vote?

Because the year before that, it was CNN.

And they did something exactly similar.

So they're saying, like, look, just let me finish before you interrupt.

They're saying that we have to, we want to cover this event, but we have to find a way for it even to make the pages.

So if we could say, okay, well, 20,000 people came to this event.

How do black people feel about Kamala Harris economic plan? Then we can tie invest fest in that story, as opposed to just saying, we're just going to do a story in general.

How do you do it at scale? How do you guys break what you know is already broken so that you can reset it?

Rashad, what about you?

Um, well, I always has, um, foundational knowledge when it comes to finance.

My, my dad was an entrepreneur his whole life, and I was always into business as a kid.

I didn't know everything, obviously.

I didn't really understand the inner workings of how credit card works or, you know.

But I, I definitely, I, I think had more of a foundational knowledge and just I was more open to learning about that.

And definitely my father was a major influence in my life as far as that, 'cause he was always teaching about, um, pay yourself first, and like, you know, don't work for anybody, like, be your own boss, and um, you know, just business principles.

Yeah.

So just to get real going, Juneteenth, Black Money Forum, what you created, what does that mean to you

guys? It means a lot.

This is our whole mission as far as economic empowerment, financial literacy.

And this is our biggest market, Brooklyn.

And Jude, that's family.

So to have it today, Juneteenth, which represents freedom, which represents a new day, a new chapter, liberation.

I feel like it just goes hand in hand with the financial liberation, the financial movement that we all playing a part of.

What did you talk to the people out in the audience today and what kind of encouragement or advice that you could give to everybody watching as far as investing?

So I'm, I'm assuming you get some great feedback from people who attend this event.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, every, every year people come around for more.

You know, they want us to add new things.

One of the things, you know, people were asking about was Invest Fest for my kids, and one of the things we wanted to make sure is we had to make a consecutive effort to make sure that happened.

So this year, on Thursday we're actually having a Kids Invest Fest, where we're gonna have panels, we're gonna have workshops.

We're gonna have a pitch competition where, you know, a team is gonna be awarded $20,000, and they're gonna be able to experience Invest Fest for their age level.

How's this gonna work, fellas?

Now, we do this year after year, so I'm, I'm assuming you get some great feedback from people who attend this event.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, every, every year people are hungering for more.

You know, they want us to add new things.

One of the things, you know, people were asking about was, is InvestFest for my kids? And one of the things we wanted to make sure is we had to make a concerted effort to make sure that happened.

So this year, on Thursday we're actually having a Kids InvestFest, where we're gonna have panels, we're gonna have workshops, we're gonna have a pitch competition where, you know, a team is gonna be awarded $20,000, and they're gonna be able to experience InvestFest for their age level.

So all the things are high school to young teens, uh, dedicated so that we can figure out how far they can go with the trajectory if they're given the same information.

How's this gonna work, fellas?

Right

...

I mean, and it's non-taxable, which is the most important part.

For the person who's trying to start, right, I think the foundation is important.

So, like, owning shares is important, right? If you don't own shares, you can't do that, right? So if you get 5, 10 shares.

The other part is, like, after we've gotten some shares and we've created our foundation, we trade derivatives, right? And so derivatives, options markets, futures markets, um, commodities, which we don't really do too much of, which is inside the futures market.

And so if I'm in a company like Nvidia, right, and I'm gonna have 10 shares, 20 shares, 100 shares, then I'ma go to the derivative side and try to figure out if I can make option calls, right? Puts and calls, right? Options, meaning that I'm making a predictive price point, that's the expiration date of what it's gonna get to, and this is the price, which is the strike price of where it's gonna be in a certain time.

Right.

Do you just keep it in Atlanta, kind of like how Essence just keeps it in New Orleans? Is it just one thing that it always stays there, or do you say, you know what, we take it to another city?

Its home has been Atlanta, obviously, for six years.

We flirted with the idea just because, you know, the lack of support that we've gotten from it.

from the city of Atlanta has been something that has been puzzling.

But we come from grassroots, so we know how to build things from the ground up.

So what is Atlanta not doing to

"Let's go for another month and see what happens."

No, we, we, we had traction right away, you know, as far as social media.

I had a social media page before, before that, so me personally, I was learning a lot about social media, growing a following, different things like that.

It's a whole...

Content creation is like going to college, I always say.

Like, and people don't...

I don't think people have a full appreciation of what it is to make content 'cause it's, it's not easy and it's very difficult and it changes over the course of time.

That's a big fact.

Yeah.

I, I haven't seen it.

I haven't seen Mark Cuban or, you know, Robert Kraft say like, "Yo, earn your leisure." What the fuck are they doing? Da, da, da, da.

