November 1, 2021 • 31 mins
This week, Big Money Energy gets iced out. Ryan is joined by music producer, jeweler, podcaster and overall mogul, Ben Baller. Ben shares his unconventional story of success, his origins in music coming up in Los Angeles and how he managed to piss off Dr. Dre after blowing his first million dollar check. Ben also breaks down how he managed to become hip hop’s most sought after jeweler.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to another episode of Big Money Energy, where
we talked to super successful people and self made people
to find out exactly how they did it, how they
went from nothing to something. Today, I'm joined by the
ultimate jack of all trades. You know him by his
name if you've ever listened to any rap song ever,
Ben Baller, Ben Balling with the Chains. That is who
(00:22):
is here today. The incredible story and if you're not
familiar with him, he's also a music producer, he's a jeweler,
he's a podcaster. I mean, let's just use the word mogul. Honestly,
he is everything to everybody, and his story of success
is really unconventional, which is why I needed him to
tell it on the pot for all you guys. We
discussed his origins and music coming up in l A,
(00:42):
how he managed to piss off Dr Dre that story
is ridiculous after blowing his first million dollar check, and
how he managed to become hip hop's most sought after jeweler.
This is one of my favorites. Let's get into it.
Welcome to another episode. You have no idea how excited
(01:08):
I am for today's guest. He is the entrepreneur businessman
and he go to jewelry designer for a plus celebrities
like Drake, Justin Bieber, Asap, Rocky and I think everybody else. Uh.
He's established himself as an insanely creative entrepreneur, which is really,
really really important to me, influencing fashion, style, sports and
(01:32):
music industries effortlessly. He's a legend among some of the
biggest artists in the world. And if you don't know,
he co founded IF and Co. Jewelry in two thousand four,
creating diamond encrusted jewelry for a ton of high profile clients. Listen,
I don't have a nice out change as yet, but
after today I might have to get like a serhant
(01:54):
one and I think that would look insane. I just
like Rocket over the suit. I would be the only
real estate broker in New York City who had that.
And that's how maybe I could stand out right People like, oh,
that guy with the great that's Shane. Yeah, now we
know who he is. Yeah he sold us that place.
Yeah that was crazy. I don't know. I don't know.
Maybe you guys can tell me what you think. Honestly,
he is a taste maker. It's the first time I've
(02:16):
ever used that that word on this podcast, so here
to discuss how it all started and how he got
to where he is and his upcoming projects. Please welcome
Ben Baller. Appreciate you guys having me. That was a
hell of an intro. I don't know if I can
cuss them being careful because I had a potty mouth,
but no, that that was. That was probably the best
intro out of any show I've ever done in my life.
Can you talk a bit about your decision to go
(02:39):
Ben Baller where you said, you know what, I'm gonna
put Humble in the backseat. That's not going to be
my business, that's not going to be my m O.
It was that something that you always felt like as
a kid. Were you three years old and You're like
this toy, I'm going hard? You know what? I think.
I've just been a big mouth since joll And Tell Fridays,
you know, since I was maybe five or six years old.
I've just been I've always had a large personality. And um,
where were you when you were five? So I was
(03:00):
in Koreatown, Los Angeles. Uh become super gentrified now you know.
There was definitely no high rises. Anthony Boordain was not
trying to come through there then, by the way, I
don't know, you know what I mean, people do know that,
but I was one of the people that had brought
him over there for when he did the Creatown special.
But you know, Creatown was, you know, it's kind of
close to the hood. It's it's the neighboring city to
almost downtown LA. It was a decent part of town.
But Creatown has just gotten so big. But if people
(03:22):
don't realize, is like there's a lot of gang activity
that was going on there. There was a lot of robberies.
It was again it was not a Korean majority populated area.
It was just a rough area. And you know, the
night Stock had been through there with tremeres and just
it was a lot of crazy ship that was going
on then. And um, you know, I was going to
public school, which is very strange, is uh. My parents
came here as immigrants. I always told people like, no,
(03:43):
Wan came here with two hundred dollars in blah blah,
And people are like, wait, maybe in the sixties, that
wasn't that much money. That was a kind of a
lot of money, wasn't it. And my sister is like, no,
your mom came here with like twenty dollars and um.
You know, there's there's stories that I've heard we want
when we were poor, that my dad got pulled over
for whatever a ticket he had to do like two
days in jail and um, because he couldn't afford to
pay the citation and certain things, and they lived in
(04:04):
a garage when I was born. I'm the youngest of three. Um,
things started getting better my mother. And my mother was
the original entrepreneur, but really from hard work. You know,
now people work smarter. She was smart in the fact
that she was able to get into the garment industry
and be address contractor. Early. With that being said, I
was the wild kid that was the latch key kid
at home, you know whatever. My brother's nine years older
(04:26):
than me. My sister is uh five six ye older
than me, so they were kind of further in school.
You know. I wasn't with them in high school and
things like that. So my brother, which some people look
at like damn, do you know, Like when people meet
my brother and sister, they don't believe that we're related
when they kind of look closely like oh, you know,
and you know my sister being an enormous Hollywood stylists.
(04:47):
She'll meet people that I worked with, whether it be
Denzel or Justin Bieber, and I'm like, that's really your brother,
Like I thought he was raised by wolves. You know.
So growing up, I grew up in public schools and
I got kicked out a lot of schools, whereas my
brother went to and over he went to private schools,
and my sister went to a school called Concord Academy.
So they both went to boarding schools in the East Coast.
(05:09):
And then you know, my brother and sister both went
to prestigious colleges and everything else, and it just I
just was a different guy. I got arrested for the
first time at eight years old. So at eight man eight,
what do you would you do? So I was stealing
Colliko vision if you were Colligo Visions, you know, it
was it was like Sega, right, stealing video games from
Sears in a parking lot there. It was the outdoor
(05:30):
parking lot. And we got away with it, me and
my cousin. I decided to go back because I wanted
to get an adapter, and it became grand theft larceny,
and I just made up all kinds of stories, you know,
and then finally they were like, hey, listen, you know
your parents canna be worried about you. You You know, I'm
sure they're worried. Boom, And I'm in a jail cell
cracking jokes with all these adults. I'm like, you know,
I'm a little kid, and like, what the hell do
(05:51):
you doing here? You know, I see a bunch of people,
and I wasn't scared, you know, because I grew up
in such a seedy part of town. Yeah, you know.
