You Deserve to Be Rich with Earn Your Leisure’s Rashad Bilal 🏝️ E153

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: You Deserve to be Rich, Earn Your Leisure, Felicia Rashad, Investfest
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Earn Your Leisure
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Investfest, Steve Harvey, Tyler Perry
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Market Mondays, Earn Your Leisure, Investfest
5. 40:00 – 42:44: Earn Your Leisure, Felicia Rashad, Rashad Balo

Notable quotes from "You Deserve to Be Rich with Earn Your Leisure’s Rashad Bilal 🏝️ E153"

• Community. We have a network of podcasts. We have a very large event called Investfest. We wrote a book which is a New York Times bestseller called You Deserve to be Rich. We…

  about Investfest · at 1:48

• Then following that we did a few different things and we did a interview with Steve Harvey and that interview went viral and during that after the interview we spoke with Steve Harvey and he just took a like and everything that we had going.

  about Steve Harvey · at 11:47

• Across all platforms. and then my page on Instagram, my name is Rashad Balo, so that's my Instagram name. And yeah, appreciate it. It's awesome. So, as you guys know, this episode is important not just for yourself, but it could be for your.

  about Rashad Balo · at 41:59

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Felicia Rashad — Person · 3 mentions · first at 1:33
  Downline for the rest of eternity. You need to have capital. It is a tool. And so, without further ado, Rashad, give us a quick two-minute bio so we can get straight to the money.
• Steve Harvey — Person · 1 mention · first at 11:53
• Tyler Perry — Person · 1 mention · first at 12:18
  Then the next year for Investfest year too he was one of the headliners and then he also got us Tyler Perry as a headliner.
• Rashad Balo — Person · 1 mention · first at 42:06

Books & papers

• You Deserve to be Rich — Book · 4 mentions · first at 1:56
  Called Investfest. We wrote a book which is a New York Times bestseller called You Deserve to be Rich. We have school curriculum and a variety of other different things. But…

Companies & orgs

• Investfest — Company · 10 mentions · first at 1:52
• Earn Your Leisure — Company · 8 mentions · first at 1:40
  How you doing? yeah, I'm one of the co-founders of a company called Earn Your Leisure. and we started seven years ago and it's grown into an online community. We have a network of podcasts. We have a very large event.
• Market Mondays — Company · 4 mentions · first at 2:31
  You deserve to be rich. it would came two different ways actually. So another partner of ours on the show Market Mondays and a strong part of what we've built Ian he has like a mantra where he says you deserve to be rich.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:05 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a very special edition of the Money Mondays podcast. We cover three core topics. How to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity. This gentleman will be able to cover all those topics and more because he has his own podcast, his own live events, his own university, and everything between teaching people the way I passionately do as well. He does it on a grand scale. He's been doing it for many, many years. As you guys know, these podcasts are under 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes. The average commute to work is 45 minutes. This episode will be between 35 and 38 minutes for your listening pleasure. We want to keep this podcast ranked super high. And we have a 93% listen rate because of you guys taking this content, sharing it with your friends, family, and followers. Because we grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money.

0:50 And I want to get rid of that mindset and that concept. We have to talk about money. Finances, accounting, taxes, debt, leverage, credit, all these things are part of your daily life. Paying for bills, paying for groceries, paying for your family. There's nothing evil about that. A lot of people talk about money is the root of all evil. Money has function. Money is a tool to things all encompassing in your daily life. You need it. You want it. You have to have it. And we want to make sure that we can talk about it because over the course of time, you're going to need millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars. Not for flashy things, not for fun, fancy cars, but to literally survive over the course of time for you, your family, and the people in your downline for the rest of eternity. You need to have capital. It is a tool. And so, without further ado, Rashad, give us a quick two-minute bio so we can get

1:37 straight to the money. How you doing? Um, yeah, I'm one of the co-founders of a company called Earn Your Leisure. Um, and we started seven years ago and it's grown into an online community. We have a network of podcasts. We have a very large event called Investfest. We wrote a book which is a New York Times bestseller called You Deserve to be Rich. We have school curriculum and a variety of other different things. But it's all centered around teaching people about financing, highlighting entrepreneurs, talking about investing and um done in a way that's very digestible. And uh that started as I said 7 years ago online on social media and that's kind of grown into multifaceted media company today.

