EYL #71 Sleep is 4 Suckers feat. David Shands

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All right, guys, welcome back, Lisia. Yeah, yeah, we got a very special episode today.

Atlanta has always been good.

To Atlanta is like a second home for that's a fact. Everybody knows that we're from New York, but we travel a lot to Atlanta, and one of our Partnershot the Mike, is in Atlanta, so you know, yeah, so we got a direct pipeline to Atlanta, so we got one of Atlanta's Oh are you from Atlanta? Originally?

I'm from New Jersey originally Willingboro.

Okay, yeah, for sure, all right, like everybody else, nobody. So, David Shan's interesting guy. He's an entrepreneur, he's an author. He uh is the head of an event that we're actually going to be a part of, Real Social Pool conference. He teaches people how to become entrepreneurs. He has a podcast, he does branding, he's always on social.

Media, mindset tailoring like that. Yeah, I appreciate that we coined that like that.

He's a real renaissance man. And if you're on social media and you've seen him with the director's chair eating dorito.

One day you cheated on you had like cheetos, I said, yo, what you're doing.

Yeah, but here's the thing. What are my homegirls? She said, Yo, I know somebody at Cheetos just make a video.

For say no more.

I'm not married to no like rap snacks, high at legs anything. Look, if it's a if you got a black owned celery company, got the same crutch.

With Yes, So David, he's an entrepreneur and a true renaissance man. So before we start, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it, thanks for having me coming up. Really, welcome to the green room.

Y'all been waiting to be a e y L alumni. Y'all made that a thing. Y'all made it.

Appreciate that we were led the last time. You were like, Yo, I'm gonna be alumnus, man, I know it.

Yeah, I just want to be in a conversation.

I know everybody's gonna listen and watch and all that, but I like, because everybody's like, yeah, we got this alumni, I.

Just want to be in the welcome So yeah, So before we start, I want to get your backstory because I think it's interesting, especially for people that are struggling. As far as we talk about business a lot and a lot of times people feel like it's a pipe dream as far as becoming an entrepreneur business owner. You know, you're working a nine to five job and you just

Absolutely? Absolutely so.

When I've been trying to be an entrepreneur for a long time, I mean since I was a kid where I was raking leaves at my house and I look across the street and my neighbor has leaves on the lawn on it, and I'm like, yo, I really like the fact that the leaves look real pretty on the lawn. But for some reason, my dad makes me rake my leaves, but I go knock on the door. I'm like, yo, I like the beauty of the colors, but do you not like the fact that leaves.

Are on your lawn?

She said no, I mean I just don't feel like doing it. I'm like, yo, I gotta rake. What's up?

So but fast forward, you know, try and fail.

And I don't want to say fail because everything that didn't work out through my journey helped me in this right here. So the final straw was working at the cheesecake factory and this is what happened. It's cool story. My birthday's coming up and I've been at cheesecake factory for a little while and I'm cutting bread from my table and this girl comes up to me and says, yo, what are you gonna do for your birthday this year? Because my birthday was coming up, I was like, I

I try something, it starts a little bit, then I just.

Get like the shiny object syndrome and start something else. And this is the first time I said, Yo, that's enough, and I was trying to really build something.

So all right, so you get through the epiphany and then so your first business that you start is the kiosk.

So I was.

I was building a T shirt brand called Sleep is for Suckers, geared to it. I still have it and it's still doing well. But Sleep is for suckers geared towards entrepreneurship and people that lose sleep doing.

What they love.

Because I'm trying to figure out what is the best time to build this business because I'm working eight to ten hour shifts.

I spill still. You know, I had some.

Church obligations with my mom and stuff like that, and I'm like, the only time that I could really build his businesses after work. So I work all day on my job and all night on my dream trying to build something and just came up with the trade sleep is for Suckers because that was the time window I had to give up sleep. I wasn't gonna give up my job. I wasn't gonna give up time my mom. I wasn't gonna give up time to my church. It was that time window that I'm sleep for eight hours.

So you just so in my mind, I'm envisioning this. This is in Atlanta.

Atlanta, you just drive so houses where you're just driving around, pulling up on people like, yo, you're going to barbers.

How are you marketing this?

I mean it first started with you know, like wristbands. So I got these riskbands to say sleep is for suckers, and I'm trying to sell people on the idea. If I can sell people on the philosophy and it's regular, I mean, any riskmands you can get, but I'm trying to sell people on the concept. And then I put Sleepers for Suckers on a T shirt. The designs were whack, but people felt the story like, Yo, I don't sleep either.

Yo.

I'm trying to build something too.

So I started with T shirts, and you know, I started with my my coworkers, my friend family, who say, Yo, when that drops, I'm gonna buy it, and they don't, you like. So at that point I started this cool starting and I got a lot of story.

So I'm stopping a minute. I'm gonna make them that long.

But even in my book, I wrote this part called one hundred Dollars Off Days, where my goal is to build my business on my off days, just my off days, because I was working five days a week on my job, two days a week on my dream. Every single day, my goal is to go out and sell four T shirts. I'm selling T shirts for twenty five dollars, so I'm trying to sell four T shirts. I'm trying to make

Yeah, yeah, I mean that's what lazy people say.

Okay, yeah, my goal is I'm focused on whatever happens throughout the week is extra. But my goal is on my off days, feel it will work. If I can put time into my job, I can put time to my business. So I started hitting these these hundred dollars each of Y So I called my boss, like, yo, can you only put me.

