230: From Pretty Ricky to Social Media Mogul with Spectacular Smith

Namaste. My name is Sahara Rose, and welcome back to the Highest Self podcast, a place where we discuss what makes you your soul's highest evolvement. Baby, grind with me. Okay? I just can't stop singing it because it was literally my favorite song in middle school. I could not get enough of Pretty Ricky. I still can't. You know, if someone's like, what do you want to play? I'm like, pretty Ricky, duh. I just love that genre of music. The, like, super romantic, but kind of sexual R and B hip hop, early 2005. Like, I am so with it. And that's why when I met Spectacular Smith of Pretty Ricky at this conference that I went to, an entrepreneurship conference, not a hip hop conference, I met him and I was like, I feel like I recognize you from somewhere. And then my friend made a joke like, oh, I'm going to play Grind with me, because we were doing karaoke. And then I was like, wait, are you in Pretty Ricky? And I literally freaked out. Like, to me, I could see like Taylor Swift or Selena Gomez. I don't care at all. But Pretty Ricky, like, that is my shit right there. Like, I was just such a huge fan. I would just listen to their songs over and over again when I was in middle school. And to this day, it's so groovy. And what was cooler than meeting Spectacular of Pretty Ricky, who was, you know, the main rapper in the group, is the lifestyle change that he has had since his days in Pretty Ricky. So we talk all about this in this episode, but essentially he went from, you know, hip hop superstar starting his career at a very, very young age. His father was his manager. The three of the four boys in Pretty Ricky were brothers. Did you know that? I know. Crazy, right? And then the other one was their childhood friend from growing up. So they started, you know, when they were early teens, and by the time they were like 18 years old, they're famous. But that came with its own ups and downs and struggles. And he eventually found himself broke, living on his girlfriend's couch, like, not able to sustain himself and start to think creatively on how he could make a living and survive. And, you know, you wouldn't think someone with all these famous Grammy award winning album would be at this place, but he got creative and realized that on Twitter, he could essentially create parody accounts of different celebrities and monetize these accounts. And that's how he started to grow all sorts of parody accounts. One of them being Gift Cat. You know that cat, like, I have no IC cheeseburger or like, you know, it has these funny, it's like a meme of this crazy cat and it has all these funny things like me no want food or I don't know, it just says ridiculous things like that gift cat. It's super famous. He started that literally. He is the one who created those memes in the first we talk on this episode, like Paris Hilton parody account, this, that. So he actually was the first person to start doing that on Twitter and you know, made a lot of noise and he started to work on other fellow colleagues, you know, hip hop people, et cetera's social media accounts. And this was back before people were doing social media and they were like, what? You can brand yourself on social media? Like, why is this important? Why should I spend my time? I got to focus on my career. But he was like, no, trust me, people are going to be on social media. This is where it's at. And he created his social media marketing company which is now huge adwizard that he does tons of, you know, J. Cole and all of these big hip hop artists and celebrities albums. But more than that, his true passion is educating people on digital media, especially in the black community, and helping people become self sustainable and using this online space to create a living for themselves so they could support themselves, support their families, be entrepreneurs and raise themselves from poverty. Which is very, very inspiring. He's someone who's very smart. He was attending Harvard and is just always on trends. He's always. I ended up talking to him for so long about just like social media and the online space and how it's shifting and he's just super intelligent. And what's so cool about Spectacular Story is he didn't come from money or an educated background, etceter, etc, but he really took it onto himself to use the Internet and learn as much as he could and essentially create his own community and culture using social media. Which is something that I think lots of us are doing or want to do today. So I loved hearing his story, hearing his point of view. And he's someone who's just really, really cool. And like, I mean, Pretty Ricky, I still can't get over it. So without further ado, let's welcome Spectacular Smith to the Highest Self Podcast. And before we get started, check out these brands that make Highest Self podcast possible. Are you interested in having a career focused on health and wellness? Well, if so, then the universe is calling you to become a holistic health coach. I am offering this incredible deal, a discount of $1,500 off my Alma mater Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which is the world's largest nutrition school with guest teachers such as Deepak Chopra, Chris Carr, Dr. Hyman and Dr. Andrew Whale and so many others. It is split between six months of health coaching programs teaching you hundreds of nutritional theories including Ayurveda as well as six months of business coaching. 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Again, that's vomtease.com with coupon code Sahara for 20% off. Well, welcome spectacular to the Highest Self podcast. It's so good to have you here.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Yes. So the first question I would love to ask you is, what makes you your highest self?

