Rashad Bilal & Troy Millings of EYL Share How to Avoid Traps of Poverty + Quickest Way to Get Rich!

Let's be the freestyle.

Let's do it.

I know one of y'all got a freestyle.

I know I don't want to do it.

I don't.

Every time they tell me freestyle, I just start spitting ja.

Fine shot de Troya. Here are your leisure.

Authors, podcasters, financial literacy, glorus.

What else are you?

I mean those are the titles?

Right, what else you got? Give me the other title?

Father?

Fathers, husband?

Yes, yes, what are you?

You're not a father or husband on the streets.

Definitely problem in the streets. Servants, humble servants, but.

Really right now, authors, that's why we're here today. Congratulations, this is super dope.

Thank you so much, Thank you so much.

It is I know what it is to do a book. It's like a long haul effort, the process.

That's our first one to Yeah, that's even That's what I mean. It's first, kid.

You can't slap it together. It takes a long time.

Did you do a audiobook yet we read it?

You didn't read it? So hours and hours to do that?

Yeah, somebody you read that over? Hey say that with a little bit more feeling. Hey there's a period there. So yeah, man, it's like you're back in school again.

We're gonna talk about this book today.

We're gonna talk about some of the gems and the jewels to share them with folks. We're gonna talk about what else we're gonna talk about today. Podcast is doing well, The show.

Is did you do these events? The events are going well? Right.

Thank you for his fifth rendition which is five already five August. You know, we've taken over the city Atlanta four years in a row, so we're gonna run it back one more year.

So yeah, we're excited about that.

I love that for you. What's your what's your vibes? Right now? Today?

And there's a lot of weird shit going on in the world. We were talking about this yesterday briefly, but like there's a lot of weirdness going on in the world.

Are you affected? Are you like, oh, business as usual? Let me go, Like, how do you respond?

It's always something I feel like, it's always something happening, unfortunately, but the show must go on, you know, definitely, you know, always thinking about the less fortunate though, and people that are suffering, and it seems like, you know, that's always the case overseas. Domestically, it's always something and social media. Now you get to see it twenty four hours a day. Like before, you might watch it on the news if you watch the news or you watched read the newspaper.

Also for the most part breaking, and then put the heartbreaking song on top of it. It's like the trauma porn on social media.

Yeah. But the crazy thing is, I was telling the room earlier. Television that lets me see local news in different places. So I'm watching the local news in Los Angeles all day today, boy, and watching on the ground what people are going through right now.

Is really also traumatized.

Or anything like that. I mean, La gets fires all the time, but.

Not this is different.

They had the statistic again on social media. In nineteen eighty five, the amount of money that the state of California spent on wildfires was like fourteen million. Fast forward to twenty twenty five. This looks like this is going to be hundreds of billions.

Fifty billion.

It's not enough, and that won't be and it's not over yet, right like so we don't even know it's it's horrific, but something's happening, right, whether it's if you don't believe in climate change, something's happening that's causing us to be more and more occurt more and more.

Do you believe in climate change?

I believe yeah. I mean I know something is showing you right, like hello, the.

Winters, the summers, I mean, the ocean temperature, like all those things that just not happened about coincidents.

I just saw this story too, and I was thinking about you, guys.

I was like, I wonder what you know about this, But I know that a lot of like fire insurance like on people's home has been canceled as recently.

They just posted that a lot of homes in the Palisades area, which is one of the areas affected by the fires, they canceled the fire insurance companies canceled their fire insurance like three months ago.

What is that about.

It's just like a lot of places that have floods right there, Like it's like if it becomes too much of a risk for the insurance company and like we're not going to insurance anymore. Because insurance companies make money, so they have to have not a lot of claims for them to make money off of the premium. But if it's more claims than the premiums that they collected, then it's not in their best interest to insure it anymore.

What is the lesson?

Make sure that you got insurance, make sure where you're moving is you always want to move to these these like even coastal areas in Florida. But it's like, okay, if a hurricane happens, what happens? Are you on the water. It's a beautiful view, but you're talking about, you know, climate change. They're saying that, you know, in fifty years, South Beach is not going to be there anymore, Like how we know it? So is it worth it? Maybe? Maybe,

Wow.

What about I feel like one of those people that insurance was canceled and you have to like rebuild, Like even financially, what does that look like for people?

How do you even begin?

