Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Big Money Energy, where
Speaker 1: we talked to super successful people and self made people
Speaker 1: to find out exactly how they did it, how they
Speaker 1: went from nothing to something. Today, I'm joined by the
Speaker 1: ultimate jack of all trades. You know him by his
Speaker 1: name if you've ever listened to any rap song ever,
Speaker 1: Ben Baller, Ben Balling with the Chains. That is who
Speaker 1: is here today. The incredible story and if you're not
Speaker 1: familiar with him, he's also a music producer, he's a jeweler,
Speaker 1: he's a podcaster. I mean, let's just use the word mogul. Honestly,
Speaker 1: he is everything to everybody, and his story of success
Speaker 1: is really unconventional, which is why I needed him to
Speaker 1: tell it on the pot for all you guys. We
Speaker 1: discussed his origins and music coming up in l A,
Speaker 1: how he managed to piss off Dr Dre that story
Speaker 1: is ridiculous after blowing his first million dollar check, and
Speaker 1: how he managed to become hip hop's most sought after jeweler.
Speaker 1: This is one of my favorites. Let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode. You have no idea how excited
Speaker 1: I am for today's guest. He is the entrepreneur businessman
Speaker 1: and he go to jewelry designer for a plus celebrities
Speaker 1: like Drake, Justin Bieber, Asap, Rocky and I think everybody else. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's established himself as an insanely creative entrepreneur, which is really,
Speaker 1: really really important to me, influencing fashion, style, sports and
Speaker 1: music industries effortlessly. He's a legend among some of the
Speaker 1: biggest artists in the world. And if you don't know,
Speaker 1: he co founded IF and Co. Jewelry in two thousand four,
Speaker 1: creating diamond encrusted jewelry for a ton of high profile clients. Listen,
Speaker 1: I don't have a nice out change as yet, but
Speaker 1: after today I might have to get like a serhant
Speaker 1: one and I think that would look insane. I just
Speaker 1: like Rocket over the suit. I would be the only
Speaker 1: real estate broker in New York City who had that.
Speaker 1: And that's how maybe I could stand out right People like, oh,
Speaker 1: that guy with the great that's Shane. Yeah, now we
Speaker 1: know who he is. Yeah he sold us that place.
Speaker 1: Yeah that was crazy. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe you guys can tell me what you think. Honestly,
Speaker 1: he is a taste maker. It's the first time I've
Speaker 1: ever used that that word on this podcast, so here
Speaker 1: to discuss how it all started and how he got
Speaker 1: to where he is and his upcoming projects. Please welcome
Speaker 1: Ben Baller. Appreciate you guys having me. That was a
Speaker 1: hell of an intro. I don't know if I can
Speaker 1: cuss them being careful because I had a potty mouth,
Speaker 1: but no, that that was. That was probably the best
Speaker 1: intro out of any show I've ever done in my life.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a bit about your decision to go
Speaker 1: Ben Baller where you said, you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put Humble in the backseat. That's not going to be
Speaker 1: my business, that's not going to be my m O.
Speaker 1: It was that something that you always felt like as
Speaker 1: a kid. Were you three years old and You're like
Speaker 1: this toy, I'm going hard? You know what? I think.
Speaker 1: I've just been a big mouth since joll And Tell Fridays,
Speaker 1: you know, since I was maybe five or six years old.
Speaker 1: I've just been I've always had a large personality. And um,
Speaker 1: where were you when you were five? So I was
Speaker 1: in Koreatown, Los Angeles. Uh become super gentrified now you know.
Speaker 1: There was definitely no high rises. Anthony Boordain was not
Speaker 1: trying to come through there then, by the way, I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know what I mean, people do know that,
Speaker 1: but I was one of the people that had brought
Speaker 1: him over there for when he did the Creatown special.
Speaker 1: But you know, Creatown was, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: close to the hood. It's it's the neighboring city to
Speaker 1: almost downtown LA. It was a decent part of town.
Speaker 1: But Creatown has just gotten so big. But if people
Speaker 1: don't realize, is like there's a lot of gang activity
Speaker 1: that was going on there. There was a lot of robberies.
Speaker 1: It was again it was not a Korean majority populated area.
Speaker 1: It was just a rough area. And you know, the
Speaker 1: night Stock had been through there with tremeres and just
Speaker 1: it was a lot of crazy ship that was going
Speaker 1: on then. And um, you know, I was going to
Speaker 1: public school, which is very strange, is uh. My parents
Speaker 1: came here as immigrants. I always told people like, no,
Speaker 1: Wan came here with two hundred dollars in blah blah,
Speaker 1: And people are like, wait, maybe in the sixties, that
Speaker 1: wasn't that much money. That was a kind of a
Speaker 1: lot of money, wasn't it. And my sister is like, no,
Speaker 1: your mom came here with like twenty dollars and um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's stories that I've heard we want
Speaker 1: when we were poor, that my dad got pulled over
Speaker 1: for whatever a ticket he had to do like two
Speaker 1: days in jail and um, because he couldn't afford to
Speaker 1: pay the citation and certain things, and they lived in
Speaker 1: a garage when I was born. I'm the youngest of three. Um,
Speaker 1: things started getting better my mother. And my mother was
Speaker 1: the original entrepreneur, but really from hard work. You know,
Speaker 1: now people work smarter. She was smart in the fact
Speaker 1: that she was able to get into the garment industry
Speaker 1: and be address contractor. Early. With that being said, I
Speaker 1: was the wild kid that was the latch key kid
Speaker 1: at home, you know whatever. My brother's nine years older
Speaker 1: than me. My sister is uh five six ye older
Speaker 1: than me, so they were kind of further in school.