What makes me my highest self? Define highest self.

The best version of you.

I just think learning, you know, constantly learning, helping others, you know, it's all about really helping as many people as possible for me, because I know so many people lost in the world and they have all the potential in the world, but they just need somebody else to point it out to them. So I feel like that makes me my highest self when I'm constantly actually learning and helping others.

I love that. And you've definitely been doing that. So for a lot of people listening, they're huge Pretty Ricky fans. Like, I just grew up listening to your music. So can you tell us just the story of how Pretty Ricky came to be?

Yeah. So we pretty much started off like it was. Two of my brothers was rapping at the time and they was already in like a rap group and everything. I used to be in like a dance group in like the third grade. I used to always be an entertainer and they was already rapping and they used to do shows and stuff from them having like little songs or whatever and they used to do like talent shows and go perform and stuff. And one day my dad was like, spec, you need to get in the group, right? If you guys been watching love and hip hop, you know how he is, right? And he was like, spook, you need to get in the group. You dancing on the stage with everybody else. You need to dance on stage with the brothers. So I first started just dancing on stage. I was just, I have no verse, no nothing. I'm just up there. I'm just up there dancing and having fun. And one day, the producer, his name is Jim Johnson, he said, how about you guys give Spec a verse? Like give him a verse on the song. And they gave me a verse on the song and we end up performing that one verse on that one song. So they had this whole 15 minute show and only had like a 30 second little verse. And when I did my verse, all the girls went crazy. They was screaming, they was grabbing me, they was like, you know what? Put Spec on all the songs. So they ended up putting me on all the songs and I had to learn how to rap. I didn't know how to rap at all. So I started self taught myself how to Rap, it was all self self taught and from that point forward, I kind of like ended up in the forefront of the group, so.

Yeah, and then you just learned how to sing along the way too.

Yeah, so I really. So listen, so the whole singing thing, I'm not even. I'm not even that talented, man. People be thinking I'm talented.

I just really like you're like the lead singer.

But yeah, so yeah, just got. So actually the Pleasure is the voice of the group, so.

But. But I feel like your voice was like one of the main voices that people. I feel like Baby Blue is more the rapper. Right.

So like so the group is three rappers and one singer, so pleasure's the singer.

Oh, okay.

Everybody thinks I sing.

Yeah. Maybe because it's like you're always just in front.

Yeah. So that's what I'm saying. Ever since that like the first verse I ever got and I performed it, I like kind of like the fans like really push start pushing me into the front, you know, of the group and like I became like one of the favorites of the group. So. I don't know, man. It's just like it just happened. Yeah, it just happened, man. I just went with the flow. It was just always my passion to just perform, you know, that's. That's what it's about to me.

I love that. So Pretty Ricky had tons of Billboard hits and you traveled all over and really were such a big part of the culture. And then what happened?

Yeah, I mean, we did a lot, right. We sold 11 million albums like you said. We had like a number one album for five consecutive weeks on the Billboard charts. They didn't know whether we was R and B or hip hop. So they just put us on the chart for both of them. And we was number one on both of the charts at the same time for both genres. So it was amazing. And yeah, I started doing this whole rap thing and we kind of took it by storm, you know, the music, everybody really gravitated to it. The ground on me's the hotlines to your bodies and all of them went platinum and we had two platinum albums. And after that, like being on the road, I just started doing my social media thing. I got a call one day from one of my guys named Matty J. And he was getting a little referral fee. It was a company called My Likes at the time and they had a little referral program. And everybody who you brought on, they got like different 100 bucks here or you get a chance to win the iPad or something. Like that. And. Yeah, so he basically introduced me to this platform. And on the platform, they had, like, little leaderboards on the people who make the most money. You can see who was making the most money. So I always had the drive to, like, I want to be number one. Like, I don't want to ever be last place. I don't even want to be top 10. Like, I want to be number one, least top three. So I started figuring out creative ways to grow a following to make money on this website. And the way you made money was traffic acquisition. So when you post a link, they call them, like, clickbait articles. And off the actual articles, you will make money off of everybody who click on it. So I started building, like, massive fan bases on social media. So all these different parody accounts, I'm one. I'm like literally the godfather of parody accounts, right? Because it didn't even exist when I started it. And I started creating all these fan accounts, speaking in their voice, you know, and. And really having fun with it. And celebrities really never have fun on social media. Always, like, serious. You know, if you're like a comedian, you're never telling jokes all day. And that's what my pages did it jokes. And, you know, if it was a comedian, if it was somebody who was like an R B singer, I did like, love quotes. And I really connected with the crowd versus to the regular celebrity who page I had, you know, the Cat Williams, the Will Ferrells, the Kevin Hart's, the Jay Z, Beyonce's. Like, either they didn't have a social media or they wasn't really entertaining all day, every day. So it was. Sometimes they would tell the actual celebrity, hey, you need to be like this page. And it was my parody account that they was talking about.

