was always 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:20.280 the person that never believed in luck. I'm still trying 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.919 to yeah, like create of luck, you know what I mean. So, 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:25.600 so to be in the position that you're in right now, 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.320 do you think it was luck, hard work or hustle. 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:29.799 But I want, I want to start from the game because 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:31.919 somebody listening might not know who Rich Paul is, right, 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:33.920 they might They might not know who Rich Paul is. 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:35.360 So yeah, I don't want to take that for granted. 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:39.320 Sure now, so super agent, you you, I want to say, 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:42.040 manage the careers of a lot of athletes, not just 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.560 in basketball and football and other sports as well. And 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.480 you started from Ohio, but you didn't start with with 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.280 this on your mind. So let's break down where you 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.000 came from in Ohio and how you started because your 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.960 story is is is crazy just talking about your pops, 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.680 where you came from, and what puts you into this place. 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:00.680 So let's start from there. 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.760 So Maya grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, like you said, 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.040 on the east side of Cleveland. It's an area called Glenville. 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:11.960 It's Glenville, and but there's a street called Saint Clair, 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:19.120 which is basically our broadway, right, and every every street 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:23.479 off of Saint Clair is essentially its own block and 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.720 it's the neighborhood, but it's but it's also separate. So 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:30.719 you know, it was we grew up, you couldn't really 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.560 go to certain corner stores. If you wasn't from you could, 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.000 but you couldn't. Like and a weird thing is I 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.120 could go anywhere in the city, but a friend of 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.919 mine maybe not. They might not accept him like that 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:46.880 or whatever. So I always had this this support system, 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.600 right and the protection as well. You know, I think 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:51.760 just based upon a lot of shit that I did 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:56.239 is as growing up, but an athlete, you know, someone 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.160 who I didn't really horse play as a kid because 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.839 I was always about betting and getting some money some 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:05.440 type of way love fashion, but I was into sports. 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:07.960 I played sports, but I wasn't the best at it. 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.640 I wasn't like growing up on my street, I was 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.400 the best, but as I grew I wasn't the best 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:15.880 player on my high school team. But it didn't really 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.960 it didn't deter me from wanting to play and we 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.240 wanted to state championship, you know, two years ago. I 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.719 went to state championship three years straight in high school. 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:28.760 But I wasn't good. I wasn't the best player on 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:30.080 the team by far. 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:32.520 Hey the book, you talked like he was getting buckets. 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.920 Now, well, it depends on what the age I was. 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:38.360 I'm still one of the best shooters out there period. 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:40.360 You could talk to some NBA guys about this. They'll 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:44.000 tell you that. But what I'm saying is, but I 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.520 was the best off the court in certain things. 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:47.080 Right. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.640 I love to get drassket fly. I had this confidence 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.640 in any room, and I hung with older people. See, 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:57.119 people don't understand I was thirteen, like hanging with y'all. 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:07.200 So I'm thirteen years old, niggas say today today. And 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:12.320 so when I was young, I remember I had I 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:15.520 lived with both grandmothers, so my mom was struggling and 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:17.400 we had to move in with my mother's mom in 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:21.840 eighty six eighty seven, And then in nineteen ninety I 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:23.960 moved to Saint Louis for a small stint because my 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.440 mother's from Saint Louis. I went to Vashona High School. 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:28.919 I had a ton of family in Saint Louis that 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.760 wasn't working for me, my brother and my sister. So 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.400 my dad put us on the Greyhound back to Cleveland. 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.640 When we moved there for a short stint, we just 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.800 stayed in a small apartment, just us. And you know, 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:44.520 like that's when you're reading a book where I used 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.080 to have to walk around and look on the ground 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.600 and pick up a quarter or nicol or diamond, buy 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.200 me a cheeseburger or whatever, and I start betting guys 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:54.720 at the park without having any money to get and 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:56.960 my jump shot got better because of that. But anyway, 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:01.520 so then I moved in with my father's mom and 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.279 it was her mother and my uncle Charlie. The average 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:10.360 age in the house is sixty five. Right, I'm ten, 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:13.760 So I'm watching Meet the Press and Larry king Liven 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:17.120 sixty minutes and ironically I'm on sixty minutes last night, 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:22.800 which is insane. So it was just I was that kid, 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:24.679 that kid you see on the cover of the book 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:28.920 that's thirteen, fourteen years old. I chose that because that's 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:31.000 where there's a fork in the road in life. We 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:33.800 all know that. Right at that age, you start being 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.920 