T.I. Shares What You Need to Know About Achieving Success

Looking to diversify your business portfolio with a high growth opportunity? Discover Mathnasium Learning Centers the 1 Math Only education franchise for more than 20 years, Mathnasium has triumphed in a booming multi billion dollar tutoring industry. With over 1200 centers worldwide. Ranked on entrepreneurs franchise 500 list for 11 consecutive years, Mathnasium is low cost, recession resistant and offers significant growth potential in an expanding market. The demand for math education is skyrocketing driven by declining math scores and the growing need for STEM skills in today's workforce. What makes Mathnasium a smart investment, affordable entry point and quick build out time? High earning centers with seven figure annual revenue and industry leading 30% plus average profit margins and it's a trusted brand with high consumer satisfaction scores. And here's something extra. They're offering a 25% discount on the franchise fee for former teachers and veterans. So whether you're expanding your franchise portfolio or making your first investment, Mathnasium gives you the systems and support you need to succeed. And get your free franchise information kit@mathnasiumfranchise.com or call 888-763-2604. That's mathnasiumfranchise.com, or call 888-763- 2604.

This episode is brought to you by Wayfair Podcasts. Follow us everywhere. Whether you're cooking in the kitchen, chilling in the living room, or pretending to fold laundry in the and with Wayfair, every one of those rooms can tell a story of its own. Their curated collections of furniture styles and prices make Wayfair the trusted destination to turn your home into your happy place. Shop everything home@wayfair.com with free and easy delivery straight to your door. Wayfair Every style, Every Home.

Don't let other people's opinion of your vision impact your decision to execute that vision. Your vision is yours for a reason. My vision is mine for a reason. Usually the first thing we do when we get a vision is we take it to the people around us and say, hey look, this is what I had an idea doing. And they're probably because of their fears, their failures, because they don't believe that they could do it because it's not their vision. They would say, nah man, why would you do that? Nah, that ain't gonna work. That'll never happen. But then we probably start second guessing ourselves. Well, maybe, maybe I was tripping. And then we don't proceed to bring the vision to life. That was probably one of the greatest mistakes I made. Letting other people talk me out of what my vision was. When you see it a year later or two years later, other people are doing it, you're like, damn, I was there first. I lit. And you can't blame nobody but yourself.

You may know rapper T.I. from his music, but you're about to be amazed at the insight he has to offer you on finding purpose in your struggles, trusting your mentors, and one simple tactic that will increase your chance of success. This is the launch your business podcast. Because we know starting a business is challenging, but it doesn't have to be confusing. Each week, we'll give you the tactical advice and the necessary tools to scale your business without feeling burnt out. I'm Terry Rice, business development consultant and staff writer here at Entrepreneur Magazine. Let's dive in. As you may know, I'm a staff writer at Entrepreneur Magazine in addition to hosting this podcast. And one cool benefit of that is I often get approached to write articles about people that I admire. And I always record them because it makes the whole process of writing an article easier. Seriously, I don't know how any journalist is able to take handwritten notes and then write an article about the chat. There's like, there's just no way I can remember that much. And a lot of times I'm the only one who hears the recording. But once in a while, the conversation is so great and there are so many good takeaways, I just have to share them with you, even if it was not originally meant to be a podcast. So that's what we're going to do today. And I'm going to share an interview I did with T.I. now, you may know T.I. from his music career, but I'm almost embarrassed to discover how little I knew about his operations as an entrepreneur. So today, here's what we're going to talk about. Why having a vision is so crucial to your success, why it's so important to have a trusted group of advisors and actually listen to them, and how to come up with business ideas just by observing your audience. But listen, as a heads up, the audio is going to be kind of rough at times because I was talking to him while he was at Trapp City Museum, one of his properties that we'll talk about later. And there were some people performing behind him at the time, so I encourage you to push through the parts that might be challenging to hear because he has an amazing message to share with you. And as you're about to find out, I actually start the interview by thanking him for a message that he sent me through his Music when I was going through a very rough patch of my career. Let's hop into it right now.

What's going on?