Mm, I love that. So you kind of just figured out, okay, a good way for me to make money is to just build all these pages and grow their following. And I'm gonna do it with humor. Right now, tell us about the moment that Pretty Ricky broke up. Took a pause. You guys were having internal issues, and you found yourself on your girlfriend's couch, right?

So through that process, like, we kind of went through our breakup. You know, it was about money issues and. And really the person that was handling the money, which is my father, he didn't really have the right structure in place, and he didn't really take the money and really do right with the money for everybody to be happy, right? So if you're a platinum group and you're making all this money, $50,000 a show, $60,000 a show. But you're broke, like because somebody else is handling all the money. And my father, like he had the best cars, you know, before they came out, you know, SL 500 Benz before, a year before it came out, two story house. So we feeling like, you know, this is the right person with the money. But the fact that the reality. He was just a good hustler, he was a good street dude, but when it came to real business, he didn't really know how to conduct himself in a great manner to really execute on either the vision or taking, I mean on the vision or taking what he had, the multiple. He didn't really understand that. All he knew was hustling and music. But everybody who's super successful right now is not 100% music. If you look at Diddy, Jay Z, 50 Cent, like all these guys who's pretty much moguls, like, nobody really made a fortune on music compared to their products or other ventures that they actually have.

So true. And we're seeing that so much with Vitamin Water and all these incredible huge projects. So you found yourself broke at this point, even though you, you were a super big success and figuring out that the way to build yourself up is through social media. Did you ever feel like this is it, Like I had my heyday, it's over. Did that thought ever come across your mind?

Yeah, I never, like, I never think about that type of stuff. I don't know if there's something wrong with me. I don't know. Like, I never think about my failures or my situation. Like it's always positive with me. It's always being optimistic at all times. Like, I don't, it don't work.

Just something you were born with.

I don't, I don't know. I don't. Is that something you can be born with?

Yeah, I think. I mean, look at even other members of your group. Did everyone turn it around and turn it into the best, the best opportunity possible?

I mean, to some, I mean, I don't know, I can't really speak for them, you know, I really don't know what they have going on on the day to day. But I know for me, for me, I just really never cared about, you know, the situation. Like I know for sure, like if we really wanted to take things to the next level, then we can. And then if we really want to take everything to the next level, we can. So it's really no issue for me. But honestly, I mean, honestly, I just, I don't know, I Just never really cared about it to let. To like, make me say, hey, I gotta focus on social media. It was always, this is my music. This is some business stuff that I got going on. Right? I would do both for free. I would go and perform on stage for free. I really didn't like. I really don't like making music that much. Right. It's still something. I enjoy the process with my brothers creating it, but just going in and go writing a verse and all. Like I said, I taught myself how to rap. It wasn't like, I love to rap. Like, I was really forced to rap and get in the group. I really got stronger. I've been the first place. But really my passion is performing and then my passion is social media. Like, I love seeing people pages grow from zero followers to millions of followers. Like some of my clients, right, I take them from zero and I grow them to a hundred thousand. I grow them to a million followers. And they don't even know nothing about social media. And I teach them about social media and, you know, I give them the right tools to grow it, you know, the right team in place and I give them a team so you don't have to go out and go back, hire all these social media people. I'm giving that to you, right? And just to see their story get out to the world, their product out to the world and really change lives with it, it really makes me feel good as a person. So it's really based on what I love to do versus, like, I'm going through this issue and I mean, I'm doomed or like, Pretty Ricky is over. Like, I never really even cared.

You're just following what was exciting for you.

Yeah, it was just. It was just fun for me. Even the hard times, like, I didn't even. Like, I didn't even care that I didn't have no money because I knew how to make money. Like, if I ever wanted go make money. Like, my father taught me how to make money. So, like, I was hustling since third grade. I was selling. I sold like $10,000 worth of little chocolate bars, you know, in the. In the third grade. So I knew how to make money, so it never bothered me.