I mean that's that's where it started. I've always just
been kind of like a just not humble, you know,
if I if I had no money, whatever it may be,
and just I just I like to talk ship. Do
you think that that attitude, though, of not being humble
and being incredibly confident even when you didn't have money,
(06:12):
even when you were young, helped you propel yourself to
where you wanted to get to because you were already
being that guy. Like a big thing for me, and
I tell people a lot is you know. When I
came to the city, I also lived in Kreatown. Um
not Korean, but I lived in Creatown on thirty first Street,
and Broadway, and I was the only white guy in
(06:33):
the building I lived in, right, lived with a bunch
of other Koreans, and it was awesome. It's great. I
knew that one day I was going to be successful,
and I just projected that image and I acted like
that guy and I knew that I will become that
guy because I know what the future is. That I
could tell the future. It kind of sounds like you
were in the same headspace. No, for sure, you know,
at a certain point, you know, like I definitely had.
(06:55):
You know, people would say just the tire something, No,
you're worth, know your valuable. But I mean I just
I mean yeah, without saying so much, you know, I
would talk my ship and people be like you' relax, man,
you live in a one bit of apartment, you know
what I mean with with four people in there. And
my brother was already gone by the time I was
kind of like, you know, before I was even a teenager.
By the time I was ten, my brother was out
of the house, right. I mean, he was in boarding
school before that. But I didn't get to kind of
(07:16):
grow up with my brother. Only during certain parts of time.
But I always just touched it. Always felt like, look, man,
I'm gonna make it. I don't care what you guys say,
no matter what you know, when I was working at
Burger King. It's hard to vision that later, but I
was like, no, man, whatever it takes, it's it's just
gonna happen. You know. That another term that I can't stand.
But it's like, you know, closed mouths don't get fat.
It's it's true to a certain point. Like I wasn't
gonna let you know and be like, oh, let things
happen naturally, let things come to you know that I'm
(07:38):
going to them right you know. You know, no doors
really opened up for me. And I had to build
a door. I had to knock it down. You name
what it is. I saw a crack, I'm busting it open.
Do you credit a lot to your mom for giving
you that entrepreneurial spirit and just seeing how hard she
worked when you were a little kid. That just showed
you that you could do absolutely anything if you put
the work in. Definitely. One thing my mom would say
(07:58):
is even though my brother was a gene is above mensa.
That's how he got into school. There was a lot
of financial aid with and over what's crazy is. My
brother was always being told what to do, go on
to boarding schools and before that, like sort of a
military school and just the way to be a man
and blah blah. Whenever he came back home, he'd wake
up at ten am or whatever and go to sleep.
My mom be like, I'm so sick of this ship.
(08:19):
You know, my MoMA wake up at four in the
morning every day and get to it. She's like, no,
I can't. You know, if you know what life was
like in Korea, you know we're so poor. I can
never go back to that. And I saw my mom
go from one sewing machine to like five to twenty
to a hundred and be like, wow, people have have
a philosophy. Were like, have no expectations and you know
you'll never be disappointed. Fuck you on my happen. I
(08:40):
have high expectations, you know what I mean. I'm aiming
for seventeen galaxies passed, you know, Mars or whatever, and
and I'll land on Jupiter if I fail, you know.
And that's just where I always was with it. And
you know, the whole thing. You get knocked down twenty times,
coming up twenty one times. I came up like thirty
five times. You know, like, yo, it's just and I
think at a certain point, I really never looked back
(09:01):
after like two thousand four. Is that when you started different?
It was also the year I became a millionaire. Yeah,
what were your jobs leading up to two thousand four?
I mean as a kid, I worked at a martial
arts store that sold weapons. I think I was obsessed
with weapons at a young age. That's terrible, right, I'm
sure there's a family family filled podcast. Um. But uh,
I worked a paper route. Again. I always talked about
worked at Burger King, you know, an only age three
(09:23):
seventy five an hour. I worked at Subway. Um. I
worked at my mom's shop, and I thought my mom
would give me, you know, like like some sort of
a break, you know, and uh, working at our factory suck.
That was probably one of the jobs. I probably would
rather work at Burger King ten times won't work, my mom?
(09:46):
How did you know that jewelry was going to be
in your future? We haven't talked about it at all
so far. It's funny. It's like it wasn't like a thing.
When you're a kid, you know, you like shiny things.
I love shining things. You know, watching run DMC and
Eric b Rock cam having big cold chains and stuff.
It's just something, you know, you see. I talked about
this moment quite a bit. When Dr Dre gave me
a check, my first big check. He pulled me to
the side and I was like, yeah, what's up. And
(10:07):
he's like, hey, man, don't don't be stupid. And I
was like, well, why why are you talking to me?
Why don't you talk to all the other guys. Why
don't you talk to Butter and stew and all of them,
and you know, and and uh and mel and all
the other guys. And he's like, I don't care about them.
They from the ghetto, blah blah whatever. I'm like, I'm
I'm from the ghetto, bro. He's like, you're not from
the real ghetto. Man. Look man, you're my Asian. And
he said this one thing, he said, hey, man, making
(10:27):
a million dollars is easy. Keeping a million dollars is
not easy. And he said, you know, I was like ship,
making a million dollars easy, Keeping news in okay, all right,
and one in one air out the other. That day,
I remember I left at four o'clock, barely make it
just to put the check in my account boom, and
I remember by six pm I bought an M three
BMW right, and I also was able to go get
(10:48):
a Rolex come to the studio next day. There's a
lot of nice cars of the studio, a lot of
nice cars. For some reason, he gets so he always
gets to the studio later in the day, like three
or four, five o'clock. I'm there maybe at ten am twelve,
but at prior to you know, you gotta get there
early because of the East Coast time and everything. You know,
I hear Dre like a man who's BMW Is that
over there? I'm like this rangerovers and you know, trucks
and everything with rims. It's like, who's who's BMW's that?