On four days a week instead of five?

Because I knew if I can make two hundred dollars on two off days, if I had three off days, I can make three hundred.

And that joint started to hit.

So long story short, by the time I quit my job, I was like working a day a week.

So I like, so I.

Teach people to transition out of their job. Let's set these small goals and build from there.

So can you talk about that, because that's important as far as it's all about strategy in life. And it's like you never just want to jump out the window in anything, So can you break that down a little bit to transition out of your job? I liked that idea?

Was it, like I'm thinking myself, like was there any fear in that? Like or how did that play on your mind? Like I'm doing this, I'm out.

I don't know.

It wasn't really It wasn't really a fear because it happened so gradually, you know what I mean. It's like with this podcast, you drop one episode, then two, then three, and it starts to build. So I'm trying to make on my off just two d my goal is to make two hundred dollars a week. If I can't sell eight T shirts in seven days, you know what I mean. Like, so it was it wasn't like a fear of of, oh, I got to go quit my job.

That would be scary.

I'm just trying to make a couple more dollars to like go to the club and hang out and put something on a bottle. I still won't gonna buy it myself, but I want to be a person that could chip in. So it wasn't really a fear, especially because since I was a kid, I've always been trying. The hard part was sticking when I'm only making two hundred dollars a week,

It goes back to your and I looked at you your page The life cycle of a good idea, This sounds like the life everybody goes through it too, you know what I mean, Like, can you break down that process?

Because I'm sure there's a lot of.

People that have ideas and they make it to the first stage of excitement, but they never make it to the last day.

Oh never.

So I came across this presentation. I was on tour with ET two thousand and seven, and I think like a few hours before I was supposed to turn in my presentation, I just I was like, Yo, I got it. The life cycle of a good idea is excitement. Everybody gets excited about the idea. But then you got to move to evolution, where you got to start evolving the idea, which is not as exciting as when you got the id and you get to tell everybody and you see the vision. Yo, this goal was taking me out of

You're assessinate.

You're assessinate, and then you make a decision to just don't get excited about something else, fight through it, take all that data, get re excited about the same concept, retool it, keep engaging, go through the resistance, and then you expand.

You said something important and Shotty comes from a sales background, and you come from a sales background. You said a sales starts when somebody says no.

Oh for sure.

In my mind, I'm like, yeah, somebody says no, it's next to the next place. What's the importance of that, Like, what's the philosophy bond that?

I mean?

When you go into a shoe store, obviously somebody comes up to you and they're like, can I help you? And you always say no, I'm good, Like we're trained to say no. The actual set the game starts when they say no first. So I was expecting, yo, you want to buy a T shirt? And they say no. I'm like, all right, man, what I gotta go to the next person. But then I realized that one of my mentors said, yo, make them tell you know twice. So I'm like, YO, would you like to make buy

Yeah. Now, the sales is we talked about that a few times on the podcast is something that most people are extremely afraid of because nobody likes to talk to strangers. Like we conditioning as kids not to talk to strangers. That's the first thing they tell you, don't talk to strangers, and that carries over as an adult. And it's like to walk up to somebody, especially to try to ask them to buy a product, and they spend money with you.

I got a classhout out of my man saying he came on our coaching call, have a call in the mornings, and he said, man, how do I take my business to the next level? And my costume was like, Yo, how many people do you ask to buy your service? He said, man, not that many. I said, YO, give me a number, like, how many people do you actually ask? He said, well, uh, not a whole lot.

Bro.

How many did you ask yesterday? He said none. I said, that's the problem. So this is what I want you to do. Because he's afraid to ask for the sale, I said, or he's afraid to attest. He's afraid to like like get into sales. But what I told them was I just want you to ask three people a day. That's your goal. I don't care whether you buy or not, because the pressure is in their answer. But if you condition your mind and say, yo, my goal is not

A little while.

I never I've asked. I never like try to sell you anything. But let me get my number out. And if you can start to get your number out three sales, five, just make five calls.

Make your goal.

Make your goal of the work, not the reward, because the reward is scary because if you don't get it, you're disappointed. But what you can control is the work. That's the only thing control.

So is there it's like a fine line between persistence and annoyance because I could imagine like, Yo, get this, get this, get this, and it's like, all right, is there.

A fine line to make a seale? You gotta be kind of annoying a little bit, Okay. I mean, at the end of the day, you got to ask her and be it's gonna be somebody you want to get on the podcast, they say no, next time you're seeing it, you need to ask them again. It's only our inside we feel like we're being annoying. But sometimes people just forget or And I learned this at the cheesecake factory. So dope, people want to they want to eat cheesecake, but they want you to convince them they want to

We got this new one. For sure, they'd be happy when I convince them no.

It's the no thing is extremely important, and it's important for people to understand how to take things personal. And you know, I just living in New York. I was on the subway years ago, and I just did like an observation that's like people these guys handing out like free newspaper. They're free to any anybody that's like coming through the turnstile, and every single person was like, no,

I think you how you do anything is how you do everything. So if if you're attempting to make a sale and they say no, if you're working on a product and you just can't figure it out, like these mics, you just couldn't figure out how to get it working, you'll probably stop at that too and just get another mic.

Right, But once you develop.