I love that. So let's talk about Grumpy Cat.

Okay.

Because I think everyone is familiar with Grumpy Cat. How did you get involved and how did you grow it into now a brand that is worth over $100 million.

So Grumpy Cat was. I was looking for a new idea and I did all these celebrities and everything like that. And I was on YouTube. You know how you go down a rabbit hole? You go on YouTube to figure out how to. You know, why your camera battery is going dead so fast, and you end up learning how to make ice cream, so. Exactly. So I ended up running across the cat, right? I seen a video of the cat, and I was like, whoa. Like, this cat is like, this cat is amazing, right? This cat looks so grumpy, right? And then I seen a picture of the cat, and I was like, okay, let me turn this into a meme.

So did the cat have a following yet?

No, no following. It was just a video that I seen of the cat right before. Cause once I started with the cat and the picture started going viral, then everything started going. The YouTube, the. Everything just started catching on fire. So the Twitter page that I created was the driving force of it because I was constantly dropping content.

So you made the Grumpy cat Twitter, not their owner?

Okay, no, they didn't make any. No, they followed me.

Oh, wow.

They follow me. It's like, okay, this guy is blowing it up. You know, it's like, what's going on? Oh, is this. Okay, well, let me do this. Let me go create. Like, now they realizing that this is. This is real.

So technically, Grumpy Cat is yours and not the.

Well, I wasn't. I wasn't smart enough back then to, like, start copyrighting things and, like, because I was just, like I said, was a passion and I was making my money on the back end, you know? But at this, like, they took advantage because it was their cat, right? I didn't own the cat. I just seen the cat and I knew it was brand new, right? And it's like finding talents. Like, I see that talent. Like, I put all this co signing all this person next to pop, but if this is this person artist, then they get all the benefit off of it and not me, right? I just found in and say, hey, this dude is dope. A dope artist. And then by me saying it and helping him with his music, all of a sudden, he blows up. But then the record label who has him signed is the one who gets. Gets all the benefits.

So you saw this cat. You start making memes, is Grumpy Cat. Like, I can has cheeseburger. Is that from Grumpy Cat or is that another cat?

It was so many people started making memes once I started, it was just like it caught on fire within, like, the first several days. It was one of the most viral memes on the Internet. It caught on fire pretty quickly.

Wow. And then how did you get it to start being something that could create, like, income?

Because I started growing the account once I started using the distribution channel for the rest of my pages. Cause at this point, I already had bigger pages already. So once I started a Grumpy Cat, I used the other pages as a distribution channel, and it already was going out to millions of fans. And then by being such a viral. Viral content and theme, it just took off. And then everybody started generating memes for it and things like that.

Mm. Got it. So you started to use Grumpy Cat's folly to shout out your other pages.

I was using the other pages to shout out Grumpy Cat.

Grumpy Cat. Oh, okay.

And then Grumpy Cat caught on fire and started leading the whole movement for all the rest of my pages.

Right. And then you got brands involved.

Right. So you get the brands involved, and then, like, everybody wants to, you know, put it in Macy's and Walmart. And then they realized how much of a. Of a commodity this. This cat was, so they decided to do the deal.

You know, I saw Skechers was just like, Grumpy Cat little Sketchers things, and I'm like, it's hilarious because cats can't wear sneakers, but that's where Sketcher wants to put their ad money.

Yeah. Yeah. So the cat. The cat really took off, you know, but like I said, I didn't really understand business back then. So the owners, you know, really reaped the benefits off everything.

So what other, like, major parody accounts have you worked with? And as well as your clients, Man.

I work with so many. I was running, like, 25 parody accounts at one time. So what a lot of people don't know because I never told this part of the story is I got my pages all the way up to 6 million followers, and then Twitter deleted all of them.

Why?

Because they said it was impersonation of an animal. No.

Or of the celebrity.

All the celebrities. Right.

That's so frustrating.

Like I said, I don't like. I learned from that. It's like, all right, what can I do better? Right? So that's why I'm able to do it for clients now. I started off with parity accounts, Then I ended up helping other parody accounts monetize their parity accounts. I'm like, listen, you don't have enough time to do this. Give me a percentage. I'm a run it for you. You already have the following. I know what I'm doing. You can See me on the leaderboard, I was always number one.

So tell us about this blueprint that you have that's pretty much able to take any account and build it up.

