Speaker 1: Calling all my sweeties to the forefront. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: christ Rna Hazel and this is the Keep It Positive
Speaker 1: Swedish Show. Welcome to Keep It Positive, Sweety, the place
Speaker 1: where we heal, grow and learn together. Everybody wants the bag,
Speaker 1: but today's conversation isn't about getting it. It's about what
Speaker 1: you build after you have it. Joining us are creators
Speaker 1: of Earn Your Leisure and the founders of Investfest, one
Speaker 1: of the world's largest financial literacy festivals. I am so
Speaker 1: glad to be sitting with Rashad Balal and Troy Millings.
Speaker 1: Today's guests have become two of the most influential voices
Speaker 1: in financial education. Rasha Balau and Troy Millings are the
Speaker 1: creators of Earn Your Leisure and founders of Investfest, one
Speaker 1: of the world's largest financial literacy festivals, bringing together more
Speaker 1: than fifty thousand entrepreneurs, investors, and change makers each year
Speaker 1: right here in Atlanta. Through culture, conversation, and community, they've
Speaker 1: helped redefine what wealth building really looks like for a
Speaker 1: new generation. Certainly, please give a very warm welcome to
Speaker 1: the founders of Earn Your Leisure, Troy and rashide Hi.
Speaker 2: Guys, how y'all doing good?
Speaker 3: How are you feeling good?
Speaker 2: I'm good.
Speaker 1: I got y'all in the building.
Speaker 3: It's a beautiful building.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you so much. We got some new
Speaker 1: digs and happy to have you guys here. And before
Speaker 1: we get started, I like to kind of loosen things
Speaker 1: up by playing a little game. Y'all down, let's do
Speaker 1: it all right, let's do it. So it is called
Speaker 1: worth the investment? Is this worth the investment? So the
Speaker 1: first one is college. There's a lot of going back
Speaker 1: and forth on this. Right now, it's worth.
Speaker 2: The investment if you if you invest wisely, that's good.
Speaker 2: So I don't think it's just a yes and no answer.
Speaker 2: It's a okay. It's a few difference layered the conversation
Speaker 2: what are you? What are you majoring in? That's vitally important.
Speaker 2: Most people are majoring in things that are not going
Speaker 2: to beneficial for them.
Speaker 1: Talk about it.
Speaker 2: So if you're just getting a liberal arts degree nine
Speaker 2: times out of ten, that's not gonna be helpful for you.
Speaker 2: That's one thing. Another thing is like, are you going
Speaker 2: to a state school or you're going to a out
Speaker 2: of state school? Right? Because the tuition is gonna be
Speaker 2: tremendously different. Yes, you're going to a private school or
Speaker 2: you're going to a state school. That's gonna determine the
Speaker 2: factors too. So can you afford to go where you're going,
Speaker 2: or you're just going because of the vibe like the
Speaker 2: football team, like the mascot, like you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Like you're gonna put yourself in eighty thousand dollars worth
Speaker 2: of debt because they made it to the final four
Speaker 2: last year. That's real, like you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So that's vitally important to think about as well. And
Speaker 2: then also I think about there's an educational component to it,
Speaker 2: but there is also a component of what you learn
Speaker 2: in school, the experiences that you have in school that
Speaker 2: can't necessarily be measured by the money aspect of it.
Speaker 2: You might meet your husband your wife in college. You
Speaker 2: might meet your business partner in college. You might you know,
Speaker 2: there's people that you go to college, you join a
Speaker 2: fraternity and that helps you out. So the social aspect
Speaker 2: of college is tricky because you don't really know. It's
Speaker 2: kind of like hit a miss, honestly, but you should
Speaker 2: consider that. You should definitely consider that as well. So
Speaker 2: I think that it's a layer of conversation, but most
Speaker 2: people are not considering any of that, and it's just
Speaker 2: going off for like a feeling. I just like this school,
Speaker 2: I like you know, I think I'm gonna have a
Speaker 2: good time here, and I don't think that that's the
Speaker 2: best way to go.
Speaker 3: About it as an educator. So for all the reasons
Speaker 3: he said, I will say yes, if you asked me
Speaker 3: that question in five years, maybe ten, I'll my answer
Speaker 3: would probably I'm not sure because I feel like with
Speaker 3: the advancements and artificial intelligence, especially how it's going to
Speaker 3: disrupt education, it won't be about how much you know,
Speaker 3: it'll be how fast can you learn? And the same
Speaker 3: time it used to take us four degree is to
Speaker 3: be qualified, it may take us a month, it may
Speaker 3: take us six weeks to do that because the technology
Speaker 3: is speeding up. In fact, everything that we want to
Speaker 3: know has been coming through the Internet and now put
Speaker 3: into a GBT or a large language model, and so
Speaker 3: you're going to start seeing certificate certificates or certifications become
Speaker 3: more abundant because the speed at which people are learning
Speaker 3: is going to become the thing. So it won't really
Speaker 3: matter if you went to that college or that prestigious university,
Speaker 3: It'll be how much do you know? How fast can
Speaker 3: you learn? How much can you implement? Which is going
Speaker 3: to change the way that we look at education, right,
Speaker 3: instead of hey, I got this degree from Harvard. Well
Speaker 3: what does that mean when that person can prompt something
Speaker 3: in the next two minutes and create a business in
Speaker 3: two months. Right, he didn't have to go to MIT
Speaker 3: to do that. So it's going to be a disruptive
Speaker 3: for sure. So the answer now would be for the
Speaker 3: things he said, yes, I'm not sure in five to
Speaker 3: ten years, that's.
Speaker 1: Good, that's good. What about side hustles? Are they worth investment?
Speaker 2: A side hustle? Like what give an example?
Speaker 1: Can you or.
Speaker 3: So the income determines if it's a hustle.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't agree with side hustles. I think
Speaker 2: it's a waste of time because this is a terminology.
Speaker 1: It's like, what.
Speaker 2: Are you doing it for if you're not going to
Speaker 2: plan on being a major If it's not going to
Speaker 2: be something that like now at that particular moment in time,
Speaker 2: it might it might not be something that's replacing your
Speaker 2: full time income, and it's not it's something that makes
Speaker 2: a million dollars a year. But if you're going into
Speaker 2: it with the mentality of this is a little thing,
Speaker 2: This is a side hustle, This is just something I'm
Speaker 2: gonna do spare time. That's a hobby to me. And
Speaker 2: you can have a hobby, but a hobby and business
Speaker 2: is two different things. Like hustling is not a hobby,
Speaker 2: So side hustle to me, that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: That's good. I like that.
Speaker 3: I would change the terminology decide interest, Right, what are
Speaker 3: you interested in? Because even for me personally, it was
Speaker 3: I was teaching. I was teaching. I loved teaching kids
Speaker 3: about finance. There's an opportunity to teach more people about
Speaker 3: financial financial literacy. That was an interest that became more
Speaker 3: purposeful for me, right, still rooted in education. Just changed
Speaker 3: the medium and so the side interest becomes something that
Speaker 3: all right in my working, walking in my path and
Speaker 3: my walking in my purpose. Yes, how those two things aligned,
Speaker 3: and a lot of people can look at what they're
Speaker 3: doing now and have side interest that you know what,
Speaker 3: Sometimes people are sitting in that moment and like why
Speaker 3: am I here? Like what am I doing here? Not
Speaker 3: knowing that you're building the bricks and the foundation for
Speaker 3: what you're going to be built to do.
Speaker 1: That is so true.
Speaker 2: Even the word side. I feel like anything related to
Speaker 2: side to me has a minimum connotation to it.
Speaker 1: That's so true.
Speaker 2: Your side?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, what's that? Keep it positive?
Speaker 2: Please?
Speaker 3: What's that? Give us a definition? Please?
Speaker 2: You know, if you want to do it, if you're
Speaker 2: going to do it, do it.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: I don't like this. You know, you got a meal
Speaker 2: and then it's like you got turkey and you got sides,
Speaker 2: Like you know what I mean, They're not good. I'm
Speaker 2: not on the same level, not the same.
