Transcript of THE GROWTH ENGINE BEHIND EARN YOUR LEISURE: FROM 4000 TO 30000 || MICHAEL J MACDONALD || EPISODE 085

Now before EYL started, what was the actual conversation that was going across between you and the co-founders that actually led you guys to build this?

Well, Earn Your Leisure was birthed before Earn Your Leisure even was birthed. When Rashad wanted to become a celebrity financial advisor, that's when he came to me. And that's when we started building his brand. And that brand kind of started to kick up and he was able to gain 40,000 followers in about 16 to 18 months. And between those 16 to 18 months, we were using a hashtag called Earn Your Leisure, just something that no one else had that you can tie the content with. How is Invest Fest profitable? McDonald, entrepreneur, brand architect, and the mind behind some of today's most influential business and financial platforms. As a co-founder of Earn Your Leisure and Invest Fest, Michael helped turn financial education into a global movement. Through the Business Engine, EYL University, and ventures like Market Mondays, he continues helping entrepreneurs build, amplify, and scale their businesses. Michael McDonald isn't just creating businesses; he's building platforms, empowering entrepreneurs, and creating a legacy. The difference between Invest Fest— there's 4 founders to Invest Fest. Each founder has a responsibility to take on to build this thing, whether it's getting the schedule, whether it's doing the event, the marketplace, whether it's doing sponsoring.

It's a founder that's taking care of all those different things.

And obviously your first year, you guys had 4,000 people, right?

4,000, yeah.

And the last one was 30,000 people. That is mind-blowing. Walk us through what building that event actually looked like in year 1 compared to what it is right now.

There was a lot of things going on in my life. My brother had COVID really bad. He was hospitalized. So it was only 6 weeks to build something that was going to house 4,000 people. So that was pretty incredible to be able to even pull it off. But we knew when we realized how much it was going to cost, we were like, you sure you want to do this? And it was like $1.2 million we had to pay upfront to put into it.

The Code to Winning Insights You Need Today to Seize the World Tomorrow. Today we are with an amazing entrepreneur known as the Business Engine. I'm going to give you a brief overview of who we have in the studio today. He's the business architect speaker. He's also the co-founder of EYL, Earn Your Leisure, um, Invest Fest, EYL U Mag Pack, and also, um, just a serial entrepreneur here in the state of Georgia, Atlanta. So without further ado, the man, the myth, the very legend himself, Michael J. McDonald. How you doing, brother?

I'm blessed, I'm blessed. Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

Thank you so much, great honor. I'm really—

Thank you for the intro too, appreciate it.

Am I your MC now for something that's coming up next year, by any chance? Am I your MC? At least a consideration?

Because of that interview, maybe I might consider it.

You gotta start somewhere.

I think that's something, right?

Um, uh, I've, I've lived in, in Duluth before, like about 7 years ago. I've been in Atlanta, um, obviously living in Salt Lake, born and raised South Africa. I have never seen the amount of successful, like, just Black entrepreneurs in my entire life than Atlanta. I feel like it's like the Mecca. It's like the, the standard.

It is. You don't got to feel like it. It is the Mecca. Definitely the Mecca.

And so I've obviously attended a recent summit which had about 2,000 people. Nobody can even come close to the level of like Invest Fest. You know what you guys have built, it's just revolutionary.

Appreciate that.

And I'm so excited to, uh, be part of it, be a booth, just like witness it. I've never— I've always, always heard about it. People have been saying, do Invest Fest, do Invest Fest, do all these stuff. And so I'm excited to just talk about what you guys have built, about business and all that as well.

I'm excited as well.

Awesome stuff. Can you give us a brief introduction just about you, how you started in the entrepreneurship space?

Well, um, you know, I, I've been, I've been an entrepreneur probably since I was running around chasing carts. I mean, if when you think about it, but you know, I've always— I never liked the 9 to 5. I wasn't a job person.

Hmm.

You know, I worked a really long time. I started working officially with my working papers at 14 years old. I was working at an arcade and an eyeglass place, and the arcade was actually my longest job I've ever had. It was from like 14 to like 18 years old.

Mm-hmm.

I had that. So, you know, because I didn't like the fact that you tell me how much I make based on the hours I— so you can, you can work a lot harder than me and I could work a lot less than you and we make the same thing.

Mm.

I just didn't like the fact that, you know, the more, the more you put in, the more you get out. And it wasn't, it wasn't designed like that. And then I found something called sales, and sales was, was kind of like my introduction to when you wait, when you, when you, the more you produce, the more money you make. So your income was based off of how much, how much, um, how much you put in, how much you produce.

Mm-hmm.

So I kind of like that. So, but because I, I, um, understood, I started to understand sales, I took all my skill sets and applied the sales, sales skill to, to my, my, my skill set. And I started to, you know, grow businesses to, you know, levels where I wouldn't need a job. Because up until my last job, which was selling cars, I still needed to supplement my income with a job. I would have my side hustles, you know, I call them side hustles. And, and that was the thing too, like when you— when a lot of us Black people, we, we like, yo, this is my little thing, my little side thing, my little— and, and, you know, when you— when your mindset says it's a little side thing or this little thing I'm working on, you're automatically gonna, um, you're, you're putting— you're covering it with, with the energy of it's a small thing.

Yeah.

So it'll never be a big— it'll never be a big thing because you don't allow it to. You didn't speak life into it. So I always say, you know, you should be speaking life into whatever you're producing, whatever you're doing. And, and that was my issue. I wasn't speaking life to— life into it. And then I started to learn sales, and I was able to maximize those businesses that I was, I was doing and, you know, grow those businesses to a place where I didn't even have to work it— work for someone. So I stopped supplementing my income with a job, and then that was like my full entrepreneurship. And I was about like 20, 28 years old.

Mm-hmm.

I've been like a solo, like no job, no nothing since 28.

And I mean, going head-on in the risk that, that it takes, because it means you fully invested in this entrepreneurship, like, journey as well.