Right? I mean, it's really about algorithms. It's about, you know, analyzing your competition, seeing what's viral, you know, what's making it go viral. We build some type of IP so you can actually run it through some type of filters, have some type of triggers to know what's viral, what's not viral, and curate this content. So we're able to either recreate it with our team and have certain strategies, because over the years, I came up with like 15 strategies, you know, probably 16, 15, 16 strategies that work, depending on who you are as a person and your brand. And I'll figure out which one works the best for you. You might think just cause you're in real estate, the guy that I may go viral in real estate, be your perfect formula, but in reality, it was the guy who was a public speaker. That formula worked for you. So I have to figure out what formula works. Right. It starts off a little slow, and then the second month it start picking up, and the third month you're on fire.

So now, have you created a different strategy for Instagram?

Yeah, all platforms are a different approach. It's the same method in theory, but it's a different approach. Right, because algorithm change. Facebook is more viral than any platform. So they have the auto plays on the videos. You have Twitter. Twitter is more like noisy. You can. It's a lot of high traffic. Then Instagram is more of algorithm changes and engagement groups and, you know, different things to offset the algorithms.

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Well, everybody who started, nobody knew who they was when they first started. So you gotta think of it like that, like they did something to become famous and known. So we was talking earlier about the dogs and like viral little puppies and all that stuff.

He's gonna make Chubby go viral, by the way.

Yeah. So, like, everybody's the same. Most people look the same. You might have this guy. Everybody have a twin in this world, right? So even an influencer that's super viral right now, they have a twin in this world somewhere, but that person wasn't viral. Right? So you have to figure out what makes you different, what makes you stand out and utilize that, figure out a system or strategy, see what's working for everybody else and see how you can add that to your situation. Right? You might take a piece from this person, piece from this person, A piece from this person. Now you Put all of it together, and now is your piece, right? It's like a masterpiece. And you take all these components, and now all of a sudden you have this Picasso painting that's worth all this money because people value it now, and they want to come and see what you have going on every single day. Because you're entertaining. Either you're entertaining or you're touching them emotionally. Like, it's these different things that connect with somebody to make them want to follow you, right? So you might have people that like your pictures because you look amazing, right? Or you might have somebody because, like, your videos, because you look amazing on video. Then you have people who like the words you say, your quotes. So when you mix all that stuff up together, you have your little algorithm that you created for your page, right? And then once you realize, like, damn, they like video more. So it's up to you to do more video now, right? You might see you post a picture with your baby, and then you post a picture of some shoes, and you post a picture of just a selfie, and each one of those have their own little wave. You're like, holy crap. Every time I post a picture that's a selfie, my engagement is times three. So you got to feed the people what they want now. You have to be creative. Not the same stale selfie. You got to give them different type of selfies, but, you know, to feed them selfies.

I love that. Yeah, look at how people are responding.

Exactly.

So, well, you're saying how different people want different things. So maybe someone loves your videos and someone loves your quotes. So I guess where people get confused is then should I just be going after that thing that they want, or maybe that thing that they don't really want so much, just keep feeding it in there to build that audience?

Well, you want to go with what people want. You don't want to force it.

Like, I have friends, for example, that they post, post, like, quotes and pictures of themselves, but their quotes do way better. They're like, so should just stop posting pictures of myself.

So, yeah. So with that situation, it all depends on your ending goal, too. So if the ending goal is you don't want a baby page, right? Every time you post your baby, it goes viral. But you want every picture to be about your baby, right? So you have to understand what's your ending goal. Is your ending goal, like, who's your consumer? Are you doing this for consumers? You want customers, or you're doing it for popularity? And that way you know how to go where to Go. Right. I know some guys that do post a lot of quotes. Right. Every other picture is a quote, and it keeps the page growing and engagement going. But if that's not what you want to be perceived as, then you got to figure out what makes you comfortable that everybody else like. Right. Because just because everybody like you doing negative stuff don't mean that that fits your brand. You want to just be negative all the time.

That does so well on social media.

Right. But you have to figure out what's the bad balance for you, because ultimately you're doing this to make yourself happy, too. You don't want to do things just for attention and for money that don't last long. It don't make you happy. That's why you see people with all these money, you know, end up committing suicide because they're not happening. I mean, they not. They're not happy inside and personally. And when you're not fulfilled inside, spiritually, emotionally, is, like, pointless. What are you doing it for?

For sure. Yeah. I've definitely seen a trend of, you know, authenticity on social media, but it's almost gone to this competition of, like, who can share, like, their deepest, darkest secrets more.