2:21 So you deserve to be rich. Where did that title come from? You deserve to be rich. Um it would came two different ways actually. So another uh partner of ours on the show Market Mondays and a and a strong part of what we've built Ian he has like a mantra where he says you deserve to be rich. And um that was like a seed that I guess was psychologically planted, but I didn't even think about that when we was coming up with the title. I felt like you deserve to be rich just kind of outlies it from a psychological standpoint that most people don't think that they actually deserve

2:56 wealth and that that leads to self-sabotaging that leads to them not fulfilling, you know, the potential that they have. So you can give somebody all of the information, introduce them to people, you know, they if they don't deep down believe that they actually are worthy of success or worthy of finances, um then they're not going to actually go through with it. So [snorts] the book is is a is kind of a blueprint when it comes to, you know, personal finance and goes through the whole journey from the start to finish. But the title of the book felt like needed to actually catch people's attention, set the tone, and also kind of like, you know, make it different than just a regular book about money, right? like it's not just about money, it's also about the mindset because that's vitally important. So just coming up with different ideas around that idea and you deserve to be rich was the was the the

4:05 go-to. Similarly, you have another cool name which is the actual main brand name which is earn your leisure. How did that story come about? Um that story came about. I was a financial advisor before this and um I had my own personal brand on social media that I was building before we started Earn Your Leisure. And I was making content based around my life, based around finance tips, based around a variety of different things that you know was growing my own personal page. And uh at that time especially hashtags were like really big and like hashtag almost was like a slogan.

4:44 Yeah. So like you know you have an individual hashtag that's like unique to you and that's kind of become like your slogan. So I was looking for a hashtag that I could use for myself that had not been used before.

4:58 And u Troy actually my partner he came up with the name earn your leisure. He just came up with it. He was like that's a good hashtag. that's that's something that you should use. And um I used it and um right away it just got people's attention. Like I saw, you know, I looked at the hashtag you you can see like if other people use it and I saw other people was using the hashtag like people would be like somebody was in Cancun and they like earn your leisure. I didn't even know this person. So I'm like it's it's catching legs.

5:26 People were asking me like if it was a multi-level marketing firm like people was asking me and all I was doing was just putting it on my hash. every everything I was every post that I did, I would put earn your leisure hashtag like what is on your leisure? What is on your leisure? Like, you know, and I actually never did I never really liked the name at first. I didn't like the name. I didn't really see like how it was going to catch on. It kind of seemed a little like cheesy to me. So, I stopped using it for a while. And then another friend of mine, he had asked me, he's like, "What happened to Ernia?

5:56 Like, why'd you stop using it?" I'm like, "You like it?" Like that. He's like, "Yeah, that was good." Yeah. [snorts] All right. Cool. So, we started using it again and once again it started to pick up traction. So, when the time came for us to actually start a show um cuz that was the first thing that we did together as far as on the online side. Um started a podcast and I asked Troy if he want to be my partner in the podcast said yeah. So, we were coming up with different different ideas for the name of the show and um I had I had a name I wanted to call it Money Power Respect. M that's great.

6:30 Um Troy had another name. We kind of went back and forth, but then we like, look,

6:34 we already have Earn Your Leisure. That's something that I've been using for a while. It's original,

6:40 so we might as well just go with that. And that's what we named the show Earn Your Leisure.

6:46 And that started the whole Earn Your Leisure brand. So, at what point did it add in the live event side?

6:53 Live event side came early. We uh [sighs] probably 16 weeks into into us starting a show, we did a pop-up event, okay, in um Carson, California. And uh that was just a spur- the- moment thing. We were in California. We were shooting some content. Like I said, it was in 16 weeks in, so we was relatively still early in the in the show. And um another one of our friends had did a networking event in Atlanta like a week before. And I saw it online and it it looked pretty cool. Oh, this is a good idea, a networking event. So, we just put online that we wanted to do an event in in California.

7:31 We was there. A restaurant owner um hit us back like, "Look, I have a restaurant. I like you guys. I would love to host you. You know, you don't have to pay anything." We like, "All right, cool." So, we did that event and the event, you know, it was a free networking event, but

7:44 it was packed. Like probably 200 people came and people came from the IE, some people came from San Diego. So that's when we knew like we had something spur of the moment thing California on like a random Thursday or a Monday something like that

7:58 and it was packed. So that led to us doing a series of networking events all over the country.