Speaker 1: You know. I wasn't with them in high school and
Speaker 1: things like that. So my brother, which some people look
Speaker 1: at like damn, do you know, Like when people meet
Speaker 1: my brother and sister, they don't believe that we're related
Speaker 1: when they kind of look closely like oh, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know my sister being an enormous Hollywood stylists.
Speaker 1: She'll meet people that I worked with, whether it be
Speaker 1: Denzel or Justin Bieber, and I'm like, that's really your brother,
Speaker 1: Like I thought he was raised by wolves. You know.
Speaker 1: So growing up, I grew up in public schools and
Speaker 1: I got kicked out a lot of schools, whereas my
Speaker 1: brother went to and over he went to private schools,
Speaker 1: and my sister went to a school called Concord Academy.
Speaker 1: So they both went to boarding schools in the East Coast.
Speaker 1: And then you know, my brother and sister both went
Speaker 1: to prestigious colleges and everything else, and it just I
Speaker 1: just was a different guy. I got arrested for the
Speaker 1: first time at eight years old. So at eight man eight,
Speaker 1: what do you would you do? So I was stealing
Speaker 1: Colliko vision if you were Colligo Visions, you know, it
Speaker 1: was it was like Sega, right, stealing video games from
Speaker 1: Sears in a parking lot there. It was the outdoor
Speaker 1: parking lot. And we got away with it, me and
Speaker 1: my cousin. I decided to go back because I wanted
Speaker 1: to get an adapter, and it became grand theft larceny,
Speaker 1: and I just made up all kinds of stories, you know,
Speaker 1: and then finally they were like, hey, listen, you know
Speaker 1: your parents canna be worried about you. You You know, I'm
Speaker 1: sure they're worried. Boom, And I'm in a jail cell
Speaker 1: cracking jokes with all these adults. I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a little kid, and like, what the hell do
Speaker 1: you doing here? You know, I see a bunch of people,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't scared, you know, because I grew up
Speaker 1: in such a seedy part of town. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's where it started. I've always just
Speaker 1: been kind of like a just not humble, you know,
Speaker 1: if I if I had no money, whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: and just I just I like to talk ship. Do
Speaker 1: you think that that attitude, though, of not being humble
Speaker 1: and being incredibly confident even when you didn't have money,
Speaker 1: even when you were young, helped you propel yourself to
Speaker 1: where you wanted to get to because you were already
Speaker 1: being that guy. Like a big thing for me, and
Speaker 1: I tell people a lot is you know. When I
Speaker 1: came to the city, I also lived in Kreatown. Um
Speaker 1: not Korean, but I lived in Creatown on thirty first Street,
Speaker 1: and Broadway, and I was the only white guy in
Speaker 1: the building I lived in, right, lived with a bunch
Speaker 1: of other Koreans, and it was awesome. It's great. I
Speaker 1: knew that one day I was going to be successful,
Speaker 1: and I just projected that image and I acted like
Speaker 1: that guy and I knew that I will become that
Speaker 1: guy because I know what the future is. That I
Speaker 1: could tell the future. It kind of sounds like you
Speaker 1: were in the same headspace. No, for sure, you know,
Speaker 1: at a certain point, you know, like I definitely had.
Speaker 1: You know, people would say just the tire something, No,
Speaker 1: you're worth, know your valuable. But I mean I just
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, without saying so much, you know, I
Speaker 1: would talk my ship and people be like you' relax, man,
Speaker 1: you live in a one bit of apartment, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean with with four people in there. And
Speaker 1: my brother was already gone by the time I was
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, before I was even a teenager.
Speaker 1: By the time I was ten, my brother was out
Speaker 1: of the house, right. I mean, he was in boarding
Speaker 1: school before that. But I didn't get to kind of
Speaker 1: grow up with my brother. Only during certain parts of time.
Speaker 1: But I always just touched it. Always felt like, look, man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make it. I don't care what you guys say,
Speaker 1: no matter what you know, when I was working at
Speaker 1: Burger King. It's hard to vision that later, but I
Speaker 1: was like, no, man, whatever it takes, it's it's just
Speaker 1: gonna happen. You know. That another term that I can't stand.
Speaker 1: But it's like, you know, closed mouths don't get fat.
Speaker 1: It's it's true to a certain point. Like I wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna let you know and be like, oh, let things
Speaker 1: happen naturally, let things come to you know that I'm
Speaker 1: going to them right you know. You know, no doors
Speaker 1: really opened up for me. And I had to build
Speaker 1: a door. I had to knock it down. You name
Speaker 1: what it is. I saw a crack, I'm busting it open.
Speaker 1: Do you credit a lot to your mom for giving
Speaker 1: you that entrepreneurial spirit and just seeing how hard she
Speaker 1: worked when you were a little kid. That just showed
Speaker 1: you that you could do absolutely anything if you put
Speaker 1: the work in. Definitely. One thing my mom would say
Speaker 1: is even though my brother was a gene is above mensa.
