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Earn Your Leisure's Backstory How We Got Started · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 1: Do you guys talk about brands and you talk about
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  Speaker 1: Andre or even you know a brand I was able
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  Speaker 1: to have from the NBA. How did you guys are
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  Speaker 1: getting restart your brand so you know now you have
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  Speaker 1: you know, festivals and people following you all over.
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  Speaker 2: The one point four million subscribers.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's actually crazy y'all got out. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: thank you appreciate it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the largest story really is formatted in purpose.
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  Speaker 3: To be honest with you, his career was as a
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  Speaker 3: financial advisor.
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  Speaker 2: I was a teacher.
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  Speaker 3: We had an opportunity. You know, every summer I took
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  Speaker 3: kids from my neighborhood and they were part of his program.
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  Speaker 3: We were teaching them about the things that they missed in
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  Speaker 3: the ten months of school. Right, So everybody goes to
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  Speaker 3: school and they're like, I don't remember anything. I didn't
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  Speaker 3: learn anything. You actually, kid, what you learned ain't nothing, right,
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  Speaker 3: And so it was like I felt very complicit in
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  Speaker 3: that if kids are going to school, I'm a teacher,
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  Speaker 3: they're learning nothing. I'm not doing my job, but I'm
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  Speaker 3: getting paid. And so there was an opportunity here, like
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  Speaker 3: we can educate kids about financial literacy, about college, about
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  Speaker 3: decisions that they were going to make around money at fourteen,
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  Speaker 3: with the hopes that if they got it at fourteen,
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  Speaker 3: they would be more advanced by nineteen twenty twenty five.
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  Speaker 3: And so financial literacy was at the cusp of that.
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  Speaker 3: It was like, all right, bet we're gonna pay these
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  Speaker 3: kids to be in the program. Let's teach them about money.
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  Speaker 3: He had just started his career and advised them. I'm like,
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  Speaker 3: this is perfect. You could come in, and so we
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  Speaker 3: started co teaching that. Like I learned about finance from him.
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  Speaker 3: He learned how to have classroom management for me, create
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  Speaker 3: lesson plans, and so we did that. In my mind,
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  Speaker 3: the vision was I need to have this program throughout
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  Speaker 3: New York first, right because parents would see it. They're like,
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  Speaker 3: this is incredible. How do I scale this? I can't
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  Speaker 3: figure it out. I can't figure out. He was always
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  Speaker 3: into social media. He was like, this is how we
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  Speaker 3: do it. So we had our CEO was up there
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  Speaker 3: right now, Abdullah he said, look shout out to add
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  Speaker 3: He was like, look, I want you to record the classrooms.
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  Speaker 3: I was like, okay, whatever, I'm still trying to figure
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  Speaker 3: out how to scale this. Like physically, he was like
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  Speaker 3: just keep recording the classroom. And he was huge on
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  Speaker 3: content putting it up. That to him creating his own platform, right.
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  Speaker 3: He wanted to teach people about finance in a different way, right,
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  Speaker 3: And sometimes when we think about finance, it's a foreign language, right.
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  Speaker 3: And we were coming to like Rose at a Stone,
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  Speaker 3: we were coming like, let's break the monotony of this
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  Speaker 3: stush feeling when it came to financial education. Let's talk
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  Speaker 3: it in our language. And so he was doing that
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  Speaker 3: for multiple people, had his own public assets show. I'll
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  Speaker 3: let him tell his story and then people like, wait,
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  Speaker 3: where's the rest of that? We need more of that,
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  Speaker 3: where's the episode? And one day it was just like, look,
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  Speaker 3: I want to do a show. Let's do this podcast.
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  Speaker 3: We sat on our basement, in my basement, I'm like,
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  Speaker 3: all right, let's do it. And that's how ernial Leisure
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  Speaker 3: was burg f Really, we came up with the name
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  Speaker 3: pretty quickly. He was already using it as a hashtag,
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  Speaker 3: and from there it was consistent. We was like, all right, well,
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  Speaker 3: here's a vision, these are the ten things we need
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  Speaker 3: to do. Here are ten people we want to interview.
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  Speaker 3: Let's just go attack it. And really it started with
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  Speaker 3: three iPhones and that idea and it branded into what
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  Speaker 3: you see now.
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  Speaker 2: I don't want to cut you off. I just want
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  Speaker 2: you to Can you explain to me what you took
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  Speaker 2: from the public access and just explain to me how
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  Speaker 2: that works within your story and then how you knew
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  Speaker 2: how to maneuver into you know, subscribers streaming and all
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  Speaker 2: that and the difference in the revenue streams and like
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  Speaker 2: how much is valued that.
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  Speaker 4: I never went to business school, but I was always
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  Speaker 4: interested in business my whole life. So I was studying
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  Speaker 4: like real world case studies. So in twenty twelve, Instagram
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  Speaker 4: was like fairly new, and you know, I got introduced
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  Speaker 4: to it, and like everybody else, I was on the
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  Speaker 4: app all the time. And when I'm first on Instagram,
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  Speaker 4: I'm just thinking, like, this is a cool app. You
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  Speaker 4: get to share photos. At the time, there was no videos,
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  Speaker 4: and at that time, it was just for iPhone users.