8:03 Okay. We did one in Brooklyn. We did one in Atlanta. We did one in Houston. We did one in Chicago. We was just going around the country. We was doing free networking events. We was working out deals with the um bars. We pick like a Thursday and um we would uh sell merch. So he tried to make some money from it. We get a percentage of the bar. The idea was just to kind of cover the cost of travel, but we wanted to just see how hot we actually were in person, but also like to gauge the interest of the people in different regions and just taking a model also like from just music. You know, you see like hip-hop people go on promotional tours, promo tours like before the album comes out. So we was doing that and every every stop it got bigger. Y

8:48 every stop it got bigger. I think the last stop that we did, I think it might have been Houston or Chicago was like 600 people. It went from like 100 to 200, 300, 400, 500. And it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So at the time, so at that time like, "All right, we got a good gauge of like this now. Now we start to do paid events."

9:06 So the first paid event that we did was in Atlanta and it was a two-day event. It was actually the day that Kobe died um because I remember we had made that announcement to the audience. That that was crazy. But we did that event and it sold out. Um I think we sold like probably 500 tickets and it was uh a live podcast one day then like a educational workshop the next day and then we like okay now this is a model that we can replicate. So we started doing that model again. We went to DC. We did the same thing that we did in Atlanta. We did it in DC. Then we we were scheduled for Philadelphia and that's when CO hit. So, like literally like three days before our event cuz co it kept building up. We kept hearing about it, but still nobody was really 100% sure what was going on.

9:54 Yeah. But March 19th it became real. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, like 3 days before our event,

9:58 that's when everything shut down and we had to cancel the event like 3 days before the event. So, that was a that was kind of sucked cuz we put a lot of work into that. We was we was really really looking forward to it.

10:08 But, we canceled the event in Philly and then we took a break obviously because co And then um actually Marcus him 500 we went to his event. He had an event like probably like a year later during when people started to pick up events. He did an event in Miami and we saw his event and that was like real inspiring. So we knew we wanted to come back to the event space because that was something that we did before

10:32 but we wanted to see how we can do something different and um at the time everybody you know a lot of people had business conferences business symposiums in the world of business but

10:41 wanted to see how we could do something that had never really been done before. So I thought about having a festival

10:48 and like really like not just using the word festival but like actually having a festival but built around business. So that's where Investfest came in and we kind of looked at what music festivals do and what other type of culturally relevant festivals do the framework for it and we took from that and added like the traditional business conference model

11:13 and put them together and then that was Investfest and then that so that was that's how we got Investfest.

11:19 How big was the first one? 4,4500 people. Wow, that's big. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was it was big off the gate. I mean, relatively. And we only had eight weeks to plan. So, we started it. We had eight weeks to plan. We we put together the whole thing

11:35 in uh about a month and a half. And um yeah, so you know, Investfest out the gate. It was it was um it was really good. And then from there, the anticipation had just just built. And then following that we um we did a few different things and we did a interview with Steve Harvey

11:55 and that interview went viral and during that after the interview we we spoke with Steve Harvey and he just took a like and everything that we had going on. He wanted to work with us. So he's like come up with some ideas for us to work together. So we pitched him the idea of him coming on as a partner of Investfest.

12:11 Yes. and um he came on as a partner and then the next year for Investfest year too he was one of the the headliners and then he also got us Tyler Perry as a headliner.

12:21 There you go. And then yeah that went that was like 14,000 people and then it's just

12:25 14,000. Yeah. Jesus. So then and then it just Yeah. every year from there. So you got 25,000 at the recent one.

12:33 Yeah. What's your plan [clears throat] for 2026? 2026. Um, scale scale and not just in the way of people. Every year we add to Investfest. So like the pitch comp, we added a pitch competition two years ago for $100,000. Last year we did a pitch competition. We actually gave away $250,000. Wow.

12:52 $125,000 to each person. We added Friday programming two years ago. This year, last year we It was the first year we added like full day Friday programming. So now it's like a full day. It's three days. just a real three-day cuz at first it was just two days then we kind of dipped our toe in with the Friday to make it three days but now it's all day on Friday workshops so we added that aspect to it so vendor marketplace has grown every year we have around 400 small business to large business vendors inside of our vendor marketplace um so really that's that's really the focus is to like how how can we make the experience better and better every year

13:36 for you know people coming to Investfest. So you know from speakers to you know the vendor marketplace pitch competitions different um value ads. So that's definitely in the works for this year.

