Him500 Explains How to Turn Attention Into Money
In this interview, HIM500 and co‑host SPEAKER B discuss the philosophy that paying for content drives attention and value, and how that principle underpins HIM500’s approach to events, podcasts, and other monetization channels. They explore the layered benefits of live events—networking, vendor exposure, and direct access to CEOs—versus passive consumption. HIM500 reflects on his personal evolution, from leveraging a larger physique as a non‑threatening persona to losing weight and gaining credibility, arguing that discipline from health can translate into financial discipline but is not a direct path to wealth. The conversation shifts to business architecture, emphasizing the need for multiple entities (events company, affiliate company, media company) to manage cash flow, tax offsets, and risk, and the importance of working with accountants who understand high‑net‑worth clients. They also critique the credit‑repair space, noting that many users are scammed due to lack of ongoing education and proper refund processes. Finally, HIM500 outlines his current focus on a mastermind program, strategic partnerships, and scaling businesses in the beauty and online sectors, while also addressing gender dynamics, cultural positioning, and the challenges of navigating relationships in a predominantly Black business community as a white male entrepreneur.
Chapters
I got rich cause I was fat. Like motherfucker be like, yo, you got blonde hair, blue eyes. That shit is that shit is corny. You really different.
Yeah, you the fuck you not. But in closure, I don't like you. I don't want to be your friend. Here I was thinking you guys were doing some scamming shit because you lost.
Motherfuckers not gonna give you this formula. I just did. No nigga suck my fucking dick.
Are you scared of getting canceled?
Can't cancel the creator. People love me. 85 South. They have a brilliant business model. So you just be seeing everybody and be confused. Atlanta is not a real place. This is financial literacy. This is all entrepreneurs from all walks of life. If you want it, you go get it. And that's just the reality.
Everybody knows him, 500, and I'm like, well, shit, I'm a nobody.
It's not— wealth is wealth, money is money. Women in business and women out here in this world has it the worst.
Well, you're a white girl in podcasting, do you think it's easier for you? No, the fuck it's not.
You a culture vulture. Yeah, and tell all them bitch-ass niggas that be hating on me, they gotta get on these podcasts and get game that's actually valuable, man.
This is Talk Less. Talk less, do more. Okay, here's the thing. Watch, I think it's an investment. That's cool. But all these chains and all this bling bling on a man, to me it's corny.
That's your opinion, you know what I'm saying? Like, motherfucker be like, yo, you got blonde hair, blue eyes. That shit is corny. You really a brunette. Like, you really— your hair is really brown, but you went blonde for the aesthetic, the look. Ah, you want the token white girl look. That shit's corny. Everybody's subjective opinion. Eyes and blonde hair, it's a token white girl, and that shit is corny. But nah, your roots is brown.
My roots are—
It look like you like your brunette for real and you just wanted that look. No, I'm not a brunette. I mean, but it's opinion. It's subjective. If you don't fuck with it, that's your opinion. But to say something corny, it's like, you know, it's dope shit. But some shit is out of people's grasp and reach of their culture and they understand it.
But why do you do that? So like, but that's what I want to understand. I think when I especially moved to Atlanta, a lot of men, wear this jewelry that's— it's way more jewelry on men these days than on women. And then they say that women don't deserve jewelry.
Uh, saying women don't deserve jewelry, I ain't heard. You know, women, uh, diamonds are a woman's best friend. But you know, there's levels to this jewelry shit. So I mean, you know, you could look at some things and if you don't understand it, you're not gonna understand when you see a nigga with a tennis Cuban on, a tennis chain on, and got You know, everything is what it's supposed to be, right? Versus the clown jewelry. Some of this shit do look tomfoolery, but when you start understanding jewelry, understanding people who got like real actual stones and actually understanding the investment, people would be like, oh, the watches are just investment. But it's like, yo, having nice jewelry for your aesthetic, for your look, for depending on who you are, that shit is a compliment to the outfit and shit like that.
Listen, the real ones, I agree. Like there's some good real, I believe in a quiet luxury. That's what I like. But again, I think it's the European in me. That's what, I'm used to and this is what I'm seeing. Because again, I come from Russia and I think people didn't even have stones in their wedding bands until like lately, until Instagram became a thing.
But nothing, nothing in, in our culture is going to ever relate to or be comfortable and comprehensive to a Russian. Like, ain't nothing in Russia that we're going to look at and be like, yo, I want to be like that. Like, ain't nothing I'm going to look at about Russian culture and be like, oh, I want to go wrestle bears and shit like them niggas. Like, Shit just not, you know, that's y'all world. Y'all live in a different world. We could come from America, come out of hoods and come out the streets like this shit different over here.
Oh, it is different. It is different. But I think we're more— Russians and Black people are more similar than anything. I did a whole episode on that and that shit went viral.
No, I'm saying, yo, no, like y'all dogs, I'm saying. But when I'm talking about culture, I'm not talking about just like certain things and things that we go through and things like that. But when you look at like, you talking about aesthetics, you talking about what people wear, like we not finna look at a Russian and be like, yeah, them niggas get fly. Like, you know what? What's that local brand? Like, it ain't happening. Japanese and shit be having some shit because they got Bape and stuff like that. But shit, I got Japanese sneakers on right now. But certain shit is like certain cultures blend. Certain things can relate.
Do you wear Balenciaga?
Nope.
Oh, okay.
We don't fuck with Balenciaga.
Since when?
We banned it. Boycotted it as a pro-Black, strong Black brother. We don't fuck with Balenciaga no more.
Since when?
2021, when we boycotted, fake boycotted Balenciaga a long time ago. But I do wear Balenciagas.
But Balenciaga, when Demna was the designer for Balenciaga, most of the influence on Demna's designs were actually coming from Soviet Union, which is a Russian culture. So most of that corny stuff that was you know all this weird stuff that was going on, like the sneakers that were beat up and dirty, that was literally coming from our culture.
Niggas ain't never get with the dirty sneaker look. But do the great.
You know that was the dirty sneakers. There was all of all of the stuff, like all the fur coats and all that crazy stuff that was coming from Russian culture. But honestly. Fuck that. What I want to talk to you about is how messy and dramatic you are.
Messy?
And I love it. I'm here for it.
I'm not messy.
Okay, can we talk?
Just be honest.
Can we talk about this infamous beef that's been going on between you and Tony the Closer?
Ain't no beef. That's a nigga dick riding. It's just, you know, homosexual behavior on that nigga's behalf. But you know what it is.
But okay, hold up. I want to know the story. How do you go from beefing on the internet to You and Maddy going and buying a billboard.
Was it important? There's levels to this shit.
Okay.
The shit that I do slap niggas in the face that they always feel. These niggas hate for 3, 4 years. I give a nigga 3, 4 weeks of abuse and niggas end up crying on the internet. And I do shit that people always remember. There's levels to this shit.
How did you come up with the idea to do a billboard?
You give niggas the attention they want. They want attention. They want to be seen. So I just figured I'd let a nigga be seen, you know?
How much did you pay for it?
We don't gotta be disgusting. We just get it done. We won't worry about the money part. We just get the shit done. It don't matter.
So you were just like, I don't care how much it's gonna cost. I'm just gonna go and slap him.
We just wanna get it done.
Damn. That, I mean, but that, I think that was some of the epic stuff that I've seen online. I was like, damn, you really went that far that he is going after you. I don't even remember what he was saying, but he had his points that he was trying to make that You're a scammer and all of this, and then he just went after your personal life. He went after—he's like the news breaker about your life.
He'd be doing me favors.
It's like if I want to know anything about you, I go on his page.
Nah, you can't know nothing about me. If you want to—you want to hate on me or try to find something to gossip. If you want to dislike me because of who I am or my personality, you go on that page because you know with what comes with with hate with love comes hate. You know, and some people can't get close to me. They can't build a relationship with me. They can't be attached to me. So eventually they go, okay, well, if I can't be a Part of that movement in that culture, then I'm just gonna hate on it. So that way I'll just be an opposition because we can't be a part. So when niggas can't be with you, they go against you. It's like when a nigga approach a woman, she don't give her a number, then she a bitch. You ugly bitch. All right, yeah. Nigga, you was just dick riding. You just want to be gang. You just want to take pictures. But now nigga didn't give you the the invite to the to the party. You can't sit with niggas because you're really a sucker. All niggas is scammers and niggas is— it's just that it's that ugly nigga mentality that, you know, motherfuckers carry. I'm pretty sure you familiar with it. I'm familiar with it.
I think when I first moved to Atlanta, that's when I first came across you guys. My second week in Atlanta, I went to the Circle of CEOs. Gotcha. That's when I got introduced to the world of Circle of CEOs. So it was you, Jason, Justin, and Neo and Alex. Neo. Yeah. And Alex. Yeah. And Alex. Because I met Alex and then I went to one of the events that you guys had.
You enjoy it?
It was fun. It was really fun. Was it positive? It was really positive.
I did have a feedback though.
What is it? Because so mind you, when I was moving, when I moved here, I was very deep in corporate world. So I was, I think at the time I had a job at bill.com. I just— When did you move here? 2022. Guys, I'm so sorry for taking the time from the episode, but we do have to give shout out to our sponsors, Honey Drip Network. And I know people are raving about trading online. So if you've been looking for a sign to start trading, this is your sign. Honeydrip Network is offering a free 7-day trial. And when I say 7-day trial, I mean it. There's no risk associated with that. It's completely free. All you gotta do is show up and learn how to trade. They're gonna do all the heavy lifting. You don't have to do no guesswork. You don't have to search the YouTube University on how to trade. You don't have to watch a lot of random videos. They got it all handled for you. So again, Honey Drip Network is doing 7-day free trial, and I mean it. So if you want to be just like me and learn how to trade, because trust me, you're going to see me in there learning how to trade, and it's about time for me to learn how to do that, and I know nothing about that. It is suitable for beginners, it's suitable for all levels. So sign up. I'm going to leave the link in the description, and I hope to see you there. Now we're going to go right back to the episode. Okay, gotcha. So it was August 2022 when I went to that event because my friend, she was like, I'm flying from California. I'm gonna stay with you. I really— so she bought the tickets and everything. Like, she literally flew from California to go to the event.
It was our conference. It was a conference. Yes. Okay. It wasn't the room like our networking event.