Speaker 3: But I'm because that's good. I like what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Side as an addition to I'm doing this. I'm doing
Speaker 3: this in addition to yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that was kind of how I worked this
Speaker 1: system with me want. I knew I want to be
Speaker 1: an actor. I knew what I really wanted to do,
Speaker 1: but I knew I need to be around it. So
Speaker 1: I was doing what I needed to survive, but I
Speaker 1: knew what the goal was. How you talk about that purpose?
Speaker 1: If this is getting you to where your purpose is,
Speaker 1: and do that. But I agree with you. I'm all
Speaker 1: about going at things. There's no half ass and just
Speaker 1: do it, you know, And if you have different things
Speaker 1: to talk about multiple streams, if you have different things,
Speaker 1: do them all. You know, I don't have anything some
Speaker 1: wish you guys on that you spoke on AI. So
Speaker 1: I want to know, is that worth the investment? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a no brainer.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But more than just investing in the companies, I
Speaker 3: think investing in the education and investing in the place
Speaker 3: that we're going to play in it. Yes, right, Like
Speaker 3: we've seen things be created. Are we the people creating it?
Speaker 3: Are we the innovators? Are we the engineers? We need
Speaker 3: to look at it from that standpoint in totality, because yes,
Speaker 3: we can invest in the companies and we'll make money
Speaker 3: because we can see that technology is going to lead
Speaker 3: this and if we're in the right technology companies that
Speaker 3: are going to appreciate over the next five to ten years,
Speaker 3: we'll be pretty good. But bigger than that is this
Speaker 3: thing is going to change the world as we know
Speaker 3: is changing it now. But are we on the right
Speaker 3: side of it? Right? Are we leading it? Because if
Speaker 3: we talk about subconscious bias in the real world, imagine
Speaker 3: when people are actually prompting it and they have that
Speaker 3: same bias and there's nobody to complain to, right, so
Speaker 3: we got to make sure that we're on the other side.
Speaker 2: That's so good.
Speaker 1: I love that. What about you?
Speaker 3: You just with it?
Speaker 1: Ai? Yeah, day, okay, we had two more networking. Is
Speaker 1: that worth investment?
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure. But you have to network from I
Speaker 2: think people go about it the wrong way. Like networking
Speaker 2: is not just going to an event yep and just
Speaker 2: walking up to Tyler Perry and just saying, hey, look
Speaker 2: you work.
Speaker 1: It does not work.
Speaker 2: Like you got a network across.
Speaker 1: I had to work and he saw the work and
Speaker 1: that that made the net Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like network the right way, Like see how you can
Speaker 2: add value to somebody. Lead with value first, don't lead
Speaker 2: with you know, ask first. That's very selfish way to
Speaker 2: go about it. And most people network from a very
Speaker 2: selfish standpoint, and then they get mad when it doesn't
Speaker 2: work out absolutely well. Like you well, if you looked
Speaker 2: at it into totality like you're being you're being extremely
Speaker 2: selfish because your own thinking about yourself. And the honest
Speaker 2: truth is nobody really cares about you, unless they're like
Speaker 2: your parent or your spouse, Like nobody really cares about you,
Speaker 2: because you don't care about anybody else. Really, if we're
Speaker 2: gonna be honest with you, if you just met somebody industry,
Speaker 2: you don't care about them like that. You don't have
Speaker 2: like a deep rooted interest in their future. So wat
Speaker 2: should somebody have a deep rooted interest in your future?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: So it's like, if we go on network, let's see
Speaker 2: how we can help each other. I know that you
Speaker 2: need help with something. I'm going to leave with that first,
Speaker 2: because it's the lower of reciprocity, Like the more you give,
Speaker 2: the more you'll get. And you have to network with
Speaker 2: people that it actually makes sense to network, right, people
Speaker 2: to look past the person that's that's right next to
Speaker 2: them that could actually add value because they don't. They
Speaker 2: don't value them, but they see somebody all the way
Speaker 2: at the top and it's like, this is the person.
Speaker 2: I got it. But it's like, meanwhile, your pathway to
Speaker 2: success is right next to you, and it's like by
Speaker 2: you ignoring that, that's like us, we didn't we didn't
Speaker 2: get to where we were by you know, reaching out
Speaker 2: to a celebrity and then intern and it was like
Speaker 2: we grew together, ye and we had to learn things
Speaker 2: together but it was helpful because we were both at
Speaker 2: that same level. So as we grow, we're growing together.
Speaker 2: You're going to miss a lot of opportunities by not
Speaker 2: valuing people that are on the same level as you,
Speaker 2: like work together and then you could potentially build something together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true a thousand percent for every reason he
Speaker 3: just said. And like that is our foundation, right, Like
Speaker 3: you're talking about two guys that grew up in the neighborhood,
Speaker 3: went to high school together, didn't have celebrity friends, didn't
Speaker 3: have athletes that were friends, kind of just were trying
Speaker 3: to do something together and saw value in other people
Speaker 3: and gave them a platform. Right, So, yes, celebrity is
Speaker 3: great to see, but do you have a CPA. Let's
Speaker 3: highlight one. Do you have a trademark attorney, let's highlight one.
Speaker 3: Do you have a real estate broker, a mortgage broker,
Speaker 3: Let's highlight those people. Let's show you that that type
Speaker 3: of value can directly impact you today, literally, right, And
Speaker 3: Like if the celebrity comes and has stories and you know,
Speaker 3: they can tell you some of the transgressions that they've
Speaker 3: had in some of the errors that they've made. Great,
Speaker 3: but these people are going to help you right now, right.
Speaker 1: Now, Yes, absolutely, I love it. Last one, mentors, which
Speaker 1: I think are very valuable.
Speaker 2: Mentors is very very valuable as well. But once again,
Speaker 2: sometimes I look at anybody could be a mentor, like
Speaker 2: if you know something, I ask you a question, like
Speaker 2: you're essentially my mentor. It doesn't have to be somebody
Speaker 2: that's eighty years old that's extremely wise and been through
Speaker 2: everything in life, like the oracle. That's what people think of,
Speaker 2: like when they think of a mentor, and it's like
Speaker 2: that might be hard to get, but like you might
Speaker 2: be wanting to learn something about AI. Person might be
Speaker 2: younger than you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure they.
Speaker 2: Can teach you something, but your pride and ego doesn't
Speaker 2: look at them as like a mentor because they're twenty
Speaker 2: three years old. So you're like, I'm thirty five, what
Speaker 2: can a twenty three year old I'm not going to Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to go to him on an ongoing
Speaker 2: basis for information. But then once again, it's to add
Speaker 2: a value part of it, like when you when you're
Speaker 2: when you're looking for your mentor or the wrong way
Speaker 2: to go about it, I think is to email somebody,
Speaker 2: to text somebody, to say hey, I just graduated from
Speaker 2: more House College. Can you mentor me? That's charity. You
Speaker 2: can only through so much charity before you're on the
Speaker 2: opposite side off It's like a seesaw. So instead somebody
Speaker 2: will say, well I can't offer value to somebody that's
Speaker 2: already successful. That's not necessarily true. You can say, hey, look,
Speaker 2: I notice you don't have social media. Do you mind
Speaker 2: if I run your TikTok for free for six months
Speaker 2: and dinner? Or hey, I know I know personally know
Speaker 2: somebody that can I Do you mind if I introduce
Speaker 2: you to a person? Or do you mind if I
Speaker 2: can you know, work for you for free? See how
Speaker 2: you can add value to that person. Then when you're
Speaker 2: around that person, then that becomes a relationship. Then that
Speaker 2: relationship becomes mentorship. Yes, that's how you build it. You
Speaker 2: don't build it by saying would you mentor me? Can
Speaker 2: we have a why would I have a couple of coffee?
Speaker 2: Which I don't even know you? Right? Like, so I'm
Speaker 2: just being honest, But I think because I've seen that
Speaker 2: happen so many times, get disappointed because they do the
Speaker 2: same thing over and over again. They meet somebody, Hey
Speaker 2: I would love to get some coffee. Can you mentor me?
Speaker 2: Can I pick your brain? It's the worst thing you
Speaker 2: could ever say in life is can I pick your brain?