13:50 Why should people go to Investfest and events like it? Um it's something that you really can't get online as far as the online education is great. You can learn a lot online, but you know the key to success, well, one of the keys to success, one of the keys to our success is relationships. And so there's a few things I think that you get from a live event like Investfest. You get the education. That's one thing, right? Like you actually get to sit in on panels. And I feel like if you can go if if you can't learn something in three days, you're not trying to learn,

14:21 right? Over 100 panels, workshops. I mean, a variety of different things that's happening. So you're going to learn something in person. That's one thing from an educational standpoint. you're going to get inspired and that's not talked about enough either because like I said investfest comes from us being inspired. So we started something with tremendous amount of scale in a very short period of time because we saw something if we didn't actually go to that event

14:47 right we we might not have gotten inspired to do Investfest. So that the inspiration I think is something that you get in person. the relationships. Like that's probably the biggest part for me. It's like you're you're in an atmosphere with 25,000 like-minded people. It's not just 25,000 people. You could go to a basketball game with 25,000 people, not know one person, and then leave, right?

15:10 But if people actually pay for a ticket, they pay for a hotel. They they've taken time out of their weekend. A lot of people travel. They're not from Atlanta, so they got to get, you know,

15:21 all the plane ticket, everything that goes in. These are serious people, right? So, you're around 25,000 like-minded people over the course of a week. And

15:30 if you don't make at least five very valuable relationships, like you're going about it the wrong way. And these relationships can change your life. And I've heard stories of it changing life. People met their real estate partner, people who've met somebody that invested in their business,

15:43 people have met their wife or their husband, right? So, I feel like a lot of times people um they always say like you are the greater sum of like your seven closest friends,

15:57 but what if you don't have seven productive friends? What if you're in a place where nobody in in your neighborhood or your environment is thinking how you think, right? Like, well, you have to get out of that environment. And it may not be like a permanent move, but it may be an intentional escape to establish different relationships, different friends, and different levels of connection. So, that to me is is huge. Like, you know, it's you never know who you're going to meet at Investfest. Everybody's there. And like I said, just from a vendor marketplace, the VIP night, just walking down the halls, being being in the in the actual um seminars. So that aspect of it I think is is really big as well. So few different few different reasons why people should go to events that you can't cuz that's some some people say like well anything you can learn at an event you can learn online

16:50 and that may be true from an educational standpoint but if you're only going to an event for an educational standpoint I think you're you're missing a lot of other key elements.

17:00 Sure. I'm obsessed with the events. I throw 42 events a year. [clears throat] The experience is how we build memories and how we forge relationships. We'll remember if we went to a concert together. We'll remember if we went to Best Fest together. We'll remember those moments even years and years and years later. Often times we retain information for a while and only percentage of it stays in our minds. But those relationships last

17:24 for hopefully for a lifetime. What about EIL 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.

17:36 Yeah, I mean EY we so we have the platform of earn your leisure is we have Instagram page, we have Tik Tok, we have all 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. We have a show called Market Mondays which is a stock investment show happens every Monday. Then we have a show called Blackout which is like a late night opinion opinion based show. Um you learn different things from different shows that you watch or the different content that we post and you can definitely utilize that information to change your life because people have done it right. Like you could watch an episode about real estate and actually go and buy a multif family home. you can watch Market Mondays and actually start investing in the stock market and and make, you know, 50% of your money in one year potentially if

18:28 you get the right stock. That's happened. That's those are real stories that have actually happened. Uh, but I like to say like it's it's it's similar to like a public school versus private school. That what I just described, all of that is free and everybody there's no barrier entry for it. Everybody's has access to Wi-Fi. You can watch it. But some people want a more hands-on learning approach. Some people want more of a hands-on community. So, how we built out EY University is not like just an online course. It's actually an institution. So, we have regional groups, in-person regional groups. So, we have a DC group, we have a Chicago group, we have a South Florida group, we have a LA group, we have a New York group. And these are regional chapters where people meet together with different people that's part of EY University. And then they'll go out, they they'll go out for bowling, they'll

19:17 do community service, but once again, the relationships, right? They get to build relationships with people that's close to them. We have classes that happen that we don't have the capacity to have on YouTube because there's just not enough time. So like Troy, he does stock options. He'll teach a twohour stock options class every month. Market Mondays is only a two-hour show. It's not designed to actually sit go through a chart, go through the fundamentals of a company. Like it's that's it's not the framework for that, right? So when you you get that indepth teaching in EY University, I was a financial adviser for 14 years. So when I one of the things I started when I went online I was offering people free consultations like you could book a 30-minute call with me but as I didn't have the capacity for that anymore obviously

20:10 but now with EY University I do monthly calls with people for your university and it's just like a free flowing session ask me any question you want about investing about business about marketing about college savings about retirement and I'm literally just sitting down answering questions is it's a one-on-one in a group setting right like I don't have the capac capacity to do that on shows. Um, we bring in experts in the field to actually, you know, teach about real estate or teach about credit or different things of that nature. So, we've we've really jam-packed the the curriculum with anything that you want to learn about, there's a video for it. And then there's ongoing lessons, tutorials. There's a community. We have an app. So, there's a community that talks every single day, especially on the investing side. What are you looking at? I just found this company. D and they they go they go back