Of course.

Often people take, like, the, the easier route where it's a safer option to try and get a job, build your way up the corporate ladder and stuff like that. And it gets tempting when things go hard. I mean, I remember when I did my internship as well, just down by New York, um, uh, in Lexington Avenue and knows also Wall Street sign, um, you're like, oh my gosh, it's an exciting thing. I can't wait to get the full-time offer. I can't do this thing. Then you're stuck in that pattern, and then you start seeing it. The best— that's the best thing about an internship. You can actually experience if you want to do something or not.

Yep.

And you're like, it's a trial. I can't do this, you know. I can't do this. I, I love the freedom. I love the chase. I love the journey. You were asking me earlier on with what I was doing. I love learning different stuff and Yeah, because I feel like that is what freedom is in essence. Would you agree with that?

100%. I mean, freedom, like, you know, that's what, that's what I'm chasing, and that's what most people should be chasing. And it's like, I, I'm not that I don't love money. I don't, I don't cherish, I don't worship money. I worship the fact that I'm able to do what I want to do on my own time. Like, that's what I'm, that's what I'm going for. That's what I'm fighting for, uh, being able to take my kids on vacation and, um, my family on vacation whenever they want. You know, um, going out for a nice dinner whenever I want.

Mm-hmm.

You know, um, having a— living in a safe environment, providing all the essential things for my family without worrying about if I'm gonna be able to cover the bills this month or next month or things like that. That's freedom. And the, the obvious thing is money is a tool, and you need a lot of that tool to be able to do those things. But, you know, I chase freedom, and I would adjust my life if I have to if I didn't have the, the money to sustain the freedom at that level. So if my level's here and I don't have the— my money's here, then I just have to come here because that's how much freedom means to me in terms of being able to do what I want to do.

You know, before EYL started, what was the actual conversation that was going across between you and the co-founders that actually led you guys to build this?

Well, Earn Your Leisure was birthed before Earn Your Leisure even was birthed. When, uh, Rashad was wanted to become, you know, a, a celebrity financial advisor, that's when he came to me, and that's when we started building his, his brand. And that brand kind of, you know, started to kick up, and he was able to gain 40,000 followers in about 16-18 months. And but, but between those 16-18 months, we were using a hashtag called Earn Your Legion, just something that no one else had that you can tie the content with. So now when you— back then, um, hashtags were really big, and you can go like, you know, you can go viral using hashtags. So we use that method, method to, uh, you know, to attach Earn Your Leisure, the hashtag, to our content. So anytime someone would put Earn Your Leisure in the— into the search bar, it would bring up all of our content because we were the only ones using it. And then, um, when, when the idea of the people said you need to have a podcast, you need to have something more where we can listen to more of this conversation, because these conversations is really good.

That was when, you know, that was the moment where we was like, let's, let's, let's try to like be more impactful. Let's do something bigger than what we've been doing. You know, this is nothing— it's bigger than just, you know, Rashad's financial literacy, Rashad's financial advisor page. It's bigger than that.

Mm-hmm.

This could, you know, potentially, you know, be the one thing that we do. You can leave your job, you could, um, Troy could leave his job. and whatever. So, and that, that was like the birth, like, you know, about a month before January 19th. That's what— January 19th, 2019 is when the first episode was released, but it was about 30 days of planning before we released it.

I love that. No, I love that. And obviously it started off as a podcast, became a movement. And when you— at what point did you realize that, you know, Earn Your Leisure was bigger than content?

Yeah, so, you know, because before we started, we realized the impact that it was causing. We understood that our communities weren't, you know, wasn't privy to the information that other communities may have had, like investing. I didn't really know anything about investing.

Mm-hmm.

But then, you know, now that I live in a predominantly white area, you know, I listen to, you know, the parents of their kids in school, 'cause I'm looking for a school to go into for my kids. And then like, I ask them what they learn, They're like, they're learning to invest and learn how to, um, build a business structure. They're learning all these different things that we, we were not learning. They're learning all types of like entrepreneurial things. Like the school is raising entrepreneurs, it's not raising workers, you know.

Mmhmm.

So, um, we didn't have that. So when we came out, people, I think, you know, were fed up. They're starting to— people are starting to understand that this American dream that we all dreamed of isn't really the American dream. This is so, you know, and I think the best thing for Earn Your Leisure was the timing that we did, right? When we came out, that's what people wanted, right? But we were only doing what people were asking for, giving them more information. And that impact was, was it. That's, that's what, that's what it did it, you know. People wanting more of, of financial literacy, more of how to get out of this 9 to 5, get out of the rat race, you know. Um, just like in Rich Dad Poor Dad. Uh, you know, it was like a whale. You're always like fighting to pay your bills. And, you know, and then we started to give an idea, right, of you don't have to do that anymore. You don't— you— there are, there are other ways. Your job should be your first investor. That's what your job should be, not your last, you know.

And one of the things I do like as well, it's, it's giving a lot of exposure to to Black people.

Yeah.

And I think it's a very important thing because like you just mentioned, the schooling system, obviously in a white predominant place, had structure and tools to be able to like give a lot of information, a lot of education as well. And sometimes I would say in more like inner cities and so forth, we— the privilege is not really there to be able to get the same level of education. So I feel like these events and these stuff, you know, learning about credit, about credit score, you know, I was told, and I want to talk about that as well, of the stuff you guys end up running and helping people, like, even, like, qualify for business funding. Yeah, at Invest Fest, all this different stuff, like, just helping people understand the level of necessary tools and knowledge that is out there is very, very important. And is that, like, um, was that the primary focus of that, like, moving forward within, with, uh, with what you guys been doing?

As far as credit, that's one of our biggest episodes, our credit, our credit episode. You know, and that's another thing, we don't learn about credit. You know, why are we not learning about credit? Why are we given a credit card with a thousands of dollar limit at 18 years old and we don't know how to manage $100? You know what I'm saying? So what happens to that person? That person destroys their credit and now they have to wait 5 to 7 years to get it back again.