A certain a certain level of persistence, once you develop that trade, that carries to everything, you know what I mean, Like, if you can be if you can be persistent in a sales transaction. You could be persistent in getting that person interested enough enough to date you or trying to close that deal. I believe how you do anything, so how you do everything?

So you sound like you're gonna be a wholest some bachelor man.

So what are some steps? Like you said you coach people to become entrepreneurs in nine to five, what are some steps. I'm sure there's a lot of people that may listen to this podcast that have nine to five jobs and want to become entrepreneurs. Like, what are some practical steps that people can take.

I think the first step is just set a goal, and I don't care what the goal is. Ideally, if you're new in entrepreneurship, you don't want to set a sales goal or a reward goal. You want to set a work goal. So your work goal might be starting out from six to seven, every single day, I'm going to work on this product or this project, whatever it is I'm doing from six to seven. If you got a pie from six to seven, I'm reaching out to people to be on my I don't care what they say.

That, now, you know what. I'm glad you said that because that's something that I learned early on in business when I was first came into business, right, and I learned that you can't. People make the mistake all the time because they say, Okay, I want to make one hundred thousand offs and in order to do that, I need to make two thousand dollars a week, right, And it's like, Okay, I'm gonna make two thousand dollars a week.

You don't know, He's never done it.

So it's like, if you're selling a product, right, you might say, Okay, I need to sell ten of these whatever they are in order to make two thousand. But even saying all right, I'm gonna sell ten products, that's really not a good goal because how are you going to sell ten products? You gotta dig deeper to say, Okay, in order to sell ten products, I know I need to speak to one hundred people exactly. So the goal is not to sell ten products. The goal is to

Yeah.

The question is like, how long did you think it was gonna take to be successful?

Right?

And I mean that The thing is you're saying the numbers are so practical like one, You're not saying ten like one, Like that's practical, Like if I can reach that, if I didn't hit it the first week, all right, let me try that one the next week. It's not like yo, if I make two thousand, if I make a hundred, like yo, you made a hundred, Like you might even overlook that, like, Yo, you did one hundred.

It's not two thousand.

But it was something, right, and the goals that are not so lofty, And that's a good strategy.

I think just people remind themselves, Yo, a year from now is going to be here. So we just started this process a year ago. And we started this process, let's say a year ago, and you were on this journey of selling one every single day.

Yo, you just sold three hundred.

And sixty five products to this date, and can you imagine the personal development, what you've learned about yourself, the skills you've acquired by selling one every day. So let's not let twelve months come Like like my story, I felt like I was sleep for twelve months.

Nothing's changed by my age.

Let's set like something in this process is going to change twelve months from today.

That's crazy because I'm thinking, like how many people have gone through that, Like every year is the same, but the age, we're in the same spot, same girl, same guy.

Because you're setting a goal and you it's like losing weight. It's like I'm gonna lose ten pounds this shiit. No, you're really not. But you could just say it sounds good, right, and it's like before you know it, the years over right, Right.

Let's just say, yeah, I'm not gonna eat, I'm not gonna drink sodas.

Let's start there. Yeah, you know what I mean?

Something you could because you you can't, Okay, y'all gonna go raw, Vegan.

I'm just just.

Listen, and I think it's good too, I read a book call on called the twelve Week Year, and so the theory is that they break the year into twelve weeks. And it's like, instead of setting a goal for a year fifty two weeks, instead of goal for twelve weeks, you can actually break it down. I talked about this before, like weekly, monthly, but smaller things are much more attained, Like to say, Okay, I want to make I want to do this per month. This is my goal for

I want to think it's about like the external thing. The whole game is in our head and who we are the whole game. Yo, For all my entrepreneurs watching right now, you want to start something. You're not being consistent in your business. Let's see if you can make your bed every day. Let's try that to be consistent. Right, So, what happened first day? Just like anybody's diet, y'all, I'm

And endurance, I learned that from sports. It's like you learn about endurance and it's like I said, all the time, entrepreneur, endurance. People's not gonna last. They don't have endurance. Fact, it's like, you know what you need to do, you need to make these calls, you need to do this. But in order to do it every single day for three years,

Game for a little while, just do something, just something consistently.

One of my idea is gonna work for sure. For sure, you just developed through the process.

You know.

How do you How do people know when it's a good idea to quit their job? Obviously when you make enough money, but most of the time people quit their job where they really still not sure financially. Right, So, like, what's your advice for that? You might be making some money, but it's kind of a risk if you quit your job. But if you quit your job, you can focus more time and potentially make way more money.

Yeah, good point. My advice is to set a quit number. So the quick number is I will quit my job when I hit this number. If I don't hit the number, then I don't quit. But some people say, yo, if I can make one hundred thousand dollars a year outside of my job, I'll quit. Well, you've never done that before ever, right, So my goal was if I can match my income, if I can if I can get to like, if I get to one thousand dollars a week, I'm gonna quit my job.

That was my goal.

And if I can do that consistently for four months, I'll quit my job. So when I quit my job, I was doing about one thousand dollars a week. Yeah you know what I mean. Like, so that's the first step. Like, let's see if you get hit a goal. And some people like yo, I just if I if I had more time for my job, I'd be successful. But those same people that say something say that if you look at their day in their time windows where they do

Yeah, that's what I said. I argue with this my colleagues all the time. They're like, how do you have the time? How do you have the time? I'm like, yo, we all have the same twenty four facts. We all have the same twenty four even if you spent that hour. Like I talked to teachers all the time, like, yo, listen, you guys advocate for kids better than anybody I've seen. Imagine if you wrote a book about that, Like how

I don't have the time. We're talking right, now for a half hour, like you could have been recording this conversation.