20:59 and forth all the time. We have investment clubs inside of it where people actually, you know, learn about cryptocurrency and what's happening. So, it's an extinuation. It's an extension of what we're already doing with the online YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Instagram, but it's just more in-depth. And like I said, that's something that we don't have the capacity to do that on YouTube. Um, but we have the capacity to do it online but in a different version which is EY University. So that's for people that really want the hands-on learning experience, people that are serious, people that just want to cut directly through, get exactly what they want, put together, you know, them put themselves in places with people that's like-minded to themselves in person events, different things of that nature.

21:45 So that's the framework behind Ewell University. What do you think is what holds people back from making more money? A lot of people get stuck at 40K, then 60K, 80K a year, and then they're complacent. What do you think holds them back from making more money and starting to invest?

22:01 Um, scalability. Like I think at every level, right? Like as far as how can you replicate yourself, right? If you're an entrepreneur, it's like how if you're whatever you're doing to make $40,000 $50,000 a year, what is what's the pathway to 10x that? And that's what and sometimes you you have to change industries almost to actually cuz me as a financial advisor, that's why I started this whole online thing. I saw a ceiling for myself of making, you know, six figures and I just sat down. I was young at that time, but I I just looked at everything that was like working against me and I'm like, okay, like in order to make money as a financial advisor, I got to talk to people. I got to close deals. I have to have either a tremendous amount of deal flow coming in, which that's difficult to get hundreds of clients on a monthly basis, or I got to work with less clients, but extremely wealthy clients. But I'm like,

23:04 okay, I don't really have access to extremely wealthy people. So that's why my first idea was sports and entertainment. I wanted to build an online platform to become [snorts] a celebrity financial advisor so I could work with athletes and entertainers cuz I felt like that would be able to scale my business.

23:21 But even that was kind of a still limited model. So, I'm like, "Okay, well, in I could still talk about the same things that I'm talking about as far as personal finance and retirement and investing and different things and insurance, but if you if I could reach thousands, hundreds of thousands, potentially even millions of people, that's that's that's a way to scale my message." So I saw Instagram as that as that way to actually, you know, be able to grow and scale without having me sitting down booking booking appointments, somebody canceling at the last minute, traveling an hour and a half to tell somebody for me to for somebody to tell me that they're not ready, they got to talk to their wife, right?

24:03 So it's like, you know, but that but that required me to go through a different a different industry. same framework, same idea, but I went from wealth management to media, but taking the the what I was talking about in wealth management and taking it over to media. So, I think that that's something a lot of times, you know, you just have to realize like some some industries or some sometimes in life you're in you're in circumstances that you you've you you're up against, you know, bad odds as far as your scalability,

24:37 but it doesn't necessarily mean you have to do something completely different, but you might have to look at different avenues to take what you're passionate about, take your skill set and scale it. So someone starts to make more money. They get up to 100k a year, 120, 140, 160, they start growing in their career over over the course of time. At what point should they be considering investing? Whether it's the stock market, real estate, cash flow businesses, etc. At what point do you think they should start at least researching or starting to invest from the capital they're earning from their core job?

25:07 You should start investing as soon as you as soon as you have enough money to pay your bills. Like you know, as soon as you have enough money to pay your bills, you have money left over, which is called discretionary income. That's when you really start to have to do something with that and think about it. So whether it's putting money in a 401k, whether it's having a life insurance policy, whether it's having a 529 plan for your kid, whether it's investing money into stocks, over and above any money that you absolutely have to have to live, which is your rent, your mortgage, you know, groceries, your light bill, your cell phone bill, anything over and above that is all discretionary. you know, you don't have to invest every single penny of that because, you know, you do have some leisure that you're going to do.

25:48 You're going to you're going to go out. You're going to have to, you know, you're going to buy some clothes. You're going to, you know, take a trip every once in a while. But I think you should really take a strong look at how much money you have over and above what you actually need and put as much money of that as you can and start investing that.

26:08 So, I have this thing that I've been preaching about for many years. It's a very similar concept. Everything above 6 months in your piggy bank, you are literally losing money on if you don't invest it because of inflation.

26:21 When you start to hit to 12 months, let's say your overhead is five grand a month for your family of three and you get to $60,000 saved up, every dollar above 60,000, you're literally losing money on. Because what people aren't thinking about is 9% inflation is very real, right? When it's 8%, 7%, 10%, etc., Let's just call nine. Let's say you get up to 200,000 saved up, but you only need 60,000. That 140 spends like 132,000 the next year.