It was the conference.
No, it was the conference with David Goggins or which one? Yes. The one with David Goggins.
David Goggins. Craziest thing. I didn't know who David Goggins was. I've seen him online, but I didn't know who exactly he was because again, I come from California. It's a completely different world. I was in the Bay Area. So I'm from Stockton.
Oh really?
What's up?
Okay, that's why, that's why you talk like that.
I see what's up. But I lived in San Jose for, you know, San Jose, San Francisco for 9 years. Got you. So, you know, it's a bubble. It's a bubble there unless you're in Stockton area and, you know, up there it's different. Sacramento is different. But when you're in the tech world, you are in the tech world. You don't see or hear anything else. And like, my content was not you guys. My content was completely different that I was watching. I wasn't even online like that. And I remember when I, when I came to the Circle of CEOs, I was like, this is very basic principles that you're talking about, but who you were talking to, I was not with the shit.
Who was he talking to?
I feel like the crowd that you were talking to was the crowd that like they really wanted to get out of, of, of the mud. And it's like you were selling the dream to them. But I feel like they still didn't have the grit or the work ethic or like they just didn't have the— they didn't know how to. And everybody, I remember everybody was walking out and say like, oh, I'm about to do this. I'm about to do that. To this day, I've not seen even one person.
You ain't keep track because you know Darius Benders? You know Darius Benders? Darius Benders, the guy just, uh, 2 Lamborghinis just did $1 million in a month. Um, no, they did $3 million in a month. Last month, $3 million in a month. He borrowed money to come to the Circle of CEO conference.
Okay. Back then in 2022?
That conference you came to. Joined my course there. Now has high-rise in Atlanta, multiple businesses, multiple companies, has probably a few hundred students that gained success. Like, it's a lot of—
Doing what? What does he do?
He does, uh, funding, credit funding. So he went and started with a credit repair company, learned how to do credit repair, started helping people get funding, and now he teaches people online marketing as well. It's like, yo, how to actually run ads, how to hire and train your team. Like, has 15, 16 employees, and that's just one person that I can say. So when they come to these conferences, people look at it, but you— unless you keep track, you're never going to know the success rate or who wins unless you're really into this industry. So when you look at a Circle of CEO conference, like That changed a lot of lives. And it is people getting it out the mud. Like I said, he had to borrow money to come. He had borrowed money for a plane ticket. And he was working as like, I think he said he was a waiter or something like that. 'Cause I just did his podcast and I'm like, I didn't even know. So it's full circle when you say the Circle CEO Conference, it's like, that's a moment. And now this is somebody who is like a pillar in our community now for entrepreneurship and business 4 years later.
Yeah.
So you look at it and the things that we talk about, it's not really entry level because it's going to be things that like you starting to learn now. Like I was talking, telling y'all about online marketing and about your branding and shit now. And now as you got a podcast, you're going to struggle with it because now you got to figure out how to distribute your shit. You got to figure out how to get viewers. You got to figure out how to monetize it. But that's the basic shit you would think. But you got to understand, you got to pick it up and in the point in life of where you're at. So if you working in corporate America, this, this, this medicine ain't for you because you ain't living in this realm. So it seems like, oh, I understand that. I know it. Yeah. Until you got fight that battle.
Yeah.
When you gotta fight the battle to get online and learn about online marketing, and then you start seeing and understanding when David Goggins say, I sold X amount and did $50 million in book sales, all direct consumer because of my personal brand. Now you get it, it rings different. But when he said it, it's like, I don't care about his book sales and marketing. Doesn't it? That's not a pill that you need to swallow. That's not your prescription. So in that season, so some people sit in the seat and gotta realize is that everybody that we talk to, we can't subscribe this. We can't give everybody the same prescription. Everybody's in different walks of life. So you take away what's for you and understand that and realize everybody's going to take something different away. So you may have been a corporate look and be like, well, how many people are really going to change? What really happens? But now when you look at it, you go, shit, like I got introduced to online marketing. The best online marketers in the space was on stage. So everything that you deal with now, realize even if it was just taking away how we sold tickets, How we able to get 3,000 people in the room?
Oh, it was crazy. The room was packed. It was a big building too.
Because you just, you just did events, so you understand like getting people to fucking show up to do it. So you imagine that this is still like you're struggling with everything that we was teaching then. We was teaching you the lessons then, but you wasn't struggling with that because you wasn't fighting that battle yet because you were in a nice corporate America. So now you, your podcast is popping, you're doing your thing, you got everything going. It's like, okay, But I gotta figure out how to manage all this shit and really like grow it, monetize it, get my bag right. Like understanding these different platforms, the algorithms, and who can run advertisement, who wants to do advertise. It's a lot, they come with it. But that's literally, you was in the room there. But for people watching, people be at different seasons of life and that can be taken.
I didn't look at it like that. The way that you put it, because I'm not gonna say that I did not walk out of there inspired. I believe that it was Justin who did the speech there, and I remember it was like I think he got everybody up and we were like praying or manifesting or something. Like we're talking about like the goals and stuff, and it was I mean the room literally everybody stood up and then people sat down and everybody was crying. Like it was such a powerful moment of connection and just like okay this is super inspiring. So you walk out of there like damn I can do this shit. But I think you're right; it wasn't the right season for me back then because I was not even planning on what I'm doing now. I couldn't even imagine that that was going to be a possibility.
So certain things just went in one ear out the other. You don't remember. You know what I'm saying? Because I remember bringing on Ramel, bringing Ramel on stage, and he talked about investment properties and short-term rentals, and about not short-term rentals but storage facilities. This was then we was putting people on storage facilities. Then we was putting people on washing machine, the Dry cleaners and things like that to getting laundromats and stuff like that. We was teaching people that even then on the money side and investment-wise, we was teaching people there that.
Yeah, I remember. So the David Goggins was a funny story though, because again, I didn't really know much about him or like who he was. I have seen the book, which was crazy. So now I'm like putting things together because I've seen him on a flyer. And then I live by Whole Foods. So I go to Whole Foods, I park my car, and I see somebody parking next to me. It was David Goggins. He goes into Whole Foods and I look at him and he's wearing Lululemon at the time. You know, I'm just moving from California. Lululemon is like the shit. You know, everybody is like California girl is Lululemon. And I looked at him because he was wearing Lululemon. It wasn't a thing in Atlanta back then. And I see him like, damn, this guy's a runner. Like he works out. And I remember we locked eyes and I was like, hey, but I didn't know who he was. And I think he was expecting for me to say something. And I just said hi and I just get in my car and I drive out. Next day, literally less than 24 hours later, I see him on stage and moving people to the way that he was moving and telling his story. And he's, you know, he talks, he varies.
He's a different animal.
He's a very different animal because he's a military guy. Delivered a beautiful speech. Now I'm like, now I want to buy the book. And I'm like, I regret not saying hi to him and not having that, even if it's a 5-minute conversation. I wish I did that conversation with him.
You know, outside of, outside of how strong he is, His personal brand. If you look at the business development, he was giving a game. Like, bro did over $50 million in book sales direct to consumer, self-published. That's crazy. Unheard of. It's just unheard of. Like, he getting paid $150,000, $250,000 to speak for an hour.
That's how much you guys had to pay him?
For real? We gave him what we did, $175,000. How did you get the money?
Was it your self-funded or you had the sponsors?
See, now you want— see, now you want the game. You should have picked it up then. We was telling y'all then. I don't remember. Now you want to do the events? No, ticket sales.
Um, but ticket sales don't happen— you don't get the money until after the event, right?
Ticket sales, and you just understand how to— when it comes to events— all right, here we go. When it comes to events, we started off gossiping, now we in the business. So when we, when we come to events, um, you got to know how to monetize them. Right? And so it's about how you structure your events, how you do your partnerships, from the ticket sales, how to sell tickets, how to get people, the speakers to come, because everybody we don't pay. We realistically, we pay a headline. Yeah. You pay a headliner, headliner gets all the other people to come for free. You're going to make money on ticket sales, you make money on your vendor section, you make money on sponsorships.
How do you get sponsors to actually buy in? Because that's been the biggest hurdle for me.
So people struggle because the event don't look like it's where people wanna be a part of, and then they don't have the relationships. So your personal brand goes into it and you figure out what all ways can I monetize a sponsorship? So if you got an event, the thing is, is like for us is that we understand this, is that you go, you got a podcast, you may do an in-person event, but you can also put it on a podcast where there are ads and commercials due there. So I'm gonna wrap your sponsorship everywhere. Also, can we create an affiliate link? Let me show you how strong we are as an individual. So for me, Let's just say I do a sponsorship with IdentityIQ and it's like, okay, IdentityIQ is gonna give me— right now I did a $100,000 deal with IdentityIQ, but getting $100,000 from IdentityIQ was not, here, give me $100,000 for this event. It was, no, what I wanna do is give me $100,000 and it's gonna go $50,000, that's gonna go towards ad budget. So I'm gonna take your $50,000 to run ads. See, most people try to do event and you run word of mouth 'cause they ain't got a budget to run advertisement.
Yeah.
So we doing paid advertisement to do ticket sales and boost it. So it's a lot of different ways, or I might sell tickets off my webinars, right? So I'm selling tickets off my webinar. So I might go and do, let's just say I go do a webinar with 1,000 people on it. And I tell everybody, listen, tonight anybody go VIP, anybody buy a ticket to my, anybody buy my offer, I'm also throwing in a free ticket to my conference. So now I know in my mind I'm doing this event. If I'm doing a big event, I'll go do webinars and the proceeds I'm automatically dropping. So I might do 6 weeks of webinars and automatically allocate, okay, I'm finna work 6 weeks for this event. So I already built that budget over there and I'm already selling tickets, putting asses in the seat. So not only did I make money off the webinar, I'm putting asses in the seat. I go lock in the sponsor. I mean, not the sponsor, but the headliner. Once the headliner is there, this makes other people wanna be a part of the event. Then my other platforms, I'm gonna help you with monetize. So I'm gonna show your product or whatever you sponsor on all my platforms, everything that we got. When you got me, Neo, Jason, Justin, Alex. So when you got all of us to be like, okay, we're gonna promote it. But business side is, yeah, I'll promote your product, but I also want an affiliate link. So I want an affiliate link. So when you give me advertisement, I'm running ads, I'm gonna give all of my leads to you to be able to sell to them too. So now you imagine, y'all gave me $100,000. I'm spending $50,000 on ads to boost my webinars up. I'm selling on my webinars, my products, capitalizing there, then I'm, I'm giving free tickets to my conference, but then I'm also giving you the lead so you could email and text them your product with my affiliate link.