Speaker 2: And like I said, it's actually it's actually pretty selfish
Speaker 2: if you really think about it, If you really think
Speaker 2: about it, it's pretty selfish because like you're it's just all
Speaker 2: about you. You're not looking outwardly. So if you change
Speaker 2: your mindset, change how you look at things, then you'll
Speaker 2: actually attract what you want. But mentorship is very important.
Speaker 2: But it's important how you look at the mentorship.
Speaker 3: And that's on a like one on one basis or encounter.
Speaker 3: A lot of my mentors I never met in real life.
Speaker 3: I watched their steps. I watched Tyler Perry build this.
Speaker 3: I remember being in high school and like my girls
Speaker 3: my friends were like, I'm going to see this play
Speaker 3: what you're talking about and watching that scale and then
Speaker 3: him showing up on Oprah to obviously we're sitting today.
Speaker 3: We watched that and so we can study that same thing.
Speaker 3: So there were people that we watched that we didn't
Speaker 3: know personally that we could say, Okay, why that I
Speaker 3: like that move? How oh they made a mistake here? Ah,
Speaker 3: they broke up. What caused that?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: And so mentorship comes in different forms, like what you
Speaker 3: said about age, I think movies have kind of shaped
Speaker 3: what we think of mentorship. Right, everybody wants that that
Speaker 3: Obi wan Kenobe person right, Like, Yeah, it could be
Speaker 3: the guy sitting next to you, It could be the
Speaker 3: younger person that you thought you were mentoring. That is
Speaker 3: teaching you things about what leadership looks like, what dedication
Speaker 3: looks like, what commitment looks like. Because like it or not,
Speaker 3: people are watching. At every step of your life, people
Speaker 3: are watching, and so you got to be very conscious
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, for sure, thank you guys for playing with me.
Speaker 1: I love that And you guys gave some really good insight.
Speaker 1: So I want to go back to before your earn
Speaker 1: your leisure you talked about you guys have known each
Speaker 1: other since high school or was it before the high school?
Speaker 1: Middle school? Was this something that you guys knew then,
Speaker 1: like we're going to do something big? Did you have
Speaker 1: the foresight then or when did this idea come and
Speaker 1: take us on that journey of how we got here today?
Speaker 2: No, we always have a relationship hip as far as
Speaker 2: like doing stuff like we had companies before. That's support
Speaker 2: for people to understand as well. It's not the first
Speaker 2: company that we started it. We started a app for
Speaker 2: DJs called jock Drive that didn't work out. We started
Speaker 2: a fashion blog called fashion Wave that didn't work out.
Speaker 2: Real estate company. So, you know, I feel like if
Speaker 2: you're around somebody enough, if you're not actually actively trying
Speaker 2: to start a business or do something productive, that's a
Speaker 2: waste of relationship. It's only so much that you could
Speaker 2: talk about sports and entertainment and just having fun. So
Speaker 2: you know, we around each other every day pretty much forever,
Speaker 2: and other friends too. Like, you know, we come from
Speaker 2: a very close knit community, so we grew up with
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of people that like we
Speaker 2: have brothers and sisters and everybody's kind of like cousins
Speaker 2: stuff like that. So as we got older and got
Speaker 2: you know, realizing that we didn't need to make money
Speaker 2: in this world, then you know, the interest was like,
Speaker 2: how can we you know, figure some things out, And
Speaker 2: so that was a that was a few things as
Speaker 2: far as like this is our idea. We already speak
Speaker 2: every day anyway, let's see if this works out. And
Speaker 2: then you learn from different things you know, you have
Speaker 2: some wins, some losses and say okay, this is this
Speaker 2: is something that we can we can you know perfect
Speaker 2: later on, but earn your leisure. You know, the relationship,
Speaker 2: Like I said, me and him already had a relationship.
Speaker 2: He's a teacher our trade. I was a financial advisor,
Speaker 2: so I was already working in finance and he was
Speaker 2: working with kids. So we teach. We were teaching financial
Speaker 2: literacy in the classroom. I was a financial advisor and
Speaker 2: my goal was to get more clients like sports and
Speaker 2: entertainment clients. So I started a campaign on social media,
Speaker 2: and I was doing a lot of different type of
Speaker 2: content on social media and built the social media following.
Speaker 2: So we had a relationship. From the classroom content and
Speaker 2: social media content was taken off and started to go viral.
Speaker 2: The public had asked for long form content like they
Speaker 2: would just see like clips where there was clips of
Speaker 2: teaching in the classroom, clips of me going on a
Speaker 2: public accession. I actually had a public access show. He
Speaker 2: was my first guest on my public access show. So
Speaker 2: the public demanded pretty much, I wouldn't say the man
Speaker 2: they requested. The public requested what you now know as
Speaker 2: earn leisure. So no, the plan wasn't to start earn
Speaker 2: your leadion. That was not the plan.
Speaker 1: This is a request from the public.
Speaker 2: It was an organic It was an organic thing that
Speaker 2: just happened originally. Like I said, from a social media standpoint,
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to grow my following to get more clients.
Speaker 2: From a teaching in the classroom standpoint, we were just
Speaker 2: doing that already because I was a financial advisor and
Speaker 2: he was a teacher. From the content standpoint, you kind
Speaker 2: of see what people like, and people really were into
Speaker 2: the type of content of like sports and entertainment, but
Speaker 2: like breaking down the backstories of sports and entertainment and
Speaker 2: talking about deals of fifty cent vitamin water deals and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. So the original goal was not to
Speaker 2: have a media company. But you know, sometimes in life
Speaker 2: you have to go with makes sense. So when you
Speaker 2: see that that's the direction you're getting pushed into, it's
Speaker 2: like why fight against it. So we listened to what,
Speaker 2: you know, the people wanted. And even when we started,
Speaker 2: it still wasn't a goal of like, Okay, we're gonna
Speaker 2: have the biggest podcast in the world and we're going
Speaker 2: to you know, it was still kind of an arm
Speaker 2: of the financial planning really, but it was like, let's
Speaker 2: do a show because why not? Like why not? It's
Speaker 2: not like a difficult thing to do, especially at that time,
Speaker 2: like we had a couple of iPhones, didn't we didn't
Speaker 2: have like one hundred thousand dollars cameras or something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then it really took off right away, and it
Speaker 2: was really changing people's lives right away, Like people were
Speaker 2: really locked in saying they were learning so much, saying that,
Speaker 2: you know, they was buying real estate and they never
Speaker 2: thought about money in the same way and they never
Speaker 2: knew that education could be entertaining at the same time.
Speaker 2: So from there then it's like, Okay, now we start
Speaker 2: to really think about this thing differently, and now it's
Speaker 2: a full leg media company business. How do we monetize?
Speaker 2: How do we grow?
Speaker 1: Yeah? All that I want to ask you. You talked
Speaker 1: about the failures and the things that didn't work, that
Speaker 1: didn't work. What did it feel like or what was
Speaker 1: that moment when you probably looked at each other and
Speaker 1: said this is working. What was it How did it
Speaker 1: feel to know that you had something that was successful
Speaker 1: that actually took both Like you talk about you may
Speaker 1: not understand what's happening, but it's it's going to work
Speaker 1: to where you're going. When you look back at that moment, like,
Speaker 1: how did that feel to realize that, Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: we've built something based on our backgrounds and now we're
Speaker 1: walking in our purpose.
Speaker 3: I think where you ended it is, well I'm going
Speaker 3: to start. It feels like you're walking in your purpose.
Speaker 3: If you think about what he's saying, financial advising, he
Speaker 3: was already in the world to find his education is
Speaker 3: my spiritual gift. I really believe that. So how do
Speaker 3: we combine that? Well, I did that for fourteen years,
Speaker 3: he's doing that for fourteen years. We had already walked
Speaker 3: in that path. The other businesses that didn't work. I
Speaker 3: never looked at the misfailures. I never had an expectation
Speaker 3: on them, like, let's create something together and let's see
Speaker 3: what we can build. What I learned from it is,
Speaker 3: outside of being a brother and a friend, how he
Speaker 3: is in business. Yeah right, so I know you know
Speaker 3: his dedication to something when he has his mindset. I
Speaker 3: understand the commitment to it. I understand the sacrifice that
Speaker 3: comes with it. If we can carry those intangible traits
Speaker 3: to the next thing. We're going to be successful. And
Speaker 3: so when we started Earn Your Leisure, I remember that
Speaker 3: the message that somebody put in the DM, where's the
Speaker 3: rest of this episode? We were like, what y'all got
Speaker 3: a podcast? And we were like, we never listened to them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so we had to sit down and figure out how
Speaker 3: do we create it? And once we started creating it, okay,
Speaker 3: here comes the value add he had already built up
Speaker 3: community that was interested in it. And so the first
Speaker 3: thing I remember seeing, all right, we're putting this out.