Speaker 1: That's how he got into school. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of financial aid with and over what's crazy is. My
Speaker 1: brother was always being told what to do, go on
Speaker 1: to boarding schools and before that, like sort of a
Speaker 1: military school and just the way to be a man
Speaker 1: and blah blah. Whenever he came back home, he'd wake
Speaker 1: up at ten am or whatever and go to sleep.
Speaker 1: My mom be like, I'm so sick of this ship.
Speaker 1: You know, my MoMA wake up at four in the
Speaker 1: morning every day and get to it. She's like, no,
Speaker 1: I can't. You know, if you know what life was
Speaker 1: like in Korea, you know we're so poor. I can
Speaker 1: never go back to that. And I saw my mom
Speaker 1: go from one sewing machine to like five to twenty
Speaker 1: to a hundred and be like, wow, people have have
Speaker 1: a philosophy. Were like, have no expectations and you know
Speaker 1: you'll never be disappointed. Fuck you on my happen. I
Speaker 1: have high expectations, you know what I mean. I'm aiming
Speaker 1: for seventeen galaxies passed, you know, Mars or whatever, and
Speaker 1: and I'll land on Jupiter if I fail, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's just where I always was with it. And
Speaker 1: you know, the whole thing. You get knocked down twenty times,
Speaker 1: coming up twenty one times. I came up like thirty
Speaker 1: five times. You know, like, yo, it's just and I
Speaker 1: think at a certain point, I really never looked back
Speaker 1: after like two thousand four. Is that when you started different?
Speaker 1: It was also the year I became a millionaire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what were your jobs leading up to two thousand four?
Speaker 1: I mean as a kid, I worked at a martial
Speaker 1: arts store that sold weapons. I think I was obsessed
Speaker 1: with weapons at a young age. That's terrible, right, I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's a family family filled podcast. Um. But uh,
Speaker 1: I worked a paper route. Again. I always talked about
Speaker 1: worked at Burger King, you know, an only age three
Speaker 1: seventy five an hour. I worked at Subway. Um. I
Speaker 1: worked at my mom's shop, and I thought my mom
Speaker 1: would give me, you know, like like some sort of
Speaker 1: a break, you know, and uh, working at our factory suck.
Speaker 1: That was probably one of the jobs. I probably would
Speaker 1: rather work at Burger King ten times won't work, my mom?
Speaker 1: How did you know that jewelry was going to be
Speaker 1: in your future? We haven't talked about it at all
Speaker 1: so far. It's funny. It's like it wasn't like a thing.
Speaker 1: When you're a kid, you know, you like shiny things.
Speaker 1: I love shining things. You know, watching run DMC and
Speaker 1: Eric b Rock cam having big cold chains and stuff.
Speaker 1: It's just something, you know, you see. I talked about
Speaker 1: this moment quite a bit. When Dr Dre gave me
Speaker 1: a check, my first big check. He pulled me to
Speaker 1: the side and I was like, yeah, what's up. And
Speaker 1: he's like, hey, man, don't don't be stupid. And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, why why are you talking to me?
Speaker 1: Why don't you talk to all the other guys. Why
Speaker 1: don't you talk to Butter and stew and all of them,
Speaker 1: and you know, and and uh and mel and all
Speaker 1: the other guys. And he's like, I don't care about them.
Speaker 1: They from the ghetto, blah blah whatever. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm from the ghetto, bro. He's like, you're not from
Speaker 1: the real ghetto. Man. Look man, you're my Asian. And
Speaker 1: he said this one thing, he said, hey, man, making
Speaker 1: a million dollars is easy. Keeping a million dollars is
Speaker 1: not easy. And he said, you know, I was like ship,
Speaker 1: making a million dollars easy, Keeping news in okay, all right,
Speaker 1: and one in one air out the other. That day,
Speaker 1: I remember I left at four o'clock, barely make it
Speaker 1: just to put the check in my account boom, and
Speaker 1: I remember by six pm I bought an M three
Speaker 1: BMW right, and I also was able to go get
Speaker 1: a Rolex come to the studio next day. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of nice cars of the studio, a lot of
Speaker 1: nice cars. For some reason, he gets so he always
Speaker 1: gets to the studio later in the day, like three
Speaker 1: or four, five o'clock. I'm there maybe at ten am twelve,
Speaker 1: but at prior to you know, you gotta get there
Speaker 1: early because of the East Coast time and everything. You know,
Speaker 1: I hear Dre like a man who's BMW Is that
Speaker 1: over there? I'm like this rangerovers and you know, trucks
Speaker 1: and everything with rims. It's like, who's who's BMW's that?
Speaker 1: Don't tell me that's Ben Yang's. He wouldn't call me
Speaker 1: Ben Baller. By the way, Andre's like, don't tell me
Speaker 1: that's Ben Yang's car. And so he cousin he goes goes, hey,
Speaker 1: mass a nice fine German otto bild there you know
Speaker 1: it was M three okay, okay, And then he sees
Speaker 1: the rolex on my wrist ship and he didn't talk
Speaker 1: to me for almost two three days, like really we
Speaker 1: had no communication. That was my first role X. I
Speaker 1: never I mean I never had money before. You know,
Speaker 1: even though I worked at Priority and had things, it's different,
Speaker 1: like I had corporate money and how you know, I
Speaker 1: had expense county cool places. I had no money in
Speaker 1: my real like I had no net worth. Really, you know,
Speaker 1: I had no assets. It was just a different thing.
Speaker 1: That was my first taste of being around jury like that.