Because what's the most expensive thing is data, and that's what people don't understand.
But you hear me?
I heard you.
Then you imagine if I give them 100,000 leads, if I get them 100,000 leads for them to email and text, they email and text 100,000 leads and They send them my affiliate link though, because I use my name, image, and likeness on the advertisement. So you're sending them my affiliate link, building up my affiliate link. It's a whole nother business that'll do 6 figures a month just off affiliates.
Damn. Here I was thinking you guys were doing some scamming shit. You figured that thing out down to the T.
Y'all be lost out here. That'd be y'all problem. Y'all be—
You can't even be lost.
No, y'all be lost. No, it is. Y'all be lost. Like, because you lost. You don't understand the game.
But we find ourselves, and this is why we find ourselves.
Yeah, but I know it's— and when I say y'all lost, I'm— I'm throwing a dart at you because now you one of the people go, wait, how did this shit work when you start to deal in it? But it's a lot of people think like, oh, is this shit a scam? Is it scamming? How y'all really getting this money? No, nigga, we out hustling y'all. That's why people be mad because they can't— motherfuckers not gonna give you this formula I just did. That's one part.
This would be like, even she was like, she was like, you can't be giving that information. You gotta charge for it.
I'm like, nope. If I told you, yo, you know what? Here, I gotta look. Let's say you go number one podcast. Me and you now have a relationship and I go, This my dog. So look, I'm about to do a podcast, but guess what? I got a guest now. I got David Goggins coming to do my pod, gonna speak at the conference. If I wanted to book you to come, number one podcast out, you like, shit, what you want to pay me? If I say I got David Goggins, you want to do an episode with him, how much you gonna charge me then? I don't want to charge you. Exactly. So now we get big podcasts. So if you look, I did Floyd Mayweather and I had, um, million dollars worth of game come. I did Rick Ross, I had EYL come. I got Mike Tyson, I had Drink Champs come. So whenever I do podcasts, things like that, I mean conferences, I'll have a podcast come. The podcast come for free because I got the headliner. Guess what happens? I put them on the number one podcast, my advertisement goes on that podcast. So now if you go look at Floyd Mayweather's Million Dollars Worth of Game podcast, in the middle of it, it's a 10-minute segment of me. Promoting and marketing my shit.
Tony the Closer, I don't like you. I don't want to be your friend. I got my new friend here. I would never be your friend. You ain't got it like that.
You would— it's shit different. Niggas don't— my track record, my resume is different. It's not too many people out here in this space that did what I did or do what I do. Like, I created this space. When you look at these events, how we do events when it comes to putting podcasts and shit like that, like, I made that shit cool. I started taking niggas to the club. Before, it's crazy because before me, motherfuckers was wearing suits and saying king. I come out saying nigga, wearing jewelry, getting on private jets, making jewelry and all this shit. You see a lot of people do it. Like, I made that look okay in the financial literacy space for us to be comfortable being who we are.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying? And I— and it's dope. And it's not that I'm the owner or ruler of it. It's just dope. I made it okay for us to be ourselves. And it's a lot of dope-ass people out there that push the baton and that takes it further. And so we win as a culture and a collective. It's a lot of dope people that can be themselves now and be smart. It's not— it's okay to be smart and still be of our culture and look like you fucking rap or something like that. You can't tell. It's dope.
It is really dope because I remember even me meeting Matty. It was one of the parties that you did. I believe it was at the club. I don't remember. It was one of the parties that was after that Circle of CEOs. I think it was at the Jezebel, the African club, or somewhere. It was somewhere like out in the outskirts. Like, I don't remember where it was, but I remember I went there because my homegirl, she was like, let's go. So back then I was going out, so I'm like, let's go. And I walk into the club and the first thing I see was Matty. And Matty was like, at the time, for a person to have 100,000 followers and talk to me, I was like, man, he's a celebrity. I was like, yo, what? This is a big deal. So, and that's what me and Matty got cool because now we talk and now I'm like And that was my first interaction with Atlanta. Mind you, I'm meeting Circle of CEOs, I'm meeting Matty, I'm meeting all this like people who are popping.
Yo, as Matty to be your first introduction, that's a hell of an introduction. Like, yo, this is the world. That nigga, he's one of a kind.
I know.
He's one of a kind. So I would be— I know that that's a lot because taking Matty in, Matty is like a mentally thinking, speaking, how he moves and shit, even the way he dresses and moves. He's one of a kind. So when you look at the culture, like, he's not one of the ones that's like duplicated. See, some of us can be duplicated. That nigga's one of one. That's like, you can't duplicate a Matty J. Like, his history. Like, when I say like people who do innovative shit, it's another one. That's my brother. That's my dog. Like, we've developed real brotherhoods, but even I still learn about all of the things that he's done.
Mmhmm.
And so when you go back and you look and be like, I get the confidence. Like, I get it. And then you don't understand, like, well, who is this guy? And you look at everything he's done, it's like, shit's impressive.
Have you seen this one post that's been going crazy? I'm gonna show this to you. I don't know if you've seen it because I really wanna— somebody sent it to me. I'm about to find it. There's a post about you and it's about Earn Your Leisure. That's— I'm sure you've seen it. I ain't seen it. You've seen it.
It's about me? Yeah.
The top 10 scammers and grifters on your leisure platform, um, platform as experts at Invest Fest who were later sued, charged, arrested, or exposed as fake or broke. Number 1 keynote speaker. And for some reason your face is in there.
Mhm. You see that? Mhm. What? So it's the face of the person who building you in. But same as the person who building you in. But, um, the, the— you look at that, right? And it's what, what I said is with love comes the hate. If a million people love you, at least 100,000 people gonna hate you. Yeah. And they have something to say, they want to judge it. But you know what I mean? It's like, look, man, the show don't stop. Are you scared? Different.
Are you scared of being canceled? Fuck you gonna cancel real?
I mean, you can't cancel. You can't cancel the creator. Like these niggas, even the way they market and even hate be using my motherfucking shit to hate. Even you look at that that flyer. You think about that. We created that style of putting people on there and doing them polls for entrepreneurs and shit. Five years ago, you go look in 2020, you will see we got a flyer with. Who would you like to learn from? It's like a Mia, 19 Keys, a Wall Street Trapper, this, that, and third, Earn Leisure, and people would pick numbers. Same thing. Them niggas literally copied the things to hate on us with the shit we created and made cool in our culture. Why do you think it's such a big thing?
Because I feel like— I don't know if it's a cultural thing, but what is it? And I think it started in America because I watch a lot of Russian YouTubers and content, and it's, it's kind of spreading out there now too, the cancel culture.
It's everywhere. And it's not cancel culture. What happens is, is that when anything gets attention, you have to have an opposition. Everybody don't supposed to like you. Everybody not supposed to like me. Fucking, they not. Everybody's not supposed to like you. You come out and people, this is where people play pussy because they get scared and they think, oh, I'mma, I wanna play it safe. Like, you play it safe, you play a pussy. You never win. You never be fucking legendary. You don't do great shit.
Mmhmm.
Everybody, LeBron James, greatest player. No, the fuck he not. Somebody's gonna be in the comments say, "No, the fuck he not." Michael Jordan is, and then somebody's gonna say, "No, the fuck he not." Fuck Jordan. Jordan played in the weak league. He did this, this, and the third. You have to have people are gonna find an opposition. They and it's not even on purpose, but they just with the way that they're raised, their viewpoints, their upbringing, their understanding is they just don't see it. And it's not like oh, they just hate him. They genuinely don't understand it. They genuinely don't want to see the better. And it's not my job to, or anybody's job to be like, let me correct your vision. No, nigga, suck my fucking dick. The niggas who fuck with me fuck with me. The people who can rock with me and understand this shit, get it, then we win. I got more millionaires that come outta my fucking circle than anybody else.
Mm-hmm.
I've created over 100 millionaires who now go and create more millionaires. Nigga, you can't duplicate and fake that. But there's gonna be people who say, I don't like that style. That's cool. You ain't supposed to relate to it. Everybody don't. So anybody, and for people that's watching it, like, don't be scared to get online and tell your truth and be yourself because you think, oh, people not— then you play, you be fake. Oh, I'm gonna do like this. It's like, yo, if you cuss and you talk, fucking do it. Be who you are. Because if I meet you in real life and that's— you're not the person I meet online, then it's like, oh, what the fuck?
Yeah.
This shit is not— you come outside right now, I pull up, I pull up Ferrari. It's not, oh yeah, I see you online with this, but you came in a fucking Hyundai.
He did pull up in a Ferrari. I was like, okay, and park it in the middle of the—
Parked it like an asshole.
With a security guard, by the way.
Okay, listen, and it's because— and the security— because we got events, so we got to usher through. We got events and shit this weekend, so it's like we're moving around. It's like, okay, where we going? Parking, make sure our parking good, make sure we pull in the front. It's boom. I don't walk around with security every single day.
He coming in and checking me right now, okay, by the way.
I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't walk around with security every day. I don't have a need People love me. Like, they do love me. People love me. Like, everywhere we go, we get love. So it's not like I'm ever in danger. Security is more so like keeping us on point when we moving, if we got to grab cars, when we got to do shit. Like, it's— you're interviewing me Invest Fest weekend, so let's just be clear for people who watch it a year from now, just understand like why I got security. I don't want to be like, oh, we walk around with security. No.
You know what's crazy? I— when I did my event, I had 135 people show up and we did it in 10 days, which I think it was Amazing. And crazy.
Amazing.
And trust me, I give you flowers because when I now think about that building and how you packed the Georgia World Center, and then now I realize how much money it takes to even like organize this.
Now you got to be smart. Like, when you do these events, you have to be efficient. When you pick the place that you do it at, when you pick the food that you're going to eat, like everything matters and you have to go. I do an event, a mastermind. My mastermind, I hold every single month. And I can get my mastermind done for $7,500. Staff, food, core stages, $7,500 every single month.
Wow.