Tip Harris. How's it going?

How you doing, sir? I can't complain.

I'm good. I'm good. Before we actually start, I just want to say thank you. Because when I first moved to New York City, I was going through it. I had no money, I was five months behind on my rent, almost got evicted, and I would just listen to your song, live your life over and over again and just envision myself. Myself having electricity.

You say envisioned yourself having electricity.

The little things. And now my life's growing and doing better. So thank you.

You know what, man? You just spoke volumes to. You know, I think a lot of people. Because a lot of people be asking me what the first step is. You know, what's the first step? Like, how do I get started? How do I. Before you do anything, you got to adjust your vision. Your vision. You have to have a vision for something that's greater than what you see around you presently. So I think that vision did more justice for your outcome than that song did. But I'm a part. I'm proud of being a part of the process.

Yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. You. You instilled me to have that vision, and I'm living it now, so.

So thank you for that, man. That's a beautiful thing, man. Proud to be a part of the journey.

Okay, I'm going to hop in here real quick. I was trying to start the interview, but then I remembered another one of TI's songs that bears mentioning here. It's called Live youe Life. And just by bringing it up, he offered a valuable lesson about how important it is to just be alone with your own thoughts at times, to just block out the distractions so you can focus on what you want from your life. I wasn't going to bring this up, but when Live youe Life came out, there was a review. I think it was from, like, Vibe or Source. And they're like, wow, TI is now maturing. Look at this line saying you're unhappy with your life because your choices are, like, piss poor or piss poor morally. And I'm like, have you guys been listening to him the last X years? He's always been preaching. You just didn't pick up on it. So, like, just, like, right now, I mean, I read that. I was like, you guys have missed this whole. The whole theme of what he was talking about. Like, you didn't.

You didn't get it live your life. I feel like at the time when I dropped was very introspective because of the time period in my life and the things that were going on around me in my universe. I was doing a lot of deep reflection, you know what I'm saying? A lot of analyzing life and purpose and things that the true value of things. And the song was presented in such a way, just the hook was already there. J Just Blaze had already kind of laid the hook. So I just knew that I had to keep it within context as it relates to me and then also make it broad enough to be relatable to others. So I think that was, you know, saying that was kind of. It was a layup, if you will, you know, or should I say maybe the Perfect Storm, you know, that song with that hook, that content, what I was going through in my life, all of the reflection I had been doing, the. The time to. To myself that I had to dedicate to writing. You know, that was a time I was on home confinement still. So I remember getting the song at the studio and I think I had to be home by 12 midnight. So I probably received the song around 9, 10. Then I had to take it home and write it because I had to be home by 12. So I had to take it home when I got home. I wrote it overnight, came back the next day and laid it. Well, usually I just stay in the studio and just do it until it's done. And I think me going home and actually having an opportunity to reflect in my house, you know what I'm saying, dealing with my circumstances, I think it pulled. It pulled a different performance out of me.

So that part for me was huge. Because you can experience an amazing transformation and. And deliver excellent work Once you're able to clearly hear the signal through the noise on your end, that may mean blocking out naysayers. Maybe it's performing deep work or even just working in a quieter environment. So, yes, yet another reason to work from home. But okay, let's get back into it here because right now TI Is going to share why it's so important to find meaning in something besides your business and to trust the right people. One question I have is right now a lot of people feel stuck in their job or their industry or their role, and they don't know how to live their life. So I'm wondering, on your end, what was the first non rap venture that you pursued?