Speaker 1: And my cousin was already you know, taking over his
Speaker 1: dad's business, uncle's business, and he's making jelry. He's telling me,
Speaker 1: hey man, why don't you bring some of these rappers
Speaker 1: over here and let's makes majority I'll break you off.
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, I don't know about all
Speaker 1: that whatever. And we talked about during family things. But
Speaker 1: my mom, I remember when I graduate high school, she
Speaker 1: she bought me a herring bone, and it meant everything
Speaker 1: to me. You know, it's it's like a four five
Speaker 1: millimeter herring bones, very big, it's very small, but you know,
Speaker 1: it was gold on my neck. It meant a lot
Speaker 1: to me. It was something I just never understood. In
Speaker 1: two thousand four, when I got my real money, won't
Speaker 1: when I became a millionaire, for the first time my
Speaker 1: life free and clear. My cousin had broke down to
Speaker 1: me that he was buying gold. This is many years
Speaker 1: before you start saying I'll buy goal, we buy gold,
Speaker 1: blah blah. And he was breaking down to me like, hey, man, um,
Speaker 1: you know, you can make a lot of money if
Speaker 1: you just you know, bring a couple of sales here
Speaker 1: and there and so like referral business because like bring
Speaker 1: us clients. Yeah. When we started the business, every Korean
Speaker 1: around my age or so understands their parents started business.
Speaker 1: Someone never even had LLC. I know that sounds crazy, right,
Speaker 1: but they're like, they just wouldn't be a liquor store,
Speaker 1: laundry business, whatever. They didn't understand how to write off
Speaker 1: things or whatever. I already knew when I did my
Speaker 1: taxes at you know, at Priority Records. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: my whole life is a rite off. Wait. I could
Speaker 1: write this car off. Oh man, I could write this off,
Speaker 1: every meal, I could write off there's a meeting, okay boom.
Speaker 1: So I did that, and I understood having a corporation
Speaker 1: because I had a management company in music business. So
Speaker 1: I told my cousin. I was like, hey, man, we
Speaker 1: can't do this the cream way. We cannot do this
Speaker 1: on a handshake, Like I gotta have some kind of paperwork,
Speaker 1: and we gotta move locations, even if we're moving five booths.
Speaker 1: I just need to move locations. So we honest. And
Speaker 1: he's like, damn, this motherfucker bend like I'm family, you
Speaker 1: don't trust like And I was just like no, because
Speaker 1: there was a lot of weird things when with my
Speaker 1: mom and her brothers and sisters that there's money that
Speaker 1: being owed and stuff, and I didn't want to have
Speaker 1: that come between my family, right. So we started this business,
Speaker 1: and uh, I remember the first week, Um, I had
Speaker 1: a couple of just you don't bring some sales in.
Speaker 1: It was like you know, um, Travis Barker's homeboys and
Speaker 1: they will come through. And and I remember getting like
Speaker 1: fifteen hunt on my pocket. Now even though I had
Speaker 1: a couple of million in my bank account. It was
Speaker 1: a great thing to see cash, you know, so easily
Speaker 1: come in. It wasn't until I realized, all right, this
Speaker 1: is cool, but now I've changed the game. Every time
Speaker 1: I went somewhere, it's always taken me a year or
Speaker 1: two later than everyone else. So like, let's say, for instance,
Speaker 1: when I'm in high school, my junior year, I became
Speaker 1: an excellent wide receiver and a defensive back, and I
Speaker 1: started became you know, all city, All State, All League,
Speaker 1: and then my senior year. At that point, you know,
Speaker 1: you can have a great year, but you've already committed
Speaker 1: to a college. You're gonna go to buy January. So
Speaker 1: I always felt like I was like, yo, man, i
Speaker 1: feel like I'm a year behind when I get to college.
Speaker 1: I feel like, I mean, you're I mean, you're behind
Speaker 1: everything I love. And there's a clock. You know, by
Speaker 1: the time you're in Division two, you could be up.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I'm already finishing school, so I can't
Speaker 1: play anymore. I'm not gonna play pro. What do I do?
Speaker 1: So I'm like, all right, So now I'm in the streets.
Speaker 1: I'm in my technically second profession as an adult, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, So I want to be a
Speaker 1: professional jeweler, and people like you're talking about the don't
Speaker 1: know there's you're your jeweler, You're not, you know, And
Speaker 1: I'm like, look, bro, I don't want to be a salesman.
Speaker 1: I'm already a salesman. You know that I could sell anything.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not worried about that. How do I
Speaker 1: take it to the next level and create something. Let's
Speaker 1: create some let's let's let's change the game, let's do
Speaker 1: let's do something totally different. I want to be like
Speaker 1: Cardi and I don't want to buy Cardio anymore. I
Speaker 1: want to buy Ben Baller. I don't want to be
Speaker 1: the next Tiffany and Co. I want to be the
Speaker 1: first If and Co. And there we was just certain
Speaker 1: things that I was motioned. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I have no time limit. You know, I just gotta
Speaker 1: do this. And even though I feel like I became
Speaker 1: a millionaire late in life and I became a dad
Speaker 1: and husband late, you know, I stopped looking at time.
Speaker 1: You know, time is so important, and I just started saying, look, man,
Speaker 1: I gotta go back in my bag now, and now
Speaker 1: I gotta learn how to make jewelry. And then once
Speaker 1: I do that, I think because of my influence on
Speaker 1: the sneaker world and these things and how it affects
Speaker 1: pop culture. And when I left Nike, you know, left
Speaker 1: djaying and things, I still left the big impression on
Speaker 1: that that world. And I had guys at Nike telling me,
Speaker 1: you know, no, look at there's no money in lifestyle.
