Earn Your Leisure's Backstory How We Got Started

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human Earners, what's up? Look, building wealth isn't just about making money. It's about knowing where your money is working for you. That's why we partnered with Empower. Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little. Their free Empower personal dashboard gives you a complete view of your financial life in one place. Track your net worth, monitor your budget, analyze your investments, set retirement goals, and more. You've worked hard for your money. Now make sure it's working hard for you. Download the Empower personal dashboard or visit Empower.com.

0:37Not an Empower client paid or sponsored.

1:00and access to work and codecs in ChatGPT. This means your business can move from question to answer and code to rollout quicker. Join over 10 million business and enterprise users worldwide already using ChatGPT for work. Download the ChatGPT desktop app or contact sales to learn more. They don't realize smart people use smartphones, huh? Send through BS they thought was gonna slide. Download TextNow because it cuts out clownery. You can literally activate it from your couch. nationwide 5g with the same towers the other companies use pay what you want or not at all you're in control show these ridiculous carriers we ain't paying for stupid because we're way too smart to pay dumb free app-based talk and text via the text now app requires wi-fi or data connection data plan sold separately 5g where available when traveling for events or festivals throughout the country every dollar matters we compare flights prices hotel rates and restaurant route options so why wouldn't we compare rides personally i always check lift before booking a ride prices can change throughout the day depending on traffic weather and what's happening in the city if you're headed to a concert out to dinner or catching up with your friends on a friday night taking a few seconds to check lift could leave you with more money to enjoy the experience save money check lift you guys talk about brands you talk about andre or even you know a brand i was able to have from the NBA.

2:24How did you guys, again, restart your brand to, you know, now you have, you know, festivals and people following you all over the world? 1.4 million subscribers. Yeah. I mean, that's actually crazy. Y 'all got it out the basement. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. I mean, the origin story really is formatted in purpose, to be honest with you. His career was as a financial advisor. I was a teacher. We had an opportunity, you know, every summer. I took kids from my neighborhood and they were part of this program where we were teaching them about the things that they missed in the 10 months of school.

2:59So everybody goes to school and they're like, I don't remember anything. I didn't learn anything. You ask your kid, what did you learn today? Nothing. And so it was like, I felt very complicit in that. If kids are going to school, I'm a teacher. They're learning nothing. I'm not doing my job, but I'm getting paid. So there was an opportunity here. We can educate kids about financial literacy, about college, about decisions that they were going to make around money at 14 with the hopes that if they got it at 14, they would be more advanced by 19, 20, 25. And so financial literacy was at the cusp of that.

3:31It was like, all right, bet. We're going to pay these kids to be in the program. Let's teach them about money. He had just started his career and advised them. I'm like, this is perfect. You can come in. And so we started co-teaching that. Like I learned about finance from him. He learned how to have classroom management for me, create lesson plans. And so we did that in my mind the vision was I need to have this program throughout New York first right because parents would see it they're like this is incredible how do I scale this I can't figure it out can't figure out he was always into social media he was like this is how we do it so he had our COO was up there right now Abdullah he said look shout out to Ab he was like look I want you to record the classrooms I was like okay whatever I'm still trying to figure out how to scale this like physically.

4:14He was like, just keep recording the classroom. He was huge on content putting it up. And that led to him creating his own platform. He wanted to teach people about finance in a different way. Sometimes when we think about finance, it's a foreign language. And we were coming out like Rosetta Stone. We were coming out like, let's break the monotony of this feeling when it came to financial education. Let's talk it in our language. And so he was doing that for multiple people, had his own public access, show um i'll let him tell his story and then people like wait where's the rest of that we need more of that where's the episode and one day we're just like look want to do a show let's do this podcast i sat we sat in our basement my basement i'm like all right let's do it and that's how earn your leisure was birthed really we came up with the name pretty quickly he was already using it as a hashtag and from there it was consistent we was like all right well here's the vision these are the 10 things we need to do here are 10 people we want to interview let's just go attack And really, it started with three iPhones and that idea, and it branded into what you see now.