Well, first of all, before I even answer the second part of that question, I want to address the first part of the statement when you say people don't know how to live their life, I, I think that like the first thing is, is you try to find yourself focusing on something greater than you, you know what I mean? You know, a lot of people would call that, that energy universe, you know, God, you know, a lot of people, you know, go with religion. You know, I think family is always a good component. But believing in something greater than you, because if you think you are the greatest thing that you have in life, then your failures are going to hit hard. You know, your lack of perfection is going to affect you in such a way that it makes it difficult for you to find the joy in life that everybody else can find. You know, you believe in something greater than you and no matter how flawed you are, you still see greatness, the potential for greatness because you believe in something, you believe in something greater than yourself. So I think that allows people to kind of live life a little more passionate, just find a little more joy, find the love, find the peace, be at peace, find a calm. You know what I'm saying? If your outlook on life is only based on your performance, then you gonna be sad a lot of the time. Because to reach farther, that means you got to be willing to fail harder. You know what I mean? And in those moments when we're, you know, in those rebuilding periods, learning the lessons of life, failing forward, as one would say, this could get depressing, you know what I mean? If we don't tap into some energy or some, some, something that's greater than us. So that's the third part of the question. Now the second thing, what would the first non rap venture, the first non rap venture with real estate? Okay, yeah, real estate. And my uncle really pushed me into it when I got my first check. So when I got my first check from the face of what had you, My uncle was subsequently rejecting, released from prison. He had did 10 years. And this was like, you know, a real, real role model for, for me throughout my life. He kind of left when I was 8, came back when I was like about to be 19. So we get home, I probably had about a seventy thousand dollar check. And he, he said, man, give me forty thousand dollars. I say what? Say yeah man, I know you just got your check, man, give me, I ain't seen you in 10 years, I can't get 40. Say man, go ahead man. So you know, I gave him the money and went and blew the wrist, you know, I won't say I blew it. I bought things I needed, you know, What I'm saying, and blue the rest. And I guess, you know, I hit then, you know, kinda found other ways, you know, to. To subsidize my lifestyle up into a point. Well, probably about six, seven, eight months later, he. He put me in his truck, drove me down, he drove me up to the house. It was a house that I used to sell dope out on. And he asked me, say, you know this house? I said, yeah, that's Bruhaus, you know. You know that. I said, he didn't got off, he done got off the dope. He said, nah, man, we bought the house from him, man, I got the house from him. I fixed it up. I know it's a family in this house now. And that was your money did. And he said, so I could, I could give you your money back or we could go get two more houses. And that got me in the real estate business and in New Finish Construction, which was the company that he ran and operated, he built like 90 something to 100 houses between 2000 and 2008. Whenever the.

That story is just incredible to me because T.I. and his uncle built 100 homes in less than 10 years. And it's all because he trusted his uncle to look out for his best interest. And remember, his uncle just did 10 years in prison. Right. I have uncles that live here in Brooklyn and have regular jobs, and I still don't trust him as much as he did. So on your end, now's a good time to think about who those people are in your life, who's looking out for you, even though you might not always agree with their feedback or advice. Okay, back to our chat with TI and we're going to stick with real estate for a moment. And as you're about to hear, his next project is very meaningful as well. All right, so he did the right thing, obviously, and learned a lot while he was away. And I'm going to give him credit for probably where you're at right now, which is the Trap Music Museum or Trap Music Cafe. Which one are you at? Which one are you at now, man?

Both. Okay, so Trap Music Museum was definitely the result of a commercial real estate acquisition, but I didn't buy it for it to be the Trap Music Museum. You know, in Atlanta you kind of hear about stuff that's going on, whether it's, you know, large developments. Like Microsoft just bought about 90 some acres, 100 some acres, right on Bankhead. So that tells us everything around that area is about to become exponentially more valuable. So people who are in the business we know to kind of identify the best deals on the market in that area. So that's what it happened with the super bowl and with the new stadium being built down here. Everybody was identifying parcels and, you know, different buildings to acquire. So I bought this building, didn't know what I was going to do with it. And around the same time, we were in marketing meetings at Grand Hustle, trying to figure out what we were going to do to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Trap music. And also around that time, there was a lot of talk, a lot of questioning, a lot of conversation around who invented trap music and, you know, who's actually the founding forefather, so on and so forth. And in that marketing meeting, somebody said, man, you know, we should do a museum. Like a museum about trap music. So I was like, ah, man, how would we do a museum? What you mean, museum? Come on, man. At first, in my mind, I was like, we don't have a building big enough for that. You know what I mean? I'm thinking like the high museum or, you know, I'm thinking the traditional museum image that a person gets in their head. And so we left that meeting and I just. As I was walking around, I was like, how could we. Could this be a museum? And then it just kind of clicked somewhere. We just started connecting the dots, and I got the vision. You know what I mean? So hearing the idea, having the access to a location and walking that property gave me the vision. And once I shared that vision, of course the people around me added on to it. It made it greater, and the execution of that vision was imperative. And they also connected those dots on. On Grand Hustle's behalf. And it was only supposed to be a temporary installation. We was only supposed to open it for, like, three months and then take it down, do something else. But the line been wrapped around the cone has become sort of like a landmark. You know what I mean? It's a. It's a tourist attraction now. And I only think I could. I don't think I could close it if I wanted to.