Speaker 3: We're going to jump off this cliff. And it was
Speaker 3: like January of twenty nineteen, let's see if we can
Speaker 3: get one hundred people to listen, all right, Well, and
Speaker 3: like the first hour was one hundred people. First week,
Speaker 3: let's see if we can get two thousand people to listen.
Speaker 3: All right, we got twenty one hundred. Okay, let's see
Speaker 3: what we can do better. Next week. Let's see if
Speaker 3: we can do better. And by I think probably the
Speaker 3: tenth week, we got a message in the DM saying that, hey,
Speaker 3: you guys are in the top ten in the podcast charts.
Speaker 1: Wow, And I.
Speaker 3: Remember thinking to myself, there's a chart for podcasts, I
Speaker 3: just know, like Billboard, right, and then you see the
Speaker 3: emojis up there, like, oh, we got something here for sure.
Speaker 3: Let's keep going with it, not really figuring out here
Speaker 3: comes the media company a part, But how can we
Speaker 3: keep out added value, keep getting people's attention, start to
Speaker 3: become part of people's weekly regiment. Yeah right, because once
Speaker 3: we can start doing that, now we can start building.
Speaker 3: They know every Thursday this episode is coming out. They're
Speaker 3: looking forward to it. They can't wait to see it,
Speaker 3: they can't wait to listen, they can't wait to see
Speaker 3: the clips or repost it or start implementing some of
Speaker 3: the information that was being given. Then it started to
Speaker 3: be okay, what's next. Let's go touch our audience. Let's
Speaker 3: look at the analytics, let's go figure out where people
Speaker 3: are listening. All right, we saw Atlanta is an area,
Speaker 3: La is an area, Miami Philly. Let's treat this like
Speaker 3: what we saw when we were growing up in music,
Speaker 3: when people couldn't figure out how to reach their audience,
Speaker 3: they go to them. So let's go do some pop ups.
Speaker 3: Let's go touch the audience. Let's get some feedback from that.
Speaker 3: And then it just kept spiraling. Okay, what's the next
Speaker 3: thing we could do? What's the next thing we can do?
Speaker 3: And then obviously the empire started to build. Let's get
Speaker 3: some merchandising, because people number one will look at you
Speaker 3: for an hour. What if you had a message on
Speaker 3: your shirt? What if it was assets of liabilities? Right?
Speaker 3: And so now that became a slogan that became synonymous
Speaker 3: with us. Yes, earned your leisure was the brand, but
Speaker 3: now they have this message that goes along with it,
Speaker 3: and so you know, it just became the next thing,
Speaker 3: the next thing, and to what you see.
Speaker 1: Now, it's amazing. I love that you talked about you
Speaker 1: see how it's impacting people and people responding saying this
Speaker 1: is I'm using these I'm utilizing the principles that you
Speaker 1: guys are teaching us. At what point did you realize
Speaker 1: you were doing more than creative but you were also
Speaker 1: responsible for the information that you guys are putting out.
Speaker 2: At the beginning, you just definitely, you know, always looked
Speaker 2: at as a media company. You know, even on Instagram page.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like we were pointing out articles here, yes and
Speaker 2: different things. So it wasn't just clips of like content,
Speaker 2: so you know, and then you just evolved, You just
Speaker 2: learn as you go. But that was always the framework
Speaker 2: of like creating a community, yeah, earn your leisure. Like
Speaker 2: I said, even the beginning Instagram page, it was never
Speaker 2: just to promote the podcast. It was always you know,
Speaker 2: unrelated stuff like you know, we talk about business articles
Speaker 2: or highlight somebody else or show something like. So it
Speaker 2: was always more of an ecosystem than just a show.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I love that. I want to know what was
Speaker 1: one of the biggest decisions or most difficult decisions that
Speaker 1: you had to do to protect the vision in totality
Speaker 1: that you look back out now and it may not
Speaker 1: have been easy to make them, Mom, but you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm glad we made that choice.
Speaker 3: Hm.
Speaker 2: I mean you you know, you work with some people,
Speaker 2: then you don't work with the person like you know,
Speaker 2: you gotta some people. You know, you don't have a
Speaker 2: lasting relationship with every single person. Sure, so that's important.
Speaker 2: Somebody is not operating at the highest level possible, or
Speaker 2: if somebod.
Speaker 1: Who was the one to let them go? Is you?
Speaker 1: You seem like you the bad guy.
Speaker 3: You like, you gotta go, surprise, Let's keep this positive.
Speaker 2: You gotta do it.
Speaker 3: Somebody's got to do it.
Speaker 2: You gotta do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's business. It's a part of it.
Speaker 2: It's just business. You can't you can't. You can't let somebody, Hey,
Speaker 2: you can't let somebody incompetent ruin your vision and be.
Speaker 2: You can't let somebody that's a cancer spread. You got
Speaker 2: to cut the cancer off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a word.
Speaker 3: That's so good. Yeah, I think that that. Yeah, when
Speaker 3: I listening to it. Yes, the most difficult part was
Speaker 3: putting people in position that they weren't qualified for.
Speaker 1: And we often do that because we want to believe
Speaker 1: in people and they want to work so bad. And
Speaker 1: then you get in any like you.
Speaker 3: Grow up together. You come up together your friends, and
Speaker 3: you want to make sure that your friends win and
Speaker 3: you want to see them be successful. But everybody's not
Speaker 3: meant to be in those positions, like you said, if
Speaker 3: they're unqualified. And it's funny when when when Tyler Perry
Speaker 3: came to invest Best, that was his message. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: when he said it, it resonated with me so strong,
Speaker 3: like wow, it's like, you can't bring them up to
Speaker 3: this level of success. They'll suffocate, they will. You're actually
Speaker 3: harming them by bringing them on this journey and so
Speaker 3: let them live their own journey. Keep doing what you
Speaker 3: have to do, keep your core together, and the people
Speaker 3: who are meant to be for you will come into
Speaker 3: your life and you can continue this thing going. So
Speaker 3: that that is That was that was difficult, and it
Speaker 3: still is because you still have relationships. Like you said,
Speaker 3: we're a close knit community. So we grew up with
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of people that are watching
Speaker 3: this that you know, came on the journey with us,
Speaker 3: had time with us, are no longer with this. So
Speaker 3: that's been the most difficult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can understand, and whole Harley whole hardly agree.
Speaker 1: As a businesswoman, that is hard when you bring on people,
Speaker 1: especially people you know that came up with you. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're going to do this together. And then you get
Speaker 1: in the thick of it and it's like okay, and
Speaker 1: you kind of see it, and sometimes they see it
Speaker 1: before you do. They're like, okay, it is I really
Speaker 1: ain't cut out for this. So it makes it easier,
Speaker 1: you know. But when you have to make that decision,
Speaker 1: it's just time to put you a big well for me,
Speaker 1: put a big penny. It's like let's do it. But
Speaker 1: that is always hard. I don't think it ever gets easy.
Speaker 1: It's always a hard thing to have to do.
Speaker 2: When and then also, never give somebody something that they
Speaker 2: don't deserve, because that's a lesson. It's extremely harmful because
Speaker 2: you would think that a person would have appreciation for
Speaker 2: something because they're like I technically I know I'm not qualified,
Speaker 2: but I don't deserve this. I know I didn't work
Speaker 2: hard for it. But what appens is that a funny
Speaker 2: thing happens when you get people something that they don't deserve,
Speaker 2: they think they deserve it.
Speaker 1: That's you.
Speaker 3: Know, people like that, that's good.
Speaker 1: That is a fact, that is so true that entitlement comes.
