Rashad Bilal Breaks His Silence on Recent Controversy

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 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. Today's episode is brought to you by ChatGPT for Business. As a listener of this podcast, you're looking for ways to help teams move faster, make sharper decisions, and turn scattered context into work they can use. ChatGPT for Business can help. Chat GPT for Business gives teams a shared workspace with admin controls, permissions, and access to work and codecs in Chat GPT. 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 Chat GPT for Work. Download the Chat GPT desktop app or contact sales to learn more.

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1:54We compare flights, prices, hotel rates, and restaurant options. So why wouldn't we compare rides? Personally, I always check Lyft 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 Lyft could leave you with more money to enjoy the experience. Save money. Check Lyft. All right, let's get into it. It's been an eventful month. Yes. It's been an eventful month from the Atlanta mayor situation to InvestFest to post-InvestFest.

2:31And here we are. So we're not going to drag this out too long, but it's important to actually have, we're going to break this down surgical for the audience because it's really important for people to understand. and we're going to have a whole dialogue about this. So let's talk about InvestFest, right? InvestFest, there would be no, InvestFest wouldn't be possible without Troy. He's added so much value without Mike, AB, Ian Dunlap, Matt Garland, 19 Keys. there's people that if it wasn't for those people there would be no InvestFest wouldn't happen it wouldn't happen at all there would never be an InvestFest if it wasn't for the people that I just named and other people as well but for me InvestFest is a little different because everybody has their own relationship with InvestFest InvestFest is something that is my idea.

3:41Right? So it's a little different when you come up with an idea in your head and six years later, it's 30 ,000 people. That's a feeling that very few people could probably understand. Right? So you carry it a little differently. And, you know, I've heard people say like, yo, Rashad's crazy. Potentially. but you but you gotta be crazy to think that what you think in your head six years later can be a stadium with no outside funding with no sponsorships with no relationships with no connections with no political relationship just the empowerment of the people and the support of everybody that's working day in and day out so when invest fest invest fest really a label of that's what people don't really fully understand like we we promote invest fast for one year we already planning for next year now we promote it for a year we work on it for a year this is all us don't take outside capital everything you see is us so from a financial standpoint this is important for people to understand it makes no sense for us to do invest fests it's a lost leader the amount of money that we make from invest fests right to be candy because market mondays I owe you guys a conversation because you are actually family.

5:10Yeah. Me personally, I made more money on one Micron call than what I made for InvestFast. 10 ,000 hours, by the way. You want to reveal this? No, but it's important for people to understand. We're not making no money on InvestFast because it's a narrative that, well, you guys are just doing it. It's a grift. It's a money grab. and said, there's a lot more easier ways for us to make money. We know how to make money. There's a lot more easier ways for us to make money online or just through stock investing, stock trading, than literally doing something for a year with little to no return. This is just a fact, right?

5:57But you know who does benefit from InvestFest? The hundred speakers that's put on people that they've never had the opportunity to, the largest crowd that they ever had in their whole entire life. 400 vendors that come to InvestFest that sell their products with no commission. 30 food trucks that sell their food for the whole entire weekend of 30 ,000 people with no commission. The hospitality, club owners, restaurant tours, the Uber drivers, the event planners, the security, the hotel staff, you name it. It's obvious that it's an economic impact is 30 ,000 people. Obviously, 30 ,000 people didn't come from Atlanta.

6:36If you was at InvestFest, you met people from all over the world. And how they measure events is per day. So 30 ,000 people is really 90 ,000 people. That's a 90 ,000 person event, right? So why am I saying this? I'm saying this to say, this should hit a little differently when you're doing all of this. You're not really making no money. It's a labor of love. You discount tickets. You give tickets away. You discount vendor booths. You give vendor booths away. And you have to hear shit for eight weeks about how it's a scam, about how we promote scammers. 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.

7:29ChatGPT for Business can help. Chat GPT for Business gives teams a shared workspace with admin controls, permissions, and access to work and codecs in Chat GPT. 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 Chat GPT for Work. Download the Chat GPT desktop app or contact sales to learn more. 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.

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10:07Rules and restrictions may apply. The day before InvestFest, there's a post that goes viral about the top 10 scammers that spoke at InvestFest. nobody even took the nobody even took the time to even research that half of that list never even stepped foot in InvestFest ever five people never even came to InvestFest ever that's on the top 10 InvestFest speaker list two of those two of those people have no idea why they even why is Pinky Cole a scammer because she didn't succeed in business she did succeed she had a hundred million dollar valuation there's ups and downs how who did she scam Rick Ross so you have one person that spoke on a podcast stage and then you have another person i'm sorry what meek mills say lock him up if he ain't perfect i'm sorry we had we have 400 speakers throughout invest fest history and we had two people that are now in federal indictments is that my fault is that troy's fault oh we didn't properly vet how could you properly vet somebody that did something after the fact but you ain't talk about 398 people that we gave an opportunity too, that we helped change their life.

11:19But accountability is very important. So I'm going to get to that, but I wanted to paint the full picture because when you, when you winning, you're a winner always feel like he losing. So to me, it don't feel like a win. People like, yo, you just came off InvestFest. The narrative should be 30 ,000 people and you're right. But it hit me a little different when I know, I know the work that we all put in to help people, to help black people, and to see negativity left and right on my timeline and people talking about, yo, I met this person at InvestFest and they took my website. Now we're responsible for attendees also.

11:57And to see people, and then I'm seeing people in the comments that I know personally that we help, that we put on the show, champion shit like this, narratives like that at InvestFest, the day before InvestFest. It bothers me on a different level. And it's human nature. You know, you got 100 people that say they love you. The one person that comes up and says that he hates you, that's going to have a more vitriol response than 100 people that tell you that they love you. But that doesn't make it right. So the accountability is this. No matter how much hate we get, I know that the love is 10 times more.

12:35And that's my fault for focusing on negativity over positivity. so for this community because I'm not talking to social media I'm talking to the people that have been rocking with us from the beginning that's Market Mondays how it came out from the clip very insensitive and I know that it could be hurtful to somebody that's like damn I've been riding with y 'all from the beginning and how could you say this so I understand how people could have taken that and I really do want to say that if I hurt you in that commentary, I truly am sorry for that because that wasn't what it was for and it's not who it's directed to.

13:17And like I said, that's something that I should do a better job of focusing on the love. But like I said, it hit a little different when you built it. Everybody's got commentary, but it's a little different because we didn't raise money. So we don't take money, we make money. So everything that we put is on the line. So it's a little different when you put your own money on the line. We don't raise no money. We don't have outside investors. We ain't crowdfund for no money. I'm not knocking nobody that does that, but I'm just saying you're going to fight a little different for your shit when it's your child.

13:55When it's your child on trial, you're going to fight a little different for it because you know that you built that from nothing. Impossible feat. It could never happen again. It could never happen again when we had two cell phones and we in a basement and eight Eight years later, we got 30 ,000 people and we never took money and we never had no real financing behind us and we never had no political connect and we never had no real sponsorship. It's a little different. So when somebody tried to tear that down for no reason, it hits you a little different. And that's my frustration. Before you sign off, you tuned in for ways to help teams move faster, make sharper decisions and turn scattered contexts into work they can use, ChatGPT for Business can help.

14:40ChatGPT for Business gives teams a shared workspace with admin controls, permissions, and 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. 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 partner 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.

15:32Download 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 Lyft 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.

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16:41This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.