I mean a lot of the I mean it's difficult, right, Like from what we've been seeing, it's affluent areas, but like that cost like I'm building a house right now, Like the amount of money that goes into that, the amount of I mean, you've lost everything. Most of these people have lost all they belonging memories. They have their lives,

Well, super unfortunate God bless man. I thought to prayers of course everybody, everybody out there, and with that, and then if you know, for what you guys are good at in terms of the bread, like recovery and that, like when somebody's down, take the fires out of it. People having hard times out here in other ways, like people are going broke in many.

Ways, Like how do you what is the first.

Step in rebuilding if you've lost everything? Is that one of your lessons in here?

It should be? If not for sure, okay, like.

Looking at your situation, paying off debt, managing your I mean, you gotta be honest. Sometimes you gotta have a sit down with yourself and have an honest conversation with yourself. Like you try to run from it and you're spending more money than you make, You're putting stuff on credit cards, You're still going out every night, You're still going to the clubs, and that is actually running from your reality. Sometimes you gotta realize like them, like I'm messed up.

Have you ever had to do that? Either one of you, like, have that talk with yourself.

Of course, what did you cut?

What did you do? What did you have to do?

I made it a few times.

I remember I purchased a car and I was just like you, of course.

I'm just making you know, you gotta.

Get Do you have a whole kick on it?

I didn't. They had just changed the voice. It was dove out.

You know, growing up fresh as it was, you just dream of having this BMW and I was like, yeah, this is great, and I was trying to make this team. It was just like, you know I could afford this, or I thought I could, just because I wanted to show, like, you know, I got a job, I got a career.

Now this is why you're like already earn your leisure.

Like you gotta make some mistakes.

But I'm saying, were you making mistakes as.

No, no, this is this is like this is a younger version of myself and quickly realized like, hey, you can't afford this, but you do the guard. I didn't sell the car, which is the ironic thing. I tried to figure out more ways to make money, which was helpful, Right, I'm going to do over time. When I was working in the school, I started doing after school programs, or

And I was like, all right, I got an option here.

The next time I get a car, I can do this again and replicate it, or I can get something that I can afford.

And obviously I didn't learn from it.

I did it again, but I was more You know how, we like, I could do it this time, I'll make more money.

But that's a mistake.

We think as we make more money, we got to spend more money. As you make more money, you should actually start spending lives.

Do you feel like now, because you know we look at you for advice, people call you for advice. You have a whole career on giving people advice. You got to book the podcast. Do you feel the pressure.

Of not making the financial mistakes?

I think people enjoy that.

I think they enjoy watching us do and they can learn from us.

So like in the book, like we talk about our story, our story as we're.

Growing as young men and men, but they've watched every piece of this journey for us, and so they see a lot of commonalities. Right, So when I make that mistake with the car, guess what you're gonna learn from that.

You're not going to do that.

When my family makes a mistake about getting an adjustble rate mortgage, right, you're going to realize that wait, adjustable rate.

I've heard this before.

Let me go with the fixed rate route, right, Like you're going to start when we're investing in the stock market.

Here's what we're looking at.

Prior to that, you may not even heard of the stock market or how to trade, and you're like, wait, I'm going to learn from the mistakes that they're doing. So there's a process in it that, yes, it's inspirational, but it's also the educational process that like, hope that that so hopefully you don't have to go through that. It's kind of like that.

I think it's more pressure out to let yourself down. Really, I think that's what you was asking. Like as far as like it's like.

Now that people know you for this, you know, you build the thing. Now it's like you.

Know what I mean.

It's different when you don't. People don't know really what you know what I mean and you're coming up. But it's another thing when like, oh, you're an expert.

Like I said, it's not even that. It's you gotta do two things in life. You gotta make money and then you got don't be stupid and blow the money. If you could do those two things, you'll be okay.

Yeah, this's a thing too.

I remember Oprah talking about, like for years, years, years, she always had the she was always afraid to go broke.

She was like.

Already multi hundred millions of dollars, but she still had that like trauma, that fear. It took her to be like damn near a billionaire for her to like be like, oh wait, I'm okay, Yeah, I think I'm gonna.

Say anything happened, anything happened, anything can happen.

But also, once you've been broke and you're not broke, you don't want to go broke. You don't want to go back.

That's a bad feeling.

I'll keep you on, keep you up, definitely give you up.

What is the number one a lesson in this book? If you have to pick one thing, I'm sure there's plenty.

But like, well, I think the title you Deserve to Be Rich down we talk about like stocks, real estate, crypto, we talk about all that stuff, but just the mindset of getting people to believe that they're worthy of actually being wealthy. That's that's important. That's underrated. A lot of times most people don't actually even think that they are worthy of financial freedom. You don't think that like you kind of have what we call realistic expectations for your life.