(11:11):
Don't tell me that's Ben Yang's. He wouldn't call me
Ben Baller. By the way, Andre's like, don't tell me
that's Ben Yang's car. And so he cousin he goes goes, hey,
mass a nice fine German otto bild there you know
it was M three okay, okay, And then he sees
the rolex on my wrist ship and he didn't talk
to me for almost two three days, like really we
had no communication. That was my first role X. I
(11:31):
never I mean I never had money before. You know,
even though I worked at Priority and had things, it's different,
like I had corporate money and how you know, I
had expense county cool places. I had no money in
my real like I had no net worth. Really, you know,
I had no assets. It was just a different thing.
That was my first taste of being around jury like that.
And my cousin was already you know, taking over his
dad's business, uncle's business, and he's making jelry. He's telling me,
hey man, why don't you bring some of these rappers
(11:52):
over here and let's makes majority I'll break you off.
And I was like, no, I don't know about all
that whatever. And we talked about during family things. But
my mom, I remember when I graduate high school, she
she bought me a herring bone, and it meant everything
to me. You know, it's it's like a four five
millimeter herring bones, very big, it's very small, but you know,
it was gold on my neck. It meant a lot
to me. It was something I just never understood. In
(12:12):
two thousand four, when I got my real money, won't
when I became a millionaire, for the first time my
life free and clear. My cousin had broke down to
me that he was buying gold. This is many years
before you start saying I'll buy goal, we buy gold,
blah blah. And he was breaking down to me like, hey, man, um,
you know, you can make a lot of money if
you just you know, bring a couple of sales here
and there and so like referral business because like bring
us clients. Yeah. When we started the business, every Korean
(12:37):
around my age or so understands their parents started business.
Someone never even had LLC. I know that sounds crazy, right,
but they're like, they just wouldn't be a liquor store,
laundry business, whatever. They didn't understand how to write off
things or whatever. I already knew when I did my
taxes at you know, at Priority Records. I was like, oh,
my whole life is a rite off. Wait. I could
write this car off. Oh man, I could write this off,
every meal, I could write off there's a meeting, okay boom.
(12:59):
So I did that, and I understood having a corporation
because I had a management company in music business. So
I told my cousin. I was like, hey, man, we
can't do this the cream way. We cannot do this
on a handshake, Like I gotta have some kind of paperwork,
and we gotta move locations, even if we're moving five booths.
I just need to move locations. So we honest. And
he's like, damn, this motherfucker bend like I'm family, you
don't trust like And I was just like no, because
(13:19):
there was a lot of weird things when with my
mom and her brothers and sisters that there's money that
being owed and stuff, and I didn't want to have
that come between my family, right. So we started this business,
and uh, I remember the first week, Um, I had
a couple of just you don't bring some sales in.
It was like you know, um, Travis Barker's homeboys and
they will come through. And and I remember getting like
fifteen hunt on my pocket. Now even though I had
(13:40):
a couple of million in my bank account. It was
a great thing to see cash, you know, so easily
come in. It wasn't until I realized, all right, this
is cool, but now I've changed the game. Every time
I went somewhere, it's always taken me a year or
two later than everyone else. So like, let's say, for instance,
when I'm in high school, my junior year, I became
(14:02):
an excellent wide receiver and a defensive back, and I
started became you know, all city, All State, All League,
and then my senior year. At that point, you know,
you can have a great year, but you've already committed
to a college. You're gonna go to buy January. So
I always felt like I was like, yo, man, i
feel like I'm a year behind when I get to college.
I feel like, I mean, you're I mean, you're behind
everything I love. And there's a clock. You know, by
the time you're in Division two, you could be up.
(14:23):
But I mean, I'm already finishing school, so I can't
play anymore. I'm not gonna play pro. What do I do?
So I'm like, all right, So now I'm in the streets.
I'm in my technically second profession as an adult, and
I'm like, all right, So I want to be a
professional jeweler, and people like you're talking about the don't
know there's you're your jeweler, You're not, you know, And
I'm like, look, bro, I don't want to be a salesman.
I'm already a salesman. You know that I could sell anything.
(14:44):
You know, I'm not worried about that. How do I
take it to the next level and create something. Let's
create some let's let's let's change the game, let's do
let's do something totally different. I want to be like
Cardi and I don't want to buy Cardio anymore. I
want to buy Ben Baller. I don't want to be
the next Tiffany and Co. I want to be the
first If and Co. And there we was just certain
things that I was motioned. I was like, you know,
I have no time limit. You know, I just gotta
(15:04):
do this. And even though I feel like I became
a millionaire late in life and I became a dad
and husband late, you know, I stopped looking at time.
You know, time is so important, and I just started saying, look, man,
I gotta go back in my bag now, and now
I gotta learn how to make jewelry. And then once
I do that, I think because of my influence on
the sneaker world and these things and how it affects
(15:26):
pop culture. And when I left Nike, you know, left
djaying and things, I still left the big impression on
that that world. And I had guys at Nike telling me,
you know, no, look at there's no money in lifestyle.
The money is in basketball, in soccer, blah blah. I'm like, okay,
is that why you guys did eight billion dollars after
I left Hi dunks and Air Force ones and Jordan's
and all the retro shoes. No one cares about your
(15:46):
new technology. I'm sorry to tell you guys this, right, Yes,
I've been up flowing on the Nike Jet and all
this other stuff, but there was like no money there again,
you know, it was like a thing. It was like
a weird and I was like, no man, And people
never understood why I accepted so many gifts like rare
shoes and things like that. I wasn't taxed on that,
you know. Again, sneakers like like, uh, their their currency
(16:08):
for me. So you know, when I was able to
flip everything, it was so much of a greater profit margins.
So with jewelry. Once I understood that gold was the
same price in Alaska, same price in New York, same
price in Brazil, Australia, Korea, Russia, gold is universally the
same price, and I started understanding about the euro and
(16:29):
the dollar and the Canadian dollar was like, god damn,
because I was already been. I've already been in Canada
a few times, and I'm like, okay, this is where
it's at. So, you know, I started investing in gold obviously,
because I own a jewelry store. Why wouldn't I not
I would have to buy, you know, at least a
couple million dollars in gold chains to have an inventory.