I already, I know how to get it done. So when you learn these events, what comes with it is like, it's the practice though. You're getting exposed to it. That's why I said, you said, yo, 130-some people, fucking amazing. Good job. So, but this is the thing. When I did, I tell my numbers. When I did my conferences, when I do my big conferences, I do small events in person. So I used to do like small boot camp trainings that would have like 250 people, 300 people, because I was doing a major event for 3, 4, 5,000.
Okay.
So, but my— those events, I would make the money to do my big events. So I would go do a small event, bring people out, do ticket sales, and then I would sell like my $5K, $3,500, $5K offer, and I would be able to go into that room. And let's just say I go get $200,000 out of that room. I go generate, make $200,000 at the event. That $200,000 helps pay for all my headliners and things like that for my big events. So it was like, it's a lot of things that you can do and ways to attack it, but you got to be strategic. And sometimes it's like, when you did your event, who helped you?
Oh my God, man, the way that people showed up for me, it was crazy.
No, who coached you and told you what to do? Exactly, that's the problem. And that's, that's where a lot of people's ignorance come in and slap in their faces, like, oh, I can do this, until you fuck around and find out. And it's like, shit, well, why didn't I get coaching or have somebody help me? Like, people who do events, you can look and be like, okay, they do events all the time. But if I say, yo, gimme $10,000 for the year for coaching, and you like, ah, I don't know if it's worth it. Cool, well, go lose $5,000, $6,000 on your event when you could have made money. Now it's like, ah, is it worth it? Or you wanna keep learning these hard lessons?
Yeah.
Go learn the hard lessons. Well, who's gonna be a sponsor? Shit, we got Remy Martin this week. We got IdentityIQ. We got Prime Corporate for these events. Um, we got different people who sponsor and buy tables. Real, real sponsor my event, by the way.
They did, they did.
We got alcohol, so they're— we got— they gotta give us money. Everybody has to give money. Like, I understand, but that was the first thing.
So it's, you know, I'm, I'm doing the sales too. I'm calling and I'm asking for sponsorships, and you got to understand the amount of time you're supposed to do it. You don't, you don't do it because you're the person, of course, but the thing is, this is the the first event ever, they still don't believe that it was going to work. They didn't think that it was— they didn't think that we're going to even have 30 people in the room. So it basically, I had to just do it so I can show them that, hey, now this is the thing. So now you best believe I have a salesperson. Now I have the whole team is now being mapped out because I know now what I can do and what I should do.
When you've never done something, you have a bigger advantage. Once you've done it and you did 135 people, that's cool. But if I paint the picture of something that we're about to create and do, I can own— I don't have to use data and analytics of previous. Worst thing to do is try to go and improve on it after. When your first event— this is about to be bigger than life because all they can look at is your social media.
Mm-hmm.
They can't be like, oh yeah, because now, shit, we could have estimated you might have 1,000 people in here, 2,000 people in here. That bag come different. Now they go, okay, what you're capable of, and now I can market it and I can assess how much I want to give and what I want to do off your previous numbers that you've done. Now you got 135 people room. But if I don't have 135 people room, sky's the limit. How many people can you put in here? Based off my Instagram and my social media presence and this and that, I'm thinking 500 to 1,000 people. We might get 1,500 with the right sponsorship.
Yeah.
So you realize that when you're doing the first one, this is just, just— but when you don't have anything ever, no track record, we going off of ifs. Now, who can sell the best? Can I paint this picture to you? Can I prove, like, can I give you all of these things and benefits? Because the event does not really make money for people. Doesn't. It's realistically your social media.
Yeah.
Your social media is where all the money is at. So it's like, yeah, you sponsoring the event, that's the worst, that's the worst dollar you gonna spend. And you got to paint that picture to them. You— yes, I want you to come in. I'm doing the event. I want you to be a part of it. But also on my sets, when I'm doing this, when I'm doing these things, I want Boom! I want to incorporate it into. I want to bake this as like a part of my culture, and I'm building out my my ecosystem. I'm having all these guests on. Like these are future guests that's coming that will be attached to your listen. Do you want your product here, or you want me somebody else?
Oh yeah, no, it's been it's been a conversation. Trust me, and it's it's it's it's hard. And that's the thing is like also you know because I don't I ain't got the money. I don't I don't. Right now I ain't got it.
So you do— the money is— the money is attention.
The money is that, and that's what I'm saying.
You got the attention.
I have now. I had to change my mindset to that fact that, hey, I got attention. So now this attention— and my numbers are not low numbers. Like, I'm actually— I might not have the followers, but the engagement that I got, man, many people who have a million followers don't have the engagement that I have because I know how to capture that stuff. And whether, you know, whether we started off with talking about relationships and all these talks Now, listen, we've discussed everything and anything about relationships. There's nothing, not even a single thing a person can say that's going to be some novelty about relationships, or that's going to be— I think Nav Green described it perfectly. Carlos described it perfectly. So now I'm moving on. Yeah, there's better and bigger things to do. And I've always wanted to do interviews because to me it's like, this is more interesting.
Yeah, yeah, it is. And you was like, yo, we gonna have a toxic conversation. It still can't go that way. I tell you, like, when I talk to people, it's crazy because I could fuck around, but eventually it's gonna get into something that's meaningful. Like, I can't— that's you. That's who you are. It's your core. 100%. 100%. So when people watch and look online, they think like, oh man, is it fake? Like, bro, we started on bullshit. Like, what we gonna talk about? I'm like, I don't give a fuck. We talk about whatever. But it naturally goes into who I am. Like, I'm naturally an educator. I'm naturally a person who do business and do things. And it's like, when you understand this space, it's like, especially when I see people that's like killing dope like you, it's like You got so many moving pieces. It's like, the thing is education.
Yeah, it is.
Learning. And people don't— Carlos and them, I'll give you a great example of somebody who can even mentor you that they don't charge on the platform. But it's like, if you could ask, it's like 85 South, fucking, they have a brilliant business model, brilliant layout, brilliant financial plan of how they monetize and what they do. And I'm just watching from afar and what I can see from the app, from the way that they post, the way that they promote, the way they did live shows, like, All of those things that they do and have been able to curate, genius.
Mmhmm.
And so, you know, having those relationships with people, it's like, ask the questions. It's not asking, and always it's like, yo, who's the help? Who's the people who's supporting and running the machine? Who's your talent management? Who's your agents? Who's your attorney, right? Who's the accountant? Who's the one who's watching all the monetizing for YouTube and controlling the YouTube monetization and things like that, making sure everything and every dollar is getting accounted for and every dollar is getting pulled in. Because sometimes people don't know how to get that. Then it's another person that's there. Well, who's helping with y'all, um, y'all in-person events when y'all doing tours? Who's, who's the one who's picking venues? Who got the relationship? Did y'all do Live Nation? Did y'all do direct-to-consumer? Who does that? When I'm there around people, I'm not looking at, oh man, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, face of the, face of the fucking brand. Move around. Where's the help?
Every person that you just named, all these people who doing the live shows, who's doing the YouTube. Literally last night I was on the call with Ryan, who is the ops manager for 85 South, because like those are the relationships that I have. I talk to people who do the audio, who do videographers, producers, people who do the live shows, man. The amount of those are the people that actually put me on game with a lot of stuff. And I've always said that every time I go to Starbucks, I build relationships with people who are baristas and people who are actually working there, because at the end of the day, you never know. And why I say that is because Because when I just moved to Atlanta, I went to Starbucks and I met Usher at Starbucks. Do you think I knew that that was Usher? It was the lady who was at Starbucks. She was like, Les, this is Usher. Did you not recognize him?
Oh, so you just be seeing everybody and be confused?
I just be confused because I just don't know. Like, I just don't. But I mean, it's like, how can you possibly comprehend the fact that you're gonna meet Usher at Starbucks? Like, what kind of nonsense is that?
Yeah.
I've listened to Usher when I was like 10, 15 years old.
Atlanta's not a real place though.
It's not a real place.
Atlanta's not a real place. Like, that's real. Like, you go out— like, Usher's been at Alex's house before. You imagine watching a game and it's just like you sitting there and it's just like— I'm just, just real shit. It's just like— and it's like, yo, Usher's at my friend's house in this basement. Like, the fuck is life, Jermaine Dupri? Like, I remember I got a picture standing next Standing on the couch next to Jermaine Dupri. And it's just like, what the fuck is this? Like, this is not real. Like, Atlanta's not a real place because everybody has access to each other. It's one of the things here is that you can easily build and develop relationships. And it's not like, oh man, we don't— It's, bro, having some motion, being genuine, getting in the right rooms, having the right relationships, it's nobody that you can't be connected to.
What do you think about that clip that went viral about Earn Your Leisure saying that Atlanta was not a good place for them and it wasn't really bringing them—
They didn't say it wasn't a good place. They said that they haven't done much for them.
Okay. Do you agree with that or no?
So I understand what exactly what they said and why, right? Because when you come into events, like I didn't know some things is that, and people, everybody has different viewpoints, but I went to Miami and did the event. I didn't know. Right? Miami comes in the— when Ross come and then his team brung somebody in and she was like, next time you come, let us know because we have money for you. And so many things like you guys is blocking traffic that you guys, we could have held and helped out with. So many things that can be. It's not about the money. It's like, well, what about logistics? What about designated hotels in advance? And just helping with so many things that we can actually benefit from, from our users' perspective that has to come because we're navigating through this city.
Mm-hmm.
So we didn't know that. So it's a lot of things that we start learning doing these events. People look like, oh, y'all should know everything. Fuck, we gonna know everything? We don't get— we, we can only learn and we master some things. Like, you look at our religion, motherfuckers is building a city in Africa. It's like, bro, how much you want me to be into? Like, you want me to learn all the everything on every single level, bro? We like, we're growing, and this is something that's happened over the last 6 years. This is not, oh, y'all 20 years in on this, you should be No. So when they said it is in regards to help with traffic, it's so many different things and they learning and looking at other events and assistance that they get. And it's like, damn, we ain't know we can get that. So it's like, yo, well, shit, it's us. Like, who comes in?
Part of it sucks with traffic, especially when the Hawks game are happening or anything that's happening.