Hmm.

Why don't they teach us credit? But, you know, it obviously, it goes down to the parents too, because— but the thing is, my mother didn't know anything about this stuff. She didn't, she didn't have a lot of information on financial literacy.

Hmm.

So, you know, and, you know, it sucks because it not just hurts her, but it hurts her kids as well. But, you know, you have to be the one to educate your kids on how to use a credit card, how to, you know, invest your money. Why not— why not— why purchase all these clothes and sneakers when you could be putting it into stock, um, stocks and, and have such a different outcome in 10 years versus struggling still in 10 years? So it's It's just a lot of, a lot of different things. But, um, but our, our first thing that we were talking about was real estate. That was the big thing. If you think about around 2019, what was going on, real estate was booming.

Mm-hmm.

You, like, a property wouldn't stay— like, in Atlanta here, you post a property in Atlanta back 2019, 2020, it's sold in a week or two, like, literally. So, you know, that was the big thing. Now, funding for Really, mortgages, that's a different, that's a different type of funding. We spoke a lot about that. We spoke about all the different types of like 201, I think 201 or something. All these different types of loans on how to get, how to, how to, you know, take advantage of the loans for your situation.

Hmm.

Whether you're getting a new construction, whether you're getting a multifamily, you know, whether you're a VA, we, we spoke, spoke highly about that. We spoke highly about how to write off your car if it's over £6,000. That's one of our biggest videos. So things like that, we, we try to give you the information that is like, you know, one, 100% legal, right? But we try to give you the information that is— that you need, that's tangible, that you can use, and you could take it and, and apply it to whatever you're doing at the moment.

No, I love that so much. And, um, obviously Invest Fest started as an idea and became one of the biggest financial conferences, especially in Black culture. Walk us through what building that event actually looked like in year one compared to what it is right now.

there was a lot of things going on in my life. Um, you know, my brother had, uh, he was in a coma for, um, he had COVID really bad. Uh, Troy, he wasn't in a coma, but he had— he wasn't— he was hospitalized. So we only had 6 weeks to build this thing anyway.

Hmm.

So it was only 6 weeks to build something that was gonna, you know, house 4,000 people. So that was pretty incredible to be able to even pull it off, but We knew when we realized how much it was gonna cost, we were like, you sure you wanna do this? And it was like $1.2 million we had to pay upfront to make it, you know, to put into it. Personal things were going on with, you know, with my family, with Troy and his family. So that was one less, two less people that were like, we had to deal with other things. But while we were dealing with that, good thing that's, you know, it was in Atlanta. So, you know, this is my home and I had multiple people, like I had my brother, my brothers, you know, I had other people like helping us and taking care of things when I had to go back to New York to, you know, take care of things. Right. take, um, you know, go see my brother because we was going back to— back and forth to New York like every other day to like, you know, check on my brother while he's in a coma.

So it was, it was, it was extremely tough. And, you know, we didn't have the delegation that we had now. Like, we didn't— we weren't— wasn't— we wasn't really— we didn't trust the system. We ain't trust giving, like, delegating things to people like as we do now because—

Yeah.

But we realized back then that it stopped us from getting even further, going even further. Right? It stopped us. So now 2022, that's when AB, you know, our, um, COO of Earn Your Leisure, that's when he came on board and he started to, you know, take on a lot of responsibilities. And, you know, we had Ashley at the first one. She was our event producer. So, you know, it was just— we were also learning the business. We were learning. And, and I say this all the time to people when they talk about how is Invest Fest profitable. The difference between like Invest Fest— there's 4 founders to Invest Fest.

Hmm.

Each founder has a responsibility to, to take on, to build this thing, to do this, to operate.

Mm-hmm.

Of operations, right? Whether it's getting the schedule, whether it's doing the vendor marketplace, whether it's doing sponsoring, it's a founder that's taking care of all those different things. Now, they may have a staff under them, but it's still a founder hands-on versus, say, a Coachella. I bet you the person that invented Coachella is not the person touching and looking at the books and doing this. He hired someone and they just It's so much easier to spend someone else's money than your money, right? Where we're watching our budget, we're understanding how much is spent, where is it spent, we can take from here, add it to here. So now that's how you keep a festival going for years and years and years, 'cause we're still hands-on. We didn't just give it to somebody and say, make this happen. So that's one of the big things about investors too, and that's why, you know, it's like a family-oriented, it's an intimate business, it's still an intimate business, you know?

Yeah, and obviously your first year you guys had 4,000 people, right? right?

4,000. Yeah.

And the last one was 30,000 people.

Correct.

That is mind-blowing. I know you and I spoke about it when we— when you walked up here. When you start looking at just normal big, big names that are in the business, um, I can't think of a single person that even gets over 10,000.

Yeah.

And the fact that you 3x'd like what some people's dreams of doing in people that are loyally coming back, people that are planning their year out in advance. I've heard people— I heard a guy talk to me from North Carolina back in February about going to Invest Fest.

Yeah.

I've had a guy in New York, I told you I was doing like— I had partnership with studios out there talking about, yeah, they're heading down to Invest Fest in August time. It's become a household name in terms of events that occur on a yearly basis. How did you guys take this in like event from 4,000 to $30,000. How did that work?

Partnerships. That was one. That was one of— that was how we 3x'd, um, year 2. Because year 2 was Steve Harvey, and we went from $4,000 to $12,000. That was year 2. And, you know, he allowed us to— you know, he had an event, I forgot what it was called, but we took a lot of knowledge from him from that, you know. Because again, we're still learning on it. We're learning on the fly. We're still learning today. But it's more rinse and repeat at this point. You know, we have a foundation, we have a blueprint, and we take that blueprint and just add the different pieces that need to be added. But that was one of the biggest things, is partnerships. And we went from $4,000 to $12,000 in the second year. And then, you know, when, when we, um, when we realized that, you know, the 12— that year was, was really significant because people didn't believe in us year one. Year 2, they started to look at us like, wait, hold on, what's going on? Year 3 changed everything. In year 3, we had, you know, we had P. Diddy, uh, as the, as the, uh, the keynote speaker.