26:48 It spends like 123,000 the next year. Spends like 114,000 the next year. It still looks like it you have 140,000 saved up in your bank account, but that 140 spends less because your Ford truck is 55 grand, not 51. Your bread is $4.40 instead of $4. Your gas is $5 instead of $450. And so if you don't invest it and at least fight with inflation, you're literally losing money by it sitting there. Even though you think that you've hit this goal of I'm ahead of most of America, which sadly only has $5,500 saved up in the bank accounts. You've got 200k, you only actually need 60 to cover your rent and overhead for the year. I am passionate that people have to invest even if it's just into a CD something, just getting four or five% a year just to battle with inflation. What are your thoughts on that?

27:34 Yeah. No, 100%. I think that um that goes back to the financial advising thing too. I used to say like you need it at the bare minimum three months.

27:44 Yep. That's like a safety cuz anything can happen. So even though every every dollar that you're not investing you're losing money on but

27:51 you know you have what's called an emergency fund. Yep. So 3 months is an emergency fund. Like that was a bare minimum. 6 months if you really just wanted to be safe.

27:59 Yep. Like some jobs are more risky than others and it's like you know if you really want to be safe than six months but yeah anything over six months y

28:07 unless you're you're like using it for a specific reason like okay I know I want to buy a home in two years and I can't really afford to

28:14 to lose it so that's different but for yeah the average person yeah 6 months savings the maximum that you really need

28:24 um because even investing is a form of savings too like you know if worst comes to worse you can pull pull money out of your stock portfolio, right? Um but yeah, definitely inflation kills your money and um you don't want to just have money sitting and not doing anything because if it's not growing, then it's losing.

28:43 Stock market, cash flow businesses, Bitcoin, there's so many different options for people to invest into. Angel investing into their friend's restaurant or barber shop or nightclub or salon. Oh my god, this company came over here. I got this pitch of this new fancy product and business. Like people are bombarded with options what they see on social media or they're hit up in real life. How do they decide for themselves? How do they protect themselves on what to finally invest into?

29:10 Um education is key. I think you should you should always educate yourself before you invest in anything. But easy some of the easy basic investments is like you know you could dollar cost average into index fund stock market. That's like a easy barrier of entry and that's something that a lot of people are already doing with their 401k. stuff like that. So, you know, that's that's something that you can definitely get into easily. Um, and then when you start to look at, you know, cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, that's something that, you know, you have to, I think, have some exposure to for sure if you look at the the the future and where the the world is going, especially, you know, money and monetary, you know, systems. So, you know, you might want to put, okay, I'mma put some money into Bitcoin every every single month, dollar cost average into that. And then as far as a business, I definitely think that um if you're an

30:01 entrepreneur, you you it's better to start lowcosting businesses that you can sell fund. A lot of people kind of go into debt when they first start out, and I think that puts them under pressure. You don't want to have to borrow money for your business, especially when you first start. Maybe when you get more seasoned and experienced, then it's like, okay. But um I think that you know going into business without the pressure of making money to support yourself gives you a lot more clarity. You know we first started we we both had our own careers. Um and the business was was relatively low costing. So it wasn't like we we had to turn a profit on day one to support oursel. Like when you when you start doing that then

30:42 you do things that you might not necessarily do. you start to compromise on different things and it doesn't put you in a good, you know, mental space. So, definitely you have to invest in your business. I think that if you um are an entrepreneur, you want to self-fund your business at first if you can, but also start a business that doesn't require a lot of self-funding, right? start with the MVP and then build it out from there as opposed to going into something that's going to be tremendously um costly at the start.

31:16 So overhead is the biggest killer of most businesses and most households. A lot of times people get that fourth bedroom even though there's only two of them living there. They get that third car even though there's only two of them. They get that third watch even though they become numb to the second and third watch. I've watched it happen and I'm sure you've watched it happen over the years. A lot of friends make money, but at at the end of the year, they have the exact same money saved up, and they don't know why. They're like, "Wait a minute. I went from 100K to 160K. Why do I have the same amount of money?" Well, it's cuz you went and got a four-bedroom house instead of a two-bedroom apartment. It's cuz you got a third car.

31:49 Now you're paying 800 bucks a month, 600 bucks a month for these two extra cars. We don't realize all these extra things that go into our overhead is holding us back that they could be investing that capital. What would you say to someone to try to not have to keep up with the Joneses and take the extra capital they're making from earning more in their career and putting into investing instead of putting into a third watch?