A lot of people worked on memo, and I was like,
I don't want to work on memo. I don't want
to work on consignment. I want to have my own
(16:50):
inventory because that would obviously increase our net worth. So
you know, I just started building and flipping and everything.
And then obviously I got into creating jewelry. And then
I remember I never spoke about this ever. It just
popped in my head right now. I made Fat Joe Chain,
I told him, and he was a very very influential
person in hip hop. He had managed to still um
(17:11):
stay relevant when younger kids were keeping would rise up.
This guy had been in the game so long, still
had the best jewelry, had everything else. And I told
him said, look, oh, that jewely you have sucks. They
make something nice for you. And the piece was beautiful,
except it was piece you know, the interstate in New
(17:32):
York to Miami that was like the original, like pipeline
for all the drug dealers going from Miami back to
New York. So I made this piece, and I've never
said this publicly because I wouldn't admitted, but my ego
was too big. I funked up on it. It became
very famous. But people are like, yo, why does it
look like Dr Seuss made it. I had miscalculated the mold,
(17:53):
so the numbers were elongated. They look a little silly.
For some people are like, oh, you know, it's still
a cool piece, because overall it shined it it was.
It was a bad piece. That was what. That was
what I said, look at this exactly what we're not
gonna do. We got an opportunity to work make, you know,
make a piece for for a big celebrity, a big rapper,
and we fucked up. I looked at that as that
(18:14):
was a spark. Then I got the game nas Maria
carry Um, you know, Diddy, all these other people, and
I was like, look, I can't mess these up. And
then two thousand, eighteen seventeen, I put an appointment thing
on the website, and I said, if you want to
get a chain from ben Ball or not just ifan
co and you want the bb logo on the back
of the chain, you need to give me a hunder
grand And with the hundred thousand dollars, we don't take
(18:35):
the pcent deposit. You gotta give us a deposit and
it's non refundable. You know, all these things that would
be like red flags of people. Right, twenty one people
immediately paid for a hundred thousand all of the chains,
and then I realized, damn, that slot work. Now there's
a lot of big chains, right, So how long does
(19:03):
it take you too to make to make one depending
on what it is, you know, but a big chain,
I mean it could take me, you know, six to
eight weeks, you know, on average, and some chains that
kid cutties gigantic to Coshi Murakami chain that took like
almost four months. You know. It's it's to the point
where you know, people look at my fingers like, why
why are you cuticle so messed up? And I'm like,
you know, and during the pandemic, you know, no, there's
(19:23):
no manicures, no pedicures, nothing, And I'm like Damn, I
can't keep my cuticles suitable because you know I'm touching
you know, look, you know um acids and things like
that and metal and stuff. It takes a long time,
but I refunded nineteen people are of the twenty one
their money. Wait until I finished those two pieces and
then changed it to two. I said, if you want
to get a chain from Benballer, it's two grand. And
(19:45):
I'm only making a chain once a month now, making
maybe a chain every three months, because what I'm doing
is I'm partnering with Murakami and doing these global recognized,
huge museum type pieces. So we're not getting museum type quality.
If if my jewelry is not worthy to be in
(20:06):
the MoMA, to be in the Mocha, to even be
in the Louver, you know, I don't want to do
it because at that point it's waste of my time.
I'm gonna make money regardless. I will make money no
matter what I do. So let's do something bigger. And
that's why I still have like three form more collaborations
with more Commune this year, and I worked with Cause
and I'm just trying to do something different. You know that.
Um I want to leave a legacy. You know, the
(20:28):
money's already. I've I've done that already. You know you
should make a chain for though. You should make one
for Elon Musk. Did you made one for him before?
So you don't know the story? You didn't google it? Right? No?
I didn't know. Sorry, all right? So I respect the
man totally, right. I want to Tesla and everything. So
I have a meeting with Ellen Um. One of my
best friends, Paul. He's an entrepreneur. When I met him,
(20:50):
he might have had like tan grant to his name,
which some people like. It's a lot more than other people.
It's not a lot when you think about people that
are investing in playing around with real estate and stocks
and whatever. But when I met him, he was really young.
It's like twenty I think, yeah, I was. I was
friends with them when he was twenty came twenty one
and nice twenty nine. Maybe he's probably worth about maybe
somewhere around twenty million now right now. He had a
(21:12):
ten thousand of net worth when I met him, And um,
he is heavy on old Bill Gates this and you know,
Law Musk and Jeff Bezels and I'm like bro like
all those kuys pan. You know what I I don't
care about like bro focus, you know, like like be
the next you want to be, you know, the first you,
not the next them. I convinced him to buy a Tesla.
He was already obsessed with Elon Musk and uh, so
I decided to make a thirty five thousand dollar Tesla
(21:34):
ring all red rubies bagets is a beautiful ring. You
could google and look at it and was really really
nice ring. And I'm doing something that is completely outside
my character. And Paul goes, look, I'll pay for half
the ring if you just try to reach out to him,
because you have friends that are cool with them, from
you know, Jade and Smith to uh Tire the creator
a certain people that he follows that he likes. They
(21:55):
know Elon. I'm like, all right, dog, I'm sure you know.
Let's let's see to put it out there. So I'm like, hey, man,
I made this ring. Boom TMZ runs a story. Um
it goes you know, all over the internet. Any law
Musk is like oh he literally replied back with one
word thank you. I was like, this fucking dick man,
I like like, you know, like that, That's why I
don't do this type of ship, you know what I mean,
(22:16):
this is like but this ain't me anyways, um, his
executive system gets reached out, reaches out to me, and
she's like, he has an opening on this day. Boom cool.
So I'm like, you know what, let's make like a
little I'm not really a vlogger or like those type
of things. I don't have a podcast at the time either.
I was like, you know what, let's document this though.
Let's try the test law. I had it all murdered out,
Model XP on the top of the line, their flagship car,
(22:37):
all done up. I mean, everything is you know, not
a lot of testas were customized at that time. Everything possible.
I said, yo, bro, we can stop in Santa Barbara,
we can stop here in half one Bay, and then
we'll get to Silicon Valley, will drive there, and um,
I was hoping he meets us at SpaceX because it's
so close. And they're like, no, you need security clearance,
shelah blah blah whatever. So we have this date set
and everything boom ready to go. My boy's anxiety has
(22:59):
a plane ticket from d C. He listened. He lives
in Virginia. It's gonna come to see me. So it's
April one, right, April Fool's Day. How crazy is that? Right?