Right.

I had the worst day and. Or it's a picture of them, and they're like husbands. Like, we look happy in this picture, but we actually got into the worst fight of our life before this picture. And it's like, people are almost, you know, getting joy off of other people's misery because it's making them feel better. But it's almost like, why are we bonding over this?

Yeah. Yeah. I think that people really like to connect because everybody goes through a lot of stuff, right? And just to see somebody you can connect with, it means a lot to people. So I think people really thrive for that attention sometimes, and people really want to see that so they can pour their heart out on that situation. Like, I was just on loving hip hop and I was crying and stuff with my dad, but so many people probably going through the same situation. And I'm looking at the comments and I'm seeing paragraphs of comments. What that tells me is that tells me that people who see me on TV and see me crying in that situation with my father being vulnerable at the time, they can relate to it. So they like, yo, like, I didn't even have the balls to even cry. I would have walked away. Or, like, the way you handled it or whatever. And they want to, and they relate to it. So they're pouring their heart out in the comments, taking up for me. But in reality, they're really taking up for themselves and saying the things that they would want to say to their father or their mother in the same situation.

And that's such a beautiful way to use your social media following to talk about things that most people are afraid to talk about.

Yeah, I think connecting with your audience is everything. It's like back in the day, you used to get away with that. Now people really care about what you have going on, who you're supporting. That's why you see a lot of these CEOs on social media. These guys worth billions. But they understand the power of social media and what that can do for their company. So the Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and the Zuckerberg, like, you know Zuckerberg. I mean, Elon Musk is on Twitter, Facebook, like, he's everywhere. You know Zuckerberg is everywhere. Like, and he don't even own some of the platforms he's on. But that just show you how important it is to have the social media and how people connect with your family and the things that you're doing on a day to day.

So how important do you think it is for social media to have an overall theme?

I think it's super important. Like my team, we like to create a formula. So are we gonna post a picture first, a quote second, a picture, Just that person, a selfie, a video, a viral video or something else. We figure out what that formula is.

And do you use a rule of six? I've heard people repeat every six times. Have you heard of this?

That's dope. I didn't. You just taught me something. I never thought about that.

So when the eye moves like that, it's like a spiral.

It actually makes sense to do that though, now that you say that, it makes sense because the feed blocks out 3 and 3, so it recycles the actual formula. So yeah, that's good.

I like that I just taught you something then.

There's nothing wrong with that. I learn something every day. I try to learn as much much as possible. Remember, that's my higher self when I'm learning.

It is, it is. And so tell us about. Were you just studying at Harvard?

Yes. Yes.

Can you tell us about that?