It's like, Yo, we have to find an allocation for it, man, because that that book could sell a thousand books and now that's your whole year salary.

Yeah, it's like Wall Street trappers said, Dad, you have to have your freedom price. And that's something that's very powerful and is like a lot of times people don't know. You don't know anything, Like you just doing stuff and you don't have an idea, You don't have a blueprint, right, you got to sit down and map things out and say, Okay, this is the amount of money that I feel comfortable with leaving. He called the freedom price. You called whatever

I don't think they got a question for you, two shot, because I was telling Troy out of client years ago where she had like, like she was selling solar products, right, like stuff that goes on the house phone charge and stuff like that, solar products, and she was like really building a joint. She had a job she'd makeing like thirty forty thousand dollars a year, but her business started to make twenty five thousand a month, right, So, but

She built it. But she was scared. So I want to ask you a question, why do you think that happened?

Fear? Fear? She tryly truly never believed in the business because a lot of times it's like you start up, you start a business and it's going successful, but you still don't fully believe in it. And it's like, Okay, if I lose this, this can go away tomorrow. At least I have this to fall back on it.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, like, I don't think people even think of the freedom Like, so if we said a freedom price, most people wouldn't even have no idea what it is.

I never even thought of it. It's not obtainable. But you ask those same people, are you happy at your job? Yeah?

I don't.

I can't do this forever? And it's like, well, what are you planning to do? I don't know. They've never thought of it. It was like eyeing the sky dream that they're not working towards for sure.

Exactly. Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, what's your freedom price?

That's the question.

So in the next segment, we're going to talk about in complex, we're going to talk about branding and a bunch of other cool stuff. All right, So in this segment, I want to talk about a few things, But the first thing I want to talk about is branding. So you branded yourself very good. I think you have sixty four thousand follows on Instagram. Yes, I checked today by the time this episode comes out, and Sulby even more.

We go check a week after the episode.

So yeah. So if anybody's not familiar, your name on Instagram is Sleepers for suckers the number four. And you have a thing where you you like do these these clips in the hogh chair with eating doritos, right, And I watched the clip of you saying, like the reason why you do that the consists? Can you talk about that? Like how that? Where did that come from? And like why is that part of your your brand?

You know, here's a crazy thing y'all watch applies on Instagram sometimes.

Yeah.

I was so fascinated with how he was getting out a whole message, old story in sixty seconds. I was watching him. I'm like, Yo, this is so entertained. I feel like I watched a movie for sixty seconds, right this like before you know we had ig TV and all that, And I was like, Yo, you know what I want to see if I can get a message off in sixty seconds and make it entertaining and fun, because that's what Applause did. He made it entertaining and then oh right, right, right, So I was like, yo,

Oh, this joints fire. So he interviews people.

But the only difference between his interview he's asking basic questions.

That joint's crazy.

But the the lining, the line of questioning isn't the centerpiece of the interview. The interview is what is the reaction to the hottest wings? I thought that was genius, yo. He just put interview around finding out how an interview would react.

To hot wings people right for sure? For sure.

So I'm like, okay, how can I do it? And I was like all right, I'm uh, I'm gonna eat something. I don't know what it was, because before that I was doing these videos where I was eating cereal and I would like, give some bars and people hated that joy because they hear the slurt and all that. They was like, yo, I hate it, but the information is so good. I would keep watching it, so I'm like

I talked a little bad today. I was like when you came, I was like, I only got Pringles.

Bro my rider. Man, it's my rider. I need to read. Damn man, he's a cool, cool ranch guy. You're not a cool guy.

I never seen you with the cool yeahl rand, But I'll be trying to find the different flavors.

But because even when we interview Wallow and he was saying, like anybody follow you, he's what he's doing. Especially in the early stages, he was like doing push ups in the rings. Things like jumping out of garbage came to the camera. So we asked him, like, yo, why do you do that? And he was like, you know, I realized that coming out of jail and just being know

And it creates that conversation because some uh, my boy in my church, he was like, yo, I cannot watch some joints because of the crunch is killing me and that's what made me do it more. Because some people love it, some people hate it. And any anything that's ever been big in history, some people loved it, some people hate it. Think it's something that everybody loved that just became a thing.

Yeah, both.

I mean they talking people talking negative, they're talking politives. You need to have that conversation. Yo, you'd be watching the dude with the doritos. I hate that. Yeah, I love it. I need that conversation. So CJ, that's partner.

Is that a lot of people's everybody.

Everybody talks about it. We've never met them.

But is that with your marketing like genius starts, Yeah, he's absolutely.

He just he's always He always pushed me to think unique, like like deuce, what's not happening and do that. He was like I was at his office one day. He was like, Yo, man, I just can't figure out why cars still have four tires.

Bro. I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, Yo, you mean to tell me.

Out of all the technology, they ain't invent a car where it's just like one wheel.

And it just moves. He's like, Yo, that's where that's where my head is.

So ever since that conversation, I'm like, yo, i gotta do something that's that's different everything I do. I just wanted to be different. Like right now, I'm doing the videos where I'm like writing out principles and you can't even really read when I'm writing, but it gets so much engagement because it's just different. Like I'll draw a little smiley face and you can't read the words, and I'll misspell some stuff and I can add that into but I'm not saying anything that nobody else is saying.