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  Speaker 4: But I quickly realized something in this situation. So I
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  Speaker 4: used to follow this fashion blog and the fashion blog
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  Speaker 4: had like a million followers at that time, and at
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  Speaker 4: that time, if you had a million follows, you could
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  Speaker 4: reach a million people. And what I realized was that
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  Speaker 4: what she was doing. The girl that actually was running
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  Speaker 4: the fashion was that she would post like look books
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  Speaker 4: on like you know this actress ward is and this
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  Speaker 4: single ward is. But in between the looks she would
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  Speaker 4: do like organic ads. So it'd be like a small
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  Speaker 4: boutique in Philly that had a blazer, and you didn't
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  Speaker 4: really know it wasn't ad unless she was actually really
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  Speaker 4: studying it. So right then, I'm like, this is crazy,
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  Speaker 4: because how I was looking at it was like, Okay,
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  Speaker 4: how many people subscribe to New York Times probably a
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  Speaker 4: million people in circulation from New York Times every single day.
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  Speaker 4: And how much money does it cost to run an
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  Speaker 4: ad in the New York Times? Fifty dollars hundred? How
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  Speaker 4: much money does it cost to run an ad on
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  Speaker 4: NBC ABC millions of dollars? Right but I'm thinking I
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  Speaker 4: didn't know, but I'm thinking to myself that they're probably
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  Speaker 4: playing her five hundred dollars one thousand dollars. But they
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  Speaker 4: can reach just as many people as all of these
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  Speaker 4: traditional outlets. So and then that's when I was like, Okay,
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  Speaker 4: advertising is going to change. This is the new wave.
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  Speaker 4: So I actually had a meeting with him and I
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  Speaker 4: was explaining this to him, and I was like, we
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  Speaker 4: need to start a fashion blog. And we did. We
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  Speaker 4: started a fashion while. It was called fashion Wave and
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  Speaker 4: we actually got it too, like twelve thousand followers. But
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  Speaker 4: that was the original point where it was like, social
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  Speaker 4: media is something that's going to take over the world.
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  Speaker 4: Most people have no idea how they're actually using it.
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  Speaker 4: They're just using it as consumers. But there's a business
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  Speaker 4: behind this. This is before influencer was even a word.
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  Speaker 4: This is before you had to put ad You could
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  Speaker 4: just organically do it. That didn't work out, but the
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  Speaker 4: idea was still there. So the next idea was I
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  Speaker 4: was a financial advisor at the time, so I wanted
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  Speaker 4: to become a celebrity financial advisor. That was my original goal.
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  Speaker 4: I wanted to work with athletes entertainments because I felt
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  Speaker 4: like I played basketball my whole entire life, and I
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  Speaker 4: was looking at the people that was representing athletes and
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  Speaker 4: I'm like, I know that they don't They're not from
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  Speaker 4: the culture. They're not listening to the music. I know
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  Speaker 4: the music I'm listening to it. Why should they get
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  Speaker 4: to work with these people? I know I'm more qualified
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  Speaker 4: because I can actually sit down and have a conversation.
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  Speaker 4: But I didn't know anybody. I had no inroads, I
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  Speaker 4: had no advanced degree, and I didn't really have a
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  Speaker 4: way to actually get my way into the door. So
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  Speaker 4: the idea was to become a famous celebrity financial advisor.
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  Speaker 4: Because I was looking at the landscape and I'm like, Okay,
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  Speaker 4: social media has provided a platform for anybody to become
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  Speaker 4: a celebrity, a celebrity chef, a celebrity trainer. Previously, you
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  Speaker 4: can only become a celebrity if you was an athlete
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  Speaker 4: or an entertainer, but now you could be a celebrity anything.
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  Speaker 4: I'm like, well, you maybe be able to be a
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  Speaker 4: celebrity financial advisor.
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  Speaker 3: Ess.
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  Speaker 4: Maybe. So that's when all of the content comes into play,
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  Speaker 4: right where it's record everything. I'm man, we're not recording this,
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  Speaker 4: but that's the number one ruling life is to record
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  Speaker 4: everything because you never know, So we record, were recording this,
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  Speaker 4: but you gotta get you gotta get the organic organic.
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  Speaker 3: Cell phone footage algorithm breakup.
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  Speaker 4: So now it's like, okay, record the classroom, record selfie videos,
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  Speaker 4: record everything. To your question about the public access show,
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  Speaker 4: the number one ruling life is to cultivate relationships. There's
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  Speaker 4: a lot of number one rules in life, by the way.
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  Speaker 5: Just so you'll know, yes, yes, so you gotta cultivate.
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  Speaker 5: You gotta cultivate. Yes, you gotta cultivate relationships. So I
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  Speaker 5: was like, Okay.
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  Speaker 4: At that time, I wanted to get in front of
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  Speaker 4: of all like the top real estate developers and entrepreneurs
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  Speaker 4: and architects. These are people that have made a lot
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  Speaker 4: of money and successful, but nobody knows them. And what
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  Speaker 4: I realized is that the number one rule in life
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  Speaker 4: is that everybody wants to talk about themselves. Right, So
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  Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, if I could provide a platform for
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  Speaker 4: somebody to talk about themselves, then now that's actually a
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  Speaker 4: way for me to build a relationship. So I get
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  Speaker 4: off of a public access show. I never looked at
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  Speaker 4: it as a public access show. I looked at as
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  Speaker 4: a TV show, and that's how I pitched it. I
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  Speaker 4: would go to somebody and be like, you know, I
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  Speaker 4: have a TV show. Do you want to be Nobody's
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  Speaker 4: going to turn down be on a TV show, especially
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  Speaker 4: if they've never been on TV. So what that actually
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  Speaker 4: did was helped me to sharpen my communication skills and
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  Speaker 4: learn how to actually interview people. Right, So all of
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  Speaker 4: this has happening at the same time. We have a
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  Speaker 4: relationship from growing up together and working in the classroom
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  Speaker 4: as he just described, and my social media following is
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  Speaker 4: building at the time.