just called him like oh you want to do a show and this is a great thing because it ends with you guys making this enormously successful business but what's wrong with the education system that you guys had to turn into the mr rachel of finance

the the complicity was what forced me to say, we need to do this, right? Like I'm working in education for, I think 10 years at the time, I'm realizing that everything that we're teaching and I'm watching my colleagues teach and I'm watching students, I'm like, what are they gonna be using in the future? Like we're learning about science and all these things are great fundamentally for the development of the child, but like who's gonna teach them about the things that are gonna take them out of their neighborhood, out of their circumstances, how they're gonna make decisions, whether it's college or whether they're gonna become entrepreneurs.

Nobody's given them that fundamental structure or even education.

And so the summer became that for me.

And what happened in that six weeks of the summer, I was like, look, I teach for 10 months and this six weeks that we're educating, it feels more fulfilling.

And so I knew that was the calling.

How do I get this? So while he's doing that on social media, I'm thinking to myself, how do I scale this program to make it available to more people? Because as they see it, they're like, why isn't my kid in that? Why didn't I learn that? And so you see the gap where, okay, they left this out very intentionally, in my opinion, for somebody to fulfill it.

Or based on your knowledge and your knowledge as an educator and a financial professional.

So I think whatever area of expertise that you come from, take some time, sit back, see how you can add those skills and services that you learnt from working into an entrepreneurial world that you can help more people and scale.

Yeah.

I think that kinda is our story, right? Like, he comes from financial services.

I was in education my, my entire life, right? They, they used to joke that, you know, I went to school my whole life to go back, and I'm like, "Well, [chuckles] kind of." Right? Like I, I, I just enjoyed teaching people, and so that skill set has never left me, right? The, the subject has changed of what I'm teaching now, but the skill set has never left me, and it's allowed me to do other things, to specifically invest, which I think is so important, uh, and definitely for Black women.

Um, Angela, like you, my household was run by my mom when it came to finance.

Like, my dad would work.

I think he made more.

So just made a lot of sense from, from, you know, why we chose Atlanta, um, the city, to do Invest Fest.

It's kind

of like what I said.

We didn't aim to network up.

We said, let's just highlight the people that can help the everyday person.

And if we do enough work, we add enough value and have enough impact, the people that we wrote, those 10 names, They'll know who we are and they'll see that we can add value to their situation as well and vice versa.

So it was always that impact.

Like, listen, that's the names.

And what does Black Money Forum mean to you guys?

Presented by iHeart.

This is Troy Millings from Earn Your Leisure.

When traveling for events or festivals throughout the country, every dollar matters.

We compare flights, prices, hotel rates, and restaurant options, so why wouldn't we compare rides? Personally, I always check Lyft before booking a ride.

Prices can change throughout the day depending on traffic, weather, and what's happening in the city.

If you're headed to a concert, out to dinner, or catching up with your friends on a Friday night, taking a few seconds to check Lyft could leave you with more money to enjoy the experience.

Save money.

Kewpie, the original Japanese mayonnaise.

This is Troy Millings from Earn Your Leisure.

When traveling for events or festivals throughout the country, every dollar matters.

We compare flights, prices, hotel rates, and restaurant options, so why wouldn't we compare rides? Personally, I always check Lyft before booking a ride.

Prices can change throughout the day depending on traffic, weather, and what's happening in the city.

If you're headed to a concert, out to dinner, or catching up with your friends on a Friday night, taking a few seconds to check Lyft could leave you with more money to enjoy the experience.

Save money, check Lyft.

Kewpie, the original Japanese mayonnaise.

Yeah.

Does it translate always? I, I think people, they hear the information, and they can interpret it but so much, right? 'Cause the laws are different, governments are different- Right ...

policies are different, and so it's that, that need for it, right? They're like, again, "Somebody's at least speaking about financial education.

I know some of those things don't apply, but maybe I can use this in terms of entrepreneurship to get my business off the ground." Which is part of the reason why we, we kinda go there.

'Cause we understand that, but if we were able to do this in America with Earn Your Legit, what happens when we go to Africa and we go to Accra and we find entrepreneurs that are doing it? And I've seen, like, hey, we want to give everybody this story so that the people here can now find opportunities in this story, right? It's one thing to hear us do it, but it's even a better story when they hear people that are from where they're from-

Yes.

I'm a huge RZA fan.

Like I said, just Wu-Tang was, was everything, down to like obviously getting every album they, that they made.

So what is Atlanta not doing to

make sure they're comfortable? Atlanta's done nothing for us.

And, you know, it's an unfortunate situation, but it's one of these things.

I think a lot of times when you're a black entrepreneur, a lot of things are just expected.

Like, oh, you got it.

Like, you good.

Or if somebody else would come, like a Forbes or somebody like that, then they would roll out the red carpet and do everything.

Every question Lauren or Jess or you guys had, I know it's going to be on point, and it's going to be digging for something deeper, and I got to be on ready for

Or did you just say, "You know, we're just gonna play it as it comes"?

I think we kind of just, we were, had a vision to be, a- again, a bigger brand than what we were.

Um, but these opportunities kind of came as we were building it, right? So they always have that analogy, like, we're building the plane as we're flying it.

Um, and the more we got around people, the more we got around people of influence and networking, we got to see ideas, and so w- we watched the landscape.

Okay, that's something that we can add.

And that kind of came naturally from interviewing the folks that we were sitting down with.

Every time people would come down, we would ask them questions very intentionally about what they did with their business, how, how they actually created a business from it.

Before we get out of here, man, my, my last question that I have is, um, I'm a big believer that you can either leave a blueprint or permission when it comes to people, right? Like, the work you're doing, right? So what I would ask each one of you all is, or in totality, right, like when you think about the work you all do with Earn Your Leisure and InvestFest and Mar- and all, all the entire, just the whole empire, right, like what would e- either be the blueprint y'all leaving for the next person, or what permission would you be giving to the next person to follow in your footsteps?