It's handling the logistics. But I'm not just saying that. So I understood what they were saying. But the way people clipped it is saying like Atlanta of a city is saying like, nah, like some of the government officials and things like that that we rock with and are around, like, Y'all see what we're doing, right? And help out. But then Atlanta drops the thing and goes, shit, we got 700 fucking conferences a year. It goes, yeah, something about it. He said, yo, we got 700 conferences a year. You got to be like, that's a lot. It is a lot of fucking conferences, but it ain't this. Ain't nobody put more billionaires— I've, in my culture, what I've seen when I see events, but when it comes to entrepreneur conferences and shit like that, ain't nobody put billionaires in a room like EYO did. No, 7 billionaires there this year. You know, it's levels, this shit. 7 billionaires. Listen, the billionaires that's coming is not— you got African, the African billionaires, you got the white billionaires, you got like, come on.
And it's— yeah, so, and, and a lot of people are saying that Invest Fest is a scam and they don't want to go.
A lot of people not saying that. 31,000 people bought tickets and said they'll be there. That said, uh-huh, this is my life improvement.
31,000 people said that. I, I was one of those people.
31,000 people bought tickets and said that this is something that's culture moving. 31,000 people.
But I see it from a different perspective because to me it's network and I think that's probably the most expensive thing that you can possibly, like, you have to invest into that. You have to be in the right rooms because at the end of the day, like, even me going to Tonight's Conversations, that's where I met a lot of my guests. You know, me going to Tonight's Conversations, I became friends with Buddy. Buddy's the one that runs, Buddy actually plays tennis, which is crazy. But Buddy is the one that runs the whole backend of the Tonight's Conversations. You learned that concept.
Tonight's Conversation, amazing platform. Oh my God, amazing business. Learn the business, watching, watching it, right? That's my guy. Ace is my dude, right? So Ace came and spoke at one of my masterminds. These are resources I give to people. But then you think about it, right? You go, I'm going to Tonight's Conversation for what? And no, of course nobody gonna say it's a scam because they talk about fucking relationships. But you don't see that demonetized, that you had to buy a ticket. The ticket for tonight's conversation costs more than investfest.
It does, and it's also the shit that they talk about at the tonight's conversations. The the questions that people ask, people think that those are fake questions. Those are real questions that are actual. I listen. I've called Buddy so many times because Buddy is the one that's like behind the scenes.
But look how genuine you were and how good of an experience you had to sit there and have motherfuckers talk about gossip, about relationship, about some bullshit that has no growth. And it's like you married.
No.
You in a relationship?
No.
So the shit doesn't even fucking— the pill does not even—
It doesn't even matter. It doesn't.
Nothing for you. Hear me? But you won't go, man, they say tonight's conversation is a scam.
No, because yeah.
So where the fuck else can you go to where you can actually want to be smart and be around people who just trying to— it's a dope environment where you got 500, 700 businesses in a vendor marketplace who— of business owners who people are trying to start their business or growing— they not trying to start but have started a business and is growing their business. In one fucking place. Fuck the stage. Let's just say the vendor marketplace where other people who have businesses, who some of them market better than you, some of them do events better than you, some of them got $20,000 booths, $50,000 booth build-outs, some of them got $5,000 booths. But these are people who are willing to invest this type of money in their business for visibility because they take their business that serious. Where the fuck else you go and meet people like that of our culture that look like us and rock and listen to hip-hop and that is of our generation? This is not the 50-year-old CPA attorney thing and Black Tech Week and this, that, third. No, nigga, this is financial literacy. This is all entrepreneurs from all walks of life and everybody coming out and off of a platform that is our age and our age demographic that does this. Where?
And I think every time when it comes down to money, it's a very touchy subject for people, especially, you know, if we're talking about the communities, because a lot of people don't have the money in the What we're focused on is that we don't have it instead of focusing on that what we can have and what's the abundance of it. And when you go to Invest Fest, you can get it.
Ain't no reason people don't have the money. You can fucking do Uber.
Talk about it.
Go do Uber. You can do DoorDash. If you at a point when you don't have— if it's a point where you struggling with $200, I literally, literally like a guy just dropped my food off to me at the other spot I was at. It's like $5. I'm in the room tonight doing— currently doing Uber Eats.
Mhm.
Ah, here you go. I'm in the room tonight. Them the people I be like, bet, I'm betting on you. I had a dude in my program did $100,000 a month. Year— end of 2024, he was homeless. I gave him $1,000 to get home. This nigga said, bro, I got to be around the culture. Motherfucker moved to Atlanta, lived in his car, did DoorDash. did Uber Eats, slept in his car, and would go shower in the gym.
What does that tell you?
He just did $100,000 last month. It's, it's being connected. And but it's, if some people want it, if you want it, you go get it. And that's just the reality of it. So when people say like about the money, shut the fuck up with the money. It's a small ticket. The money is, is, is when you invest the money, it shows like, okay, well, are you willing to, what extent are you willing to go to, to actually sacrifice for your own growth and development? Because we can't give you for free. We can't go out here and spend our time, spend the resources and things like that, and just give it. That's YouTube. Go watch the YouTube. But when you want an in-person experience, you want somebody's actual time and attention to be able to curate this type of environment, it costs. It costs everybody. Everybody has to pay, and so should you. And if you want it for free, honest to God, you're all— you're the reason why you're broke. That will be the reason why you stay in poverty if you want things for free. I don't want people to just give me anything on a platter. That's why the fuck we end up impoverished now. Fucking Section 8, fucking, uh, uh, food stamps and things like that. This is the reason why we get dependent on somebody else feeding us. Then we get— now you can put us in a certain area because you feeding us and you giving us the rate. Here's Section 8, but you can only live here. So now that's why gangs and shit— now we killing each other.
Live there so you can continue getting the check, you know. That's, that's—
And now all of you are here.
Yeah.
And now whatever, now it's a controlled environment. So when you realize that, nah, when you giving somebody something, if I feed you, I control you. No, I don't wanna be like, oh yeah, okay, yeah, everybody come for free. No, we can, we have nonprofits and things like that where we have to allocate money and do things and givebacks and toy drives and back-to-school drives where things are for free for the kids and the people who are helpless. If you're sick and understood, if you have a mental illness and things like that, Understood. But there's nonprofits and things like that that we have to donate to and also be aware of when we make money in this culture to give to those that are helpless. But for those that are aspiring and trying, there's a journey that we have to follow, and we can't cheat it and beat the code for you. You can't say, okay, we're just gonna give you everything for free. You're not gonna grow. Your personal development won't grow.
Because when you get— somebody told me that. They said if you get something for free, A lot of times people are not going to value it.
If you don't pay, you don't pay attention.
Yeah.
Because it's your money. You worked for it.
Yeah.
If I— if, if you tell me something for free, cool. But if I sat here and said, you know what, here, it's $5,000 to get me on your podcast, you go, hold on, you know what, I'm actually going to study, write these questions down, see exactly how I'm going to monetize and make this shit fucking make sense. Well, if it's free, it's like, okay, you know, let's have a conversation. It's a lot easier to, to just navigate. It's the same thing with life. People don't realize that it's not about the money. It's the fact— and it's not about the money. I want to say this is— it's the actions that you did to get the money that matter to you.
Mmhmm.
Motherfucker, I worked 40 hours for this. I had to go into this job. My boss talked to me like, this money that I made matters. When I release it somewhere, where it goes matters. And so I don't want to just give it somewhere reckless. I need a return on this. Like, I want it to compound because I know the sacrifice that I made. And that's why it is important for those of us who do do events and do things to go, you know what, let me make sure that this is worth it and they can actually get a return on the investment, not just put together some bullshit.
Mm-hmm.
And so that is super important where the coin flips. Like, yes, you're supposed to charge, but what I pay for, make sure it's something that I can benefit from. Make sure you put the effort into this to where it's like, okay, so when you look at it, it's like, When I go and I put events together, it's like I'm not just putting events together for you to come and just hear the people on the stage. Let me actually market and make sure I got valuable people here. Let's make sure we got dope vendors and people at our vendor section that you can go to and shop small businesses. Small businesses could benefit from that, but you also could network with small businesses. So it's not only a shopping site, it's where I can actually meet and talk to the owners of these businesses. Imagine walking through a grocery store and all the CEOs of every single brand and business is there. And you going, oh my God, that's an Oreo cakester. How did you guys come up with this? You can sit there and do it. When you go into a grocery store, you just can be a consumer.
Mm-hmm.
But at these events, you can actually see people's businesses and products and go, oh shit, this is— this is— oh, you own this brand? Oh, you— oh, this Milano, the CEO of Milano, your clothes I've been buying for years, but the CEO is right here. I can see you, touch you, take a picture, ask a question. It's here. Oh, Judy with Kaleidoscope, you're here. You— HairScope and hair beauty products is here. This shit is like, that's the part where it's like, it's so many levels to the benefit, but it's just like, do you extract it?
Yeah.
Or do you come and say, I sat there and listened to the stage the whole time 'cause you an introvert and you were struggling to get outta your own way. So you sat and you watched everybody on stage because that was comfortable. So you looking and thinking you gonna get some life-changing game from the stage. You will get pieces that can, help, but it's only so much that can be delivered. Meanwhile, this whole environment is here. Who did you go to dinner with? Who did you meet and go to dinner with and hang out? Did you go to the club and get drunk after, or did you go to dinner, have a good dinner, meet with people, and go networking, hang out, socialize, and build your actual Rolodex up?
It's big. Yeah, I, you know, it's been a lot of times when people want to come on my platform, I say, well, there's a price that you have to pay. Oh, that's too expensive. I ain't got it. Well, I'm like, you're not my person then. Please don't. Do you think that this is all free? This is what I have to explain to people. I'm like, you think I just wake up and everything is just given to me on a silver platter or a gold platter, whatever you want to say it. And I just even getting guests, I'm like, you do understand that I have to network. I have to be in the rooms. Like, I've known you for what, like 4 years now? We didn't really connect up until like probably like earlier this year. Yeah. And I've seen you and I've met you and I've shook your hand so many times and only now I'm getting you in the room.
It was crazy. I was scared of you.
Why?
Because I didn't know, and that's why I asked, when did you move here, right? So years ago, for my relationship, 2000, like 14-ish, um, I met a girl from Russia at Tongue and Groove, okay? And we went out to eat in Atlantic Station, and when we went, she was like, oh, you with Russian, this, that. Like, she's like, yo, you didn't— she had a very arrogant fucking attitude, right? And we went to a restaurant in Atlantic Station. She was like, she already had it like it was like it was an honor for me to be out with her. And I didn't set a reservation.