Well, I gotta get down there then. But as I'm listening, I realize you took your own advice. You found something greater than yourself. Because if you're saying, oh, who's the founding fathers, you know, xyz? You could be like, look, I'm the king. It says so on the album. Like, why. Why are we even debating this? Why are we making a museum about this? But you said, you know what? I can help the industry and help a lot of other people. If I just have this location where people can just learn about it, grow the community, grow the culture. So you're. You're literally taking your own advice in regards to how you. You built this. Instead of making it about TI you made about everybody.

Well, that's true. You know what I'm saying? That's true. But I didn't intend, like, I didn't just, like, say, hey, let me help everybody. That I don't think, you know, it was more about just have giving. Giving the community or the culture the opportunity to tell our story before somebody else told it for us.

All right, I'm going to jump in here again because I want you to pay close attention to what TI Is about to say. And if you do, you'll notice how important it is to document and tell your founder story. We had Patrice Poulter talk about that in episode 12, but I love the perspective and example ti uses to highlight this. So again, he just got done saying that he created Trap Music Museum because it was a chance to tell the story before someone else told it for.

The community that was taking control of our own narrative. I always found myself defending trap music because people always say, whether it's glorification or a criminal lifestyle, and I'm like, well, you can look at it like that, but I look at us as, like, refugees from a war on drugs. It was war waged on our communities, you know what I mean? And we were placed in positions that we didn't have a lot of options of getting out of. You know, it was a real Rubik's Cube of circumstances that if you live. If you grew up between 85 and 2000, like, you were just subjected to certain actions and activities that you couldn't help. You just couldn't help. You couldn't get around it. And that could have destroyed you, or you could have used all of the negative that you witnessed in the. In them circumstances and somehow turned it around and used it in a positive light to help others. And I feel like that what trap music is, philosophical presentation, set the music that. That let everybody else who go through similar situations, let them know that they ain't go through it alone. You know, I think it's therapeutic in a sense. And I also feel that if there was an alcoholic, you take a. Let's take a drug addict. If someone smoke crack between 85 and 99 or 85 and 2005, and they got clean, and from 2005 up until now, they've been cleaned, and they go around and use their experiences to help others. They can still tell you how it feels to be high. They could tell you to smell the dope. They could tell you all their face to get dope head on their life. They could tell you about the people that they seen, how it affected their life. They could tell you how it affected their family. They own the right to that testimony. That testimony should not die with them. They should be able to use that testimony to reach out to help other people who could find themselves in similar situations, to let those people know you can make it too. And that's what trap music is to me. You know what I'm saying? And so I found myself defending that. And I felt that, you know, a museum was the perfect place to kind of offer as much of that type of information that we can surrounding installments, installations, and exhibits that celebrate the most significant contributors to the culture and helping everybody and creating jobs in the community. And all that stuff became intangible, you know what I'm saying? It was really just about, you know, giving us an opportunity to control our narrative and tell our story before people outside the country could tell it for us.

