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Earn Your Leisure Podcast Episode Notes
Episode Title
Exploring Africa’s Hidden Opportunities: Rashad Bilal & Troy Millings Share Rwanda & Kenya Insights
Episode Summary In this episode, hosts Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings share their experiences and insights from their recent travels to Rwanda and Kenya. They discuss the notable aspects of infrastructure, governance, culture, and investment opportunities in Africa, particularly highlighting Rwanda’s progress and the entrepreneurial spirit present across the continent.
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Key Themes and Insights
- Infrastructure and Governance in Rwanda
- Cleanliness and Safety: Rwanda is noted as one of the cleanest and safest countries in Africa. The government has instated strict environmental policies, including a ban on plastic bags.
- Efficient Governance: The country operates with a strong focus on sustainability, resulting in excellent infrastructure and public spaces devoid of trash or homelessness.
- Security: The security measures in place contribute to a sense of safety among residents and visitors.
- Entrepreneurial Spirit and Investment Potential
- Conversations with Local Entrepreneurs: Rashad and Troy emphasize their discussions with local business owners who encourage the diaspora to invest in Africa, advocating for the idea of "trading chains for land."
- Fatima's Real Estate Development: Highlighted as an inspiring figure, Fatima is working on innovative real estate projects in Kigali, representing the potential for successful entrepreneurship on the continent.
- Investment Opportunities: The hosts discuss the financial viability of investing in property in Africa compared to the U.S. housing market, showcasing the potential for higher rental yields.
- Cultural Richness and Community
- Welcoming Environment: The warmth and friendliness of Rwandan communities were noted, with an emphasis on how residents are eager for diaspora engagement and investment.
- Experiences of American Expats: Several Americans have relocated to Africa, finding it a peaceful and opportunity-rich environment compared to life in the U.S.
- Tech Innovation and Solutions for the Future
- Tech Hubs in Kigali: The hosts visit a tech hub that focuses on providing solutions for common issues faced across the continent, including employment and data tracking for gig workers.
- Youth Engagement: The tech infrastructure development is primarily driven by young professionals eager to address the continent’s needs.
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Noteworthy Discussions
- Comparison to the U.S. Real Estate Market: An entrepreneur in Rwanda highlights the difference in property prices and rental incomes between Africa and the U.S., urging diaspora members to invest in African properties.
- Cultural Misrepresentation: The hosts discuss the misconceptions surrounding Rwanda, referencing the film "Hotel Rwanda" and emphasizing the need for a more accurate representation of the country’s progress.
- Community Vision: The collective vision among Rwandans about promoting the country’s opportunities is noted as a driving force for national development.
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Key Takeaways
- Investment in Africa: There's a strong call for members of the African diaspora to consider investing in African properties and businesses, which can yield higher returns than in Western markets.
- The Importance of Clean Energy and Sustainability: Rwanda's commitment to sustainability stands out as a model for other nations, highlighting the potential for future-focused development.
- Potential for Economic Growth: The hosts paint a hopeful picture of Africa as a continent ripe with opportunities for innovation, investment, and community development.
Call to Action Listeners are encouraged to explore the potential that Africa offers, whether through investment or by engaging with the local entrepreneurial scene.
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Conclusion The episode wraps up with Rashad and Troy emphasizing their commitment to bringing awareness to the opportunities in Africa and the importance of sharing these insights with their audience. The conversation serves as an invitation to consider Africa not just as a place of origin but as a viable space for future business ventures and sustainable living.
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Additional Information
- Sponsors: The episode is sponsored by PNC Bank and Square, both of which are highlighted for their contributions to business management and financial services.
Hashtags
- #MarketMondays #AfricaInvestment #Rwanda #Kenya #Entrepreneurship #Diaspora #RealEstate #TechInnovation #CleanEnergy #FinancialFreedom #ExpatsInAfrica
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Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:32I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Joel. and Matt from HowToMoney. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress.
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3:22Can we talk about Africa? For sure. Yeah, let's do it. So let's talk about Africa. Finally important. Where do I start? So if you're not familiar, if you haven't been following us on social media, we are taking a tour of Africa. We are in our second country. We started in Rwanda and it coincided with the NBA Africa League. And now we are in Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya. Shout out to all the Canadians. Kenya diaspora. So we're going to hit a couple other countries before we leave. It's an extended trip. And we're here to talk to dignitaries, entrepreneurs, and further our reach inside the continent. Well played.
4:13Got to do it. So first, let's, man, Rwanda country. I don't think a lot of people really understand the level of infrastructure that they have. Man, they run this country. They run that country on a very efficient model. Everybody told us it was the cleanest country in Africa. When I got there, I realized why they said that. Because there's no trash. They don't allow plastic bags inside the country. It's like the Rwanda. For real. They don't allow plastic bags inside the country. And plastic bottles will be out by next year. The last crop of plastic bottles are now being distributed and there won't be any more going forward there's no there's no trash on the streets um streets is immaculate um i didn't see any homelessness when i was there i didn't see any people begging for money uh security is super tight everywhere you go very militant um very impressive extremely and it's beautiful too they got mountains it looks like switzerland or So, like, it's like it's all in the hills, mountains, green, very lush green.