Speaker 1: The money is in basketball, in soccer, blah blah. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: is that why you guys did eight billion dollars after
Speaker 1: I left Hi dunks and Air Force ones and Jordan's
Speaker 1: and all the retro shoes. No one cares about your
Speaker 1: new technology. I'm sorry to tell you guys this, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: I've been up flowing on the Nike Jet and all
Speaker 1: this other stuff, but there was like no money there again,
Speaker 1: you know, it was like a thing. It was like
Speaker 1: a weird and I was like, no man, And people
Speaker 1: never understood why I accepted so many gifts like rare
Speaker 1: shoes and things like that. I wasn't taxed on that,
Speaker 1: you know. Again, sneakers like like, uh, their their currency
Speaker 1: for me. So you know, when I was able to
Speaker 1: flip everything, it was so much of a greater profit margins.
Speaker 1: So with jewelry. Once I understood that gold was the
Speaker 1: same price in Alaska, same price in New York, same
Speaker 1: price in Brazil, Australia, Korea, Russia, gold is universally the
Speaker 1: same price, and I started understanding about the euro and
Speaker 1: the dollar and the Canadian dollar was like, god damn,
Speaker 1: because I was already been. I've already been in Canada
Speaker 1: a few times, and I'm like, okay, this is where
Speaker 1: it's at. So, you know, I started investing in gold obviously,
Speaker 1: because I own a jewelry store. Why wouldn't I not
Speaker 1: I would have to buy, you know, at least a
Speaker 1: couple million dollars in gold chains to have an inventory.
Speaker 1: A lot of people worked on memo, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to work on memo. I don't want
Speaker 1: to work on consignment. I want to have my own
Speaker 1: inventory because that would obviously increase our net worth. So
Speaker 1: you know, I just started building and flipping and everything.
Speaker 1: And then obviously I got into creating jewelry. And then
Speaker 1: I remember I never spoke about this ever. It just
Speaker 1: popped in my head right now. I made Fat Joe Chain,
Speaker 1: I told him, and he was a very very influential
Speaker 1: person in hip hop. He had managed to still um
Speaker 1: stay relevant when younger kids were keeping would rise up.
Speaker 1: This guy had been in the game so long, still
Speaker 1: had the best jewelry, had everything else. And I told
Speaker 1: him said, look, oh, that jewely you have sucks. They
Speaker 1: make something nice for you. And the piece was beautiful,
Speaker 1: except it was piece you know, the interstate in New
Speaker 1: York to Miami that was like the original, like pipeline
Speaker 1: for all the drug dealers going from Miami back to
Speaker 1: New York. So I made this piece, and I've never
Speaker 1: said this publicly because I wouldn't admitted, but my ego
Speaker 1: was too big. I funked up on it. It became
Speaker 1: very famous. But people are like, yo, why does it
Speaker 1: look like Dr Seuss made it. I had miscalculated the mold,
Speaker 1: so the numbers were elongated. They look a little silly.
Speaker 1: For some people are like, oh, you know, it's still
Speaker 1: a cool piece, because overall it shined it it was.
Speaker 1: It was a bad piece. That was what. That was
Speaker 1: what I said, look at this exactly what we're not
Speaker 1: gonna do. We got an opportunity to work make, you know,
Speaker 1: make a piece for for a big celebrity, a big rapper,
Speaker 1: and we fucked up. I looked at that as that
Speaker 1: was a spark. Then I got the game nas Maria
Speaker 1: carry Um, you know, Diddy, all these other people, and
Speaker 1: I was like, look, I can't mess these up. And
Speaker 1: then two thousand, eighteen seventeen, I put an appointment thing
Speaker 1: on the website, and I said, if you want to
Speaker 1: get a chain from ben Ball or not just ifan
Speaker 1: co and you want the bb logo on the back
Speaker 1: of the chain, you need to give me a hunder
Speaker 1: grand And with the hundred thousand dollars, we don't take
Speaker 1: the pcent deposit. You gotta give us a deposit and
Speaker 1: it's non refundable. You know, all these things that would
Speaker 1: be like red flags of people. Right, twenty one people
Speaker 1: immediately paid for a hundred thousand all of the chains,
Speaker 1: and then I realized, damn, that slot work. Now there's
Speaker 1: a lot of big chains, right, So how long does
Speaker 1: it take you too to make to make one depending
Speaker 1: on what it is, you know, but a big chain,
Speaker 1: I mean it could take me, you know, six to
Speaker 1: eight weeks, you know, on average, and some chains that
Speaker 1: kid cutties gigantic to Coshi Murakami chain that took like
Speaker 1: almost four months. You know. It's it's to the point
Speaker 1: where you know, people look at my fingers like, why
Speaker 1: why are you cuticle so messed up? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, and during the pandemic, you know, no, there's
Speaker 1: no manicures, no pedicures, nothing, And I'm like Damn, I
Speaker 1: can't keep my cuticles suitable because you know I'm touching
Speaker 1: you know, look, you know um acids and things like
Speaker 1: that and metal and stuff. It takes a long time,
Speaker 1: but I refunded nineteen people are of the twenty one
Speaker 1: their money. Wait until I finished those two pieces and
Speaker 1: then changed it to two. I said, if you want
Speaker 1: to get a chain from Benballer, it's two grand. And
Speaker 1: I'm only making a chain once a month now, making
Speaker 1: maybe a chain every three months, because what I'm doing
Speaker 1: is I'm partnering with Murakami and doing these global recognized,
Speaker 1: huge museum type pieces. So we're not getting museum type quality.