Or it's March on whatever before it goes in the
April Fool's Day. My wife's birthday is on April two.
It was a weekend, so she's having a birthday party.
Her and her brothers share the birthday to their two days.
They are born two days apart. So I get in
(23:20):
the Tesla. I'm driving to my wife's birthday party. Has
stopped at the stop sign and I noticed my door
doesn't open. And I'm like, I no big deal. You
know whatever that knows the window doesn't open. Now I'm like, okay,
am I tripping? Now I'm tripping right then I keep
hearing it do do do do? It's like the Aeroston
from the Tesla's if you ever been in Tesla before.
I can't open the door. So now I pull over
(23:42):
and I'm like, hey, man, I give it maybe se
strength and I pushed the door as hard as I
can't give it. Open the door. Do do do? Do do?
Go to the other side. Nothing. So I'm like, all right, man,
you know, let me just chill the hell, let me
just chill. Out let me turn they see on I
have a good amount of are you not a ton?
But let's just figure this out. I start recording myself
(24:04):
on Snapchat in real time. Forty seven minutes later, I
still can't get out of my car. Forty seven minutes, Um,
banging all the windows. Now I'm kicking out a hundred
trying to smash the window, open all the doors, boom, whatever.
Can't get out. I didn't know. Not a Tesla fan boy,
but I didn't know that there was a button that
you can reach, or like a level you can reach.
(24:24):
You got to remove the speaker in the back seat
and you can get emergency and nothing is I have
three baby seats across my my second row. I can't
really get back there, you know. Finally, obviously, I get
out of the car, and um, I'm not really thinking
too much about whatever. I make a complaint to Tesla.
Tesla picks up the car immediately, like really really fast.
On Monday morning, I get a call or I get
(24:45):
an email from Elaen's executive assistant saying, hey, he's gonna
have to cancel your meeting. You know, blah blah whatever,
which is coming up like in a weekend. I'm like,
are you kidding me? Like, what are you talking about? It?
Goes man, dude, why would you like document that? You know,
there's so many Tesla haters out there blah blah. Elon
is upset, he's just can't meet you and whatever. So
I was like living. I was super livid. So I
(25:05):
did something completely out of character. I took the screenshot
of the email and I posted on my Instagram, you know,
and uh yeah, she ended up getting fired. All these
Tesla employees I never knew that were executive started messaging me, a, bro,
could you please take that post down? You know it's
I was like, no, funk all that man, bro, Like
if anything, this dude should have been cool and been like, look, man,
let's work on something. How to you know what the
(25:26):
situations happen? And all these Tesla hater pages are hitting
me up like hey, man, I know this. I was like, Bro,
I don't want to hear this show. I'm not That's
not what I'm about, you know what I mean? Like, dude,
I'm not trying to get cloud off of this. I'm
just was trying to bring awareness. I got three kids.
What if they were locked in the car, and he
didn't like that. He was really piste off. So that
was the end of that. So I end up giving
the ring to my boy Paul, who still wears it.
He's like, one day then you gotta be cool with
(25:47):
this guy, man, give them the ring. And so it's
the funny story about Elon. I doubt I'll be making
him a chain. Oh man, you've lived to such a
such a storied life. It's uh, it's it's super cool.
And it's all come completely of your own making. You know,
of your own will. Like that's what I think is
so special about it. Like you you willed your success,
(26:08):
like you willed the money you wanted to make. Even
just now you're like, I don't know what's gonna happen
in the future. I know, make money, but figure it out.
I'm gonna figure it out. And you're completely okay, kind
of resting on your own internal confidence that yeah, you know.
And I watched this Korean movie and in the Korean movie,
the guy said, hey, man, those trying to win and
trying to figure out every single way to get successful,
(26:28):
they're the ones they're gonna lose. The skeptics they're gonna
lose those who know how to win will win. And
I was like, well, it's just that simple. Those w
are gonna win to win. And I just feel like
you said, I willed it. I really true. Do do
believe I manifested my destiny? You know, I really do
feel like I've manifested a lot of things, you know.
And maybe because I never had aspirations to become a billionaire,
(26:49):
you know, um, maybe that's you know, I don't know,
should I should I try? I just I gave up
on that. I was like, man, bro, I've tried to
do all the calculations because I gotta do this, this
and this, and you know, you do those numb if
you sell five and ten thousand things, does that become
a billion? And I was like, bro, it's hafflute. You
have to be like a Spanks type of thing where
it's a fluke and this happens, or just you know,
I'm content, man, I'm good. You know, Bitcoin did me? Well?
(27:11):
How much in dollar amount jewelry do you think you've
sold in your career? That's just a number I wanted
to ask you. Damn people ask me all the time,
like how much real estate have you sold? It's like
the question I get seventeen times a day. Oh yeah, No,
nowhere near what you've done. I mean, if I saw
you sold the Hunter for your million dollar house either
or whatever it was, you know, tell you the truth.
I don't know, man, I swear to God, I really don't.
(27:32):
I mean, what the corporation has done, I don't think
it's that impressive, though, do you know what I mean?
I mean, we did like million dollars a couple of
years in a row you know which is and again
are as over a lot. Oh. I thought you're gonna
say it's I mean, because you know, you when you
sell a hundred million dollar house, and I feel like, well,
you know again, Yeah, but you're you're talking about we're
talking about revenue. I gross sales and real estate is
(27:52):
not comparable to gross gross revenue in jewels. Okay, that's
true too. I'm sorry. Our margins are massive, right, I
think people kind of know that at so yeah, yeah,
you know we we we did um. I mean, we
haven't dipped below eight figures. But at the same time,
you know we're paying employees better, you know, I mean
even you know, people who are doing the general like
(28:13):
repairs and things. Like that they're making at least six
figures in our corporation. You know, it's just certain things.
You know, We've taken care of everyone that's been with us.