Okay.
And she said, what, you didn't set a reservation? Something, something right there. They like, you gonna wait? She's like, yeah. I'm like, you could wait. And I left. Oh no! Oh no, you didn't.
Okay, what happened?
And I just left. But I'm looking. I'm going. Was that her? I'm like, it was a tall-ass Russian girl with blonde hair. So I'm sitting there like, is that the motherfucker I left in fucking Atlantic Station? Like, she was like, are you leaving? Are you serious? And I'm just walking the fuck away. Like, man, you keep that attitude to your fucking self. Why did you leave? Too too entitled. It wasn't it was it wasn't worth my time. It wasn't gonna be. I don't want to sit and eat and talk to your arrogant ass. I'm already checked out. No, I don't want to be here. Like, I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to be your friend. I don't want nothing. So I'm cool. I don't even— I'm not buying you a meal. I'm leaving. And I remember that and I was like, damn, I gotta bring that up. I was like—
Definitely was not. I was— I just moved to the States in 2013 and I was in California. So definitely was not me.
Got it.
Didn't even know about Atlanta in 2014, if I'm being Yeah, no, I got it.
But that's one thing I was like, um, but good, good, got that. I said, yo, that would be funny as shit.
I was scared of you too because you were like, you know, everybody knows Him500. And I'm like, well, shit, I'm a nobody. And you were— because, you know, I think I met you at the room maybe 2 years ago or 3 years ago. It was like one of the first rooms that you did.
Yeah.
And because obviously, like, I knew Jason. So me and Jason connected on Instagram, and then he actually, he did my podcast in the very, very beginning when I just started. So I knew him. I know I knew Alex. Alex was going to the same gym. And then you were always with bodyguards and shit. I'm like, well—
When do I be with bodyguards?
I don't know, but you were like, you always had a suit on. You had a blue suit on. I remember that. And I'm like, yeah, this guy's too cool. I don't like—
because I don't say— Don't say I was with bodyguards. Now, do I give an image? I mean, is sometimes can my Energy be like not approachable. People tell me that. Why? Like I don't come across as approachable. But you was gonna send it, finish it. When you met me, how did you meet me? And was I okay when you met me? When your first exchange with me, was I okay person? Was I asshole? You were. You didn't really care.
It was. It wasn't. You were not an asshole. You just nonchalant about all of this. And maybe that's why because you thought that like you maybe were calculating in your head is that the girl. that I left at the restaurant.
No, I, I, yeah, I don't, I don't know. Um, I don't remember where it was at, but, um, I think people do have a, a stigma. They like, they tell me like, yo, you don't seem as friendly and as approachable. And I'd be like, bro, when people talk to me, bro, I'm a fucking— like, I play, I laugh and fuck around all day. Like, I'm like, I'm, I'm much cooler in just like fucking around. Like, we don't got to be serious to have serious conversation. Like, I'm cool with laughing and playing. Like, I'd rather laugh and bullshit and can talk like, and they'd be like, I'd be like, because most people come and they just think like they'd be so tight. Like yo, I just want to ask you this something something something. I'd be like, why y'all gotta be so stiff? Like it ain't always gotta be okay. Give me this million dollar. Give me this brilliant idea to my question. I know you got it in your brain. It's like damn bro. Like you know you can come and say what's up. Like crack a joke. Like nigga, your outfit ain't shit. Something. I don't care. But treat me like a human. You know what I'm saying? Like To a certain degree, I know what it was.
I know what it was. I think it was like right at the time when you started your fitness journey, and maybe I was like, I think that's what I thought. I was like, oh, now he lost the weight, so now he thinks he's the shit and he's cool. Nobody can talk to him.
I thought I was the shit before. Like, I've never not thought I was the shit. Like, so it's like that attitude don't like. I was who I was before I got here. Like, I've always been that nigga. My name is Him 500.
Yeah, before anybody was calling themselves him.
It's been that. So I've always been who I am. So I've thought I'm— I always think I'm the shit. So that's never gonna change. Like, you're gonna get that. Like, oh, I was gonna come like, you know, maybe he feels like he's cool. I feel like I'm that nigga for sure. But I don't feel like because I'm that nigga, you not.
Mm-hmm.
Because I'm that nigga, it's not that you not who you are. You ain't a person who understands and deserves respect. Never gonna be disrespectful. I'm never gonna shut nobody off. Like, I am that nigga. So you will get it. Like, If you come and crack a joke, I'm gonna crack one back. If you come in, be cool, I'm gonna be nice and cool. I'm cordial 100%. But yeah, I feel like I'm that nigga. Like, I always felt like I'm that nigga. So you will feel that, but I give that to people too. Like, you that nigga too. Like, you see, I sit here with you, we bullshit, but I'm giving you like, yo, this the dope shit I see about you. This the dope shit I see that you do. I'm always gonna give that because that's what I want for myself.
Mmhmm.
That's what I give to myself. So I give it to others. That's how I'm able to maintain it. I don't build my bridge and build my building by tearing somebody else's down. I build my business by stacking my shit and my confidence onto each other, onto itself. So in order for me to build others and people to keep pouring into me, I gotta pour into other people. I gotta make sure I give you your confidence and make sure I give you your flowers for what you doing that's dope. So your building and your confidence keeps stacking and fucking building, and you do it for somebody else.
Oh yeah, I think that's the only way it's gonna work, and you got to be humble enough. I'm a very, you know, people think that I'm just Like when they meet me, I'm a bitch. I'm like, no, I'm— I'll talk to you. I might not promise you that I'm going to remember the name, or I might forget that we met because at this point I'm meeting a lot of people and it's, it's humanly impossible to remember every interaction. And as much as I appreciate and I love it, sometimes it's like, I'm gonna be for real, not everybody can make a good impression, you know, or like an impression period. Because when people, especially when people come and approach me with Oh, you're so pretty. I would love to date you. I don't. That goes over my head because it's like there's you bring zero value to my conversation or to me discussing my appearance is not going to do anything. If you bring me something saying, hey, I watch your podcast. Actually, you know what? That episode with Tyler Chronicles—that was dope. Like or something like that. Then I'll remember and I always you know I always interact and exchange with people. Yeah. Um, can we talk about your weight loss? Why did you decide to go on that journey?
So I could look like my bank account.
Do you think that people take you more serious when you lose weight and you kind of become closer to that so-called BMI?
Fuck no. I got rich 'cause I was fat.
Okay.
I tell people all the time, like, weight loss shit was for myself because I needed to get in shape. Fucking gonna die. Like—
How did you gain weight in the first place?
Getting money.
Getting money, so you were what, like just eating everything?
Wasn't working, focused on health. I was focused on the bag. Like literally, like I look back at it, it's funny because I could look at, um, even when I first got with, um, my wife, it was the— I was much smaller. And I look at it again, I'm like, shit. But I was just focusing on working. I was just focusing on making money. But I realized too is that when I say I got rich and I was fat, because you become non-threatening.
Mm-hmm.
People aren't really intimidated. Might buy the persona and the attitude that I have, but they're not intimidated. Like, and it's like, oh, it's trusting, little teddy bears, warm. And like, I understand. I look at that and go, damn, like, that was one of the factors that contributed to my success. As I lose weight, I'm more so a person now with partnerships and different alliances where people want to be in locked-up arms. So there's a side where you get consumer trust with the being bigger and then being more in shape. It's more so of like, now I want to be on your team. Like, I want to be able to lock in and build with you. The bigger dude, people didn't really want to go like— it was just like, oh man, bro got game, or he do this and that like that. It was just like, that's who it is. Now it's like, now I want to stand next to you. Like, let's do this. Like, so, you know, it's a pro and a con. It's just a different approach at business. But then also I can't just strictly say that that's all the way true because then I also have to realize with the Standing Next to Me and things, I'm at a different point in business.
Mmhmm.
I'm at a different point in my life and my understanding and my outlook and perspective on business. So how I do business now is not how I did business then. So now it's like I look at partnerships, I look at, you know, acquiring other companies and controlling other businesses and building other people's brands. So now I'm kind of attracting that too. So I can't say that it's all because I lost weight that people do that. But it's just one of the things that I kind of feel.
Do you, so, because you know they say that when you lose weight, especially when you work out, because it's discipline, right? So do you believe that when you get the money, you have to have that discipline too with the way that you look? And I'm not saying you have to be skinny or have a six-pack, but just being in a healthy body and also doing healthy habits like walking, working out.
It helps a lot. It teaches you how to learn. It does help a lot. I've said a lot of ignorant shit. I used to be funny 'cause I would troll, right? And I'll be like, health ain't wealth, motherfuckers. Niggas be in the gym with a fucking trainer and a 6-pack and be fucking a spinach, fucking spinach smoothie away from homelessness. Like, you buy one more of them fucking expensive-ass smoothies, your ass ain't gonna have nowhere to live.
That's big facts.
And it's like, yo, health is wealth. No, the fuck it's not. Wealth is wealth. Money is money. Let's be clear. Like, health is not wealth until you gotta put it into perspective. It's like, oh, I get to live longer. Yes. You may live longer, but living 70 years of fucking poverty and hell and, and stressed out, you not gonna live longer. Stress kills more people than fucking obesity. So stressing about your finances— and finances is the, is the number one leading cause of stress. It's about finances. So being in shape and broke, nigga, you have a heart attack, you still gonna die. You ain't gonna learn how to get no money. And so when they say health is wealth, it's like, no, it's the people who understand, can I prioritize? They start learning to prioritize the discipline that it takes, the structure that it takes to be in shape, to be able to stay with that, and then apply that to another avenue of life when it comes to your finances and come to your personal growth and development. That's where the health is wealth is because it's the discipline that that shit takes. It takes a lot of discipline. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of understanding and studying.
Mm-hmm.
A lot of times is that you do so much studying of that and you be great at that, it's hard to be great in every aspect. And so I don't shit on the people that's in shape because they have a different— they have a different level of greatness in a different realm of life, and they're fucking great at it. It's amazing to have that ability to do that and accomplish what you accomplish with your body.
Mm-hmm.