Yeah that's.

But that's that's most people's train of thought.

Yeah, yeah, I think I mean definitely the title, but inside of it is that you know, a lot of times we grow up now realizing that finances for us right, and financial education is not for us, and so we want to combat that right. We want to put something in a language that just understandable for not just our community, but all communities, because we do deserve it, right, Like I always talk about this, this first.

Line of the book is the American dream is a lie. It's true, right, because.

The American dream is not monolithic, right, Like we're not starting at the same space, right, But if we have tools and we have resources, and we have a guide, we can all obtain these things. And so I want people to realize that it's for them, right. The trauma chapter is always important to me because it's like, in order to us to get ahead, we got to know where we started from.

Who's the book for, Like I'm sure it's for everybody, but like when you're making and who you talking to.

Everyone audience, but really people that's trying to figure out the situation, like people that just graduated from college, people that just graduate from high school, single mom out there working two jobs, somebody that's incarcerated. You know those type of people, because those are the people that champion on your leader from the beginning, left out of the conversation, like of course you know we have CEOs to listen to us in millionaires, but you know, people kind of

They feel lucky. Well, unless you lose it all, unless you'd.

Put the.

But just think about that, right, It's the quickest way to get rich, oh Man, invest invest, invest money in. The quickest way to get rich is to live below your means and invest the difference. Invest in the stock market. Long term.

I guess that would make it I mean.

Long term makes it not quick.

True, but that's my definition the quickest way to keep Let me reframe that the quick at fraid to get rich, to start a business. America is built for entrepreneurs. This this is this is how I mean, that's our blueprint. So the quickest way is to start a business, live below your means and invest the difference. It's a one two three process. That's the quickest way to get rich.

Yeah, and if you live if you study the people who are wealthy, literally, that's what they've done.

Right.

If you look at the wealthiest people in the world, they've started a business. Where it's Eli Musk with Tesla, Jeff Bezos with Amazon. They started a business, They worked in that business, they owned shares in that business.

When became publicly traded.

As people started buying more shays of that, their wealth has accumulated.

Right.

We watched a man grows two hundred billion dollars in six weeks. Six weeks.

He didn't sell more cars, right, people just believe in his business. So he created a business. The other thing is people own land. Right, So if you look at what Bill Gates has done, he's a lot are just farm owner land of uh farm land owner in America? Why is he doing that? Well, he knows that that's

You gotta avoid the traps of poverty. That's important. That's important, which is what not not have kids, divorces, kids that there's a lot of things that put you in a in a pathway for poverty. You gotta try to avoid that or at least minimize minimize it, right, think about.

That you're gonna get going down the list kids with us.

There's a variety of different things.

Jewelry, damn marriage.

Marriage, home could be a bad home. Home put you on pover if you don't have the proper education. Some people think, like a lot of people think that they're doing the right thing by buying a house, but a house could be a bad investment.

Property taxes, nobody think you can't maintain it, and you can't any anything could go wrong if you put everything in the house.

True, most people do when we get money. It's the first thing we do. We're gonna buy a house. We're gonna buy a mama house.

But that's that's in the book as well. So like there's characters that we could file out throughout the book. But there's a chapter where it's like what do you do with your first million? So we're watching people, right, There was a study that more African Americans are investing in the stock market, the open brokerage accounts. So people are getting wealth. But what happens when you get well? Like when you get there, who teaches you? Who's your mentor right?

How do they know?

Like we look at all the people that we looked up to in music and entertainment, all of them are really first generation, so like they're going to make mistakes along this way. So who we're supposed to look to? And so for those people, it was like, all right, here's a guy. Because we've interviewed billionaires, we interview people withou and people who are just starting their businesses. There's a lot of knowledge that the people at this level

What do you think is happening in this city right now? I've just been hearing like all types of conspiracy theory. They're trying to push everybody out. There is like Billionaire's Row up the block where a lot of the apartments are empty because of all these apartments are being sold for this crazy.

Or they're being made.

You know, they're building all these super high expensive.

I mean, New York City is the home of the most billionaires in the world.

That's a fact.

So at the end of the day, it's the money it's a capital capitalism, So what do you think. I mean, the city is driven by money, so of course that that's that's gonna be the top priority is the people that's actually making the money. But the thing about capitalism is that it's like a scale you need, you need a level of poverty to support capitalistic society. So there's always gonna be people at the bottom. That's the harsh reality of life. There's never gonna be a you euphouri

I think at a certain point they thought that there could be a middle class, right, even like when we're talking about the housing projects, who they were designed for, right, it was the military veterans for the most part, right until other demographics moved into those areas, and then they decided, all right, well, we can't live here anymore. We don't want to live with those people. So then they start

Every time that happens, the.