My my last question for you is when we asked
you to do this podcast and he saw the title
was was Big Money Energy? What did you think? What's
Big Money Energy mean to you? You know, look and
and don't take this the wrong way. I don't want
you to think like, um, I wasn't exactly sure. Um,
(28:34):
you know, my podcast producers are like a man, just
dude is a big hot shot, you know, dude, he's um,
you know he's And I was like, hot shot, okay,
let me go to his page and I'll tell you.
Let me. Let me just go look at his page
real quick. And I go to the page and I'm like, yo, dude,
this guy right here is way too handsome. Who is
this a Bachelor? And I was like, bro, like what
who is this? And it's like, dude, you don't watch
millionar listening? You know you watch this whatever? Boom And
(28:57):
I said, I said, look, dog, you know who watches
all those shows Bachelor that stuff? My wife, baby, you
know this guy? And she goes oh yeah, I know
that guy from New York. And I was like, okay,
all right, I gotta do this show because it would
be cool with my wife. And I saw the name
and I looked at things like, you know, a big
money energy. So you know when I like that big
money energy, you know what that means, man, That means motivation.
(29:17):
Go out there and don't come out there and be
like yo, manyo Ryan, today, you know what we're gonna do.
You know we're gonna do today. Duck, We're gonna make
seven thousand dollars. Get the funk out of here. We're
not making We're talking about we're gonna make seven thousand million.
That's what we're gonna do. You know what I mean.
You gotta put it out there. You gotta manifest it,
like really truly believe. Like one of my one of
my another slogan I say, is make it a great day.
You have a choice to make it a great day. Right.
(29:38):
You gotta go out there and be like, look, I'm
not gonna let that ship. That flat tire on my car,
that's not don't sweat that. That's nothing. That's just haters
trying to slow me down. That's an obstacle about to
jump off that, you know, boom, jump over it. Look,
big money energy. It was something that was another thing
that was a positive for this interview. I was like, look,
I love that name, and um, you know, energy is important,
(30:00):
iportant thing. You could see someone's energy when they have something,
you know, during that bad mood, and you just see
like that force field around him. You'd be like, yo, dog,
I don't want to be anywhere around that person right
when I'm in a bad mood. It could be the
stupidest thing, like I don't think they gave me enough
boba in my milk tea, and be like, yo, man,
get Ben out of here. Man. He's trips on the
most pettiest things. He lost eight ars today and he
doesn't even care like the small things he cares about.
(30:22):
When I think about big money energy, I think like,
all right, this dude, Ryan, he's got nothing of a
big money energy. He's not trying to sell I mean,
you know a two dollar house or a million dollar
He's trying to sell a three He's trying to break
the record. He's gonna sell a five hundred million dollars state,
you know, and boom and it's like that energy. You
see that, and it's like, all right, don't be scared.
(30:43):
Gravitate towards it. That energy, man, that big money energy.
You know you want to go in there and be
a part of that because that attitude and that you know,
it becomes a part of you, almost like an aura, right,
Like all right, man, you know, today's the day we're
gonna make a billion dollars. That's why I take let's go.
(31:05):
Big Money Energy is hosted by me Ryan Sirhant. It's
produced by Mike Coscarelli and Joe Lorreesca, an executive produced
by Lindsay Hoffman. Find more podcasts like Big Money Energy
on the I Heart Radio app or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Welcome back to another episode of Big Money Energy, where
we talked to super successful people and self made people
to find out exactly how they did it, how they
went from nothing to something. Today, I'm joined by the
ultimate jack of all trades. You know him by his
name if you've ever listened to any rap song ever,
Ben Baller, Ben Balling with the Chains. That is who
(00:22):
is here today. The incredible story and if you're not
familiar with him, he's also a music producer, he's a jeweler,
he's a podcaster. I mean, let's just use the word mogul. Honestly,
he is everything to everybody, and his story of success
is really unconventional, which is why I needed him to
tell it on the pot for all you guys. We
discussed his origins and music coming up in l A,
(00:42):
how he managed to piss off Dr Dre that story
is ridiculous after blowing his first million dollar check, and
how he managed to become hip hop's most sought after jeweler.
This is one of my favorites. Let's get into it.
Welcome to another episode. You have no idea how excited
(01:08):
I am for today's guest. He is the entrepreneur businessman
and he go to jewelry designer for a plus celebrities
like Drake, Justin Bieber, Asap, Rocky and I think everybody else. Uh.
He's established himself as an insanely creative entrepreneur, which is really,
really really important to me, influencing fashion, style, sports and
(01:32):
music industries effortlessly. He's a legend among some of the
biggest artists in the world. And if you don't know,
he co founded IF and Co. Jewelry in two thousand four,
creating diamond encrusted jewelry for a ton of high profile clients. Listen,
I don't have a nice out change as yet, but
after today I might have to get like a serhant
(01:54):
one and I think that would look insane. I just
like Rocket over the suit. I would be the only
real estate broker in New York City who had that.
And that's how maybe I could stand out right People like, oh,
that guy with the great that's Shane. Yeah, now we
know who he is. Yeah he sold us that place.
Yeah that was crazy. I don't know. I don't know.
Maybe you guys can tell me what you think. Honestly,
he is a taste maker. It's the first time I've
(02:16):
ever used that that word on this podcast, so here
to discuss how it all started and how he got
to where he is and his upcoming projects. Please welcome
Ben Baller. Appreciate you guys having me. That was a
hell of an intro. I don't know if I can
cuss them being careful because I had a potty mouth,
but no, that that was. That was probably the best
intro out of any show I've ever done in my life.
Can you talk a bit about your decision to go
(02:39):
Ben Baller where you said, you know what, I'm gonna
put Humble in the backseat. That's not going to be
my business, that's not going to be my m O.
It was that something that you always felt like as
a kid. Were you three years old and You're like
this toy, I'm going hard? You know what? I think.
I've just been a big mouth since joll And Tell Fridays,
you know, since I was maybe five or six years old.
I've just been I've always had a large personality. And um,
where were you when you were five? So I was
(03:00):
in Koreatown, Los Angeles. Uh become super gentrified now you know.
There was definitely no high rises. Anthony Boordain was not
trying to come through there then, by the way, I
don't know, you know what I mean, people do know that,
but I was one of the people that had brought
him over there for when he did the Creatown special.