I'm really glad I got a chance to share this with you, because chances are you've been through some stuff too, or maybe you're still going through it. But that story is yours to tell. And by doing so, you humanize yourself. You're not just another random person selling stuff. There's a meaning and resilience behind it. And by sharing your story, you can let others know they aren't alone in their challenges or maybe even help them avoid those challenges. All right, so now we're going to pivot back and talk a bit about a brand new brand that TI is developing called Signature, which is a collection of cigar wraps, vegan wraps, natural leaves, gummies, and cbd. We're going to chat about why he chose this venture right now. And as you'll hear in the background, they're actually in the middle of planning a comedy show. So you're going to hear a few laughs at the beginning, but they're not laughing at us or TI they're laughing with each other. So it's all good. So you have a lot of ventures that you are involved in and can be involved in. So what made you decide on Signature?

Well, it's very simple. I think that since I began to diversify my portfolio outside of real estate, it's always been about what does our culture spend money on? What does our culture spend? Guys, just a little bit. What does our culture.

I can Tell you're a dad because that was a dad move.

No, man, I need my homeboys and my partners back here. It's actually the Haha mafia. We're in the middle of a comedy meeting that I had to. So what does our culture spend money on? I see we spend money on clothes. Got clothing lines, you know what I mean? I see we, we spend money, we spend money on food, drinks. So I got a lounge where I offer food and drinks. You know, it's always been about where can I impact the market with my platform by offering something that the culture already spends their money on. And I've seen a lot of people have great success in the liquor and the spirits category that seems to be a bit saturated. So I've identified that tobacco, as far as that backwoods, has no competition, you know what I'm saying? There is no minority people, person of color owned business within our culture that offers the same services as a background. And the cannabis industry is skyrocketing and it only is going to lend even more opportunity for the increase of purchase of tobacco products. And I think that our culture and our communities could benefit from, you know, the capital that would come from the success of said brand.

Okay, one last time, I'm going to interrupt here because there's one lesson to highlight. If you want to be successful and reduce risk, just find a need and fill it. Sure, it's possible to create a whole new product category, but it's also going to take a lot more research effort and perhaps some luck. But if you solve an existing problem, you already have a built in audience of people who need your product or service because you're giving us a lot of great information about what you've learned. So I'm wondering, what is one lesson about entrepreneurship that you wish you learned sooner?

Don't let other people's opinion of your vision impact your decision to execute that vision. Your vision is yours for a reason. My vision is mine for a reason. Usually the first thing we do when we get a vision is we take it to the people around us and say, hey, look, this is what I had an idea doing. And they're probably because of their fears, their failures, because they don't believe that they could do it because it's not their vision. They would say, nah man, why would you do that? Nah, that ain't gonna work, that'll never happen. And then we probably start second guessing ourselves. Well, maybe, maybe I was tripping. And then we don't proceed to bring the vision to life. That was probably one of the greatest mistakes I made, letting other people talk me out of what my vision was. Because when you see it a year later or two years later, other people are doing it. You're like, damn, I was there first. I lit. And you can't blame nobody but yourself.

Yeah, there's this one guy who said your calling was not a con call. So you don't have to tell everyone else about it. It's not their calling, it's yours. So you're, you're echoing that and. And I'll let you go. This has been amazing. I've been a fan for years as a performer, but also as an individual and an entrepreneur. So just thank you very much for your time. I. I do hope to get down there soon, but thanks. It's been amazing. I appreciate it.

I man, appreciate you on your time as well, man.

All right, take care. And that's our show. And like I said, I'm glad I got a chance to share this conversation with you. There was one part we didn't have time to include, but I'll give you the Cliff Notes. TI Is continuing to build his real estate empire while also creating a positive impact for those around him. How's he doing that? He recently developed Entrada, a 143 unit affordable housing community that also features a community garden and after school programs. And I'm looking forward to following along to see what he does next. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next time. Apply what you've learned on today's show. You'll find the show notes and more resources at Terryrice Co. Podcast. Again, that's Terryrice Co. Podcast and the best way to support this podcast is by subscribing, telling a friend, and leaving a review. Also, you can get more tips by following me on Instagram terryrice or follow me on LinkedIn. This episode was produced by Josh Wilcox of Brooklyn Podcasting Studio and edited by Dan Lardy. Special thanks to my wife, Dominique, for keeping our kids relatively quiet as I recorded. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you next time.