It could do all types of crazy shit to me.

Yeah, we, we in a, we in a crazy time, right? 'Cause right now we're talking about artificial intelligence.

But artificial intelligence is getting better every day.

This is why we say education will change.

Health care will change.

People will be living longer, right? We saw somebody recently that, hey, we found the first cure maybe for sickle cell, right? We're gonna see in the next 10 years that diseases are gonna be eradicated.

Why? Every day, every minute, it's working to get better and find a cure.

Mike Jordan wasn't doing it for this long.

Yeah.

Right? So, like, you grow up saying, like, "I wanna be like this guy." Why? Well, he had the money, he had the women, he had the cars, right? Women are attracted to it.

The guys are gonna follow where the women go, right? And so it's just one of these things, and obviously we know if we didn't have the same, uh, type of appearance, yeah, it could've been different.

But we blessed out, you know, the situation that we got.

But the, the most important thing that we do is, all right, let's f- let's feed into the value first.

Yeah.

It's not like, "Oh, hey guys, come look at us.

Oh, look what..." No, it's the value first.

Mm-hmm.

We, uh, we flirted with the idea, just because, you know, the lack of support that we've gotten from, from the city of Atlanta has been, you know, something that ha- has been puzzling.

But we, we, we come from grassroots, so we know how to build things from the ground up, get help from, you know, our partners and, and people in the world of, of business that have helped support the event.

Um, but we flirted with it, but it's just something about the city of Atlanta.

When, you know, COVID was happening and we were looking at a space we could do it, it's the epicenter of Black culture, of Black business, of B- Black entrepreneurship.

Mm-hmm.

We had a large fan base there and a large support base there.

So it was like, "All right.

Mm-hmm.

We, uh, we flirted with the idea, just because, you know, the lack of support that we've gotten from, from the city of Atlanta has been, you know, something that b- has been puzzling.

But we, we, we come from grassroots, so we know how to build things from the ground up, get help from, you know, our partners and, and people in the world of, of business that have helped support the event.

Um, but we flirted with it, but it's just something about the city of Atlanta.

When, you know, COVID was happening and we were looking at a space we could do it, it's the epicenter of Black culture, of Black business, of B- Black entrepreneurship.

Mm.

But the people that are actually giving information, right? I, I feel like it is the Super Bowl for entrepreneurship, and so whatever's happening in the year, that's what's being the, the forefront, whether it's AI, whether it's crypto, whether it's real estate.

People are actually learning what's happening in real time.

Mm

... because we can see that technology is going to lead this, and if we're in the right technology companies that are gonna appreciate over the next five, 10 years, we'll be pretty good.

But bigger than that is this thing is going to change the world as we know it-

Yeah.

Right? Because you still have relationships.

Like you said, we're, we're a close-knit community, so we grew up with a lot of, a lot of people that are watching this that, you know, came on the journey with us, had time with us, are no longer with us, so yeah, that, that's been the most difficult one.

Yeah.

If you're not there, well, why not? You're talking about the leaders in entertainment, but also the leaders in finance, entrepreneurship, business, real estate, all coming together to give information.

And so something that has that many like-minded people, if you're not part of it, then what are you really doing? I think one of the key things is that, like you said, it really isn't about us.

When you say that you got on the stage, I'm looking at it like, man, Ash gets to speak in front of that many people.

Who's going to give him that type of moment again? What's that moment like for him? So we watch it from an advantage point.

Obviously, we're privileged to be part of the founding team of it and be on the stage, but I like it for everybody else.

Or else it would have been Earn Your Leisure Fest.

Protect yourself now at ora.com slash remove.

Last show

showAll right.

The moment has come.

Jay-Z did a concert in Yankee Stadium three nights in a row.

I'm sure you guys have already heard about this.

Indeed.

So we're gonna give you the full breakdown.

Nah, for real.

Let's get back to the episode.

Yeah.

It, it, it's still here.I think it very much thing is because what you don't realize what you're living in is trauma.

It's traumatic.

Wait, what do we do? Number one, for yourself, how do you recover? But you have three children that are now part of this.

And so what they were doing, and they did a great job.

They, they tried to hide it as much as they could.

Mm-hmm.

But why shouldn't we aspire toward that? And why shouldn't we feel like we deserve to do that?

Yeah, I think it goes back to like the first line of the book.

I'm always interested when people open it and see the first line is the American dream is a lie.

Because we've been told, you know, it's the white picket fence and it's the big house and it's the two and a half kids, which is impossible.

And it's the dog.

And you realize that dreams aren't monolithic.

And so people fall into that habit.

to be an enabler.

Mm-hmm.

And I was like, "I gotta turn this into something." Um, so that program, I tried to scale.

I put it in a few schools, and I was like, "This is what's needed." Uh, at the same time, you know, my partner Rashad was creating his own imprint on social media, but he was my financial advisor.

He was my best friend throughout high school, uh, obviously, as we, you know, we went to college.

Uh, but he was a financial advisor, and I was like, "Perfect.

This is great.

You can come in and co-teach with me," right? Like, "You know more about finance than I do.

Right.

... that impacted you and how that still impacts you today?

Yeah, it's interesting.

I still live in the neighborhood where that house is, which is pretty interesting.

So when we were writing the book, I drove past it just as a moment to see how far we've come.

But yeah, my, my parents from Jamaica, they moved to the Bronx, and we were living in the South Bronx in the '80s.

And, um, they bought a house in Greenburg, New York.

And at the time, I remember them trying to get as much money as they could for the down payment, borrowing money from family members, and we finally got the house, and it was great.

... you know something.