But you know, Creatown was, you know, it's kind of
close to the hood. It's it's the neighboring city to
almost downtown LA. It was a decent part of town.
But Creatown has just gotten so big. But if people
(03:22):
don't realize, is like there's a lot of gang activity
that was going on there. There was a lot of robberies.
It was again it was not a Korean majority populated area.
It was just a rough area. And you know, the
night Stock had been through there with tremeres and just
it was a lot of crazy ship that was going
on then. And um, you know, I was going to
public school, which is very strange, is uh. My parents
came here as immigrants. I always told people like, no,
(03:43):
Wan came here with two hundred dollars in blah blah,
And people are like, wait, maybe in the sixties, that
wasn't that much money. That was a kind of a
lot of money, wasn't it. And my sister is like, no,
your mom came here with like twenty dollars and um.
You know, there's there's stories that I've heard we want
when we were poor, that my dad got pulled over
for whatever a ticket he had to do like two
days in jail and um, because he couldn't afford to
pay the citation and certain things, and they lived in
(04:04):
a garage when I was born. I'm the youngest of three. Um,
things started getting better my mother. And my mother was
the original entrepreneur, but really from hard work. You know,
now people work smarter. She was smart in the fact
that she was able to get into the garment industry
and be address contractor. Early. With that being said, I
was the wild kid that was the latch key kid
at home, you know whatever. My brother's nine years older
(04:26):
than me. My sister is uh five six ye older
than me, so they were kind of further in school.
You know. I wasn't with them in high school and
things like that. So my brother, which some people look
at like damn, do you know, Like when people meet
my brother and sister, they don't believe that we're related
when they kind of look closely like oh, you know,
and you know my sister being an enormous Hollywood stylists.
(04:47):
She'll meet people that I worked with, whether it be
Denzel or Justin Bieber, and I'm like, that's really your brother,
Like I thought he was raised by wolves. You know.
So growing up, I grew up in public schools and
I got kicked out a lot of schools, whereas my
brother went to and over he went to private schools,
and my sister went to a school called Concord Academy.
So they both went to boarding schools in the East Coast.
(05:09):
And then you know, my brother and sister both went
to prestigious colleges and everything else, and it just I
just was a different guy. I got arrested for the
first time at eight years old. So at eight man eight,
what do you would you do? So I was stealing
Colliko vision if you were Colligo Visions, you know, it
was it was like Sega, right, stealing video games from
Sears in a parking lot there. It was the outdoor
(05:30):
parking lot. And we got away with it, me and
my cousin. I decided to go back because I wanted
to get an adapter, and it became grand theft larceny,
and I just made up all kinds of stories, you know,
and then finally they were like, hey, listen, you know
your parents canna be worried about you. You You know, I'm
sure they're worried. Boom, And I'm in a jail cell
cracking jokes with all these adults. I'm like, you know,
I'm a little kid, and like, what the hell do
(05:51):
you doing here? You know, I see a bunch of people,
and I wasn't scared, you know, because I grew up
in such a seedy part of town. Yeah, you know.
I mean that's that's where it started. I've always just
been kind of like a just not humble, you know,
if I if I had no money, whatever it may be,
and just I just I like to talk ship. Do
you think that that attitude, though, of not being humble
and being incredibly confident even when you didn't have money,
(06:12):
even when you were young, helped you propel yourself to
where you wanted to get to because you were already
being that guy. Like a big thing for me, and
I tell people a lot is you know. When I
came to the city, I also lived in Kreatown. Um
not Korean, but I lived in Creatown on thirty first Street,
and Broadway, and I was the only white guy in
(06:33):
the building I lived in, right, lived with a bunch
of other Koreans, and it was awesome. It's great. I
knew that one day I was going to be successful,
and I just projected that image and I acted like
that guy and I knew that I will become that
guy because I know what the future is. That I
could tell the future. It kind of sounds like you
were in the same headspace. No, for sure, you know,
at a certain point, you know, like I definitely had.
(06:55):
You know, people would say just the tire something, No,
you're worth, know your valuable. But I mean I just
I mean yeah, without saying so much, you know, I
would talk my ship and people be like you' relax, man,
you live in a one bit of apartment, you know
what I mean with with four people in there. And
my brother was already gone by the time I was
kind of like, you know, before I was even a teenager.
By the time I was ten, my brother was out
of the house, right. I mean, he was in boarding
school before that. But I didn't get to kind of
(07:16):
grow up with my brother. Only during certain parts of time.
But I always just touched it. Always felt like, look, man,
I'm gonna make it. I don't care what you guys say,
no matter what you know, when I was working at
Burger King. It's hard to vision that later, but I
was like, no, man, whatever it takes, it's it's just
gonna happen. You know. That another term that I can't stand.
But it's like, you know, closed mouths don't get fat.
It's it's true to a certain point. Like I wasn't
gonna let you know and be like, oh, let things
happen naturally, let things come to you know that I'm
(07:38):
going to them right you know. You know, no doors
really opened up for me. And I had to build
a door. I had to knock it down. You name
what it is. I saw a crack, I'm busting it open.
Do you credit a lot to your mom for giving
you that entrepreneurial spirit and just seeing how hard she
worked when you were a little kid. That just showed
you that you could do absolutely anything if you put
the work in. Definitely. One thing my mom would say
(07:58):
is even though my brother was a gene is above mensa.
That's how he got into school. There was a lot
of financial aid with and over what's crazy is. My
brother was always being told what to do, go on
to boarding schools and before that, like sort of a
military school and just the way to be a man
and blah blah. Whenever he came back home, he'd wake
up at ten am or whatever and go to sleep.
My mom be like, I'm so sick of this ship.
(08:19):
You know, my MoMA wake up at four in the
morning every day and get to it. She's like, no,
I can't. You know, if you know what life was
like in Korea, you know we're so poor. I can
never go back to that. And I saw my mom
go from one sewing machine to like five to twenty
to a hundred and be like, wow, people have have
a philosophy. Were like, have no expectations and you know
you'll never be disappointed. Fuck you on my happen. I
(08:40):
have high expectations, you know what I mean. I'm aiming
for seventeen galaxies passed, you know, Mars or whatever, and
and I'll land on Jupiter if I fail, you know.