Barrier gets moved, right, and so like that middle class now when you look at it present day, I'm with them.

With all Right, here's the truth. The middle class is designed from the banks. It's a banking product to feel like you. But you still broke. You might live in a suburb, but you still broke. You don't have any money. You're not like you you're wealthy. You still live in paycheck to paycheck. You just live in a house, but you brought a five hundred thousand dollars house that you're going to end up paying a million dollars for. So who's the real winner. You work in every single day,

I think you just depressed me a little bit, Nat, because rich.

We all deserve to be rich.

What about gambling as that is like sports gambling specifically, because I've been seeing this real thing from rappers. A little baby just lost what like eight million dollars in one day. Did that break your heart? Because it breaks my heart, hurts me inside. I see Drake doing all these big money, these big gambles, and even like my son's friends, they're like betting on sports.

The lottery was a poor tax, That's what that's that's what it was designed for. You ever see lottery billboards in rich neighborhoods. Rich people don't play the lottery. They invest the money in stocks. So my grandmother in the Bronx like, she played the lottery every single week her whole entire life. She probably won maybe one or twice a couple thousand dollars, but probably spend hundreds of thousand dollars.

So do you never gamble?

I don't. I don't believe in gambling. For me, you too.

I used to do sports betting and now and then I stopped. I just loved sports, but I never was a gambler, right, Like I've watched people all it's just not a habit that I have.

I think that's what kind of makes us like I do.

I come from a family with some gambling issues and trouble, so I gamble, but I only gamble for recreation. So like, if I'm gonna spend, oh I'm gonna go out and spend five hundred dollars for a fun on Saturday, then that's what I will gamble. I will gamble whatever I'm willing to spend to have a good time.

Everything in moderation. But the unfortunate thing is our communities are always unproportionately we don't do moderation. So, yeah, it's cool to have a drink of champagne and wine, but I know a lot of alcoholics. That's that's You don't see the amount of liquor stores in rich neighborhoods. They still drink, but they don't have to have the liquor store in every single neighborhood. That's important that they have those liquor stores in poor neighborhoods because they know that

And it goes back to that there, what's the quickest way to get rich?

Yeah, right, it's also the quickest way to go broke.

Right, By the way, the thing is like we've seen that habit over and over right, like in our families, but we still like it's the fastest way.

There's also a thing about like all the money that's being made and gambling and the proportion to how much how many black and brown people are benefiting or have investments or interest in like casinos or owning and things like.

That, and there's nothing, there's no, there's no That's why I said, like, what culture do we have when all the record it was we don't own it. We don't own the hip hop festivals, we don't own the gambling companies. They'll let you promote it, but you don't have any ownership in it. They'll put a celebrities face on it that will own five percent just to kind of make it famous, but we don't. We don't have any real equity own the situation benefit when.

We talk about the city and when they're trying to be in considers here.

I know has been.

Like Floyd Floyd part.

Ownership in a group right to bring it here. But again that's not like I'm looking at it like why can't they just all just do it together right?

But we don't.

We got to get to that point like we deserve it and we deserve to work with each other to do it right.

It may not be gambling that there could there could have been other businesses that we could have. Real estate. We know that this is the capital of capitalism.

When you talk about the real estate marketing and I'm sure people watch Netflix and they see selling us these people one hundred million dollar homes and fifty million dollar condos. We should be in part of the development that's building these buildings that actually can benefit from it. Other than hey, let's do it in alcohol, Let's do it the entertainment. Let's do it in gambling, like we deserve all that.

You want to see the same things. Liquor, weed and gambling, cannabis companies, liquor brands, and online gambling. That's what you're going to see.

Bird again, you've depressed it. Is there any good news in any of this?

The good news is that there is a new blueprint to help you change that.

Lind bring it back around with.

I'm telling you for you, like we get we've been doing any allegiance in twenty nineteen. Every day we probably get posed with a question of how to do something, how to do something, which is great, and so we wanted to put a manifesto together so that even if you don't see us and running to us, the questions can be answered. So you don't have to go to another piece of literature anymore. We don't have to keep talking about the guy who made rich dad poor dad.

And I know everybody's right that no disrespect to him.

I read it too, But like this is the new manuscript for the community.

I love that to be rich.

I have a speed round of questions. Do it for you, experts?