All right. So I decided to enroll in Harvard. And that was because I wanted to know what they was teaching that I didn't know if that makes sense. Right. So I started my company. I knew nothing about business. I was just a musician. And. And being a musician, you don't have to do nothing but be talented, right? And if you have the right talent, you can go viral, make money. But with business, it's so many moving parts. You have sales, you have leadership, right? You have the best product in the world. But if you don't know how to lead your team, everybody's going to quit on you or you just this asshole or whatever, whatever it is on how you lead your team, right? Then you have marketing, you have operations, you have all these things that makes a company successful. And I didn't know none of this stuff. So as my company took off and it's just making all this money and I became one of the fastest growing companies in America, I didn't want to, like, fail, like, when it comes to not only myself, because I take my L's, like, with happiness, right? It's like, all right, cool. I learned from that and I just figured out that. But I have a team, they have families. They family are dependent on them for certain things. So it's like, I can't let down all these people. So I'm like, I got to learn as fast as possible. So I started going to these seminars, taking programs and freaking reading over 100 books. I didn't start reading books until three years. When I started my company is when I started reading books. I was the idiot. See, I don't even read no damn books. Like an idiot. Like, I just feel stupid. I even used to say that. But that's when everything started getting unlocked. When I started reading books and really start mastering education in the hood and projects, whatever you want to call it, and figuring out how to make money from that. So I understood that element. Then I got into the book, understood books, right? I got book smarts. So the only thing I hated was school. I cheated my whole way through high school because I was bored and I felt like school wasn't teaching me nothing. Like, school don't teach you nothing that you can utilize in the real world. Like, why are you teaching me geometry, bro? Why are you teaching me trigonometry? Why teach me. We can deal with that later, right? Teach me how to do my taxes. Teach me how to, you know, save money on taxes. Teach me about Rob Ira. Like, I like, teach me about profit sharing plan. Teach me about how to invest my money, you know, how to manage my money. Like, that's what I need to know. So by enrolling into Harvard, I feel like, all right, I figured out all this other stuff. So let me see what Harvard could teach me now because I have all these different components. The last thing I'm missing is school, right? Because I felt like high school failed me. Let me see what this is. Now that I'm ready. And I felt like the way Harvard teaches with case studies, it's like the perfect type of learning. So what I realized when I went to Harvard is that the way they teach is good. It's a good teaching, but I feel that it's still not enough where people can really utilize it in their business. So I started my own academy online called Adwazar Academy. And basically it teaches you everything you need to know as an entrepreneur, starting a business or even having a successful business. On every last thing that I had a huge hurdles that I lost millions of dollars in figuring out lessons and learning from them, I'm putting them all in the program so you can learn how to do sales, selling through personality, how to save money on taxes. One strategy in my program, I save over 70 grand on taxes off of one little strategy that I'm teaching in my program, which is like, like amazing when it comes to doing taxes. You're making all this money, but you're giving it all to Uncle Sam, right? So it's doing it legal but smart. You know what the top 5% in the world do every single year, right? We teaching you how to do marketing on Instagram, on Facebook. These are all things that you need to know to market yourself as a business. How to build your personal brand on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on YouTube, and become an influence in your niche. So now you're more elite over any competition. So pretty much, I teach you everything that I went through. CRM systems. Nobody teach you about that in school. I just figured out what a CRM system was like two years ago. And I'll break it everything down Asana breaking down tasks and operations on how to have accountability for your team, you know, how to make them feel ownership in their own department. You know, I say all my team and my company, your CEO of your department, you make your decision. This is you. You stay. If you got to stay late or you got to work on weekends, this is the only way that you're going to get the results you want. You know, anything that's easy ain't really good for you. Everything that's hard and challenging is worth the ending result. So it's just stuff like that. And I put it all in the program. So everything I learned throughout my journey, I put in one program. And anything that I was good at, but somebody else was a beast at amazing, I had them teach it. So if I'M good in sales, but this person made $10 million just off a sale. Ask them to teach in my programs as a millionaire teacher. So Harvard, they have professors. My program, I have all millionaire teachers. So these are guys who's actually making millions right now, to this day. And things that's working right now, they're teaching you the secrets because I told them my vision was to fix the school system. Everybody complains about it, but nobody does nothing about it. So I came up with my own program. And now instead of having professors, I'm having real millionaires teach you their secret on how they do what they do on a daily basis.

Oh, so good. And is this school open? How do we sign up? I'm signing up.

Yeah. So it's called I was our Academy. And if you go to my link in my bio, you know, you can just sign up for my live training. And.

And his Instagram is Iamspectacular.

I am spectacular.

I'll have it in the show notes.

Yep, yep. So I'm just trying to teach. I'm trying to. My goal is this year, my whole campaign is I want to create at least 100 million millionaires.

I'm signing up.

Yeah.

I will be your first.

For sure. For sure. And my goal is for women. You know, I really. I feel like women don't have. I feel like women don't get the opportunities that they deserve. Like, my office, all my leadership team and my. For my company is 100% women. It's not one male on my leadership team. And I feel like women deserve more, you know, and I feel like I can help them gain the confidence, understanding what's possible, because a lot of times, limited beliefs on what's possible because they feel like, you know, they overshadowed or by men, or they feel like they can't get in a powerful position or, you know, they come to a situation to work for somebody, but really, they can be a partner, they can be a boss. So just. It's gonna happen.

I love it. Yeah. I mean, it's so necessary because these are all things, like, a lot of the things that I've taught myself that you were like, where'd you learn this? I'm like, I don't know.

I just.

Just. You just figure it out. But imagine how much time you would have saved if someone had just, like, told you.

Absolutely. And that's what I say to my students. I say, listen, you want to figure this out for 10 years and lose over millions of dollars like I did, or I can just give you literally a sheet of paper and say, you do 1, you do 2, you do 3, you do 4, you do 5, you do 6, you do 7, 8, 9, 10, and you're going to get this result and that's it.

Yeah, I definitely think, and I think a lot of us, we think that it has to be hard. It has to be this, like, huge struggle, and it doesn't. You know, there's people who've walk the path who can make it easier for us.