And that was probably the biggest, you know, that was— that put us on the national platform. For— that's when Bloomberg comes now, uh, CNN's there, all the major media outlets are there. And, you know, the cool thing— not cool, take that back. But the thing is, when Diddy got into his trouble, every picture that was being used— and he's getting billions of impressions— every picture that was being used was his last public interview. And you know what that last public interview was?

EYL.

EYL Invest Fest. So that actually got us from $20,000, now we went to $25,000 or something like that the following year, year 4. And then year 5, you just— it just— it's just the momentum stayed, you know? And I think it's the impact that people are are talking about. People are getting married from investors, people are building businesses from investors, people are getting partnerships with investors. People— it's just— and it's, you know, you, you know something and you tell somebody, then they tell somebody, they tell somebody. It's just, it's just a domino effect of impact. It's a massive amount of impact.

And for somebody out there, um, that may be watching this, because I mean, most people I know know about the event as well, for those that might not know What would you say would be the biggest takeaway they would gain from attending the, like, their first Invest Fest this coming year?

Relationships. Okay, that's the biggest thing from Invest Fest. You have to make relationships. That is going to be the biggest thing that someone's going to take away. They're going to meet them, their next business partner. They might meet the love of their life. They're going to meet someone they can invest— if a lot— what I realized as, as I start meeting people with money, like, I have a lot of money They don't know where to put their money. They are looking for— like, funding is, is not as hard as people think. There are a lot of people that want to invest in businesses and companies, but they— but the people with the money don't know where to put their money at.

Mm-hmm.

You know, they want to do— you know, they want to diversify their portfolio, and maybe 10%, 50% of it they want to put into businesses that people out here have. And, you know, they come to Invest Fest. We give away hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to, you know, companies. You know, we have grants and stuff, and we have investments to all these companies. But a lot of people don't realize that people want to invest in your company. Now, the other side of that coin, a lot of people like us, Black people, we don't like giving a piece of our, our company away. But 0% of, of nothing is what? 100% of nothing is what?

0% of something.

50% of something is what?

Yeah, exactly.

Invest Fest doesn't go to $12,000 in the second year if we don't partner with Steve Harvey, right? You gotta— you gotta— relationships is going to be the best thing. The next thing is going to be, you know, I would say like this year— what, let me think about this year. This year I would say, I would say opportunity in terms of the different industries. Because we have, we have AI panels, we have extremely like investment panels. And people think, if you're looking at this video right now, you might think that investing is hard. After coming through, after coming to Invest Fest, you're going to realize how, how easy it is to invest in, in the stock market as to, as of today versus like a year or 2 or 3 years ago. There are so many tools out there to use to be able to have such a, a better prediction of what the stock's going to do than it was, say, 2 or 3 years ago. Because, you know, the hardest thing is to do the research, right? Where you have to research the company, how much money they have on hand, what's their, um, forecast, what's the— what did they make the last 3 fiscal years, with all these different things.

I had to go to 10 different sites to learn that information. Now it's so much easier with AI and stuff. So I think you're going to really, um, get to know how easy it is when it comes, becomes investing.

No, I actually love, uh, I love the, the knowledge sharing regarding that. It's just so underrated how accessible all this information is if we actually like invest in the time to go to these things. And especially like, you know, like I said, I've been here 2 events, I'm attending another one and New York. But in the calendar, there's not many events that are as big as that where you realize everything's gonna all come together in one. Like I said, I'm excited to have— I've always had booths where I've interviewed people. I've never had in an environment that big. Like, the biggest I've had, I think, was like 2,000, you know what I'm saying?

Wow.

And like 30,000+ is gonna be like something that you never experienced. But again, we came across a lady who does— you probably know what she does. She's an attorney for trademarking.

Rosina.

Yeah, yeah, some of you have heard about her.

Shout out to Rosina, she does all my trademarks.

So about her, she showed me all the booths that she was having, and what's crazy, somebody walked past like, oh, so you had an event? Like, it's become a thing where everyone talks about it. Like, whether I'm in Salt Lake, whether I'm in North Carolina, whether it's New York, it doesn't really matter. Like, what's crazy is the fact that I can attest when you guys say 30,000 because I've come across just 5 different people in different states that have spoken about this life-changing event. And again, for me personally, yes, it's got a lot of brand building, but it's also trying to get some of the brilliant minds to come and share their knowledge and like what I'm going to be doing as well while still gaining knowledge and increasing our investing. So there's always multiple different tools people can get, but I think sometimes people have this limited, like, mindset of trying to prevent themselves from gaining. Like, oh, why should I go pay X amount of money to gain that thing? Why could I do that thing? And I think that's such a limiting belief, you know. It's just you're depriving yourself of something you can actually gain from people.

100%.

So I agree with that. Um, obviously also, um, you know, you call yourself a legacy architect, which I, I like that phrase a lot. What does it actually mean to you in real life, not just in that brand statement?

Aria Leisure is a legacy, um, business, right? It's gonna be here forever. It's gonna— it's going to— it's not gonna impact just me. It's gonna impact my kids. It's gonna impact my kids' kids. You know, I was in church last week and he said the difference between a legacy And what was the other word he did— he said? But he said a legacy. When you, when you have— when you leave legacy, you, you don't just— you don't affect you, you affect your kids' kids. That's, that's legacy. And I think that's what— that's what— that's what I, I believe that I do when I— that's what I think about when I build a business. How can I just— how can I affect my kids' kids?

And just add on that, what is it you feel like is in, uh, the Black community that's preventing us from building generational wealth?