It's just I'm putting it in a different, fresh, entertaining way.

One of those videos that I caught my attention was to human bingo, can you talk to us about all the facts?

Yes, sir. So.

I had this idea to do this event called ig Post Exchange and shouts out to my girl bre Renee, my partner. She's killing it at Atlanta radio hosts follower bre Renette. But we the core idea was ig Post Exchange where I get a whole bunch of people in the room and we just shot each other out. So I'm like, yo, I'm here at the ig Post Exchange with Troy, he got a podcast telling about your podcast? Right, it costs nothing to shot somebody out. It costs like

Oh yeah you do?

Oh great, my name is so Also now I checked you off my list. I found what I was looking for. So human bingo is just that you identify who you need and you try to fill up your car.

Wow.

Yeah, I mean this idea too, Like we're gonna see ig post all across the world now and it's all.

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Good though, so do it? I'm not that's yeah.

I mean, it's the whole point of networking is to meet people right that you can add value to When that can add value to you for sure, so it's a lot more efficient. It's like kind of going to marshals and you just sorting through racks of clothes that you don't want for the one piece of item that is like good.

Because people don't know what they don't want so say I'm I'm looking for a web designer and I'm at a networking event. I'm like, Yo, Troy, what's something. My name is David, I got this clothing brand. I'm doing this event. Do you do web design? And choice says no. I'm like, Yo, well do you know anybody that does that? And he says no. I'm like, all right, man, Troy, nice to meet you. I'm moving on because I like,

My mind, I'm thinking, like, if that web designer is in that room, he could be leaving in five minutes, and if you missed that five minutes, now that you've missed your web designer.

So it's that super into I like that.

And also with the I know you said that you do it. So you have a podcast, and you said one of the things about the podcast you like to interview people because it's a great networking too, is relationships tweets for that you talk about that because it's true, even like with our podcast, it's like one of the good things is that we meet so many different people, and the interview is a really good way to network

Absolutely, I mean if there was say I didn't have a podcast, what's your name?

I do a lot? So I do a lot.

It doesn't have a podcast, But he sees somebody that's really successful. Right, what would you say to him? Yo, what you're doing?

Can I take a picture? Those are the two lines for sure. But Earn your Leasure?

You're like, yo, you so and so yo, we got this podcast like the numbers or without even the numbers, like, Yo, I got this podcast. I'm gonna I want to interview. I'll put some clips together. You could post the clips of your interview on your page. And I just want to I want to, like, I have I have a conversation. And what happened was it's crazy the way I got Alex. So shout out to Alex, my brother, my IMNI brother.

Now we spoke about that, the importance of your interview with Alex until the Earn your Leasure interview with Alex Alex Man, I watched it, sho you watch it?

And when we came together, I'm.

Like, have you watched that interview? And we use that as called a blueprint to talk to him.

YEA, thank you.

He's lucky to plug this Like I wouldn't know, y'allf it was for Alex for some reason, right, But I interviewed probably I think I interviewed G Bryant, who's seventh figure fitness company, just just amazing entrepreneur. Was that a large impact on me?

But I interviewed G.

Right that I interviewed, I think Kenny Conwell and they're all in that same circle. And what happened was Boniface Ogunty, who's a king of marketing. He called me. He DM me like, yo, I love to be on your podcast. I'm like, word, I see him all the time. He's a genius. So I interviewed Boniface and then for some reason I was just talking to Alex somehow and he's like, yo, man, I love to get on the podcast.

Right.

And then Alex came on the podcast and that network, because I had it, their friends started to see like, yo, I want to be on that podcast too. So I mean probably from this interview, there'll be some people in your network that will reach out like yo, I love to be on your podcast. It'll lead them over to mine.

Yeah, and that's something that actually it was you say that because we ran in Dame John and uh Miami super Bowl and I walked up to him, and you know, like you said, if you don't really have anything to say to somebody, the only thing you can say is like, here's my business card that's getting thrown in the garbage. Hey, how's it going. I'm a big fan of your work. I appreciate it. It's like I walk up to him and you know, in this case, I actually did show

And there's some people that are looking like yo, I'll never get to those people. But my philosophy is it is if you can interview some people that are on the level that you're on, let's just say they're level two, right, They're not super successful, but they maybe got a cool story. If you interview enough twos, you can find a three because of all the interviews of the twos makes sense.

Well that's that's important too, because it's like a lot of times, especially you, you actually might be better off interviewing your neighborhood person because a lot of times they actually have more money than celebrities and they're more useful to you. Like I used to have a public access so I just stopped it because it was just I didn't have enough time. But I had it for years. And the reason why I did the public Hey, it helped me. I was yeah, he was a guy. Yeah

And it don't even have to be about success. Everybody has a cool story.

Yeah.

The stories that makes it dope because like even.

The person with the like was saying, like another level three, the beauty is watching that level three like you interviewed them and now they become like a level ten.

Yeah, because it was like, Yo, we saw you on that podcast.

Yeah, and your story was so powerful and now we want to support everything you do. Like there's so much beauty in the I think that's and that's why people resonate with us as live. It's like, Yo, we're happy in the success of the people that come on because it was like, Yo, we helped each other.

Right, you came on, you told your story.

You didn't have to come on, and like now like everybody wants to hear his story looks a stuper dope.

I think.