5:16I don't want to cut you off. I just want you to... Can you explain to me what you took from the public access? And just explain to me how that works within your story, and then how you knew how to maneuver into subscribers, streaming, and all that, and the difference in the revenue streams, and how much is valued at. I never went to business school, but I was always interested in business my whole life. so I was studying like real world case studies so in 2012 Instagram was like fairly new and you know I got introduced to it and like everybody else I was on the app all the time and when I'm first on Instagram I'm just thinking like this is a cool app you get to share photos at the time there was no videos at that time it was just for iPhone users but I quickly realized something in this situation.

6:05So I used to follow this fashion blog and the fashion blog had like a million followers at that time. And at that time, if you had a million followers, you could reach a million people. And what I realized was that what she was doing, the girl that actually was running the fashion blog was that she would post like look books on like, you know, this actress wore this and this singer wore this. But in between the looks, she would do like organic ads. So it'd be like a small boutique in Philly that had a blazer. And you didn't really know it was an ad unless you was actually really studying it. So right then, I'm like, this is crazy.

6:44Because how I was looking at it was like, okay, how many people subscribe to New York Times? Probably a million people in circulation from New York Times every single day. And how much money does it cost to run an ad in the New York Times? $50 ,000. How much money does it cost to run an ad on NBC, ABC? Quick one before you jump back in. You're listening for ways to help teams move faster, make sharper decisions, and turn scattered context into work they can use. ChatGPT for Business can help. ChatGPT for Business gives teams a shared workspace with admin controls, permissions, and access to work and codecs in ChatGPT.

7:24This means your business can move from question to answer and code to rollout quicker. Join over 10 million business and enterprise users worldwide already using ChatGPT for work. Download the ChatGPT desktop app or contact sales to learn more. We talk a lot about ownership and one of the most important assets you can own is your digital real estate. Too many entrepreneurs rely on social media platforms they don't control. Your website should be the center of your business. Framer helps you build a professional website without all the friction. It's more than a website builder. It's a complete website platform.

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8:42That's Framer.com slash earn for 30 % off. Framer.com slash earn. Rules and restrictions may apply. When traveling for events or festivals throughout the country, every dollar matters. We compare flights, prices, hotel rates, and restaurant options. So why wouldn't we compare rides? Personally, I always check lift before booking a ride. Prices can change throughout the day depending on traffic, weather, and what's happening in the city. If you're headed to a concert, out to dinner, or catching up with your friends on a Friday night, taking a few seconds to check lift could leave you with more money to enjoy the experience.

9:15Save money. Check lift. Earners, what's up? Look, building wealth isn't just about making money. It's about knowing where your money is working for you. That's why we partnered with Empower. Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little. Their free Empower personal dashboard gives you a complete view of your financial life in one place. Track your net worth, monitor your budget, analyze your investments, set retirement goals, and more. You've worked hard for your money. Now make sure it's working hard for you. Download the Empower personal dashboard or visit Empower.com.

9:51not an empower client paid or sponsored millions of dollars right but i'm thinking i didn't know but i'm thinking to myself that they're probably paying her five hundred dollars a thousand dollars but they can reach just as many people as all these traditional outlets so then that's when i was like okay advertising is going to change this is the new wave so i actually had a meeting with him and I was explaining this to him and I was like we need to start a fashion blog and we did we started a fashion blog it was called fashion wave and we actually got it to like 12 ,000 followers but that was the original point was like social media is something that's going to take over the world most people have no idea how they're actually using it they're just using it as consumers but there's a business behind this this is before influencer was even a word this before you had to put ad, you could just organically do it.

