In a CheddarLIVE interview, Ash Cash—president and CEO of Ash Cash Enterprises and author of Making Sense of Kanye—dissects Kanye West’s public statements, music lyrics, and social media posts to extract practical life and business lessons. He argues that dismissing Kanye’s messages is akin to “throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” urging listeners to look beyond sensational headlines. Cash highlights the power of visualization, using a lyric from “Good Life” to illustrate how imagining success can drive concrete action. He advises ignoring negative feedback, framing haters as reflections of their own insecurities rather than truths about the individual. The conversation distinguishes between destructive ego and healthy self‑confidence, suggesting that proclaiming oneself a “genius” can be a necessary cheerleading tool if it doesn’t diminish others. Cash stresses the importance of celebrating small wins to build momentum toward larger goals, and he promotes a growth mindset that learns from mistakes without dwelling on the past. Finally, he shares a financial takeaway: Kanye’s turnaround from $53 million in debt to a $1.5 billion valuation exemplifies resilience and relentless work ethic. The interview concludes with a plug for Cash’s upcoming book, positioning these insights as a spiritual guide to financial freedom, peace, love, and happiness.
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Ash, great to have you with us. How do we make sense of Kanye?
Oh man, it's tough, but it's possible. I think that when we get past the soundbites, when we get past the headlines, if we really listen to what he's saying, his intentions are well. Maybe his delivery is off, but there are messages that are in it. And Jay-Z once said, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. And I think when we dismiss Kanye completely, that's what we're doing. We're throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Okay, well, let's talk about how we digest the tweets and the music.
Yes.
Because there's a lot of information coming from Kanye.
Yes.
Especially via Twitter. Let's talk about what we can learn from his tweets, his quotes, being positive, going after your dreams. Let's start with one from his song Good Life. All right, here it is. Before I had it, I closed my eyes and imagined. What does this tell us?
Man, it's—
The importance of visualization.
Yeah, it's telling us that in order to attain certain things in your life that you have to visualize it. So, on both perspectives, when you look at it spiritually, if you believe in like the law of attraction, that's one way. But from a practical perspective, when you visualize something that you want, you are, you know, accepting it. You are saying that you're deserving of it. And then you'll do— you'll take the necessary steps that it takes for you to get there. So, if you're visualizing a promotion at work, if you're visualizing more money, then you are internally telling yourself, you know what, I deserve this. And as you start to visualize and see yourself attaining this, now you'll take the next action steps that it takes for you to actually feel it in real life.
What if there are haters? How do you deal with the negative feedback?
I think negative feedback is not about you, it's about them. And I think that when you internalize negative feedback, that's what allows you to stop you from attaining what you need to attain. Think about Kanye, that is the Kanye West story. Everything he ever tried, people said, you know what, he couldn't do it. And each and every single time he was able to overcome that. And so that's another message that we can learn from Kanye is don't pay attention to the haters, you know, pay attention to your inner superhero and just keep pushing past.
All right, let's look at another quotation from Kanye. Here's another one. I am a creative genius and there's no other way to word it. This seems like he's talking about ego, and that word sometimes of course has a negative connotation. But in your career, do you have to have a little ego to be successful.
Oh, absolutely. And I think that we have to—
I think there's no shortage of ego with Kanye.
Right. Oh, no, absolutely not. But I think that we need to separate ego when it hurts other people and ego when it's helping boost you up. Right. So in this world, people are going to tell you what you can and can't do, but you need to be your biggest cheerleader. And so if Kanye's saying that he's a genius and that's— there's no other word, there's nothing wrong with him telling himself how great he is. But if he's saying, I'm the smartest guy in the world, or no one is a better fashion designer than me, or he's putting other people down in order to make him feel good, then I think there's definitely something wrong with that. But from a career perspective, you have to tell yourself that you're the best. If you don't do it, who else is going to do it? And I think that when you start to tell yourself, you know, how— you know, who you are and how great you are, you now then start to, you know, exude that energy, and now you're able to maximize your full potential.
Let's talk about another quote along these lines. The next quote along the same line: people always tell you, be humble, be humble. When was the last time someone told you to be amazing. Be great, be great, be awesome, be awesome. How do we think about that and celebrating wins in both of our professional and our personal life?
Oh no, absolutely. I think a lot of times people make the mistake of looking at the big goal only and not the little goals that get to the big goals. And so when people are telling you to be humble, no, you gotta be awesome, you gotta be great, but you also have to celebrate the small wins. And I think Kanye does a great job at that. At every step of the way, he's celebrating his small wins. And then when you add all the small wins wins together, whether it's Kanye, whether it's in your career, you'll look up and say, wow, I've accomplished this big gigantic goal that I set forth for myself.
Ash, I want to get your thoughts on one more quote from Kanye here. Here it is. We're not always in the position that we want to be at. We're constantly growing. We're constantly making mistakes. We're constantly trying to express ourselves and actualize our dreams. What does this tell us or teach us about maybe learning from our mistakes and moving forward?
Oh no, absolutely.
Not looking backward.
Yeah, I think that we, you know, focus so much on the things that we could have done differently when there's nothing we can do to, you know, erase the past. And so we need to learn from our mistakes and that we need to continuously grow. So instead of being so hard on ourselves and saying, I wish I would have done this differently, you can't do anything to take it back. And in fact, even tomorrow is not promised to anybody. So the only currency you have is actually today. And I think that if we take the mindset to do the best that we can every single day of our lives, that everything else will work out for the greater good.
Very quickly, Ash, in just a few words, number one money lesson from Kanye?
Number one money lesson is that you are not your mistakes. He was $53 million in debt, but he said, regardless of that, I'm gonna keep pushing. And now he has a company worth $1.5 billion.
Grind, grind, grind, or work, work, work, as Rihanna says.
Exactly, yes.
Maybe Rihanna's the next book.
Maybe we might have to do that.
Ash Cash, thank you for joining us. Ash Cash is the president and CEO of Ash Cash Enterprises and author of Making Sense of Kanye: A Spiritual Guide to Financial Freedom, Peace, Love, and Happiness. It is out tomorrow on August 30th, so go check it out.