What's stopping us? I think, I think we are in our own way. I think we allow, we allow other voices to stop us from achieving greatness. I think slavery is an example of, you know, why they were able to have slavery so long is because our own people were, you know, whether it was ratting on us or being a house word that they use and all this stuff. So we, we hate on each other. I think the biggest thing that's stopping us is hating on each other. And the moment when we realize how powerful we are, if we all came together, that'd be the moment. that, or be the time that we will excel on a level that is unimaginable. Why they suppressed us so much and, you know, make us believe that when we're not great, make us believe that we need them. When they, when they continue to do that and we start, we continue to believe it, it's going to continue to stop us from getting, becoming great.

Mm-hmm.

Becoming financially free.

Mm-hmm.

Becoming to living up to, to our best ability. And, you know, that, that, I mean, that's it. I mean, I think, I think that's the only thing. Hey, hey, he's the only, only thing I could say.

And just to add on that, one of the things, like I said, despite, um, um, I'm not African-American, but I'm an African in America, you know, because I like that.

I like that. I'm not African-American, but I'm an African in America. So African-American.

So to add on that, um, I want to just try and talk about just the impact just African-American culture has had around the world from a person that has obviously moved here, lived here, resident here. But it's not just— it goes beyond like basketball, it goes beyond football, it goes beyond pop culture. If you just look at all the biggest names, that culture has just been embraced on 4 corners of the earth. So despite the challenges that the communities has faced, it has had a global impact that people just resonate with the culture more than anything as well. Whether it be hip-hop, whether it just be like in the industry, whether it be LeBron James or sports, whatever it may be, Steve Harvey in the entertainment business. Like, it's just, there's something very unique that has just been resonating throughout the whole world that people just love the culture so much. And when you say something like, um, that limitation when you believe that it's going to be super unstoppable. I feel like it's already happening at a rapid pace right now because just generation, generation just seems to be getting better and better. Would you agree with that?

Somewhat.

He's like, not Gen Z.

See, you got to understand, you got to understand, this is, this is the unfortunate part about like today. There's never been a time in human history that, that one person can create so much impact. Right? And they could, you know, if you go viral, you get 10, 15, 20, 100 million views depending on what your message is. That can affect a lot of people. And you see people— there are people of our— in our own culture destroying, you know, bringing down our, our people. There are people that of our own culture that we've helped millions of people at this point, right? But the moment we have some— somebody that wasn't of caliber, right? We gave someone a chance and it wasn't of caliber, or they wasn't the person they said they were, and, you know, they didn't fulfill their— what they said they were going to fulfill. That person not only just brings down that person, but they also try to bring down us, like we're the culprits of it too, you know?

Mm-hmm.

But we try to— we vet every single guest, and we try to, you know, give everybody an opportunity to get on a platform to get your message across, right? Because the goal has always been to produce as much impact that we can amongst as many people as we can, whether it's America, uh, Nigeria, Ghana, you know, Egypt, Toronto, Canada, wherever it is.

Please say South Africa.

South Africa. Johannesburg, right?

Yes, sir. Johannesburg.

Uh, Cape Town.

There we go, there we go.

You know, so whatever, whatever, the all— the ultimate goal was never to make money because when— if you understand what podcasting was back then, there was no money. There was no money in podcasting, very little. There was only one person and that was, um, Joe Rogan.

Joe Rogan, yeah.

You know, and satellite TV, satellite radio was the other guy, Steve, um whatever his name is. But, and he wasn't— he was adult radio, so, you know, you really couldn't— it wasn't even nothing that— it was premium content. So we, we was like, yo, let's just continue to impact, impact, impact. If money comes, great. If it doesn't, so what? Whatever we got, we still— we, we still making our money and doing what we're doing.

Hmm.

So, and now that's what the goal was, always impact. So whatever we could do to to produce the most impact. That's what our mission was, right? And, you know, how could someone talk so bad about people or a company that's only been trying to help our people?

Hmm.

It's just— it's a slap in the face. But it goes to show you, it's the hate. They want to be you. They want— they want the egos. They're fighting their ego. They're fighting themselves, right? They hate themselves. They hate their life. Right? They don't, they don't like their life. They wake up every morning, how can I make someone else feel like I feel?

Hmm.

You know? And it's mostly only our people, right? Now, I'm not going to say, you know, other communities don't hate on each other, which they do. But the question was why we can't get further. Because the reality is the more people that, you know, comment hatred, the person that they're commenting on, they start to believe that. They start to think that maybe they're right, maybe they're true. And this person that was here that could have been way up here, they never seen this because they had so much hate here that they were discouraged and they stopped themselves from going further.

Hmm.

Getting out their own way. Back to that, you know, you got to stop, stop listening to people because that's— if someone has the energy to say things that are, you know, inappropriate or, or violent or just straight out the devil, then they don't deserve your ear, they don't deserve your time, they don't deserve your energy.

So no, that's, that's well said and well articulated. Um, now in terms of like business and, and, and what you do and all that, um, what would you say is the most important trait or skill as an entrepreneur that people don't know of?

So Let me— so I, I'm like, I'm working on this new business, right? Uh, I, I just— I'm about to open up a podcast studio, right? And this is a new business, something that's never been done for me, you know, brand new, all things, whatever. Everything that I'm thinking about is fulfillment, right?

Mm-hmm.

I think when people start to build a business, they think of the offer and they worry about the fulfillment at the end of it when they get a sale. And now you're, you're, you're, you're playing catch-up because now you have to fulfill this sale and you never had a system in place.

Hmm.

So I think the number one thing is not just creating the offer, not understanding the profit. The number one thing is the system on how to fulfill the current— the, the, the, um, the fulfilled product or service. So I'm creating this, this podcast, uh, studio, and all I've— the, the most, the more— the most time has been going into fulfillment. How can I make this thing run as efficient and as smoothly as possible with the least amount of people?

Hmm.

So, and that's all I've been doing. So I've been going through the systems and seeing how I can break it. I built a software that can literally take, that can control the whole entire studio. Like I was looking at this safe, I'm like, wow, I should have got that bigger safe. So, you know, it can house more product and more equipment. So if you focus on the system of fulfillment, I think that should be the most important thing in your business before you start anything.