Now, that— to be able to get to that other side is the hard part. And the same thing would be a lot of people who make money, they can't get over there to develop that side of the discipline. And it'd be like a— it's a tough medium. Whenever I'm focused on my health, I'm not focused on making money.
Yeah.
I make the least amount of money when I'm in the gym focusing on my health. When I'm on bullshit and I'm making money, I'm not in the gym. It's— and it's hard for me to find that discipline. Like, I go to different trainers, amazing trainers, but it's just like, it'd just be hard for me personally to find that discipline. That shit's a struggle.
I honestly, this is where I've been too. Now that I'm so laser-focused on the podcast and growing and now learning all the systems, again, people think I'm just bullshitting, but I'm like, yesterday I spent 6 hours just trying to build the system out. And, and because now I understand the power of the funnels and making sure that there's the backend that's monetized and not just, you know, because, okay, we went viral, cool. Now what? That does not pay my bills.
Yep.
So now we got to create the structure of it. And it's hard for me to just like get up and go to the gym and go work out. So now I have a dog, so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go on a walk. But I'm an athlete, so like my body naturally craves that. But I find myself just like, fuck, I haven't been to the gym in like 5 days.
It's tough. Then you be— and then it gets so much, and then you be online crying and shit. You be on your story like fucking emotional. It'd be like, damn, that is— that's the entrepreneur life. You gotta go work out. You gotta get rid of the fucking feelings, right? You gotta go work out. Because it'll have you going. I laugh. I'll be dope because I get to genuinely see like you really be posting like so transparent. Like fuck it. Just this where I'm at. Like this what I'm doing. Like happy tears. Fuck it. And I'm like shit be dope. Like you learn how to monetize it and do it. But you look at it and realize like this shit is a lot. Like a lot. The internet ain't to be taken lightly.
I thought I was gonna quit the corporate job and I thought that Sales was a lot, you know, like that was so annoying. Being in tech sales is just like, this is just overwhelming. Being an entrepreneur and then also making sure that people don't play you. You know how many times I had sponsors who were sponsors who were like, just be my girlfriend, I'll just give you money, let me just take care of you. That's the shit that I have to deal with too, on top of everything else.
Oh, y'all got it. Women, I'm— listen, I'm gonna tell you is that women in business and women out here in this world has it The worst. Because, and I said it on a podcast, we was doing tonight's conversation, I said it, I said, it turn you into a dog because you gotta learn how to be mean, how to fight niggas off because I don't know what your intentions are. What you're coming for, what do you want? What are you trying to get, right? And it's like, ah, like you're gonna position me with business and you trying to get sex.
Mmhmm.
And it's like, you using it against me and it's like, I have to automatically weaponize all men in this factor because At some point you're gonna try it.
Mm-hmm.
And I have to work on my discipline to go, okay, nope, I gotta learn how to reject it and separate the two.
Mm-hmm.
While I'm trying to grow my business, while I'm trying to find resources and learn everything in every capacity, in every part of my business, I have to either go find women to be a part and help me, or I gotta fight with men to get the help and the guidance that I need and deal with this. And it's like, okay, well, I need help with YouTube. Ad creation. Now I got an ad guy over here who's trying to flirt with me. Oh, I need a videographer. Now my videographer trying to flirt with me. Oh, I got a photographer. Oh my— at the, the everything, every line is like, no shade to you, boss, but you know, it's like every realm, it's like, goddamn. Like now my guests, I got guests on my podcast now, they all think I'm—
The guest part, listen, listen, there'd be people in my DMs and because I go with come on my show. They be, you know, million, million followers, blue check, everything. You know, they got contracts and all that shit. Every time I say come on my show, oh, you on that type of time? Yes, I'm on that type of time. What type of time you think I'm on? I'm past that stage of, you know, being around athletes just because, oh, you're an athlete and we're gonna go get a table. I don't give a fuck. I don't get to see nothing out of it. Yeah. And that's something that, like, the moment I realized that, I was like, oh my God, y'all are so boring. Like, what the fuck? I know more than you. You might have the money, but you don't have the knowledge. Where we're going with this? And you're gonna go and hoe around and fuck around. I'm like, you're gonna make me look stupid. I'm good. I don't need that. And it's just, this is like, don't and don't. And oh, I'm different. Yeah, you the fuck you not.
So that's why I say I respect women in business because I know all the battles. And it's like, yo, that shit tough out there. Like, yeah, good luck. People be like, yeah, I'm on business. Yeah, you know how to be a dog. Like, And they be like, I'm on my soft girl era. Well, the operations of business and how this shit go, you don't get to be soft. You gonna be a dog because you gotta fight out here.
And it's true because at the same time I sit here and think like, well, I do wanna get married. I do wanna have kids, but I can't have a family in the next couple of years because this is the baby that I need to raise right now and I can't. So you have to sacrifice friendships, relationships. You have to sacrifice a lot. Sometimes even like I don't have time to talk to my family because my family lives in Russia. So it's you know it's a twelve hour difference. So when it's morning here, it's night there. So you either have to get up early or it's just it comes with a lot. And I'm like people don't get it. They're still seeing it. Well, you're a white girl in podcasting. Do you think it's easier for you?
No, the fuck it's not. It is if you do it right. Thing is you use you're supposed to use everything that is a tool to your example because it's not a lot of You have a Black audience, a Black guest list.
Mm-hmm.
Living fucking Atlanta. You walk into a room, you're the only white girl there. At least the only one that people gonna remember. You tall as shit, you got blonde hair and blue eyes. Not gonna go, oh yeah, was she there? Yeah, the white girl, right? Like, no shade, we talking, we here. So you automatically have a thing where it's like, Okay, cool. Wanna do my podcast? Have you seen it? Yes, I've seen it. I've seen Paul Pierce on the motherfucker with the white— you the white girl that was talking to Paul Pierce. Oh, that's the white girl that was this. Eventually, 'cause if I don't know your name, you're the blonde-haired white girl that everybody fuck with that be on the podcast talking shit.
Mm-hmm.
That's— so yes, it does. But does it mean that I win? No, because if I'm ignorant, I don't monetize right. I don't shoot my shots right. Because now once you learn how to monetize, then you get the fucking audacity to bring certain guests on on purpose.
Mm-hmm.
So then you start learning like, okay, when I go get certain guests, I learn how to click for them. I learn how to have a certain level of guests to where now my podcast is held here. But now I gotta learn how to make my podcast rank because I need to be able to go to these companies. I need to be able to go to individuals and be like, listen, we not, we number 3. On the podcast list. Like, now we doing this amount of downloads. Now we dropping and clipping this amount. So I'm pushing out more fucking clips so I can have more views, more downloads on, on my audio. Boom, everywhere. Because now we really getting to it. Now that's the part where it's like, yeah, I do have an upside because I can get attention because of my appearance. People think, oh well, appearance doesn't matter. Yes, the fuck it does. Like, some people should be behind the camera. Some people need to be on the camera because it works in their favor.
Yeah.
Nah, it's real. It's like people, people don't deal with their reality and their truths. It's like me, I know I'm great at speaking, but I learned communication at 16. My first job was telesales. I learned how to sell over the phone to cold traffic. I learned how to talk, so I know I'm great at communication. Next, I went into real estate. I understand how to talk and understand communication. I'm great at it. If somebody come and be like— and I see people's like, yo, I want to Talking and starts, you know, sharing my mind. It's like, bro, you got a heavy-ass tongue. You, you have bad skin, bad hair. You're not really polished and things like that. And it's, it's not aesthetically pleasing and you suck at communication. Nigga, it ain't gonna work. I'm not finna coach you down a path that doesn't work. It's not for you. Can you possibly find an audience? Yes, but you gonna get cooked and it ain't gonna go where you want it to go. It's not you. You're an introvert too. So you want to— just because you see something could work, but for you as a dynamic, it's not for you.
Mm-hmm.
Figure out what lane works for you that you can operate great in and take it to the roof. You can make a million dollars selling pencils, just like you can make a million dollars online. You don't have to be online to make a million dollars. You just got to figure out what's gonna be the best lane to get you to where you want to go. Does not matter what business industry you in, how you conduct the business and how you do it is what produces the outcome. It's a nigga selling t-shirts in the clothing industry who's making $100,000 a year. Meanwhile, there's somebody else in the clothing industry who's doing $10 million a year. It's just how you attack the business and what your business model look like. But you gotta understand that, like, okay, let me just position myself right to get the bigger bag. And that's what— with you. So going back to it, do you have an upside? Yeah, fucking white in a Black community, like, with blonde hair. these podcast clips that we have, people will see and know.
Oh yeah, they know. And especially because, because of the guests that I'm getting. I've been blessed because listen, I had again, Ian from Earn Your Leisure. Yeah. He reached out to me. I remember, I think I was with one of my friends or somebody. I think it was either, it was somebody at 85 South. I was there. And I was like, who the hell is Ian? He's reaching out to me because again, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think it was Carlos who was like, you don't know Ian? I'm like, nah. He's like, oh, this is the person that you need to know. He's from Earn Your Leisure. I was like, oh, that's who it is. Because, you know, you hear Earn Your Leisure, but you don't really see him.
He's a partner. He got Red Panda. They do Market Mondays. Yeah. He's one of the ones.
He reached out to me and I was like, damn. So now I'm like—
You're going to be in our culture. You're going to have to understand, do your research. You got to go do more homework because you can't— You got— You getting too many, oh, I ran into— I didn't know that was this bro. I didn't know this. You gotta do your research and understand because if not, you're a culture vulture. Yeah, you're a culture vulture.
I'm not a culture vulture.
You know why? I don't know who Ian is. How the fuck you don't know who?
Because again, I don't come from that, right? So for me, and I also, I haven't been into investing. So it's not really, it's not my—
It's social, it's Black social media.
You don't gotta be invested. Now, obviously I understand responsibility. So I understand that I have to do my due diligence and I have to do my research and I have to understand. Who is who and you know what are we going to do and how we can basically promote the culture because I think there's so much greatness in the culture now. Then I was like, okay, and but my problem is that I don't put faces to the name, and but at the same time it works in my favor because because when I meet people, I'm genuinely curious about them, and now it becomes you know a lot of people they would say whoever came on my podcast they'd be like I hate when people know everything about me because now they're fans. But I'm not a fan. I'm just trying to get to know you as a human being. And I think that always works in my favor because now I'm genuinely trying to get to know the person. And then people say, oh, it's this who and who and who. But to me, it's still a person. And I think that's where I win a lot of times because I get to know the person.