I think I just throw out some ideas. I just love like helping small business entrepreneurs. But my boy Tommy Jr. He is going to do a podcast interview and he does real estate with Max Maxwell. He's going to interview people who got their first deal. Ain't that crazy? Like, I'm all people got their first deal in real estate. I'm interview those people, or you interview everybody who has a job and a dream. They ain't start building it yet, but it's content, like, yo, what is your story? What

Like it doesn't always have to be about successful piece. Everybody else an idea.

And that was one of the things that I was telling the people in our summer program, right, we do a homeless outreach, and I'm like, the first thing I tell them is like, no one ever thought they would be sitting here. No one ever grows up and says I'm gonna be homeless, But something along.

The way got them here. I subscribe you see what I'm saying.

So it was like, Yo, we're going to treat everybody the same because everybody is the same, and we're going to give to them because that's more important than anything else, and they appreciate it. So like one of the things we tell them is like, Yo, there's no need to be afraid, sit down, have a conversation because think about how many people walk past them on a daily basis and don't say a word.

One of the best shows HBO ever had was Backseat Chronicles Taxi Have Quessions, and that was y backseat chronicles of regular everyday people. Now in this day and age of social media where everybody's trying to chase celebrities and all of that, and it's like you might find a niche which just regular people that nobody knows because way more people can relate to that. And that's why that show was so successful because it was New York City back of a taxi cab before Uber, before uber and people.

Doing some crazy things that happened too.

But so it was like people was tuning in. Yeah, it was like so it's like it was crazy, So I think I think that's important for people to understand. It is like it's cool to find celebrities, and like you said, but sometimes you got to think outside the box.

Absolutely.

I was at a school last week and I was telling him that this is me and my friends. We were like downtown Atlanta. This guy comes up, what really well spoken. He said, would you gentlemen have to happen to have any money? Just trying to get something to eat? I'm like, sure, no problem, but I'm asking, I'm asking questions. I'm like, yo, because you're so well spoken, you can tell he's like educated. And I was like, yo, yeah, I'll give you the money, but I just need a conversation.

Just just one hair? He's like, no, I'm good. And he said, man.

This went on prize six months to a year, and one time, one day I said I'll try it. And it wasn't that bad because I'm looking at these people. They do cocaine every day. It is a regular life. Yeah yeah, social drunk bro, Yes, it's social like they still got their job. They ain't all stressed out. How I'll see it on TV. And he said, what happened was, you know, I tried it at one time and it was cool. So I started hanging out with them more now that I tried it. You know what I'm saying.

Yeah, you feel uncomfortable.

You feel uncomfortable. But conversely, it's hard to be the person that doesn't drink in a room for the drinkers. It just doesn't not saying drinking is wrong or anything like that, but for the kids. That was my example, But it was the environment. So I gave this whole presentation on environment and it was real. But I wouldn't have got it if I interviewed the homeless guy.

That's powerful, very deep, very deep.

It got.

So all right, can we talk about e complex? Because uh yeah, thank you. We actually did. We did. We did our workshop at your events. Very it's a very dope And the thing about it was actually in d C and we was talking in d C and I was telling somebody about your your the thing, and they're like, oh, yeah, he got an interesting thing this before I saw it, and they're like, you know, it's a warehouse that he

Like we're looking for it. I mean, here's a crazy thing I do.

I was doing vision board parties every year and I drew out this like thing called Entrepreneurship Complex. It was like years before I actually built it. And what happened was I was doing this coaching program. I was like charging maybe three hundred dollars a month and I had like eight clients, and I was like, yo, I'm getting tired of coaching. So this one young lady, Janee came up to me and was like, Yo, I want you know, I'm thinking about being an entrepreneur and I just want

I'm like, all right, bet you don't on the squad.

So we just got together and I'm like, yo, I'm gonna I want to build a coaching program. I just don't want to do it myself. So if you two would help me build it, we could split all the money. So we built it and split all the money. Then I'm like, Yo, the next thing we got to do is I want this event space. It's a dream of mine I wrote down three years ago. I'm like, let's start looking for it. And I said, well, let's just take the money from the coaching program and put it

That's dope, and that's the power of working together.

Facts all money into yeah.

All right. Well, in the last second, we're gonna talk about what we everybody's waiting for. What we're waiting for. Yes, yeah, So and before I go, ladies and gentlemen say say no to drugs.

This is no no. This is a say service announcement.

Good folks responsibly act accordingly.

Yes, that's all model.

All right. So in the last second, we're going to talk about real social proof conference and this is something that you are CEO. The title I get, yeah head So you put together conference in Atlanta, and you got a lot of heavy hitters, you got a lot of EYO alumni. Max Maxwell missed the two weeks out, Alex good Energy, Neamyah Davis. We will actually be there as well.

Tea, I got so many questions for y'all.

We're teaching a workshop on how to build the podcast. So you got Eric Thomas's headliner. So you put together how many how many people do you have presenting.

Us right now?

Have sixty three sixty three, Yeah, sixty three, six figure, seven figure multi millionaire and a black billionaire coming to teach. Who's a billionaship his name is Melvin Nunnery. My man, yo, he's so genius. He built the company and sold thirty percent of the company from one point four billion dollars to the Chinese government. But you gotta watch the interview, it's crazy. So he built a company called scholar Me where it's a recruiting it's a recruiting app that connects

Chinese kids get scholarships to come hold on.