5:24You know, we went to see the gorillas. So they got there's a bunch of different things to do in Rwanda. But, okay. Now, when we go to Rwanda, we meet a variety of different people. And everybody, man, shout out to Fatima. There's too many people to name. But Fatima, she's important. We'll get her on market Mondays soon. She's an entrepreneur that's actually building a real estate development out there. She kind of like laid out a whole itinerary for us and everything. But we met a lot of great people with like NBA Africa, met a lot of great people in the government. A lot of opportunity for sure.
6:00Khalees actually owns a lot of property in Rwanda. Really? Okay. Khalees lives in Kenya. She moved to Kenya, but she was in Rwanda. And she was telling us she owns a lot of property in Rwanda as well. So she's all over Africa, just buying up land and doing a variety of different things. We got to talk to her eventually, too. But they were very impressed about InvestFest. And we are here working on behalf of InvestFest also. I'll say that. We're here working to try to get people to come speak at InvestFest. For sure. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. And we're also working on behalf of trying to get just representation from the continent at InvestFest.
6:50So there will be panels about investing in Africa at InvestFest. There will be presence inside the vendor marketplace at a high level. Let's just say that. To promote investment on the continent. Because, you know, it's crazy. we um we went to a restaurant yesterday and um when we was in rwanda and shout out to tumor and uh he he told us like a local restaurant so we met we met an entrepreneur and um older gentleman but you can tell like he's like a very well respected savvy entrepreneur he's like one of those guys and he has a variety of different businesses outside of just being a restaurateur.
7:36After we ate, we had a conversation with him and he said, he said, I need you. Well, first he said, he said, he said, he said, how you like Rwanda? How you like Africa? I'm like, we love it. He's like, this is your continent. This is your continent. He's like, have you bought property out here yet? He's like, what you waiting for? I'm like you know we're just trying to figure it out and he's like this is your continent he's like and I want you to tell your people in America this is what he said I said I need you to tell your people in America he said and it was a very respectful way but he was like like the chains that you have on your neck he was like cash he was like just cash those chains in and buy property he's like invest in Africa he's like anywhere but he was like you know since we're in Rwanda that was he was champion at he was like anywhere on the continent he was like look he was like just try it out just buy one property like he was like literally like going he was like look he's like why would you why are you staying there like why are you in a country that doesn't want you he's like yo we need you here like he's like tell he's like tell your people he's like take the chains like cash in the chains and buy a house in africa you know like he broke it down to a science he was like yo how much would a house cost you let's say in atlanta like maybe 400 000 he's like how much rental income would you get for that?
9:04They were like, I don't know, maybe$3 ,000, $3 ,500. He was like, I could buy a$125 ,000 house and get the same rent here. Why would you waste the money? Yeah, and housing Atlanta is way more than that now. We can talk about that. Housing Atlanta,$1.1 million, $2 million, but yeah, he's very educated on the geopolitical landscape because he used to live in Canada. Yep. Okay. We've had a conversation about the political landscape currently in America. We had a conversation about real estate prices in Atlanta. We had a conversation about minerals in Africa. And he's a very educated person when it comes to the world.
9:47But his thing was why are you wasting your time over there? He's like, even if you don't come full time, just have something. He's like, I want you to know and I want your audience to know that this is your continent. Straight up. Say it again, please, because they may not have heard it the first time. And this is coming from a person who's in Africa, right? Because I know they're trying to put up. This is coming from an African that's living in Africa. Now, when he says it's your continent, not to say it's not his too, but he's saying it's ours. So he's like, look, why are you not here? Why don't I come?
10:24Why don't I come here? We got the infrastructure. We got everything. We run into government. you're like you're like why why why why aren't more people not coming i'll just add to to being in rwanda outside of it yes being i feel like it was the safest i don't think i felt any safer anywhere that i've been in the world definitely one of the safest places definitely one of the cleanest places as well but how government works with the private sector and works with its citizens is pretty impressive like everybody has the same vision to make sure that they promote rwanda to be the brightest and be it full of opportunity.
11:01Everybody's on that same mission. No matter what, if it's the restaurant, if you're going, you're walking down the store, if you're in a car with the driver, everybody has that same vision of loving the government, but loving what they can help do in terms of infrastructure. So we went to a few properties and shout out to Fatima again, but she brought us to her development, which was affordable housing, which is incredible because sustainability that they've been able to create. We were sitting here like, why are we doing this here in America? What kind of codes are they passing in infrastructure and technology are they creating that they're able to do this at scale in a very short amount of time?
11:38And then we saw luxury housing. I know everybody's like, the first thing when they think of Africa is not luxury. But why wouldn't you, right? There's people who have wealth and there's people who want to obtain it. And so when we went to the luxury part, it was like, man, this is incredible. Like real cities. and so a couple of things that i noticed was like obviously who's running it who's the architect who's the engineer who's the interior designer all look like us but on top of it was like everybody's pretty young that's doing this the the the team that we met i mean maybe mid 40s or younger which is incredible that's incredible and we've seen we've seen a few americans that have gone there and said like what there's no need for us to go back well there's a bunch of americans that expats that have moved there.