Speaker 1: If if my jewelry is not worthy to be in
Speaker 1: the MoMA, to be in the Mocha, to even be
Speaker 1: in the Louver, you know, I don't want to do
Speaker 1: it because at that point it's waste of my time.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make money regardless. I will make money no
Speaker 1: matter what I do. So let's do something bigger. And
Speaker 1: that's why I still have like three form more collaborations
Speaker 1: with more Commune this year, and I worked with Cause
Speaker 1: and I'm just trying to do something different. You know that.
Speaker 1: Um I want to leave a legacy. You know, the
Speaker 1: money's already. I've I've done that already. You know you
Speaker 1: should make a chain for though. You should make one
Speaker 1: for Elon Musk. Did you made one for him before?
Speaker 1: So you don't know the story? You didn't google it? Right? No?
Speaker 1: I didn't know. Sorry, all right? So I respect the
Speaker 1: man totally, right. I want to Tesla and everything. So
Speaker 1: I have a meeting with Ellen Um. One of my
Speaker 1: best friends, Paul. He's an entrepreneur. When I met him,
Speaker 1: he might have had like tan grant to his name,
Speaker 1: which some people like. It's a lot more than other people.
Speaker 1: It's not a lot when you think about people that
Speaker 1: are investing in playing around with real estate and stocks
Speaker 1: and whatever. But when I met him, he was really young.
Speaker 1: It's like twenty I think, yeah, I was. I was
Speaker 1: friends with them when he was twenty came twenty one
Speaker 1: and nice twenty nine. Maybe he's probably worth about maybe
Speaker 1: somewhere around twenty million now right now. He had a
Speaker 1: ten thousand of net worth when I met him, And um,
Speaker 1: he is heavy on old Bill Gates this and you know,
Speaker 1: Law Musk and Jeff Bezels and I'm like bro like
Speaker 1: all those kuys pan. You know what I I don't
Speaker 1: care about like bro focus, you know, like like be
Speaker 1: the next you want to be, you know, the first you,
Speaker 1: not the next them. I convinced him to buy a Tesla.
Speaker 1: He was already obsessed with Elon Musk and uh, so
Speaker 1: I decided to make a thirty five thousand dollar Tesla
Speaker 1: ring all red rubies bagets is a beautiful ring. You
Speaker 1: could google and look at it and was really really
Speaker 1: nice ring. And I'm doing something that is completely outside
Speaker 1: my character. And Paul goes, look, I'll pay for half
Speaker 1: the ring if you just try to reach out to him,
Speaker 1: because you have friends that are cool with them, from
Speaker 1: you know, Jade and Smith to uh Tire the creator
Speaker 1: a certain people that he follows that he likes. They
Speaker 1: know Elon. I'm like, all right, dog, I'm sure you know.
Speaker 1: Let's let's see to put it out there. So I'm like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I made this ring. Boom TMZ runs a story. Um
Speaker 1: it goes you know, all over the internet. Any law
Speaker 1: Musk is like oh he literally replied back with one
Speaker 1: word thank you. I was like, this fucking dick man,
Speaker 1: I like like, you know, like that, That's why I
Speaker 1: don't do this type of ship, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like but this ain't me anyways, um, his
Speaker 1: executive system gets reached out, reaches out to me, and
Speaker 1: she's like, he has an opening on this day. Boom cool.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, you know what, let's make like a
Speaker 1: little I'm not really a vlogger or like those type
Speaker 1: of things. I don't have a podcast at the time either.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, let's document this though.
Speaker 1: Let's try the test law. I had it all murdered out,
Speaker 1: Model XP on the top of the line, their flagship car,
Speaker 1: all done up. I mean, everything is you know, not
Speaker 1: a lot of testas were customized at that time. Everything possible.
Speaker 1: I said, yo, bro, we can stop in Santa Barbara,
Speaker 1: we can stop here in half one Bay, and then
Speaker 1: we'll get to Silicon Valley, will drive there, and um,
Speaker 1: I was hoping he meets us at SpaceX because it's
Speaker 1: so close. And they're like, no, you need security clearance,
Speaker 1: shelah blah blah whatever. So we have this date set
Speaker 1: and everything boom ready to go. My boy's anxiety has
Speaker 1: a plane ticket from d C. He listened. He lives
Speaker 1: in Virginia. It's gonna come to see me. So it's
Speaker 1: April one, right, April Fool's Day. How crazy is that? Right?
Speaker 1: Or it's March on whatever before it goes in the
Speaker 1: April Fool's Day. My wife's birthday is on April two.
Speaker 1: It was a weekend, so she's having a birthday party.
Speaker 1: Her and her brothers share the birthday to their two days.
Speaker 1: They are born two days apart. So I get in
Speaker 1: the Tesla. I'm driving to my wife's birthday party. Has
Speaker 1: stopped at the stop sign and I noticed my door
Speaker 1: doesn't open. And I'm like, I no big deal. You
Speaker 1: know whatever that knows the window doesn't open. Now I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: am I tripping? Now I'm tripping right then I keep
Speaker 1: hearing it do do do do? It's like the Aeroston
Speaker 1: from the Tesla's if you ever been in Tesla before.