Mm-hmm.

Like, all right, the name is cool, the— but if you, for instance, people used to come on the podcast, still do, but people come on the podcast. We don't, we don't push, we don't push anybody selling anything anymore. But when they would come on the podcast and they go from, they make 100 sales a month to 10,000 sales a month just, just by being on a podcast. 9 out of 10 businesses ain't gonna be able to fulfill 10,000 orders when you only had 100 before. So they didn't have a system of fulfillment in place, so now they don't fulfill your orders. What do they look at? They look at like they're not a good business person.

Yeah.

It's not they aren't good business people, they were just put in a position where they weren't ready for the amount of, of of attention that was given from being on a platform.

Yeah.

So, and they didn't have the systems in place. So having, having like systems in place really to run your whole entire business, like for everything, like marketing, communications, support, you know, fulfillment, products, and ordering. Like, I just went to where— I went to somewhere and they didn't have something. I went to a restaurant and it was like Monday morning and they didn't have, they didn't have the rest of the, uh, the, um, the product I want. They have like 3 different products in, in the store. I'm like, who's the manager? Like, this is a— this— you've been open for some time now. How you don't have like all this, the, the best, um, items? But it was— it goes back to systems. They don't understand, one, their clientele. They don't know— they don't have a system in place doing the ordering.

Mm-hmm.

They're just— they're winging it. And when you wing— you can, you can make it winging a business, but you can't, you can't grow exceptionally doing a business. If we were winging Invest Fest, it would never grow to 30,000 people.

And I mean, just to add, even add on that, one of the things you mentioned earlier on, which I, I liked a lot, you stressed on the fact that among the 4 co-founders, everyone has their own role. And I think it's just, it's an underrated skill or underrated structure because sometimes if people don't know expectation or role, it just can be a bit sometimes conflicting, misunderstanding, stepping on people's feet, not knowing what, you know, is being fulfilled. But the fact that operationally people know exactly what the role is, it sets a great precedent. It gives a great foundation and it's just easy from the top down to understand how the structure may work as well. Systems are underrated. I mean, That's one of the first things. And you mentioned that a lot. Many people, when they start, you want to have everything all to yourself. Like, you don't want a single partner.

No.

And some of the most successful people I know of have partnered with multiple different people, because the more you partner with people, um, the, the better it is for people to understand their role. But at the same time, I also understand sometimes people have been burnt. People have just like had people that have just mistreated them, have like just stolen from them, taken from them.

But it's like in relationships.

Exactly.

You can't let someone— you can't let your old boyfriend, your old girlfriend, you know, dictate your future with your new boyfriend or girlfriend. You can't let the scars that they had or put on you, you know, be scars for you or, or, or the future of who you might date. It's not fair to them, it's not fair to you. It's just like in relationships with business. If I had a bad partner in my previous business relationship, I can't let my new partner, you know, be affected by— from my past. They're not them. What you can be is more, you know, cautious. You can, you know, have more, you know, tape, you know. You can, um, you know, vet them better, you know. When you see a flag, don't just let that flag go. Like, say, uh, it's just one time. Understand that there are flags there, and how, you know, how you do everything— how you do everything is how you do anything, right?

Mm.

Or whatever it is. How you do anything is how you do everything. It's the same thing. If they're not— if they're not organized, do you realize they're not organized in their house or in their car or getting dressed? They're probably not going to be organized in business.

Hmm.

So those are the things you have to take, you know, you know, clues of when, when you're getting into a relationship with anything. You know, look at— look at that, but don't let the scars or the wounds that happened in your previous you know, relationship, whether it was intimate, business, whatever it was, affect going forward. Because it's just not fair, and it'll stop you, stop you from getting 30,000 people.

It's depriving, 100%.

Because all 4 of the co-founders of Invest Fest sure had, you know, partners that, you know, probably weren't the best, and things, you know, went— didn't go as expected. But we didn't allow that to you know, deter, deter us from bringing new people in. No.

When you look at young Black entrepreneurs today, what is the one gap in financial education that still frustrates you?

You say young— say that again.

When you look at young Black entrepreneurs today, like just young Black—

Young Black entrepreneurs. When you say young, what's young?

I'd say probably, you know what, 30 and below is young.

Okay, so When— what about young Black entrepreneurs?

When you look at them today, like, what's the gap in financial literacy or financial education that frustrates you the most?

I think they think they have enough, they have more time. I think that's the biggest gap between Black entrepreneurs and white entrepreneurs or Asian entrepreneurs or Indian entrepreneurs. They're working on their business at 20, at 15, at 10, learning how to be an entrepreneur, where we, we don't start learning until after our 30s.

Hmm.

So I think because we always feel like we have enough time, we have more time, we have more time, we have more time. And, you know, the, the, the, the moment, the time when it becomes a time where you realize that no, there is not a lot of time, the time is now. You know, my kids will be, you know, understanding entrepreneurship You know, even now though, I give them like tasks and stuff, and if you do this task, I'll give you this. If you do this task, I'll give you this. So chores or whatever, they're understanding that nothing's given to them by those little things, those little clues, you know, um, of, of understanding when I do this, I'm gonna get this. Now, now the thing is, as they get older, is you get— you build this, and you know how think of the easiest way to do something once and continue to get paid for it. That is the message I want to put into them, instill in them. I want you to be able to do something one time and get paid over and over and over for it. If they understand the philosophy and the science behind that, they will be all right as entrepreneurs.

They'll be all right as men and human beings and business people, and they will gain financial freedom. But, but they have to understand that Just because you go to work for 40 hours a week, that doesn't mean, you know, you make more money or you, you have freedom. What you have to do is learn something that you could do one time and consistently get paid for it over and over again and create as much passive income as— like, we weren't— we didn't know about passive income. What is passive income? You know, we didn't understand that income that is, is made, you know, where I don't have to do anything to, to make it back, to make it. We don't understand that growing up. And that— those are those gaps in our community that we're not taught. You know, we're taught to work. Gotta work. Even our parents, you got to go to get a job, got to go to school. You know, that's the things that was taught to us.