12:23There's a bunch of people that was living in America that moved back or got educated in America. Fatima, she actually went to Warren School of Business and came back. There's a lot of people that are not really pressed about trying to just live in America. They could have the option to live there if they want to, but there's too much money, too much opportunity, too friendly, too peaceful. The thing about the country, too, is that they had the genocide that happened 30 years ago so if you've seen that movie hotel in rwanda which they have very strong views about that but um so they what were the views not to cut you off they said it was some some some truths and uh some falsehoods yeah they said they said this is a lot of creative license yeah a lot of misrepresentation a lot of some misrepresentation a lot of misrepresentation was done in that on it that's what they say but it's like singapore there's no smoking so i asked them yesterday there's no you there's no there's no drugs in rwanda you can't smoke weed so you're not going to see nobody it's a very militant place like if you've been to singapore you can kind of you understand what i'm saying like it's it reminds me of singapore like it's it's it's very militant the nightlife is they don't really have like it's not like on the west side like they don't party to like you know but everybody's not a part of you so some people just want to just have a peaceful, just quiet life and just enjoy their life, right?
13:52So that's Rwanda. Now we're in Kenya. Before we leave, because you talked about entrepreneurs and we'd be remiss if we didn't say that we went to a tech hub inside of Kigali. And we want to talk about just brilliance. So this tech hub is pretty much solving the problems for the continent. So a lot of people are coming here, investors are coming here, but a lot of the brilliant minds of the continent are coming here we spoke to a gentleman and we'll probably have him on market monies as well who's creating infrastructure for i guess it would be like w-9 workers in a sense right no um contracted workers no gig economy the gig economy like uber drivers oh oh well yes and but that was part of it they it was the uber economy obviously from people getting jobs but the people who do a lot of the contracting was like how do you know how much they've worked, how do you know the projects that they worked on?
14:47There's no data set for it, which is not a problem. We don't think about that, but that's a real issue. If you have a lot of infrastructure and you have a lot of people that are working for it, it would be like when you go to the side of the road and you pick up somebody and you're like, oh, I need you to fix something. There's a country that's doing that, but nobody's getting documented. And when they go to banks or institutions to try to get loans or try to have credit, there's no paperwork on So how do you create the infrastructure that has that paperwork? And now when they go to an institution to say, hey, this is the body of work I've done.
15:18Here's my work history. Here's how much I've made. Here's what I need. That becomes more of an easier process, which is not something that sitting there thinking about. I'm like, wow, that makes a lot of sense. How many countries need something like that? I mean, just a lot of brilliance is happening. An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child in Massachusetts. An MS-13 gang member from El Salvador accused of murdering a Texas man. A Venezuelan charged with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President Donald J.
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16:33What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
17:13Hey, it's Joel. And Matt. From HowToMoney. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom Podcast.
17:48Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name. Part of the way through the valley of despair is realizing this has happened, and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward. Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to The Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.
From the publisher
In this insightful Market Mondays clip, Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings take you on a powerful journey across Africa as they reflect on their recent travels to Rwanda and Kenya. From attending the NBA Africa League to meeting with influential dignitaries, entrepreneurs, and local citizens, they share firsthand experiences and lessons from the heart of these dynamic countries.
Discover what makes Rwanda one of the cleanest and safest nations on the continent, boasting remarkable infrastructure, efficient governance, and a welcoming environment for investors and expats alike. Hear about Rwanda’s commitment to sustainability—banning plastic bags and introducing strong environmental policies—and learn how the government works hand-in-hand with private sectors and everyday citizens to drive progress.
Get inspired as Rashad and Troy recount conversations with local entrepreneurs who urge the diaspora to “trade chains for land” and see Africa as a place teeming with investment potential, community, and prosperity. They also highlight Fatima, an innovative entrepreneur shaping Kigali’s real estate scene, and reveal how young, brilliant minds are addressing the continent’s most pressing needs—like the development of tech hubs creating infrastructure for gig workers.
The conversation moves beyond economic opportunities as Rashad and Troy discuss the cultural richness, safety, and clean living that Rwanda offers. They also touch on the experiences of American expats who have chosen Africa for its unparalleled opportunities, friendly communities, and peaceful lifestyles.
Whether you’re curious about African real estate, investment prospects, tech innovation, or lifestyle, this clip offers a rare, on-the-ground perspective from two financial educators and entrepreneurs with global ambitions. Don’t miss out on these invaluable insights on how and why you should consider Africa for your next venture or home.
🔔 If you want actionable tips, real stories, and a deeper connection to the global economy, make sure you subscribe and turn on notifications!
*Hashtags:*
#MarketMondays #AfricaInvestment #Rwanda #Kenya #Entrepreneurship #Diaspora #RealEstate #TechInnovation #CleanEnergy #FinancialFreedom #BusinessTravel #GlobalBusiness #NBAAfrica #EconomicDevelopment #ExpatsInAfrica
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