Speaker 2: And title, that's the word. That's the worst. That's the
Speaker 2: worst thing, that's the worst.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You start to start, you start trying to create
Speaker 3: different positions and different titles, and at the end of
Speaker 3: the day is like, why are we doing this?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? Seriously? Yeah, literally, I'm like me because
Speaker 1: you do you start making up different positions like now
Speaker 1: we're gonna let's try this. It's like we're gonna You're
Speaker 1: not gonna do this because I can tell us a little,
Speaker 1: it's a lot. So we're gonna try this, but it
Speaker 1: does like you kind of try to figure it out
Speaker 1: and shift it around, but sometimes it's just not a fit.
Speaker 1: And you gotta you gotta trust that. Does a relationship
Speaker 1: keep going on outside of work, Okay, you can still
Speaker 1: be friends, we can be cool, but I mean, and
Speaker 1: that's on them if they want to continue relationship. Sometimes
Speaker 1: people's feelings get hurt and they don't want nothing to
Speaker 1: do with you after you could them let them go
Speaker 1: from a job. It is tough, yeah, but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, it's the brand that you've built.
Speaker 1: You have to honor that. And if you're operating excellence,
Speaker 1: you can't how you talk about, you can't have people
Speaker 1: that aren't pulling their apart. You gotta make sure that
Speaker 1: everybody is pulling their weights.
Speaker 3: And if they were truly friends, that they want you
Speaker 3: to succeed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And I've been lucky to have that where
Speaker 1: I've worked with friends and then when they lead it,
Speaker 1: it's like we're still good because like they're no, like
Speaker 1: I still want to see you in So I've been
Speaker 1: blessed in that area. I want to ask you this.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of times when we're looking to
Speaker 1: what we think is successful before we're actually successful, we
Speaker 1: have a different vision or I think I thought of
Speaker 1: what it is. What did you think success was before
Speaker 1: you became successful? Now that you are, you look at
Speaker 1: it totally different when you're like, no, this is I
Speaker 1: know what success is now and it wasn't what I
Speaker 1: thought it was back then.
Speaker 2: Was what I thought, so funny.
Speaker 3: Exactly how I dreamt.
Speaker 2: I like the Big Show online where he was like,
Speaker 2: if you ask me how I feel, I'm gonna just
Speaker 2: tell you it's everything that I expected. That's really what
Speaker 2: I really used as far as writing books, traveling. Of course,
Speaker 2: you can never like fully know or fully appreciativery little thing,
Speaker 2: but the idea of this, the whole reason why we
Speaker 2: started this whole thing like that was that was the vision. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I could speak for myself. I can't speak for Troy,
Speaker 2: but that was my vision, Like I really thought about, damn,
Speaker 2: we want to travel the world and write a book
Speaker 2: and do interviews. And it was pretty much.
Speaker 3: This is interesting. And I'll speak for both of us here.
Speaker 3: I think us being successful, especially to our community, isn't
Speaker 3: a surprise. I think they've watched us since we were teenagers.
Speaker 3: They've watched us as young men, they watched us as men, fathers,
Speaker 3: or it's not a surprise to them. They knew, They
Speaker 3: kind of saw that this would be the route for them.
Speaker 3: So like being successful, it was already in our brain.
Speaker 3: It wasn't an option that we weren't going to be.
Speaker 3: What was the route? He had visions for himself. I
Speaker 3: have visions for myself. I thought it would be in education.
Speaker 3: It kind of still isn't as he thought it was being.
Speaker 3: It still is in finance. The path we didn't know.
Speaker 3: The idea, the mindset of it was always there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now we talk about working with friends I want.
Speaker 2: But visualization is very important before because that's something that
Speaker 2: I'm a firm believer. I'm a very firm believer in that.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I was just like the Kanye West
Speaker 2: thing when he was like before I had it, I
Speaker 2: closed my eyes and imagine, yes, and I feel like
Speaker 2: that's powerful, like like all of these things, Like sometimes
Speaker 2: it's like almost day because like now that's my favorite rapper. Yes,
Speaker 2: Like to the point I named my son not here.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And then we develop a relationship with nos, We have
Speaker 2: dinner with him for six hours and all of that.
Speaker 2: But these are things that it's like I feel, I
Speaker 2: really really really firmly believe and like manifestation and like
Speaker 2: visualize it. That doesn't mean that you just sitting in
Speaker 2: your room and do nothing. Like I just think that
Speaker 2: that's going to be like the pathway to success. It's
Speaker 2: just dream all day. But stay positive. You can't, that's right.
Speaker 3: Keep it positive. This is this is this is interesting.
Speaker 3: As we were, as early leisure was turning in to
Speaker 3: what it is, my mom showed me a letter that
Speaker 3: I wrote in third grade. I still have it like
Speaker 3: it was nineteen ninety one. That might have aged me
Speaker 3: a little bit, but in the letter, it was me
Speaker 3: telling her that I'm going to be a millionaire, and
Speaker 3: when I've become a millionaire, I'm going to build a
Speaker 3: big house, and I'm going to build her a big
Speaker 3: house right next to it. So at nine years old,
Speaker 3: I'm thinking I'm going there.
Speaker 1: The vision.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I said, the path is it going to
Speaker 3: be in sports? Because we love sports, we love entertainment.
Speaker 3: I'm not that great at writing rhymes, so that wasn't
Speaker 3: going to happen. Can it be in education? Okay, let's
Speaker 3: see what that path goes. But at nine years old,
Speaker 3: it's a writing in my mind. I'm going to be successful.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be a millionaire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's happening for sure. I love that. I love
Speaker 1: that you both saw it. And I'm big on visions too,
Speaker 1: like seeing things as a kid. I knew that I
Speaker 1: was going to be doing what i'm doing, not podcasting,
Speaker 1: but I knew I was going to be acting, singing.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm going to be an entertainer. And
Speaker 1: my parents were like girl, but they were like, this
Speaker 1: is what you want to do. Well, make sure you're
Speaker 1: in dance class. We're gonna put you in the choir.
Speaker 1: They gave me the tools I needed to be able
Speaker 1: to develop the skills for it. But it was also
Speaker 1: something that I saw as a kid and I just
Speaker 1: always knew and it was nobody. I don't care what
Speaker 1: anybody said. They could say, oh, I'm not sure you
Speaker 1: can do that. I'm like, I can, Yeah, Oh I
Speaker 1: don't really like that, And I was like I do.
Speaker 1: Like it didn't matter what anybody thought.
Speaker 3: The moment didn't surprise you, It did not surprise me.
Speaker 1: No. Somebody asked, we did something the other day here
Speaker 1: at the studio for influencers, and they asked are you
Speaker 1: basically are you surprised at where you are now? And
Speaker 1: I'm like no, like this is something I always saw
Speaker 1: for myself, and I'm big on writing things down to Actually,
Speaker 1: in the third grade, I wrote Oprah and my very
Speaker 1: first job here, Oprah and Tyler had worked. They were
Speaker 1: working together on the Have and Have Nots and he
Speaker 1: was doing shows for the own network. So she was
Speaker 1: literally one of my first bosses when I moved here
Speaker 1: and now I've had like multiple conversations, hung out with
Speaker 1: her plenty of times. But as a kid, I got
Speaker 1: denied going to the op Winfrey Show. I was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I used.
Speaker 3: To have to tape Oprahnfrey Show at four o'clock every
Speaker 3: day for my mom or your mom. Yeah on that
Speaker 3: VC yes, And if I missed it, it was an issue,
Speaker 3: No big issue, an issue.
Speaker 1: That was one of my favorite shows, like after school
Speaker 1: I could not wait. Yeah, but no, I'm with your
Speaker 1: mom on that. That was gonna be a problem.
Speaker 3: That's a problem. It's a problem.
Speaker 1: I love that. So you two have been friends for
Speaker 1: a long time. We talked about working with friends and
Speaker 1: giving friends opportunities. I want to know how you all
Speaker 1: have protected your friendship and doing business together, because a
Speaker 1: lot of times we see friends go into business and
Speaker 1: then the friendship just is done because it doesn't last.