Speaker 1: I can't open the door. So now I pull over
Speaker 1: and I'm like, hey, man, I give it maybe se
Speaker 1: strength and I pushed the door as hard as I
Speaker 1: can't give it. Open the door. Do do do? Do do?
Speaker 1: Go to the other side. Nothing. So I'm like, all right, man,
Speaker 1: you know, let me just chill the hell, let me
Speaker 1: just chill. Out let me turn they see on I
Speaker 1: have a good amount of are you not a ton?
Speaker 1: But let's just figure this out. I start recording myself
Speaker 1: on Snapchat in real time. Forty seven minutes later, I
Speaker 1: still can't get out of my car. Forty seven minutes, Um,
Speaker 1: banging all the windows. Now I'm kicking out a hundred
Speaker 1: trying to smash the window, open all the doors, boom, whatever.
Speaker 1: Can't get out. I didn't know. Not a Tesla fan boy,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know that there was a button that
Speaker 1: you can reach, or like a level you can reach.
Speaker 1: You got to remove the speaker in the back seat
Speaker 1: and you can get emergency and nothing is I have
Speaker 1: three baby seats across my my second row. I can't
Speaker 1: really get back there, you know. Finally, obviously, I get
Speaker 1: out of the car, and um, I'm not really thinking
Speaker 1: too much about whatever. I make a complaint to Tesla.
Speaker 1: Tesla picks up the car immediately, like really really fast.
Speaker 1: On Monday morning, I get a call or I get
Speaker 1: an email from Elaen's executive assistant saying, hey, he's gonna
Speaker 1: have to cancel your meeting. You know, blah blah whatever,
Speaker 1: which is coming up like in a weekend. I'm like,
Speaker 1: are you kidding me? Like, what are you talking about? It?
Speaker 1: Goes man, dude, why would you like document that? You know,
Speaker 1: there's so many Tesla haters out there blah blah. Elon
Speaker 1: is upset, he's just can't meet you and whatever. So
Speaker 1: I was like living. I was super livid. So I
Speaker 1: did something completely out of character. I took the screenshot
Speaker 1: of the email and I posted on my Instagram, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, she ended up getting fired. All these
Speaker 1: Tesla employees I never knew that were executive started messaging me, a, bro,
Speaker 1: could you please take that post down? You know it's
Speaker 1: I was like, no, funk all that man, bro, Like
Speaker 1: if anything, this dude should have been cool and been like, look, man,
Speaker 1: let's work on something. How to you know what the
Speaker 1: situations happen? And all these Tesla hater pages are hitting
Speaker 1: me up like hey, man, I know this. I was like, Bro,
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear this show. I'm not That's
Speaker 1: not what I'm about, you know what I mean? Like, dude,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to get cloud off of this. I'm
Speaker 1: just was trying to bring awareness. I got three kids.
Speaker 1: What if they were locked in the car, and he
Speaker 1: didn't like that. He was really piste off. So that
Speaker 1: was the end of that. So I end up giving
Speaker 1: the ring to my boy Paul, who still wears it.
Speaker 1: He's like, one day then you gotta be cool with
Speaker 1: this guy, man, give them the ring. And so it's
Speaker 1: the funny story about Elon. I doubt I'll be making
Speaker 1: him a chain. Oh man, you've lived to such a
Speaker 1: such a storied life. It's uh, it's it's super cool.
Speaker 1: And it's all come completely of your own making. You know,
Speaker 1: of your own will. Like that's what I think is
Speaker 1: so special about it. Like you you willed your success,
Speaker 1: like you willed the money you wanted to make. Even
Speaker 1: just now you're like, I don't know what's gonna happen
Speaker 1: in the future. I know, make money, but figure it out.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna figure it out. And you're completely okay, kind
Speaker 1: of resting on your own internal confidence that yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And I watched this Korean movie and in the Korean movie,
Speaker 1: the guy said, hey, man, those trying to win and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out every single way to get successful,
Speaker 1: they're the ones they're gonna lose. The skeptics they're gonna
Speaker 1: lose those who know how to win will win. And
Speaker 1: I was like, well, it's just that simple. Those w
Speaker 1: are gonna win to win. And I just feel like
Speaker 1: you said, I willed it. I really true. Do do
Speaker 1: believe I manifested my destiny? You know, I really do
Speaker 1: feel like I've manifested a lot of things, you know.
Speaker 1: And maybe because I never had aspirations to become a billionaire,
Speaker 1: you know, um, maybe that's you know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: should I should I try? I just I gave up
Speaker 1: on that. I was like, man, bro, I've tried to
Speaker 1: do all the calculations because I gotta do this, this
Speaker 1: and this, and you know, you do those numb if
Speaker 1: you sell five and ten thousand things, does that become
Speaker 1: a billion? And I was like, bro, it's hafflute. You
Speaker 1: have to be like a Spanks type of thing where
Speaker 1: it's a fluke and this happens, or just you know,
Speaker 1: I'm content, man, I'm good. You know, Bitcoin did me? Well?