32:10 Yeah. Keep, you know, lifestyle creep is a real thing. The more money you make, the more money you spend usually. And that's why most people, you know, they stay broke no matter how much money they make. And I think that it's important to rethink the way that you think about money. A lot most people would train to think about money as like kind of a voucher in a sense where you get it and it's something that is exchanged for something else. So I work and then I get paid money and then I use that money to pay my rent. I work, I get paid money, I use that money to pay for clothes. I work and I get paid money and I use that money to, you know, go to Miami.

32:50 And that's like a continuous cycle of working, getting money, spending money. And like I said, no matter how much money you make, if you have that mindset, then that's what if you value if you look at money as a voucher for a good only, then that's that's that's what you're going to continue to do. But I think when you start to rethink about it and you think of money as a tool that in at its core is part of it is used as a voucher but the other part of it is is a tool to make more money. Then you start to rethink your relationship with money. You start to value it more. you start to not necessarily just be overly um you know frivolous with the decisions that you make because you look at the potential that it could cost you. So looking at money as a tool to make more money, that's something I think just really buying into that belief system, it it changes it because it's not like every single dollar that you get, you're

33:56 going to invest, but you're always thinking about investing. So you know, you're always going to think, okay, if I get a h 100,000, I'm going to put $50,000 up. That's not even a question cuz I need to make another h 100,000

34:10 down the line off of this 50,000, right? So without having that understanding, it's easy to blow a million, 10 million. You can blow like you see this happens all the time with lottery lottery winners and athletes and people don't understand like how can somebody have a $100 million contract and not have any money left because they didn't ne they never looked at it as anything other than something that they should just spend. And eventually when you don't have money coming in or the money coming in at the same rate anymore and you spent all your money, now you're broke.

34:45 So recently in the podcast space and content space, we've been seeing some mega deals. Uh in the last few weeks, we saw Netflix buy 15 shows to put on there with Barcel Sports being three of those shows. We saw a friend of yours get a $200 million 5-year deal in this in the space in the category. What are your thoughts about the podcast and content creation space and now these mega deals that are occurring?

35:09 It's interesting. I feel like um Netflix kind of follow the same business model almost that Spotify did a few years ago. Remember when Spotify was spend a lot of money Joe Rogan and everything like that and Netflix, you know, they um they need inventory y

35:25 for videos. So it it's it's expensive to to make a scripted show. It's even probably more scripted expensive to make a movie original movie and Netflix spends so much money on content. They spend more money on content than anybody else

35:40 combined fairly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know the podcast is a is a low costing

35:46 um show even if it's a good produced podcast. It's still low costing compared to like you know scripted show or a movie,

35:54 right? So, it's a way to get cheap cheap cheap cheap content and fan base, right? And people, you know, watch especially like a show that people like really like tune into. They watch it. It's part of their like their their ritual weekly ritual is like to watch the show. So from a from that standpoint, I think it's interesting to see. I'm not 100% sure how that's going to play out as far as Netflix is concerned honestly because I do feel like it it does add a barrier that makes it harder because even I don't know if the Joe Rogan thing really worked out with Spotify when he took his videos off of YouTube and I don't know how many people actually watched his videos on Spotify. I don't think a lot did. And I think that um Netflix could go either way honestly in my opinion because it's like me personally the Breakfast Club I watch the Breakfast Club on my phone. I watch YouTube on my phone. I don't really watch YouTube on

36:41 on the television because I'm out all the time. Yep. And I only watch Netflix on the television. I don't watch Netflix on my phone. I watch Netflix at 11 o'clock at night. It's like, you know, I gota I got to be at a certain point mentally to sit down and watch Netflix where I could just at any point in time I could just watch YouTube.

36:59 Y So, will I be watching The Breakfast Club at the same rate that I was before? No, I won't. Just just from just from the barrier of entry standoint. But Netflix has obviously an extremely large um base and they push and they control the algorithms too,

37:20 right? So, you know, they might push it to a new audience that never even watch. Exactly.

37:25 So, I think it's interesting to see how that's going to play out, but the overall

37:29 I think that the podcast space is in an interesting place because I do feel like it's kind of oversaturated a little bit. feel like a lot of people are not original and they just copy what's already been done and it's a lot of the same content kind of getting regurgitated. There's a lot of celebrities that's coming in and they're doing similar content to each other. So, it'll be interesting to see how this whole thing plays out. Obviously, people's attention spans um or attention for media is only growing.