held accountable for your actions in the neighborhood. You start 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:39.840 to and you see guys you hung with every day, 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.760 and now y'all start to go. Y'all separate ways based 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:48.400 upon your interest. So my interest was fashion, getting money girls, 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:53.880 you know, and sports that those were my four pillars, 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:56.440 and so it took me down this path. But I 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:58.960 grew up in my dad's store and on that corner 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.560 rn J and Jake confectioner. Yeah, you know, on that corner. Man, 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.280 I was never allowed to be a kid. You saw things, 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.520 you heard things that you probably shouldn't have seen as 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.080 a kid, of course, and you start to mimic things, 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.080 you start to do things. And so I aspired to 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:18.040 be like certain guys on and off the court, right, 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:23.200 And so I know you love real estate, Nindy. I 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.200 never forget. I got my first apartment and my man 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.600 that I went to lunch with, he's like, his name 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:35.160 is Text. He's like, how long are you going staying 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:37.000 up in the apartment. I'm like, what do you mean? 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.199 I just got it. He's like, yeah, Bud, you should 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.680 be thinking about buying a house, owning something, you know. 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:46.000 I'm like, well, I'm nineteen years old, Like what are 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:48.840 you talking? So he but he showed me when you 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:52.040 go in the house, okay, this is kind of your 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.560 money's in your kitchen and bathrooms. And you know, so 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.080 when I bought my first home at twenty years old. 0:08:57.400 --> 0:08:59.640 The first thing I did was I redid the kitchen 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.880 in bath. So I had this I was young, but 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:09.000 I also had this older type soul to me. And 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.280 so all those stories are in the book, but that's 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:12.840 who I am. 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:14.439 And so that picture. 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.320 Lets me know that story. All that picture lets me 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:18.040 know everything you said in that book was true. 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:19.760 You ain't getting that hair and. 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:22.319 Bone that's in front of my dad's story, by the way. 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.679 And you know, and by then, by that time, by 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:33.079 this age, Christmas gifts like if I got something for 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:34.439 Christmas is because I bought it. 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:35.960 You know. 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:39.960 It wasn't like I never spent I can't remember a 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:44.960 Christmas I ever spent with my mother, you know, prior 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:50.400 to being grown. So you know it was miss Peach Holidays. 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:52.319 She was a g by the way, you loved her. 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:59.000 You eat sweet potato pine. Yeah, you would fly to 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.839 Cleveland that for her, you know, or have her ship 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.360 it to you. It was that good. But it was 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:09.280 just a thing where like you're saying, that picture was 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:12.400 taken by a lady. Her name was Picture Lady, and 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.560 Picture Lady would go around to the different blocks and 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.320 she had a polaroid camera with film and she would 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.280 charge us five dollars for the pictures, and so that 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:22.719 would just happen to be one to me. I may 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:24.560 have some dudes in there, and you know, back in 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:26.160 the day, you would get that picture to a girl 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.320 you like or whatnot. And I was thinking about picture 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:31.679 lady the other day, and she was somebody's mother and 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.160 obviously she was strung out as well, but thinking she 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:42.120 wasn't right. She was actually Instagram before Instagram, right, because 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:46.480 what she was doing was she was allowing us to 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.559 tell our story through this picture of what we were 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:52.319 doing at that time in the moment. I know exactly 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.480 when that was day and everything, well, I know exactly 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:01.040 the moment that was because I said to her, hold on, 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.120 let me take my shirt off, and you know, the 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.040 one knee on the like, everything in that picture was 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:11.040 detailed strategically like that because in my mind, I'm giving 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.640 that to a girl, so I wanted, you know, the 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:15.040 whole look to be what it was. 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:15.960 She was documenting. 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:20.040 Yeah, she was documented. So when I talk about the 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.600 street aspect of it, I'm not glorifying it. But what 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:26.520 I'm saying is when you young, especially young and black, 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.160 just a minority in these in these poverty stricten communities. 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.840 You don't grow up next to people with careers, right, 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.480 you don't. You don't understand how corporate America actually works. 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.480 And so if you have any type of entrepreneurial spirit, 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:49.760 your options are so small, right, and then the opportunity 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.800 is even smaller. There are no opportunities, and so you 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:57.679 you know, you turn to certain things. And when you 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.240 think about that, people talk about how to get to 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:03.480 this point. I can't ask you. You know, you talk 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:06.760 about lucky me. Part of that is I am lucky 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:08.480 to grow up in the community. I am lucky to 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.000 have a dad who had a I learned math work 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:15.120 in my dad's cash register and playing people's lottery numbers. 