Speaker 1: How much in dollar amount jewelry do you think you've
Speaker 1: sold in your career? That's just a number I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you. Damn people ask me all the time,
Speaker 1: like how much real estate have you sold? It's like
Speaker 1: the question I get seventeen times a day. Oh yeah, No,
Speaker 1: nowhere near what you've done. I mean, if I saw
Speaker 1: you sold the Hunter for your million dollar house either
Speaker 1: or whatever it was, you know, tell you the truth.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I swear to God, I really don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, what the corporation has done, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's that impressive, though, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: I mean, we did like million dollars a couple of
Speaker 1: years in a row you know which is and again
Speaker 1: are as over a lot. Oh. I thought you're gonna
Speaker 1: say it's I mean, because you know, you when you
Speaker 1: sell a hundred million dollar house, and I feel like, well,
Speaker 1: you know again, Yeah, but you're you're talking about we're
Speaker 1: talking about revenue. I gross sales and real estate is
Speaker 1: not comparable to gross gross revenue in jewels. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: true too. I'm sorry. Our margins are massive, right, I
Speaker 1: think people kind of know that at so yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know we we we did um. I mean, we
Speaker 1: haven't dipped below eight figures. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know we're paying employees better, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: even you know, people who are doing the general like
Speaker 1: repairs and things. Like that they're making at least six
Speaker 1: figures in our corporation. You know, it's just certain things.
Speaker 1: You know, We've taken care of everyone that's been with us.
Speaker 1: My my last question for you is when we asked
Speaker 1: you to do this podcast and he saw the title
Speaker 1: was was Big Money Energy? What did you think? What's
Speaker 1: Big Money Energy mean to you? You know, look and
Speaker 1: and don't take this the wrong way. I don't want
Speaker 1: you to think like, um, I wasn't exactly sure. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, my podcast producers are like a man, just
Speaker 1: dude is a big hot shot, you know, dude, he's um,
Speaker 1: you know he's And I was like, hot shot, okay,
Speaker 1: let me go to his page and I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: Let me. Let me just go look at his page
Speaker 1: real quick. And I go to the page and I'm like, yo, dude,
Speaker 1: this guy right here is way too handsome. Who is
Speaker 1: this a Bachelor? And I was like, bro, like what
Speaker 1: who is this? And it's like, dude, you don't watch
Speaker 1: millionar listening? You know you watch this whatever? Boom And
Speaker 1: I said, I said, look, dog, you know who watches
Speaker 1: all those shows Bachelor that stuff? My wife, baby, you
Speaker 1: know this guy? And she goes oh yeah, I know
Speaker 1: that guy from New York. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, I gotta do this show because it would
Speaker 1: be cool with my wife. And I saw the name
Speaker 1: and I looked at things like, you know, a big
Speaker 1: money energy. So you know when I like that big
Speaker 1: money energy, you know what that means, man, That means motivation.
Speaker 1: Go out there and don't come out there and be
Speaker 1: like yo, manyo Ryan, today, you know what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: You know we're gonna do today. Duck, We're gonna make
Speaker 1: seven thousand dollars. Get the funk out of here. We're
Speaker 1: not making We're talking about we're gonna make seven thousand million.
Speaker 1: That's what we're gonna do. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: You gotta put it out there. You gotta manifest it,
Speaker 1: like really truly believe. Like one of my one of
Speaker 1: my another slogan I say, is make it a great day.
Speaker 1: You have a choice to make it a great day. Right.
Speaker 1: You gotta go out there and be like, look, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna let that ship. That flat tire on my car,
Speaker 1: that's not don't sweat that. That's nothing. That's just haters
Speaker 1: trying to slow me down. That's an obstacle about to
Speaker 1: jump off that, you know, boom, jump over it. Look,
Speaker 1: big money energy. It was something that was another thing
Speaker 1: that was a positive for this interview. I was like, look,
Speaker 1: I love that name, and um, you know, energy is important,
Speaker 1: iportant thing. You could see someone's energy when they have something,
Speaker 1: you know, during that bad mood, and you just see
Speaker 1: like that force field around him. You'd be like, yo, dog,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be anywhere around that person right
Speaker 1: when I'm in a bad mood. It could be the
Speaker 1: stupidest thing, like I don't think they gave me enough
Speaker 1: boba in my milk tea, and be like, yo, man,
Speaker 1: get Ben out of here. Man. He's trips on the
Speaker 1: most pettiest things. He lost eight ars today and he
Speaker 1: doesn't even care like the small things he cares about.
Speaker 1: When I think about big money energy, I think like,
Speaker 1: all right, this dude, Ryan, he's got nothing of a
Speaker 1: big money energy. He's not trying to sell I mean,
Speaker 1: you know a two dollar house or a million dollar
Speaker 1: He's trying to sell a three He's trying to break
Speaker 1: the record. He's gonna sell a five hundred million dollars state,
Speaker 1: you know, and boom and it's like that energy. You
Speaker 1: see that, and it's like, all right, don't be scared.
Speaker 1: Gravitate towards it. That energy, man, that big money energy.
Speaker 1: You know you want to go in there and be
Speaker 1: a part of that because that attitude and that you know,
Speaker 1: it becomes a part of you, almost like an aura, right,
Speaker 1: Like all right, man, you know, today's the day we're
Speaker 1: gonna make a billion dollars. That's why I take let's go.
Speaker 1: Big Money Energy is hosted by me Ryan Sirhant. It's
Speaker 1: produced by Mike Coscarelli and Joe Lorreesca, an executive produced
Speaker 1: by Lindsay Hoffman. Find more podcasts like Big Money Energy
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.