38:00 Their attention spans are getting smaller, but their their appetite is getting is getting bigger. So, I don't think that that's going to go anywhere. But even like streaming, right? I think streaming is has taken a large chunk of of new media. Yeah.

38:17 Where people might not necessarily young people might not watch a podcast, but they'll watch a streamer,

38:21 right? Because they can come in and out. They can just watch it for a little bit and exit.

38:24 Exactly. So, I it's interesting, but I definitely think that um it's only going to um continue to revolutionize media and um it's going to evolve over the course of time, even more than what it is now.

38:42 So, we talked about a bit making money, investing money. Let's talk about the charity side. Why do you think it's important for a household to have some type of charity for their kids, family, and friends to see and be a part of? Um, I feel like it's, you know, it it's all reciprocal as far as like whatever you put out in the world comes back to and I feel like it's just part of your karma. But I also feel like, you know, the more from a like even from a selfish standpoint, the more you help, the more you get. So that's something I don't think a lot of people fully understand either. Like, you know, it's it's not meant to just have and just hoard everything for yourself. Like I feel like you do have a certain level of responsibility if you're fortunate to help people that are less fortunate cuz why not? As long as it's not going to hurt you. And I think that in any level of charity um it it it never really is

39:34 is preached that you have to like hurt yourself financially to give charity. Charity is something that you can afford to give,

39:40 right? Like if you see somebody on the street and you give them, you know, $5, you have $300 in your pocket. The $5 is not hurting you. Mhm.

39:48 Right. But it could actually really help somebody. So something that doesn't hurt you and could help somebody, why would you not do it?

39:56 Right. And I feel like that's something that if everybody did that, then it just it it just makes it makes the world a better place because ultimately every one person's problem is everybody's problem. Like it's not like, you know, okay, I could just avoid this because it doesn't affect me. It it's going to affect you one way or another. Like you know what I mean? So, I feel like help helping people is beneficial for the person that you're helping, but it's also beneficial for yourself also, right? From a variety of different standpoints. But the more the more that I think people really buy into that, understand that the less that we will have to rely on entities like the government, which we can't rely on the government. We don't know what's going to happen. So, you know, we got to we got to really take the matters into our own hands. So, encouraging that, showing that, and really just, you know, having that level

40:52 of compassion, I think, is something that's important. Do you have children? Yeah, I'm sorry. So, [snorts] there's only one question that I ask on every single episode, and I've never gotten the same answer before. many many years from now when it's finally time for Rashad to pass away. But you've built up hundreds of millions of dollars of net worth, built up a multi-billion dollar company with Earn Your Leisure. What percentage of your net worth do you leave to your son? Um, to be honest, I have not fully thought about it yet. Um, but I feel like he'll probably get a substantial amount.

41:30 Um, as it stands now, I mean, if my life changes, you know, but as it stands now, he's my only child. So, you know, you leave money for your family, you leave money to charity, but as like my sole heir,

41:47 you know, he probably he'll probably get a substantial substantial part of it. So, talk to us your social, the business social, talk us through all those things so people can find you and all the earn your leisure world.

41:58 I appreciate it. Yeah, earn your leisure across all platforms. Um, and then my my page on Instagram, my my my name is Rashad Balo, so that's my Instagram name. And uh, yeah, appreciate it. It's awesome. So, as you guys know, this episode is important not just for yourself, but it could be for your friends, family, and followers. And not just for them, it could be from people from your past, present, or future. Things that you hear on this episode might be relevant a month from now or a year from now to someone in your life.

42:27 And so forward this to them. Make sure you're talking to with your friends about money, credit, finances, because it's important for your daily life. I appreciate you guys. We'll see you guys here next Monday on the moneymunddays.com.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "You Deserve to Be Rich with Earn Your Leisure’s Rashad Bilal 🏝️ E153"?

In order: 0:00 You Deserve to be Rich, Earn Your Leisure, Felicia Rashad, Investfest; 5:00 Earn Your Leisure; 10:00 Investfest, Steve Harvey, Tyler Perry; 15:00 Market Mondays, Earn Your Leisure, Investfest; 40:00 Earn Your Leisure, Felicia Rashad, Rashad Balo.

What is mentioned in this The Money Mondays Podcast episode?

8 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Investfest, Earn Your Leisure, You Deserve to be Rich, Market Mondays, Felicia Rashad, Steve Harvey. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "You Deserve to Be Rich with Earn Your Leisure’s Rashad Bilal 🏝️ E153"?

The episode runs 43 min; the transcript is about 8,312 words in 106 timestamped sections.

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