And I'm grateful you touched on that because I feel like that it's important to really instill these principles to the next generation. For a parent that may be listening out there that may have kids that are probably still teenagers, what advice would you give them in total to try and Yeah, a parent.

I think the, I think the worst thing a parent could do is get— is be in the way of their child. We talked about scars. There's scars they have from growing up, there's scars they have from, you know, business or anything. They put it on to their kids. For instance, say if a, a mother had a business, she had a business and it failed, and, you know, she had to start all over again and she had to get a job and You know, every— all her dreams and aspirations was, you know, it never happened, right? Because her business idea failed. Now her kid, she starts to tell their kids not to have a job, not to have a— I'm not to have a business, not to grow their business, not to do this, not to do that, because of her issues. And I think the biggest thing is for parents is not to— let your kids dream. If their dream is too big, believe it, like pour into it, because you just never know. It would— like, you got a Zach Zuckerberg, is a billionaire, and he had this dream. He dropped out of college at 18, 19 years old and now has one of the biggest businesses in the world.

Like, if your kid says something, that's what I want to do, you— it might— it will— it might happen.

Yeah.

But you— but when a parent, you know, discourages that kid from dreaming, it's, it's probably the biggest slap in the face to— like, mental illness is probably at the all-time high right now. And if you think about it, you know, a lot of people don't have dreams. A lot of kids don't have dreams.

Do you think it's mainly in the Black community or just in general, kids in general?

I can't speak for, you know, any other community than my community I'm in because I don't really unders— I don't really know too many, um, people in other communities, but I know a lot of kids don't have dreams, and their dreams are so small.

Mm-hmm.

My thing is dream big. But the thing is, is that how can they dream big if they don't have the— they don't have the inspiration to, they don't have the, the insight to, they don't have the, the, the ability to see that far? So that's the parent's job, to give them that inspiration. Give them that vision that is bigger than anything they could imagine.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's a bomb right there. That's absolutely powerful. It's just, uh, it's just so much, um, potential. I feel like kids just know what they're told. And if you tell them—

They believe you.

You're incapable of, that's the beginning of doubt as well. But if you tell them you can do whatever you want to do, you end up like becoming an astronaut or becoming whatever you want to try and do. And I think entrepreneurship, yes, is still important, but sometimes people can also be very good in certain industries. Like if you want to become an astronaut, it's still something that you change in the world and adding value. If you want to do other stuff, you can still dream big and, you know, become the President of the United States. All these different stuff, I think just the nice thing about entrepreneurship is the level of freedom you have in achieving, like you said, taking your kids out on a random day or, you know, going to do these different stuff, the level of financial freedom, but also the freedom that we have. You know, we spoke about 250 years of America and all that. I don't want to get into that much, but like true freedom comes when you know you can do whatever you want to do. So I want to— You spoke as well, obviously you're co-founder of multiple different businesses.

And we spoke about what you're potentially going into as well. Um, my, my question for you and advice that people might want to find out, do you think it's better to learn and start a business and perfect it before you jump onto the next one? And the next— okay, can you elaborate on that?

Are you— leaves is the tree.

Mm-hmm.

Once the tree's built, you start building branches off it. Every business around Earn Your Leisure is aligned with, with Earn Your Leisure. It's learning— it's aligned with the main mission, right? So EYL University is a longer version of the Earn Your Leisure podcast, right? EYL Network is a network of podcasts that are financial literacy or whatever it is, but it's a podcast. Still aligns with it. Invest Fest is a business financial literacy event that goes on. So I think, I think each business should be aligned with the main mission. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So, you know, um, if we started Invest Fest, Earn Your Leisure, EYL University all at the same time, they don't grow. EYL University was one of the biggest assets that we had because it had over like 5,000 people, um, in the community at the time. It might have even been more, but we had a massive, a massive community at that time. How much easier is it going to be to start Invest Fest now because we have a massive community with, um, with EYL University?

Mm-hmm.

So now we have supporters, we have members, paid members at that. That's a strong thing too. Yeah, you can have a big community of free members, but you have a big community of paid members, the people that already paid you, right, that already trust you, how much easier is it going to say, listen, I'm doing an event, come to this event? We're going to get half of those people. That's how we got 2,000, 3,000 people right away from the EYL community.

Hmm.

So, you know, but they all work hand in hand and they all align with the same mission of Earn Your Leisure. So I would say build the Earn Your Leisure branch. And at first, Earn Your Leisure branch was, was a podcast, right? And as that podcast evolved, it became an empire. And Earn Your Leisure as a podcast became a branch. And now Earn Your Leisure as the tree is the empire that hosts so many different businesses. Wow.

Oh no, wow. And do you guys have like mentorship programs to try and teach people how to build what you've built in terms of like community more than anything? Community networking?

I mean, Ewha University houses most of it. Okay. I teach with the business engine. I teach, you know, things like that. I try to teach people how to build community, how to build, you know, the different components of Earn Your Leisure, you know, whether it was a podcast, whether it was, you know, um, a traveling company, uh, event company, you know, whatever it is, you know. I, I, I tell you, I teach you all the frameworks that we use to build these, all these different companies, because every company at Earn Your Leisure has, I, I built like the blueprint, the foundation of it in terms of the operation of the— wow, the, the, the, the, the, the, the guts of it, you know. So, so yeah, so, you know, we, we do that. Yep.

All right, you push people to act bolder and think bigger. What are you personally still afraid of?

Death. That's probably the only thing. I ain't scared of failing.

I mean, why are you scared of death?