You can't— you can follow me on social media, but you don't know everything about me. It's people that's fans, but you don't know me, you know, until you get to sit and have a conversation is when you get to know me. So it's like, nah, I know your accolades and what you've done, which you 100% should be familiar with. I got on a call the other day with somebody and they was just like, okay, So look, like, you know, what's— they asked me if I was building out, trying to build out my clipping community. And they like, yo, do you got a lot of content? This, that, and the third. I'm like, yo, you've been reaching out, chasing me down for weeks. You get on the phone call and you don't even know my work, my body of work. You don't know everything that I've done. You don't even know who the— you really don't know who the fuck you talking to.
Right. Do you have a lot of content?
Bye. Get your shit together. And next time you approach somebody, be ready. So it's like if you get on here and you like, yo, I'm having a conversation with you and it's like, And you, you, you're at the point where it's like, yo, you don't really know. Like you say, like, yo, I've been to CircleTO Conference, I've been there. So you, you're familiar with who I am and you got to witness and see.
Mm-hmm.
This is not, okay, so I see him 500, but like, what all have you done? It's like, been here for a long time. I've done a lot of things. What part you want me to tackle? I, nigga, bought a fucking private jet. Like, what you want me to, like, what part of this journey do you want me to go into?
I remember the part about the private jet that you said to offset your taxes. I remember that part from that conference. Now it's like, now it's all coming back together because I remember you talked about that. What happened to the private jet?
Because, so, and then I managed the company. But now when offsetting taxes and things like that, okay, well, why? Wouldn't make sense to you, doesn't matter. Now your overhead is fucking low, you start monetizing this shit because you do a few hundred thousand dollars a month off your podcast and shit.
You have to offset.
You got to figure out what you're going to do with the money. Like, oh yeah, I'm trying to build this money up. Yeah, okay, but now what to do with it is fucking important because we get crushed. And it's a lot of shit that come with this. Like, people don't tell us how to be rich. Like, now we starting to learn. Like, hey, they start a company, like, nah, you're gonna do taxes, you're gonna do with these things, bankruptcies, this, that, and third. You gotta learn this shit because you gotta learn how to be rich. It's one thing to make the money because we come from not having it, so we chase on how to get this shit. Nobody told us how to be rich. Like, everybody chase how to get rich, and niggas that is rich, you look up to them, but they don't tell you how to be rich. Like, it's a lot that come with it. So now you start looking, you start making money online, you gonna look and go, wait, made a million dollars last year, $2 million last year. How much of it went to expenses? Well, I don't got no expensive payroll, just—
oh hell no, I got an accountant. And literally the moment I moved to the studio, that's when I got an accountant and I got on the call and he was like, we're going to make sure we have conversations every single month where I'm not making the money because right now we're in the red. But I know that this, this is just now. So a couple of months down the road, he was like, trust me, I got you because we got to make sure. And he was like, I want to make sure that you understand that there are expenses that have to happen. And so, you know, because it's a whole business and that's, that's something that people don't understand.
100%.
And it's not just in the Black community, just in general. Nobody teaches you how to get rich and how to stay rich.
So you need multiple companies. And having an accountant is cool, but you need an accountant that is accounting for rich niggas. And so if your accountant ain't accounting for rich niggas, he ain't that. So if you don't deal with rich people and understand rich niggas' problems from experience, I don't need you to understand it by the book. I need you to understand the fucking trials and tribulations that these niggas are going through, these online niggas and motherfuckers making money on the internet. If you don't work with these niggas, you don't understand the fucking hurdles. You think you do. We bring CEOs in our business, we bring CMOs in our business, we bring CFOs in our business, and they be coming from all these other corporations and shit. And then they get fucking hammered and take them 9 months to understand how this shit work. And they be like, God, oh, oh, it's different, right? One part I was just about to say something though. You need multiple businesses. So just realize this too. Is that setting your businesses up, like, you need your— you should have an events company. So you need to have an events company. You also need to have an affiliate company. So your company, you should have affiliate for your company, for— I mean, a business set up for your affiliates. So now all of your affiliate money from all your partnerships and things like that, that goes into one account and one business, because now that business is your affiliate business, is things that you'll get paid from when you promote different products. And then it shows you, and you'll be smarter on choosing Who's your sponsor? So you'll, you'll go looking and be like, shit, I can get a sponsor to promote and give me money, but I also get somebody who has a product for sale or an affiliate link that I get that they pay me out monthly.
Mmhmm.
So now I don't want a one-time payout, somebody who sells one product one time. Now I want somebody who has subscriptions because now every single month I'm getting paid from you. Now if I got 10, 15, 20 of those in 3, 4 years, you done built so many up and all them episodes, they may have 10 episodes, 15 episodes, but in those 15 episodes they run forever. Yeah, so you imagine over time as you keep dropping, you got all these affiliates. Now you making multiple 6 figures. Let's say you're doing 6 figures a month on affiliates. Like, it'll— you'll be doing 6 figures a month on affiliates. That's another business. It's another business to get funding for. That's another business to, to actually look at and go, okay, how can I build this up? And the things that I can do with that, total different business. Your events business, your events business may lose.
Mm-hmm.
You may lose on events because you make money on your affiliate business and things like that, but you may lose on the events business. So when you start talking about taxes and doing offsets and things like that, some companies are built to lose. Like, you may be taking losses on your events. Like, man, I spent $50,000 on this event. You may not go recoup from your events on purpose. Fuck it, $50,000 on the event. But guess what? This was the thing where I brung all of my guests from— all of my guests. I did a dinner for all of my guests, and this is my event company, and this is for content and social media purposes and networking. So I do a private dinner and go spend $20,000 on the event. Get, get some people to come in, service my sponsors. They get to come and promote their products and have it there and, and, and get social content. And my events company loses money. And now it's kind of— when we start doing taxes, this one, my media company, is making a bunch of money, but my events company is losing. My affiliate company is over here, is making money too.
I, um, actually came across a couple people who said that they learned from you But they ended up scamming me specifically for credit repair stuff. And I was like, I don't understand why they would use your name. And then because I guess like they got the blueprint, but they don't actually know what to do with it. And now they're just going and say, oh, I learned from him.
And then they go and I mean, you realize everybody learned from me. That's the thing. You 18,000 people in my community, everybody, everybody I came across, especially credit repair, it was from you. Yeah, everybody else, the credit space, everybody learned from me and they or they learned my blueprint. At one point, I've touched them or led them to some part of information because a lot of people out there who teaching. There's new things that come about. So I don't want to make it like, oh, I'm the god. Like, no, I did my part in contributing to making the awareness and how to actually deal with credit. And kind of, I did my job when it came to that, I feel like, as an educator. So now doing it, rules and things change. So what happens is people don't do continued education. And so it's like, it's— and it's not— and I would say like, it's probably not that they scammed you. It probably just didn't work. And, or their method didn't work, and then they don't have a follow-up procedure. And then this is when it comes into business practices, right? Because if they don't have proper steps, then people don't have proper refund policies and understanding too.
They don't.
That be the part where it's like, yo, if you gotta understand like when and what process of giving people refunds, and then also how to clarify and make sure that, okay, do people do what they supposed to do? Did you keep your credit monitoring on? Because I know a lot of people going to be like, well, they said credit monitoring up, they turn their credit monitor, they don't pay the credit monitoring, and now I don't got access to the report. So our system is not pulling it, showing what disputes worked and what didn't. And when you follow up, it's like, what's up with my credit? It's like, fuck it, you ain't paid the credit monitoring, you ain't got this on. Like, you're making it hard for me to actually help you in this process. A lot of times when people say they got scammed by credit repair people, When you talk to the credit repair people, the people didn't do their job in their part of the deal. And it's like, okay, well, I've been followed up, my team called. Now I want you to call me. I'm not fucking calling. I got a VA over here who's doing it. We got an AI system that's texting you or calling you. And so a lot of times it's like, I see that. I don't know what your situation was, but I know a lot of times is that there's some bad people, but also a lot of times in the credit space is that the consumer is a lot of times the problem because their expectations, because they have an outcome that they want and they don't understand and study, okay, this is going to be a process that, okay, do I have 9 months to commit to this? It's not— only reason I realized I needed my credit fixed is because I had something I want to do. People don't realize that they need their credit fixed until they have a need for it. So once I need it, then it's like, now my need is your problem. And now it's like, okay, you know what? I need to go get camera equipment. I need to get approved for this lease to start my podcast and get my shit going. Yo, when when can we get this done? Nigga, fuck your lease, fuck your cameras, and fuck your podcast. That's not my problem. That's your problem. What you pay me for is to do with this. What you want to get from it is not mine. I had somebody was like, yo, my kids about to be homeless. Nigga, your kids was gonna be homeless regardless because of your fucking habits. What is next for you?
The room is tonight. What else? You gonna be at the mess fest? What's next?
Just really focusing on my mastermind, focusing on helping other businesses. So like, I'm looking at going into like the different places in the beauty industry, people looking to grow their business online, building out their infrastructure, their business infrastructure. So my main focus now is like I have a mastermind where I help people grow and scale their business, and then I also do 2 to 3 partnerships a year where I partner with companies and grow and scale and help them build and develop their brand and stuff like that.
That's amazing. Yes.
This is dope. No, I appreciate it. We actually had a good conversation. Thank you for coming. Don't take my clips out where I was saying you gotta be accountable. Listen, I don't do that. I don't. I'm joking.
I keep everything in. I keep everything in here.
So. Got it.
You guys, this was. I think we've never done an episode like this before. This is one of one of the many good one of one. One of yeah. Because we got what? Him. Him 500. I appreciate you. All right, y'all go follow him. 500, go buy them. Honestly, I'm mind blown because now I'm about to go home. I'm about to— I'm not sleeping tonight because this is about to happen. Let us know what you think. Comment, like, share, subscribe, and we'll see you in the next one. We're going to have more like this coming.
Yeah, and tell all them bitch-ass niggas that be hating on me, they got to get on these podcasts and get game that's actually valuable, man. Let's go. Thank you.
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