Speaker 1: How have you protected that and what are some tips
Speaker 1: that you can give other people who are going in
Speaker 1: the business together.
Speaker 3: I think the two words that come to mind that
Speaker 3: trust and respect. I respect them to the highest level,
Speaker 3: and I trust them to the highest level right outside
Speaker 3: of business, like if I needed somebody to be around
Speaker 3: my family if something happens to me, I know that
Speaker 3: they're gonna be taken care of it and gonna make
Speaker 3: sure that the understanding our strengths and our waitnesses. That's key.
Speaker 3: And sometimes you see strength in other people and you realize, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm not good at that, And you could look at
Speaker 3: it a few ways. You can say, Okay, I want
Speaker 3: to be as good as that person, or in my case,
Speaker 3: I looked at it as he's great at that, Let
Speaker 3: me find something else to be great at because if
Speaker 3: I bring that asset with his, we are really a superpower.
Speaker 3: And so understanding that, you know, having dialogue, making sure
Speaker 3: that communication is there, checking in on each other, you know,
Speaker 3: outside of work. What people see, how you're doing, how
Speaker 3: you doing, Like, how you're feeling okay, Like I know
Speaker 3: there's some stress going on, You good? How can I help?
Speaker 3: Just pouring into each other in that way which people
Speaker 3: don't see.
Speaker 1: It's so important, so especially as black men, because nobody's
Speaker 1: checking on y'all. Y'all are taking care of everybody.
Speaker 3: I think that gets overlooked. This is something that's happening
Speaker 3: with two black men. Yes, instead of that, we're going
Speaker 3: to do something together and have been pretty much together
Speaker 3: for thirty years. Now, where do we see that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Right, So, like we understand the magnitude of that, We
Speaker 3: understand the responsibility of that, We understand the people that
Speaker 3: are watching just look at us and say, you guys
Speaker 3: are our mentors. You are the blueprint on how to
Speaker 3: do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I feel like family, family doesn't break up,
Speaker 2: Like it's impossible. If family breaks up, it was never family.
Speaker 2: So you could have you know, a disagreement, or you
Speaker 2: could even go separate ways like you know sometimes in life,
Speaker 2: like you know, it doesn't mean that you hate it,
Speaker 2: but what you see online, like you know, people was
Speaker 2: best friends, they was business partners. Now they slammed each
Speaker 2: other every chance that they get in, they telling their
Speaker 2: the deepest secrets and you know, to me, like, I'm like,
Speaker 2: to me, you was never family. I can't do that,
Speaker 2: Like that's like your mom, Like now you're gonna go
Speaker 2: online just start slammer in your mom because you don't
Speaker 2: like it. You got disagreement in the moment, like that
Speaker 2: question that that to me is questionable about your character.
Speaker 2: So I think too much is built around too much.
Speaker 2: It's just built around not knowing how to de escalate
Speaker 2: situations because a lot of times it's not even that serious.
Speaker 2: A lot of situations just broken up just over not
Speaker 2: knowing how to communicate properly. You know, it's like not
Speaker 2: knowing how to ask for you know, what you want
Speaker 2: to ask for, or just saying I don't agree with this,
Speaker 2: or you know, just really like having an uncomfortable conversation
Speaker 2: coming back apologizing about something, Like you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of things could have just been avoided if you think
Speaker 2: about it's not even that serious. But they'll go to
Speaker 2: the end of the world to try to publicly slander
Speaker 2: up a person. And it's like who benefits from that?
Speaker 2: So you know, it happens all the time happens in
Speaker 2: this space you see. Podcaster is like breaking up. You
Speaker 2: see music people break up. You see like you know
Speaker 2: all the time people you know, people break up all
Speaker 2: the time. And like I said, there's ways to break up.
Speaker 2: There's ways to break up if that's needed. But we
Speaker 2: need to learn what we as a community. We need
Speaker 2: to learn better conflict resolution skills, absolutely, and we need
Speaker 2: to understand governance, respect governance, Like we gotta have better
Speaker 2: ways of dealing with each other because it is problematic,
Speaker 2: like we can't even work together. How we're going to
Speaker 2: change anything, like in all real and like really really
Speaker 2: affect real change. We can't even come together and not
Speaker 2: you know, break up after eighteen months.
Speaker 1: Right, that's so true. If y'all can give me a
Speaker 1: quick story and there's.
Speaker 2: No benefit in it, that's the last thing. As far
Speaker 2: as just from a pure selfish standpoint, nine times out
Speaker 2: of ten, it doesn't work out when you break up
Speaker 2: very few people the band breaks up, and then you're
Speaker 2: more successful. It happened once in a like you got Beyonest,
Speaker 2: you got Michael Jackson outis right. Most of the time.
Speaker 2: Most of the time you make less money, you become
Speaker 2: less successful, you get nobody cares about you anymore. It
Speaker 2: doesn't that's it doesn't work. So it's like, just from
Speaker 2: a pure selfish standpoint, it's actually better just to keep
Speaker 2: the band together. Like you, if you're getting thirty percent,
Speaker 2: that thirty percent, I'd rather take thirty percent for twenty
Speaker 2: years than one hundred percent for eighteen months, because that
Speaker 2: when people break up, they're like, I could do this
Speaker 2: on my own. I'm a bigger star, I got a
Speaker 2: bigger name, and then it's like, all right, now you're
Speaker 2: on your own, and then your run is eighteen months.
Speaker 2: But if you had a nice, consistent run for twenty.
Speaker 1: Years, yeah, it's different.
Speaker 2: Nobody's complaining. So that's important for people to understand. Like
Speaker 2: before you, before you in that relationship, if all else fails,
Speaker 2: just think from a selfish standpoint, it's nine it's not
Speaker 2: going to work. Ninety percent chance is not going to work.
Speaker 2: So you're better off just working it out all vision.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's some relationships to like and relate
Speaker 1: like not just platonic. Like sometimes it's like work it out,
Speaker 1: you know, because you get out there and you're like,
Speaker 1: just look it up, it's crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that real well hits you.
Speaker 1: Listen, right, you trying to run back home? Right, that's
Speaker 1: what they think.
Speaker 3: Are still folded right.
Speaker 1: It's hilarious. You talked about disagreements, and I want to
Speaker 1: know if you could tell us like a story time
Speaker 1: that may be funny now, where you had a disagreement
Speaker 1: on something but it actually ended up benefiting the brand,
Speaker 1: where you're like, man, I'm glad we got through that,
Speaker 1: but that was a heated moment.
Speaker 3: I don't know they're heated moments. Like I said, I know,
Speaker 3: I'm so well that I know how I'm a pro
Speaker 3: something that there's a disagreement and we don't. The interesting
Speaker 3: part is that we don't agree most of the time. Really.
Speaker 3: I think people watch it and they think, oh, these
Speaker 3: guys think alike. But in real life when people around us,
Speaker 3: we debate back and forth most of the time.
Speaker 1: Now, are y'all real New Yorkers When you have because
Speaker 1: New York is allowed, you don't even seem like you
Speaker 1: raise your voice.
Speaker 3: He gets love, Yeah, But I mean that's how we've
Speaker 3: always spoken to each other. That's how we communicate. And
Speaker 3: I think again, it goes back to the respect. It's
Speaker 3: not like, oh you lost that debate. It's just like, oh,
Speaker 3: that was good, all right, let's can't wait for the
Speaker 3: next one. Yeah, But you know, if there is a
Speaker 3: disagreement and it's something that needs to be spoken about,
Speaker 3: it's going to be between me and him. It's gonna
Speaker 3: be a phone call. That's something like I'm pulling up
Speaker 3: to your house. Let's have this conversation, and let's see perspective.
Speaker 3: Let's look at this perspective. We'll go back and forth
Speaker 3: because I guess we both have that stubborn trait like
Speaker 3: I want you to hear my point. I want to
Speaker 3: hear my point. But are we listening to each other? Right?
Speaker 3: It's one thing to be heard, but are you listening?
Speaker 3: And it's usually resolved. There's never been something that is,
Speaker 3: oh I hate you, don't talk to me. Ever, again,
Speaker 3: I don't think there's been a time where it's like
Speaker 3: I'm not speaking to him, you know, so, because there's
Speaker 3: a respecting.