I mean, mainly because I don't want to leave my kids and my wife and my family, you know. But, you know, that's probably the only thing I'm scared of. And I don't know if— I don't know if that's something that you get over, but the more— the closer and the more intimate relationship I get with God, the more I start to see that, you know, I start to believe and have faith that heaven exists. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna be at a good place. And, you know, and God won't— is always gonna, you know, put you and your family, as long as you stay obedient, that he's gonna always make sure you're good. And I think that's been the biggest thing, just staying obedient, um, you know, being the best human being I can possibly be, praying all the time, you know, um, pouring into, you know, my faith. And I think maybe, you know, as I get older That will, you know, strengthen my faith into, you know, death.

That's powerful.

Yeah.

So, um, obviously I want to respect your time. I'm just probably after like 2 questions I want to try and ask and conclude. But, um, this was also very important for those people that are watching this right now who have an idea, who have the drive but lack the resources. What sort of advice would you give them if they want to try and start some business right now?

See, so it's hard to say lack resources because there's so many resources out there. Like, you don't even— if you don't have $20 to invest in like a chat agent, I mean, and that's your— that could be your only resource, you know. Claude, Claude is—

Claude is revolutionary. I mean, People talk about ChatGPT, all these different stuff, Claude, and then getting the utilization of Claude as a personal assistant, getting Claude to teach it. Oh my gosh, I can get into that as well. But yeah, continue, brother.

I mean, I mean, it's— that's it. I mean, learning, you got to be obsessed with it. If you can't be obsessed with your business, then don't do it. You got to be obsessed with it. That's what I— that's what— from all the people I know that are successful They've been obsessed with it. They can't stop thinking. They can't stop doing. They dream about it. They live it. They smell it. They breathe it. That's— don't worry about having the resources. Worry about how obsessed, how much upset, how, how big of a, of an obsession you can have with this idea, with this business, with this, this thing that you want to create. Because that's going to lead you to all the resources you need. Just think about this. If I'm obsessed with growing the festival I told you about, right? I am a person that do not like to ask people for favors. I'm a person that do not like to reach out. But as I become— once I realize it and put this in my mind that this is what I want to do, and I, and I attach my obsession to it, Mm-hmm. I'm not going to hold back on who I contact.

I'm not going to hold back on who, who's I, who I ask for favors. I'm going to be obsessed, so obsessed that the resources that I don't think I have right now that are going to become available off of my obsession. Does that make sense?

100%. 100%. And obviously, uh, the last question, I mean, I've traveled 31 states, done multiple different interviews, um, and—

How many countries?

2 so far, just South African. American and South African, my 2. Listen, we'll do a world tour. And listen, I'm glad you mentioned that. I'm glad you mentioned that because I have some friends out there that have been pushing some ads that are in the UK that I'm gonna try and like recruit them because I like what the DirecTV CEO did, Stephen Bartlett.

He was—

he had a primary audience in the UK and he realized that The market in America was like mind-blowing, but I'm gonna try and do different like sort of stuff as well. But for now it's only been 2 countries. So man, you just killed my light, right? I'm out there bragging about the 31 states and you just had to like just take that away from me. How could you, man?

I mean, America is such a small place.

It's the capital of capitalism, you know.

So I mean, Africa's— you should— I'm surprised you haven't been to more countries in Africa.

We're gonna do it. Yeah, we can.

Africa's— they're the biggest resource in, in the world.

100%.

You know, they produce the most money, but they don't make the most money.

That's a thing as well. Exactly.

EYL Africa coming to a screen near you.

Listen, yeah, I'm the first ambassador of South Africa, so let's go down there together.

Yeah, we just, we just started, we just started, um, a venture with, with some people in Africa, and we started EYL Africa.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow, I love that, I love that. So the term winning, uh, because the coach winning, winning means the term means Different things for different people as well. So for Michael McDonald, what does the term today winning mean for you?

The first thing I would say is winning is my relationship with God. The next thing is my health and my family's health. The third thing would be, you know, how free can I be? What can I do? When can I do it? How could I do it? And, you know, the 4th thing I would say would be my relationship with everybody in my life, my circle.

I love that. I think that's one of the best answers.

That's what I'm winning. If all that is good, then I won.

Awesome stuff. If you could let our viewers know where they could get a hold of you if they want to even attend Invest Fest, which will have the link in the description section below. Invest Fest will have a link.

Is this coming out before Invest Fest?

Yes, it is.

So, okay. Yeah, so Invest Fest is August 7th through 9th. Go get your tickets. Presale— I mean, it's, it's like a presale code. Actually, I can give you a code. What you want to name the code?

Uh, winning.

Winning. The code is winning. I'm gonna give you a discount. I don't know how much, it's a surprise. So if you see this video and it's before August 7th, go to investfest.com, put the code winning, and you'll get a great discount on some tickets. You're going to learn, you're going to be impacted, you're going to network with people that you've never thought existed or imagined. You're going to come out of it with relationships in terms of business. Maybe, and maybe, maybe you might find your wife or your husband. I found my wife at an EYL networking event, believe it or not. But yeah, and then, um, what I want to do too is like, you know, if you do have an idea and you want to build a business, if you can use— if I can do this, can I just give this?

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, use code WINNING2. Go to thebusinessengine.com. And I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you a whole entire month for free. So just type winning and you get your first month free at the Business Engine. I have a lot of components there. I have a lot of, you know, modules there that you can literally take and, and apply it to your idea, your skill, your all those different things. If it's AI, if it's marketing, if it's YouTube, I, I talk about a, a wide range of things And like I said earlier, I've taken all the frameworks that we use from EYL and I applied them to the business setting. So you can go there as well. But yeah, I want to see you at Invest Fest. I want to see— and if you're in Atlanta, I got a lot of things going on, man. I don't know how I do it. You know, a podcast studio will be open at this time, so you can go check out creativesuites.com. That's my podcast studio. So that's it, you know, that's what we're doing.

All the links will be in the description section. By the way, the quote-winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Michael J. McDonald, the man, the myth, the legend.

Thank you very much, sir.

I appreciate it. Thank you, man.