10:49That didn't work out, but the idea was still there. So the next idea was I was a financial advisor at the time. So I wanted to become a celebrity financial advisor. That was my original goal. I wanted to work with athletes, entertainers, because I felt like I played basketball my whole entire life. And I was looking at the people that was representing athletes, and I'm like, I know that they're not from the culture. They're not listening to the music. I know the music. I'm listening to it. Why should they get to work with these people? I know I'm more qualified because I can actually sit down and have a conversation.

11:27But I didn't know anybody. I had no inroads. I had no advanced degree. And I didn't really have a way to actually get my way into the door. So the idea was to become a famous celebrity financial advisor because I was looking at the landscape and I'm like, okay, social media has provided a platform for anybody to become a celebrity. Celebrity chef, a celebrity trainer. Previously, you could only become a celebrity if you was an athlete or an entertainer. But now you could be a celebrity anything. I'm like, well, you maybe be able to be a celebrity financial advisor. Right? First of its kind. Anything is possible, right?

12:06Anything. Anything is possible. Just maybe. So that's when all of the content comes into play, right, where it's record everything. I'm mad we're not recording this, but that's the number one rule in life is to record everything because you never know. So we record. We're recording this, but you got to get the organic. The organic cell phone footage algorithm breaker. So now it's like, okay, record the classroom. record selfie videos, record everything to your question about the public access show. The number one rule in life is to cultivate relationships. There's a lot of number one rules in life, by the way.

12:54Just so y 'all know. Yes. Three more are coming. So you got to cultivate relationships. So I was like, okay. at that time I wanted to get in front of all like the top real estate developers and and entrepreneurs and architects these are people that have made a lot of money and successful but nobody knows them and what I realized is that the number one rule in life is that everybody wants to talk about themselves right so I'm like okay if I could provide a platform for somebody to talk about themselves, then now that's actually a way for me to build a relationship. So I get offered a public access show.

13:36I never looked at it as a public access show. I looked at it as a TV show. And that's how I pitched it. I would go to somebody and be like, you know, I have a TV show. Do you want to be? Nobody's going to turn down being on a TV show, especially if they've never been on TV. So what that actually did was help me to sharpen my communication skills and learn how to actually interview people, right? So all of this is happening at the same time. We have a relationship from growing up together and working in the classroom, as he just described. And my social media following is building at the time. Before you sign off, you tuned in for ways to help teams move faster, make sharper decisions, and turn scattered context into work they can use.

14:15ChatGPT for Business can help. ChatGPT for Business gives teams a shared workspace with admin controls, permissions, and access to work and codex in ChatGPT. This means your business can move from question to answer and code to rollout quicker. Join over 10 million business and enterprise users worldwide already using ChatGPT for work. Download the ChatGPT desktop app or contact sales to learn more. Earners, what's up? Look, building wealth isn't just about making money. It's about knowing where your money is working for you. That's why we partnered with Empower. Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little.

14:53Their free Empower Personal Dashboard gives you a complete view of your financial life in one place. Track your net worth, monitor your budget, analyze your investments, set retirement goals, and more. You've worked hard for your money. Now make sure it's working hard for you. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit Empower.com. Not an Empower client paid or sponsored. When traveling for events or festivals throughout the country, every dollar matters. We compare flights, prices, hotel rates, and restaurant options. So why wouldn't we compare rides? Personally, I always check lift before booking a ride.

15:31Prices can change throughout the day depending on traffic, weather, and what's happening in the city. If you're headed to a concert, out to dinner, or catching up with your friends on a Friday night, taking a few seconds to check lift could leave you with more money to enjoy the experience. Save money. Check lift. Everyone's talking about how AI is transforming work, especially in sales. While the landscape shifts, one thing remains the same, the thrill of closing a deal. Whether it's a gong or a confetti machine, every team has its celebration rituals. Adio is designed for that moment. It's the agentic CRM that turns customer signals into actionable insights, helping you close deals faster.

16:07With revenue agents and automations working around the clock, you'll have everything you need to scale your go-to market efforts. Elevate your wins with Adio. Start your free trial at adio.com slash iHeart. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.