Speaker 2: But then also I think that it's not really too
Speaker 2: much of like there is a level of governance because
Speaker 2: it's like we have different roles and responsibilities. Like he's
Speaker 2: a numbers guy, he handles the money, he handles operations, people, analytics,
Speaker 2: variety of different things. We at other people too, like ab,
Speaker 2: he's here with us. We got you know, we got
Speaker 2: a team. We got a whole team. It's not just us,
Speaker 2: it's a whole team. Different people have different delegations and
Speaker 2: different things in that nature. And me, I'm a creative,
Speaker 2: so I'll give everybody credit. Like, because I don't think
Speaker 2: people stepped on people's toes too much, I can speak
Speaker 2: for me. I don't feel like my toes get stepped
Speaker 2: on too much. Like I feel like if I have
Speaker 2: an idea, I have a pretty good track record, and
Speaker 2: I feel like as long as I communicated successfully, it's
Speaker 2: not really too many times where they'll be like, no,
Speaker 2: you can't do this. It's pretty much never that. That's
Speaker 2: never really the case. So I don't think that it's
Speaker 2: ever been a situation where it's been like a full
Speaker 2: fledge like this is the way that we're going. Oh no,
Speaker 2: this is the way that we're going, and then it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, there's not really too much of that because
Speaker 2: I think people people know their strong suits, people know
Speaker 2: what they're best at, people know what they're responsible for,
Speaker 2: and you gotta have some trust, got to trust the
Speaker 2: process for sure, you can't. You can't. It's not going
Speaker 2: to work. Like if your job is to do something
Speaker 2: and I'm telling you like, no, this is I'm telling you,
Speaker 2: this is what I want to do. Well, that's not
Speaker 2: your job anymore. That's my job. I've essentially taken your job.
Speaker 2: So I feel like that's helped us too, because it
Speaker 2: hasn't really been It's not too much like really like
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes it's things, but for the most part,
Speaker 2: if we want to get something through, it's not really
Speaker 2: an issue to get it through.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be you a phone call. I'm great what
Speaker 3: he's said because when people look at it, they see
Speaker 3: the creative part and then it's like, well, how do
Speaker 3: we get it done?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So like who's like, we got to source of
Speaker 3: those ideas? All right? Great, I could say like, let
Speaker 3: me go be creative, let me try, but I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: he's great at that. Yeah, let's see if we can
Speaker 3: get these ideas done. Because if he comes up with
Speaker 3: the idea and we can execute on it, now we've
Speaker 3: got something right that the world gets the benefit from. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, for sure, for sure, speaking of something that the
Speaker 1: world benefits from, you all are not just pouring into
Speaker 1: today's like to what people are doing now and entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: that are working now, but you're also pouring into the future.
Speaker 1: This year it invests fast. You guys have junior high
Speaker 1: school students, high school students that you're pouring into. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about that. I think that's very important. I'm really
Speaker 1: big on making sure that we pour into the youth
Speaker 1: because they are our future. Tell you more about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of one of those things where we
Speaker 3: wanted to go back to where it all started. You know,
Speaker 3: people see invest Fast and they think, wow, this is
Speaker 3: for adults and I have to have money, and you know,
Speaker 3: are my kids allowed to come? And you know, we
Speaker 3: kind of looked at as an opportunity to educate the youth,
Speaker 3: which is where it all started again, making sure that
Speaker 3: they understood the principles behind entrepreneurship, business networking. And so
Speaker 3: when the idea came about was how do we do this.
Speaker 3: Do we create a separate event or do we make
Speaker 3: it something inside of something that's already existed. I think
Speaker 3: the opportunity presented itself when we looked at the calendar
Speaker 3: and said we got to you know, investst moved up
Speaker 3: a little bit this year. You know, Atlanta schools are
Speaker 3: going back. At the same time, we're now doing investmentest
Speaker 3: So the opportunity said, okay, well we've done this. We've
Speaker 3: brought kids from our community down, we brought kids from
Speaker 3: you know, the Bronx in Brooklyn down. Why are we
Speaker 3: leaving out the greater Atlanta region. Don't they need opportunities?
Speaker 3: Don't they need ideas? And so we've created a pretty
Speaker 3: much a mini investments where they're going to have panels,
Speaker 3: we have a pitch competition, and we're looking to inspire
Speaker 3: a generation that is going to you know, be very
Speaker 3: different than ours. Yes, right, the social media, the creator economy, AI,
Speaker 3: all that is prevalent in their in their environment. Now
Speaker 3: are they getting education about it? So we're bringing experts
Speaker 3: in the same way for investments. We have speakers and
Speaker 3: like I said, we have some really good, good ideas.
Speaker 3: In terms of the give back, I don't want to
Speaker 3: give everything away, but it's going to be definitely a
Speaker 3: give back because it's important. Once they see it, they
Speaker 3: can't unsee it, all right, and so let's let's let's
Speaker 3: put them in an environment where they can see it. Now,
Speaker 3: go back to their school, go back to the community.
Speaker 3: Number one, inspire, but aspire to be something. They might
Speaker 3: see somebody on the stage and that's exactly who I
Speaker 3: want to be. I.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how do you feel about it? Excited about this?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: For sure. It's just you know, every year from investments,
Speaker 2: we add something there, so just in general, we just
Speaker 2: add something. So we added the pitch competition a few
Speaker 2: years ago, we added Friday programming, a few years ago,
Speaker 2: we added workshops. So this is the first and it
Speaker 2: grows every year too. So first, yeah, it was just
Speaker 2: Saturday and Sunday. Now it's Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, wow,
Speaker 2: Thursday with the kids. So it's just becoming like a
Speaker 2: whole week of activities.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. And this year you are expecting like over
Speaker 1: fifty thousand or is it more than that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, per day, So we had like twenty five No,
Speaker 2: it's like twenty Last year it was twenty five thousand people.
Speaker 2: But you know how festivals calculated, they do it per day,
Speaker 2: so over the course of the weekend, it's like you
Speaker 2: do that number, then you tie two whatever it is.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you know, we're looking at that same range
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five thousand people per day. Yeah, four hundred vendors.
Speaker 2: We got the kids event on.
Speaker 1: We do we gotta move in the invensments. Okay, he's
Speaker 1: a venus. I'm like, wait, okay. I'm like, we got
Speaker 1: some stuff we can say.
Speaker 3: We go overcord that conversation.
Speaker 2: We still got a few left, so let's get you out.
Speaker 1: Make it happened in no I remember the first time
Speaker 1: I went. I came through the back and then I
Speaker 1: went out to see what was going on. It was
Speaker 1: so overwhelming though, it was like a sea of people.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh, Like I didn't know
Speaker 1: the magnitude of what you all had built until I
Speaker 1: saw it myself. And Keanu Watson is a really close
Speaker 1: friend of mine, and every year Morning Investments I gotta
Speaker 1: speak and I was like okay. And when I went
Speaker 1: with Tyler, I was like, this is bananas. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is insane. So you guys have moved the dates up.
Speaker 1: What's the dates for this year?
Speaker 2: August seventh through August ninth.
Speaker 1: August seventh through the ninth beginning.
Speaker 2: The beginning of August, and we have vi P Night.
Speaker 2: This year is different. It's black. Todd Galla oh nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love gallery honoring t I honoring Jamaine Dupree, Keisha
Speaker 2: Lamb's bottom.
Speaker 1: I love all them. That's amazing. I love have you
Speaker 1: giving back to this performing? Listen? Our ticket is still available?
Speaker 1: Can people still come the club? Get your tickets?
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a good time, and I've I feel
Speaker 1: like we're at the age where we want to get.
Speaker 1: We want to have our grown and sexy nights, put
Speaker 1: our tuxedos and our gowns on, you know, and be adults.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: I love it, but also learning and being able to
Speaker 1: take something with us and apply it because I think
Speaker 1: now more than ever, people are thinking differently about money.