He built a company, yeah, that he owns a one hundred percent of, then built another company and sold a portion of that for one point four billion, but still owns the initial company.

So it's like a replica of the original company.

That's amazing. That's amazing.

Yeah, So he's like the bridge for Chinese kids too, you know, for the States and vice very and things of that nature.

And uh yeah, brilliant. Du second business did a billion one point that's beyond the pressive.

That's impressive, beyond come on. He's yeah, he's in the building. So from me asking, yo, you want to be on the podcast, here's well, here's the crazy, here's what's wild. No, Lie, I can't make this up. He joined my coaching program. It was ninety seven dollars a month, and uh, he joined the coaching program.

So you were coaching him? He was just yeah. So it was on the morning.

Then he jumped on. He said, y'all, I love your stuff. And he just came on and I just thought it was another person. He's like, yo, man, I just sold my company for a billion. Man, you're gonna follow me back? I said, what? Of course, I didn't know who he was.

And yeah.

So from the content, he loved Dorito Day's videos. He loved the podcast things of that nature. So that's why I'm telling everybody just be active. You never know who's watching. And he joined and I realized, Yo, this guy is amazing. So I'm like, yo, you need to come on the podcast. And from there, like the relationship has just been amazing. Sounds like somebody we need to know facts.

Facts, So how does it work as far as putting together a conference, because it's like conferences are real big right now, so and all that stuff like that. So this is really big. You got sixty percenters two days, You got a huge space in Atlanta. So what's the finances behind that? Like how do you put together? You have insurance, you gotta pay in installments, Like, how do you do that?

First off, I would I would definitely give it to you.

But first off, I don't recommend conferences, man, cause it's like it's literally one of the only things where you will incur a public l Like if you start a podcast, nobody really knows how many subscribers you have, or you have a product, nobody knows how many sold. But if you put on an event and nobody's there, you take that l publicly. Yeahing. So it's a scary thing. But so just to run through the numbers. Last year we did it, I think I might have spent fifty eight

The production.

I can't even say how much the production is because the guy that's doing a production, one stop production shout out. They do huge events like a three c Yeah you heard of So he produced a whole A three he does, he does if it's for Coca Cola, everything like huge. I'm talking about lights, camera, action, smoke, all that kind of stuff. He does the whole thing. But what's interesting he gave me. He gave me a really good number.

Yeah, so like.

It's impressive for him to see like the growth and you're like, yo, I'm gonna work with you because I want to see you grow. It's the story and the relationships behind it. But then I had to I had to book et, I had to book the big homie saying that's my guy.

But it's it's business at the end of the day.

And it feels good because I was on tour with him twenty seventeen and he paid me every city that we went to.

So that relationship working at the cheesecake factory, no, CJ. So CJ, it's crazy, all right.

So I went to I went to college with a guy named DJ Infamous, Huge DJ in Atlanta from Lansing, Michigan, and him and CJ went to school together. But me and Infamous went to college together. We moved from Alabama and m to Atlanta together. Right, So this he was working at Media Plays, still on the Media Players like a little you know, it was a little almost like a circuit city, right, My man's working making like eight dollars an hours. Crazy, but he's on the radio every

This dude's dope awesome.

So I give him some shirts and he actually pays for him, Like I ET impacted me so much through the videos. I was like, yo, I'll just give them to you, like yo' it's on me. But CJ actually gave me some money for him. So me and CJ is still cool. But I forgot. I gave him the shirts. One day I was I went to the club, I came home. It was like five in the morning. Coming home, four or five in the morning. You're not laying against down. My boy called me like, while I'm going to I'm

I'm like, what is this video? So Et made a video.

Called sleep is for Suckers and wore one of my hoodies and from then on it's just that relationship that's dope.

So the conference it's gonna be how's this looking? Sixty three speakers are people in different room? How's this conference going to look? So I go to a lot of conferences.

That's why I feel comfortable charging people for conferences because I pay right. There are a bunch of people that they want to charge people for coaching, but they don't pay for coaching, which is strange to me, you know what I mean. But I go to conferences and a lot of them are a bunch of people. To say, a thousand people in a room. There's somebody on stage, they're gonna speak, and then when they get off stage,

That might be a way to start business.

I want to go to Alex's workshop where he's gonna teach me how to get into the trucking industry. Max Maxwell and Tommy Holt Jr.

Real Estate.

So people that want to start their business, the next group of people that want to grow with their business. They might be an author, or they might be in their business, but they have no idea what they're doing.

They're reaching the ceiling and they just can't get past it.

So they need to learn the fundamentals of branding, marketing, how to run Facebook as Bonifacial Gunties speaking on that, the mindset of getting past your current level of success or just starting to grow. So we got a bunch of workshops on growing and then scaling where it's a little more like detailed stuff for getting your website to convert or copywriting that's really huge, or how to put

So everybody just drows up a schedule.

And that and they go they fall get running concurrent with each other, four at the same time. So first day, two keynotes, then four workshops going on, and then the next day one keynote, workshops all day four going on at the same time, and then we got CJ doing a keynote and.

Et with your goal as far as people.

Seventeen hundred seventeen hundred.

But the problem is the tickets are only two hundred dollars, so some people may look at it as it's only two hundred dollars. How impactful could it be? I went, I went to click Funnels. The joint was one thousand dollars. It was an amazing conference, but I came with my notes, took it really seriously because we invested a thousand dollars. But sometimes, especially with our people, low price point doesn't necessarily they don't look.