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:17.880 And you know, if your auntie been playing a number 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.480 six sixty five for a whole year, and now she 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:23.800 gets to the thing and this kid playing and she 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.439 get home and six sixty five come out, but her 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:31.240 tickets say six sixty four. Oh oh, you either better 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:34.240 have the money that she missed out on or it's 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:35.920 gonna be some smoke in the city, you know. And 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:40.120 so that that was the pressure for me. There's no 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.240 pressure in what I'm doing today because of look at 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:45.640 the journey out for I was just trying to survive 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:48.520 the day. You know, you come outside, you just trying 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.320 to get home that night. So we couldn't plan ahead. 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.520 There was no in the summertime. We going to Europe 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.640 for two weeks and travel o. You know, we barely 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.560 went downtown. I went with my dad on the bus, 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:02.480 but I got friends that's never been to the airport. 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.200 You also talk about, you know, your mom being strung out, 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.760 but when your father passed away, you actually started selling drugs, 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:11.240 the same drugs that strung her out. 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.920 Yeah, So I respected my mom and my dad. I 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:19.560 never wanted any part of that. But as you know, 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:21.960 like and I respected my dad so much. And not 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:24.400 to mention, my dad was like air traffic control for 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.959 the hood. And that's the one thing like he didn't. 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.440 He was a man of principal and moral and my 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:34.080 dad was a man's man, like he was literally, you know, 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.320 he's a man's man and I respected him so much. 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.280 But when he passed away, it wasn't just that my 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.600 dad passed away. My brother was locked up, my uncle 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.440 was locked up, my cousin John John was locked up, 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.200 and my mother and sister are in Saint Louis, and 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:54.719 so I'm really on an island, you know. And when 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:58.880 I made that decision, I made the decision with the 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.880 understanding that I also know what comes with this, and 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:04.800 so if you're going to do it, I had to 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.680 make a conscious decision to try to find the right 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:09.960 within the wrong. And I was just trying to survive. 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:13.320 I'm not glorifying it because I think there's you have 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:17.240 so much talent. I think there's people settle a lot, right, 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:20.040 But back then, like I said, the options and the 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:24.680 opportunity were so slim, and the things that I aspired 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.520 to have and that I wanted, the only way to 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.240 get it was to do And I was a hustler 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:33.640 period in all every step of the way. I'm still 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:37.000 hustling to this day. As you say, I came in 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:43.920 and gave you guys athletics new balance and that's a sports, 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:47.200 a pair of band I'm building. But yeah, man, like 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.360 I didn't. I don't glorify it, but it was something 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.440 that at that moment in my life I had to do, 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:54.600 or at least I felt I had. 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:56.720 I don't judge anybody for what they were doing while 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:57.760 the survival mode. 0:14:58.080 --> 0:14:59.960 Yeah, It's just what I felt I had to do. 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.320 And again, but there was a conscious to it. There 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.000 was just there was a strategy to it. There was 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:11.800 a less it's more component to it as well. 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:13.160 And you knew what you were doing was wrong because 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.160 when you lost that two fifty, you felt like you 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:17.680 shouldn't have been doing that anyway anyway. 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:19.320 So I didn't even but I didn't even trip it, 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.000 but I just kept I just kept kept going because 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:26.600 you know, it wasn't for me, right, And sometimes I've 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.160 never sat in my success even to this day. And 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:31.280 I don't see you guys much, but if you ever 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:33.280 see me, I'm gonna be the same person every time. 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:33.560 Right. 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.000 One thing about one thing about life growing up the 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:41.920 way I did it, don't lie to you. It don't 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.080 lie to you. So and I grew up around people 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:48.000 that you know, you couldn't talk about it if you 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.160 didn't live it. That's just how it was. We wasn't 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.480 taking rental cars and putting rims on it and driving 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:55.680 a freaknik and acting like this was my car. You know, 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:59.160 we would never ever do that. So today in the 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.360 chapter on your close, like those same principles stick to me. 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:05.280 There's just certain things I'm not going to do so 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.480 as I'm representing players, I'm not going to ever lie 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.040 to you about anything or for no amount of money. 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:15.000 But the title agent, you know, that was always deemed 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:19.360 as a shady thing. I made it glamorous, right, being seen, 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:21.920 being out, being on the floor, dressing fly all that. 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.120 That's just who I am. That's not because I'm an agent. 