This is a rapper fire finance, hey ready.

Crypto or flipping houses, crypto stocks or art sucks.

I'm not gonna ring the bell every time. It's gonna be annoying. Car lease or own.

Lease.

It depends on the car, but at least most of the.

Time, mostly it depends all right, tell him quick?

Why so like a g wagon, for instance, it holds its value, so it's actually more beneficial to buy a g wagon and to lease it. But most cars appreciate a very high rate, so it's more beneficial to lease it.

Why I thought you're gonna get me a chance to.

Get said.

Whole mortgage or rent?

That is really case by case.

So a lot of people who are wealthy will rent because they don't want to have to deal with the burden of owning homes.

Property tax bills, all that stuff.

So case by case, I agree what he said said ten million up front or one million for life.

I'll take the ten mill.

The fuck is going on on there? God damn showing.

Here ten mi one mile of life is like, but I take ten miil because.

Who knows how long you're gonna live. Let's be honest, you can flip.

I know what we're gonna do with the ten million?

Yeah, not good for that's probably not a good answer for everybody.

But if you know what to do with the money, yeah, yeah, if you have the book, you have the book, ten million in front.

Ten million up front. Right, we can put that ten million in the market, the S and P. Right, let's put it in an index. Right, that's gonna net seven percent. You almost have to one mil already.

What's the better I know the answer to this. What's a better flex? Owning a private jet or having zero debt?

I'll take this.

Debt owning a private jet. I mean, what were you talking about? A lot of people have zero jet.

I guess you know what.

A lot of people have private jets. It's a bigger flex for sure.

Gold bars or bitcoin stacks, bigcoin, bigcoin for sure. Luxury watch collection or diversify stock portfolio.

Stocks, that's good.

Yeah, start a biziness, start a business or get a job.

Start a business. I've done both. It's start a business.

But it's not wrong with jobs.

Shout out that everybody has a job. They're high paying jobs.

That's a fact, and not every not every business.

People that fact.

People know Tim Cook. He doesn't own Apple. He works for Apple. That is his job.

He makes one hundred and forty seven million dollars a year, save.

Ten percent of income or invest ten percent in personal development.

H this is a ten percent.

The personal development is important. That's important. Yeah, it's important.

This is supposed to be a speed around, guys, speed development.

I'll go the opposite there just because just to keep it spicy, keep it spicy, and.

Last, but at least uh dinner with hoove or one million dollars.

I thought it was five hundred thous inflation inflation.

I'm going I'm having the dinner over a million.

Five hundred thousand is one thing. One million.

You had me five hundred million. I gotta take the million, shout, I gotta take that mil take Yeah, I'm.

Still going to take the dinner.

You still take the dinner.

Yeah, I mean the best.

If do I have money in my and my present my presencelf a million is different or.

Like I got no money as your present self, my present self.

I'll take the dinner, take the dinner, and hopefull probably say take take the million.

Take the money, like two words, should have took the money. His influence has gotten so strong on me that.

I have to have the conversation about like how he's inspired pretty much all of this.

All right, but what if the dinner's only like an hour and a half long?

What are you going to present?

Mean?

Like, I'm okay, I'll be all right, you're taking the money? My advisor would tell me to take the money? Is different to five hundred thousand? Would you would take the contemplate?

I'll consult with my financial advisors. That's my answer.

There. It is well done, guys, well time. Do you believe that everything has a price?

Yes?

Because that also could be a fun game. How much I used to play this game with my girlfriend?

How much to everything? Whatever?

Crazy question?

Then people be like no for no money, and I'd be like, what about fifty million?

They'd be like, damn, I would do it.

Crazy like this everything smoke crack for any amount of money.

Though, you wouldn't all right, listen money how much? Listen right? If I said to you one time this this pipe right.

One time, it might be a lifelong I might be you know what I'm saying, what's the amount there is no amount.

Twenty million dollars ax free.

Hit this pipe one because what's on the other side of that might be.

No, that's it. There's no conversation. That's the deal.

Twenty million tax free, under the table or hit this hit this pipe one time.

I can't. I can't do it. No pipe for you, no pipe, no you.

I'm a consul on my fun.

By the way, this is a fun party game. Guys. You take the wildest things and you put.

The money on it, and you will learn a lot about the people at the table.

How much crack is it is a little crack.

By the way.

Don't do crack anybody.

But do get this book.

You deserve to be rich. We all deserve to be rich. Congratulations, guys.

I appreciate you always and both done.

I can't wait to read it. Thank you. What time are you? Leasium shot Troy to five point one.