Speaker 1: They can thinking different about wealth no matter where they
Speaker 1: are in their life. A lot of times people thought
Speaker 1: that if they had to be millionaires or having six
Speaker 1: figure job salaries to actually build wealth. But now we're
Speaker 1: teaching people you can start where you are, and I
Speaker 1: think that's very important. So I love what you guys
Speaker 1: are doing. We're definitely gonna I'm putting it on the record,
Speaker 1: We're gonna try to get a booth. All right, okay, perfect?
Speaker 1: Now I want to be a part of it. So
Speaker 1: thank you. Guys so much for sitting down talking with
Speaker 1: this before we close. Is there anything else that we
Speaker 1: need to be on the lookout for where we can
Speaker 1: support you? You know you got the podcast invest Fast, but
Speaker 1: is there anything else that we can support?
Speaker 2: Thank you for having us you invest Fast. You know,
Speaker 2: there's still a few vendor booths available, still some tickets available.
Speaker 1: So there's one less available, one last because yeah, y'all
Speaker 1: better hurry up.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's just a it's just a magical moment
Speaker 2: every year. It's just to host it and be a
Speaker 2: part of it. And man, the networking opportunities is amazing,
Speaker 2: you know, to learn so much from so many high
Speaker 2: powered individuals just to be in a room. It's just
Speaker 2: it's just a great energy, it's a great feel, and
Speaker 2: it's life changing experience. So Hoighy would encourage people to
Speaker 2: do that. Go to invest Fest dot com and then
Speaker 2: earn your leader. You can check us out on all
Speaker 2: social media platforms. On YouTube, we have content that we
Speaker 2: put out pretty much every day. We have three shows
Speaker 2: and we're always doing something. We have a book called
Speaker 2: on you Just Have to Be Rich, So check that
Speaker 2: out if you're if you're you know, looking for some
Speaker 2: reading material. It's it breaks down everything that we talk
Speaker 2: about in story form and it goes from A to
Speaker 2: Z and financial planning journey. Nice.
Speaker 1: We have to add that to our Sweie Social Club
Speaker 1: book club.
Speaker 3: In addition to the youth something that would happen, we
Speaker 3: also have curriculum HM and so we're going to be
Speaker 3: sitting in the curriculums academy because one of the things
Speaker 3: we knew about being in school is that no one
Speaker 3: taught about financially and so where we saw a problem,
Speaker 3: here's a solution. And so we're going to be debuting
Speaker 3: it here in Atlanta. So if you're in a school
Speaker 3: district in the Greater Atlanta region or in the state
Speaker 3: of Georgia, you know, definitely get us up about that.
Speaker 2: Shout out to n Shout out to the brother in
Speaker 2: market mondays Man, number one investment show every Monday, eight o'clock,
Speaker 2: and shout out to Blackout. That's the newest show that
Speaker 2: we have. That's nine o'clock on Wednesday, and that's a
Speaker 2: that's more edgy.
Speaker 1: I like that. After hours, Yeah.
Speaker 2: After hours for sure, late night, late night show.
Speaker 1: Check it out. Now, where can they find that?
Speaker 2: Lesia?
Speaker 1: Okay, all leisure listening platforms, media company. There you go,
Speaker 1: get into it a part of the platform. I love it.
Speaker 2: I love it. A lot of people come to invest
Speaker 2: fast and you know organically you just you meet people, right,
Speaker 2: and a lot of people meet significant others. So we
Speaker 2: wanted to just for yeah, we wanted to foster it
Speaker 2: in a more structured way. So then we got a
Speaker 2: singles lounge for single people that's looking to meet. So
Speaker 2: if you if you're a woman and you're looking to
Speaker 2: meet an intentional man that's ambitious, right, mindset, finances in order,
Speaker 2: guy's investments right.
Speaker 3: Like folios looking great.
Speaker 2: Life insurance, taking care of all the things. And then
Speaker 2: if you're a man and you're looking for you know,
Speaker 2: a woman that got a head on her shoulders, that's
Speaker 2: about a business that's you know, doing the right things, focused,
Speaker 2: prayed for this moment. It's no better place. So yeah,
Speaker 2: we're definitely excited about that.
Speaker 1: I love now y'all vetting the people or.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we partner you know, you know Kendrick g Yeah,
Speaker 2: she's gonna be she's hosting it. She's hosting it, Okay,
Speaker 2: so it's gonna it's gonna be fun too.
Speaker 1: She's so much fun.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be it's gonna be
Speaker 2: a vibe.
Speaker 1: Okay, I might have to slide into this. See what
Speaker 1: y'all got up in there?
Speaker 3: Research and development? Of course, this is all research.
Speaker 1: I love it. Now, that's fire. I love it. Was
Speaker 1: that side.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what. I always wanted to do the
Speaker 2: singles lounge thing, but talking to Kendra and she was like, Yo,
Speaker 2: why don't we do this? And it was just like,
Speaker 2: you know what, we should do this. Yeah, So I
Speaker 2: gotta give the credit to Kendra. So she's the one
Speaker 2: that she's the one that actually told me about it,
Speaker 2: and when she proposed it to me, it was a
Speaker 2: no brainer to everybody just says like, yeah, why not,
Speaker 2: that's just perfect. So I shot out to kendred Man.
Speaker 3: She's incredible. She hosted a pitch competition a few years
Speaker 3: ago and it was like a gap in between presenting
Speaker 3: and she kind of just like improv too, started doing
Speaker 3: it and we were watching the backstage like that's genius. Yes,
Speaker 3: that's fire, come up, tell me about who are you
Speaker 3: looking for? And then the participation for the audience, we
Speaker 3: were just standing there like that's something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Her energy is so good. That's I love that you
Speaker 1: say every night Thursday through Sunday Sunday, are you still
Speaker 1: in here? But I was just trying to was saying,
Speaker 1: I gotta see the gotta see what's coming through the doors.
Speaker 2: Every Yes, you got on Sunday all all the eligible
Speaker 2: bachelors and didn't make a decision at the at.
Speaker 3: The something you know.
Speaker 1: Sunday, we don't know.
Speaker 2: You have your draft. You gotta have your draft card.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: Going to something that is so good. All right, we're
Speaker 1: definitely checking that out.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. Okay, we're definitely checking it out. I
Speaker 1: love that. Guys. I just want to say, I know
Speaker 1: this is our first time really sitting down and talking.
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of y'all. Just listening to your journey,
Speaker 1: seeing everything you've been able to accomplish, and then even
Speaker 1: hearing how you all speak on conflict resolution, on how
Speaker 1: you handle business, how you handle people. I can tell,
Speaker 1: and I don't quote me if I'm wrong, but I
Speaker 1: can tell you've done the work. Like it sounds like
Speaker 1: two men that have probably gone to therapy, have talked
Speaker 1: to people who have community, and I can tell by
Speaker 1: the way you handle yourselves. I'm like, these are two
Speaker 1: guys that can know how to put the ego aside
Speaker 1: and really be brothers. And it's good to see. I
Speaker 1: really love seeing it.
Speaker 3: Appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Yes, thank yes, thank you guys so much. Make sure
Speaker 1: guys check out investments this August seventh through the ninth.
Speaker 1: If you're in Atlanta. If you're not, just catch a flight.
Speaker 1: Drive it's not far from a lot of places pull
Speaker 1: up on them. It's a few vendor boots left, minus one,
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna get one and get your tickets, get
Speaker 1: your black tied ladies, get your gowns, and come on
Speaker 1: and have a good time. It's gonna be fun. I'm
Speaker 1: excited for you guys. I hope this year is bigger
Speaker 1: than ever. Thank you so much, Yes, thank you. This
Speaker 1: conversation reminded me that wealth isn't just measured by what
Speaker 1: you accumulate. It's measured by what you build and what
Speaker 1: you teach. Thank you both for your honesty and your leader,
Speaker 1: And thank you to everyone listening. If this conversation encouraged
Speaker 1: you or inspired you to be sure to subscribe, leave
Speaker 1: a comment, and share this episode with someone who is
Speaker 1: building something bigger. Than themselves. And don't forget, the Sweeti
Speaker 1: Social Club is officially open. If you've been rocking with
Speaker 1: us and you want to be even more connected with
Speaker 1: the kids family, this is for you. Follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Sweetie Social Club and until next time, you
Speaker 1: guys already know, keep it pausa Sweetie