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:31.520 But then what I realized was, I'm saying to myself 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:33.680 as I worked at another company and I'm looking at 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.760 these guys representing players, I'm saying to myself, this is 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:41.760 all transaction. This is why thinking about the Streets in 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:47.080 the book, what the Streets does is it for most people, 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:50.600 it's going to allow you to build bad habits right, 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:55.120 get up late, You have nobody to answer to, You 0:16:55.240 --> 0:17:00.480 have no no structure, no scheduling, no anything, pretty much right, 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.840 And every time you do something in a transaction form, 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:11.200 it feels like you've made money. Yeah, you've made money, 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.560 but you haven't made profit. It's a different dynamic, but 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.160 it makes you feel as if you did. But it's 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.120 setting you back, right. And so that's why people never 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:24.080 tend to build anything. And so I took that and 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:25.720 I learned from that, and I said, you know what, 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:29.640 these people, it's only about a transaction when a talent 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:33.600 run out. They're not investing in the person at all. 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.200 They're treating a person as if they're you know, pretty 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:42.200 much dumb. And the families, once they take the money, 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:46.560 they took the money. And that's how it was, and 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:48.639 that's how it still is in a lot of ways. 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:53.439 And there's still a piece of families, especially and I 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.560 target this towards black families. There's still a piece of 0:17:56.680 --> 0:18:00.680 black families that would rather do business with them than 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:02.879 you for a number of things. And this is what 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:05.800 I learned at my dad's store. When I worked to dad. 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:08.240 At my dad's store, we used to give people credit 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.199 brown paper bag that come in, Miss Johnson needs some 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.400 toilet paper, some soap. You would write it down. That's 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:16.440 in the middle of the month. First of the month. 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:19.080 Come around, everybody get they checks. And me and my 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:25.840 brother catch you spending the money with the competition around 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:26.240 the corner. 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:30.240 That's right, who probably white and you still but you still, oh, 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:31.760 why you just don't come and pay us. 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.040 And it started to see in my mind that oh, 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:37.760 when they see me with the New Jordans on in 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.840 their mind, they're spending money with my dad and that's 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:46.160 helping him make me look better than them. Right, it's 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:51.480 the same thing today. So you know you you're rather 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:55.560 spend it with or you're rather pay them, But when 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:57.800 it comes to me, you want me to cut my fees. 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:02.000 How difficult was that when you are doing these deals 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:05.719 with the NBA, NFL or whatever whatever organization it is 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.360 because to them, like you said, they might not respect 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:13.480 you as somebody else who's who doesn't look like that, 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:15.800 that looks more like them than like you. How difficult 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:17.600 it is to get in there and say, nah, it's 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:19.880 still my worth, it's still my value. And for people 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:21.160 that don't know, I just want to break down. 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:22.920 You started. 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:24.600 You met Lebron in the. 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.280 Airport, and airport. 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.560 Y'all connected on things outside of just sports. You're connected 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:31.800 on fashion and familihood and this, that and the other. 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.479 And you decided you wanted to be an agent, but 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:36.119 you didn't go to streaming for sports management. 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:38.959 Yeah, so you put you on pay. I don't give 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:39.879 them too much a book away, but. 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.040 That's what happened. So I was already going back and 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:48.600 forth to Atlanta because it actually has started here. I 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.840 came up on all women's bus trip with my man's 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:53.840 mom was throwing and I actually, you know how you 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:56.399 go over your man's house and she's in there frying 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:58.240 chicken or whatever. I gave it. She was like, we're 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:00.480 doing a bus trip for the girls. Whatever. Okay, gret 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:02.680 I said, here he go. You know, three four hundred 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:05.000 dollars take four people by much, it's like just sixty 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.000 five dollars apiece. Whatever, Like, yeah, go ahead, no problem, man, 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:10.720 I'm in the gambling house. It's about two thirty three 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.520 in the morning. My phone ring one night and they're like, 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.080 she's like, where y'all at. I'm like, what, Like, yeah, 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:19.399 we waiting on you guys. They park at a local 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:21.800 grocery store and everybody park their car and you go 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:24.840 up and back. I wasn't gonna go. My man who 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:26.880 was with me, his named mike E. My man who 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.680 was with me, He's like, yo, we might as well go, bro, 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.480 because we had just bought these scooters that go like 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.119 one hundred and twenty five miles an hour, and in 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:40.239 order for us to ride them without a helmet, you 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:42.199 can have a helmet on or eyewear, So, you know, 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:44.679 we wanted to fly eyewear. We wanted cardies, you know 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:47.879 back then this is this is in two thousand, right, 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:51.680 two thousand and one pretty much. And so we come 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:53.560