At it as value. So for two whole days, you.

Get to be in the room with six figure, seven figure multi millionaires and a billionaire for two whole days, amongst seventeen hundred other ambitious.

People that you can network with. Offer a price at Jordan's.

Le's that's that's crazy, like I said, and my day said it the other day. It's like, yo, what would it close you if you're not there? Yeah, your business bruh, right, you ten years facts, you know what I mean, Like you can streamline your business in a day.

People have to invest in education too. Investing in education is not just paying for college, right, or paying for a textbook. Investment in education is going to workshops, going to seminars, Yeah, paying for coaching. These is all things that you know, if you're serious about taking it visits to the next level.

I believe life is just a series of decisions that we make. Like whoever wherever you are right now, it's because of a bunch of decisions that you made yesterday, preferably like you know, over the over the years. Where you'll end up tomorrow is about the decisions that you make right now. So I was talking to somebody who lives in Atlanta. Now, we got people coming from Hawaii, Alaska, Canada,

It's how you do everything.

Like of course you're not going to make a good decision to come to a valuable conference because you don't make good decisions on what to do with your money. You don't make good decisions to do with your relationships. It's just a habit.

David, appreciate you, bro. That was powerful man. Can you tell the people how to contact you, how to get information, how to buy tickets to Real Social Proof. All of that information.

Absolutely realsocialproof dot com. Get your tickets right now. My instagram is at sleep is for suckers with the number four. You can follow an Instagram page of the conference and see who's going to be there at Real Social Proof.

Everybody at this table will be there. Sure, make sure you come to our workshop pull up need we need to have that feel. We don't want to have one person there while we present that.

I'm sure crazy, Like, how do y'all man? I can't?

I just want y'all want my podcast, because how do you start with the idea none of y'all got a background of podcasting and grow it to over sixty thousand subscribers. There are some people right now that's listening like, yo, I would love to do what they're doing. Well, they're gonna tell you exactly.

That's the perfect that's the perfect pitch. We like our secrets for the Real Social Proof conference, and it's gonna be a lot of EYL alumni in the people that's listening to the to the show. If you follow the show and your fans of your Leisure, you know about Max Max, Well you know about asking Energy, you know about missing two weeks out. You know about me and Mayah Davis. And there's a bunch of other I think there's some more Lia alumni that's gonna be on the biling.

We got future EYL, We're.

Gonna be networking. I'm gonna beat networking for sure. I need to get by the face.

Yeah, look for and I got a shot. Man came out with me.

Uh CASRA the only the only African American owned payment processing company on the planet. Like started like I'm talking one hundreds of employee, hundred of employees, one hundred employees, like in going through And I interviewed him too, going through how you navigate these waters with the name of the company h EC Processing Electronic commercework Now Network.

So he'll be there. And here's the crazy thing.

He's an African American in in like uh a business model where blacks don't trust blacks. So he was just telling me, like, yo, ninety eight percent of his clients aren't African American. And he's fine because he's running a business. But it's like why everybody else trusts us but us.

Like he's processing billions of dollars? You feel me?

So Taylor, I have a give plug. He's like, Yo, you're coming up there. He's like, Yo, you're flying up to New York. He said, I'm coming. I said, for sure.

Now it's gonna be a vibe man. Like I said, I'm looking forward to seeing all of our previous alumni and then making relationships with new people.

Some people we got to connect you with out there in Atlanta. Yeah, yeah, well talk about that.

Yeah, Atlanta is always home. So all right, Troy house Keeping.

Yeah, shot everybody on Patreon dot com, y'all know that's our probably pay program. The support has been amazing, man, and like I said, it allows us to do a lot of things, allows us to go to conferences, allows us to go all over the country, man, to spread the world of financial literacy. And so shout everybody that's been supporting on them and everybody that's supporting the merch you know as the civil liabilities that is ours, that is ours.

We have seen a lot of people, we have seen something a lot of jack and a lot of people taking.

We ain't gonna mention names.

Our lawyers will be in touch, but shout everybody that has supported the merch. Eyl University as well, and everybody that has been using EYL experience to h get in contact with us as far as our events.

We appreciate y'all.

We love y'all.

And everybody on YouTube too. Shout everybody that's on YouTube. We read all your comments.

We love it.

Keep liking, keep subscribing, keep commenting.

We appreciate it. Yeah, if you see anybody with Billy, let us know. O dB says, shame on a lot of people. Man, it's unbelievable. My thing is just the original and you'll be respected for it. Don't take somebody else's idea, but good thing that we practice what we preach and we do have it trademark, So don't play yourself. You will beat a letter from our attorney. Seen the purpose attorney. But yes, So the book tip of this

Absolutely, So it's called Dreams Are Built Overnight how to create a bridge between your day job and your day So it's all the nuances that I used to make that transition, like one hundred dollars off days or free lunch where my goals just take people to lunch. I have much, but I needed the information, so I take people to lunch. There's a whole bunch of gyms in there, practical steps on how to make that transition from your

I'm talking about grown men. He was like, yo, I finish your book in the night. That's crazy. He's like, I know him. I read his book. He used to the chief said, Yo, bro, I read that book. Bro.

I was like, he's gonna he's gonna be all over with us.

That's street trapper. All right, Well that is that. We'll see you next week. Thank you for rocking with us. Piece.

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