You only getting that level of critique and hate from people that's on a bottom level.

Mm-hmm.

So it's like in order to even have a conversation, you gotta actually work a little bit harder so you can actually be on the same level where it's like, okay, now it could make sense.

Because it's like you could say what we have not done, but what have you done? Why do niggas with no money know exactly what a nigga with money should do with their money? That shit is crazy.

Mm-hmm.

Hello.

Or the woman is more financially responsible than the man.

So even if the man makes more money, he doesn't even ha- he's not financially responsible.

Yeah.

So he goes to the person that's financially responsible- It's a fact ... to finance things, to borrow money from, to pay Pe- rob Peter to pay Paul.

That happens all the time.

The reason why I said in relationships, because nine times out of 10 the man is trying to still impress the woman, so now he drains himse- 'cause that could happen in a rela-

Did HR happen at EYL because something happened that made you both go, "We need this"?

Mm-hmm.

This was year, like 25 years ago, and he was saying how Amazon was not, never made a profit, and they laughed at him like, "Well, what...

Like, what are you doing?" I think it was Jay Leno.

And obviously they...

But what I'm saying is this, a lot of companies can afford to lose money.

It took a long time for Meta to make money.

But that was all weekend, though.

But I, but I've never seen it.

Mm-hmm.

This was year, like ... 25 years ago, and he was saying how Amazon was not, never made a profit, and they laughed at him, like, "Well, what..." Like, "What are you doing?" I think it was Jay Leno.

And obviously they...

But what I'm saying is this: a lot of companies can afford to lose money.

It took a long time for Meta to make money.

Yeah.

But then also the business, this, so this is important for the audience to know, too, when you're trying to raise money, there's a, there's a bucket that they have for Black business, and it's...

So let's say it's, like, their budget to spend on, on marketing is $100 million.

Mm-hmm.

Respect governance.

Like, we gotta have better ways of dealing with each other because it, it, it is problematic.

Like, we, when we, we can't even work together, how we gonna change anything, like, in our real... and, like, really, really affect real change-

Mm-hmm.

It's just, it's just a great energy.

It's a great feeling.

It's life-changing experience, so highly would encourage people to do that.

have probably benefited, but still are, you know, like how do you guys deal with that?

Yeah, I mean, you know, it says a lot about the times that we're in, but it's just human nature as well.

It's like when somebody can't do something, it's a few things that a person can potentially do in that situation.

If they can't do something, then they can have admiration and inspiration and say, well, I'm not at this level, but I'm inspired.

Or you can become a hater.

Yeah.

And that's usually how it works.

Africa.

Yeah.

They're looking at, they're looking at every single House race.

They're looking at House races in Arkansas.

They're looking at House races in Alabama even if they don't have no business there.

So I think that it's, it's really, it's really, really, really, you know, trying times right now when it comes to maintaining the democracy because it's only gonna get worse.

So if it's 1.3 billion now, what's it gonna be in 10 years? What's it gonna be in 20 years if we're on the same rate? We're looking at, you know, historic, uh, amount of money that's being put into these elections.

Mm.

You know, you had, you had the president come to game three.

What about EYL University? Talk us through the online university and why is it important for someone to go there versus going through a traditional college or traditional online information?

Yeah.

I mean, EYL University, we ...

So we have the platform of Earn Your Leisure is we have an Instagram page, we have TikTok, we have all the social media.

We post content all day on that.

Then we have, um, three shows under the umbrella.

We have a show, Earn Your Leisure, where we interview entrepreneurs.

Sure.

Why the word

deserve? Yeah, I think a lot of times people, you know, coming from working class environments.

You don't feel that you're actually worthy of riches.

You think that it's out of the realm of possibility.

And a lot of times we're put in situations where we think that the middle of the road is the end journey.

so the first thing we don't talk about stocks and real estate and credit and all that stuff but the first thing that we had to do was actually get people to understand that they actually are worthy of being rich that is not an impossible dream it's not something that's so far-fetched it's not something that's only for entertainers and athletes like Every average day person that comes from any background can achieve financial freedom, financial success.

So rewiring the mindset of people is extremely important.

What would your piece of advice be to stick to your resolution? You got

Have you always been chill?

Nah, nah, you gotta keep your composure.

I think that we've always had like a calm demeanor.

He's a little bit more outgoing than I am.

Like, I'm very like... chill, laid back, reserved person.

But I feel like, um, in a day and age where everybody's trying to be somebody that they're not, and like I feel like a lot of times when you get online or get on social media, it's almost like wrestling.

You have to a- adapt to a personality.

Rashad, do you have a early story that has affected the way you look at money?