Yes, everybody. Leave breadcrumbs to success. You don't have to do it. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. My team used to ask me. They don't ask me this no more, but they used to come up to me and ask me. It's like, hey, Spec, what should we do? This guy is doing this. This company is doing this. And they'll come to me, and I look at them, and they look back at me. They say, all right, if it works for them, it'll work for us, you know? And they walk off because it's like they're already figured it all out. They already done went through the bumps and bruises. So why I gotta come and try to remix what they got going on? It's working already, right. So I can go and do what they're doing. Put a little twist. But I don't twist much. I put a little sprinkle on it.

Yeah, it's. It's such good advice. And I think a lot of us, we are like, well, I can't. That's copying. And it's not copying. It's more taking a strategy. But with your content and your Right and.

Right. Your personality, Tad, spin on it. Right. Keeping the same formula. And what I like to do is go and figure out what everybody's doing. Right. In my niche, I go take all the best stuff that I really like. Well, I really liked it. That. I really liked it. That. I really liked it. That make my own situation, then add my little spin on top of it. And now I have a proven system. Right. And a proven formula. And then I add my 1, 2 on it. What makes it my own. And I think a lot of people could take advantage of that just with seeing what everybody else is doing and really paying attention. Attention.

I love that. So clearly your mind is very organized. And when you came over, I was like, what's your sign? Because you're like, let me make sure this is perfect, and you can tell us your sign.

Yeah, I'm a Virgo.

Yes. So can you tell us how you Got into astrology, how your girl told you about it, how you didn't believe in it before, and now you're checking everyone's sign.

Yeah. Yeah. So for me, the whole zodiac thing, I mean, one time my. My fiance was telling me, she was like, start reading this. This. Like, she started reading to me, and I was just like, okay. And she was reading me about me. Like, she was. She was. She was reading the zodiac, Virgo from this website. And I was just like, man, stop playing with me. You wrote that. It was so on point. I was just like, holy crap. Like, for real. So it made me me dig deeper into it, and I was just like, there's no way. It was just like, whatever, man. Just because you born a certain time of the year, it makes you this type of person. I was like, whatever. But when she read that to me, I started digging deeper. So I was like, you know what? I started looking at a compatible signs for Virgo is Capricorns, Taurus, and Virgos. And I started calling all my friends. I never asked them their birthdays, anything. And I was like, oh, my bodyguard. He's a Virgo. Okay. Dang, that was crazy. My mentor. Oh, shoot. Master P, he's a Taurus. And I started, like, started doing all this math and start calculating. I was like, wow. Like, this is like some real stuff.

That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, I love seeing, like, more and more people who are super skeptical about astrology and all this stuff, like, going into it more. And that's why I'm going to look up your entire birth chart and your human design once you know your birth time and think that'll open up even more doors for you.

Yeah.

So thank you so much for all this incredible information. You really helped us learn and be your highest self as well. So where can listeners connect with you, listen to your podcast, and come see you on the millennium tour?

Hey. Yes. So my podcast is called A Spectacular Experience. We actually hit number one in the app store for my podcast, so you guys could really check it out. I need you guys to just text me if you guys want to contact me, all right. Or you want to actually take my live training, you can actually go to 786-661-1224 and course and it'll automatically send you a link to my free training for my entrepreneur MBA program for my Awazar Academy. All right? And then if you guys want to contact me on social media is I am Spectacular on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and then my LinkedIn. All you have to do is put in Spectacular Smith and it'll pop up.

Well, thank you so much for sharing. I'm so excited for the Millennium Tour.

Yes, Millennial Tour.

I'm literally skipping Coach Coachella ain't got.

Nothing on a Millennial Tour.

And thank you for the work that you're putting out into this world and for being just such an inspirational, motivational, and positive person.

Thank you. I appreciate you for having me.

Hey baby, grind with me Relax your mind Take your time with me I love you deeper if you cry for me and come and kiss me till your body gets weak we're slow grinding baby be oh so good I loved hearing his wisdom. Such a cool guy. And it's amazing to see how someone's life can transformationally change just by following their highest self. If you loved this episode, I would love if you could leave me a review in the iTunes store and as a free gift, I will share with you the first half of my unreleased book, Eat Right for your Mind Body Type. Simply email a screenshot of your review over to SaharaetFeelFresh.com again, Sahara S A H A R A@EatFeelFresh.com and I will send you over the first half of my unreleased book, Eat Right for your Mind Body Type. Thank you and namaste.

Sam.