And that's just where I always was with it. And
you know, the whole thing. You get knocked down twenty times,
coming up twenty one times. I came up like thirty
five times. You know, like, yo, it's just and I
think at a certain point, I really never looked back
(09:01):
after like two thousand four. Is that when you started different?
It was also the year I became a millionaire. Yeah,
what were your jobs leading up to two thousand four?
I mean as a kid, I worked at a martial
arts store that sold weapons. I think I was obsessed
with weapons at a young age. That's terrible, right, I'm
sure there's a family family filled podcast. Um. But uh,
I worked a paper route. Again. I always talked about
worked at Burger King, you know, an only age three
(09:23):
seventy five an hour. I worked at Subway. Um. I
worked at my mom's shop, and I thought my mom
would give me, you know, like like some sort of
a break, you know, and uh, working at our factory suck.
That was probably one of the jobs. I probably would
rather work at Burger King ten times won't work, my mom?
(09:46):
How did you know that jewelry was going to be
in your future? We haven't talked about it at all
so far. It's funny. It's like it wasn't like a thing.
When you're a kid, you know, you like shiny things.
I love shining things. You know, watching run DMC and
Eric b Rock cam having big cold chains and stuff.
It's just something, you know, you see. I talked about
this moment quite a bit. When Dr Dre gave me
a check, my first big check. He pulled me to
the side and I was like, yeah, what's up. And
(10:07):
he's like, hey, man, don't don't be stupid. And I
was like, well, why why are you talking to me?
Why don't you talk to all the other guys. Why
don't you talk to Butter and stew and all of them,
and you know, and and uh and mel and all
the other guys. And he's like, I don't care about them.
They from the ghetto, blah blah whatever. I'm like, I'm
I'm from the ghetto, bro. He's like, you're not from
the real ghetto. Man. Look man, you're my Asian. And
he said this one thing, he said, hey, man, making
(10:27):
a million dollars is easy. Keeping a million dollars is
not easy. And he said, you know, I was like ship,
making a million dollars easy, Keeping news in okay, all right,
and one in one air out the other. That day,
I remember I left at four o'clock, barely make it
just to put the check in my account boom, and
I remember by six pm I bought an M three
BMW right, and I also was able to go get
(10:48):
a Rolex come to the studio next day. There's a
lot of nice cars of the studio, a lot of
nice cars. For some reason, he gets so he always
gets to the studio later in the day, like three
or four, five o'clock. I'm there maybe at ten am twelve,
but at prior to you know, you gotta get there
early because of the East Coast time and everything. You know,
I hear Dre like a man who's BMW Is that
over there? I'm like this rangerovers and you know, trucks
and everything with rims. It's like, who's who's BMW's that?
(11:11):
Don't tell me that's Ben Yang's. He wouldn't call me
Ben Baller. By the way, Andre's like, don't tell me
that's Ben Yang's car. And so he cousin he goes goes, hey,
mass a nice fine German otto bild there you know
it was M three okay, okay, And then he sees
the rolex on my wrist ship and he didn't talk
to me for almost two three days, like really we
had no communication. That was my first role X. I
(11:31):
never I mean I never had money before. You know,
even though I worked at Priority and had things, it's different,
like I had corporate money and how you know, I
had expense county cool places. I had no money in
my real like I had no net worth. Really, you know,
I had no assets. It was just a different thing.
That was my first taste of being around jury like that.
And my cousin was already you know, taking over his
dad's business, uncle's business, and he's making jelry. He's telling me,
hey man, why don't you bring some of these rappers
(11:52):
over here and let's makes majority I'll break you off.
And I was like, no, I don't know about all
that whatever. And we talked about during family things. But
my mom, I remember when I graduate high school, she
she bought me a herring bone, and it meant everything
to me. You know, it's it's like a four five
millimeter herring bones, very big, it's very small, but you know,
it was gold on my neck. It meant a lot
to me. It was something I just never understood. In
(12:12):
two thousand four, when I got my real money, won't
when I became a millionaire, for the first time my
life free and clear. My cousin had broke down to
me that he was buying gold. This is many years
before you start saying I'll buy goal, we buy gold,
blah blah. And he was breaking down to me like, hey, man, um,
you know, you can make a lot of money if
you just you know, bring a couple of sales here
and there and so like referral business because like bring
us clients. Yeah. When we started the business, every Korean
(12:37):
around my age or so understands their parents started business.
Someone never even had LLC. I know that sounds crazy, right,
but they're like, they just wouldn't be a liquor store,
laundry business, whatever. They didn't understand how to write off
things or whatever. I already knew when I did my
taxes at you know, at Priority Records. I was like, oh,
my whole life is a rite off. Wait. I could
write this car off. Oh man, I could write this off,
every meal, I could write off there's a meeting, okay boom.
(12:59):
So I did that, and I understood having a corporation
because I had a management company in music business. So
I told my cousin. I was like, hey, man, we
can't do this the cream way. We cannot do this
on a handshake, Like I gotta have some kind of paperwork,
and we gotta move locations, even if we're moving five booths.
I just need to move locations. So we honest. And
he's like, damn, this motherfucker bend like I'm family, you
don't trust like And I was just like no, because
(13:19):
there was a lot of weird things when with my
mom and her brothers and sisters that there's money that
being owed and stuff, and I didn't want to have
that come between my family, right. So we started this business,
and uh, I remember the first week, Um, I had
a couple of just you don't bring some sales in.
It was like you know, um, Travis Barker's homeboys and
they will come through. And and I remember getting like
fifteen hunt on my pocket. Now even though I had
(13:40):
a couple of million in my bank account. It was
a great thing to see cash, you know, so easily
come in. It wasn't until I realized, all right, this
is cool, but now I've changed the game. Every time
I went somewhere, it's always taken me a year or
two later than everyone else. So like, let's say, for instance,
when I'm in high school, my junior year, I became
(14:02):
an excellent wide receiver and a defensive back, and I
started became you know, all city, All State, All League,
and then my senior year. At that point, you know,
you can have a great year, but you've already committed
to a college. You're gonna go to buy January. So
I always felt like I was like, yo, man, i
feel like I'm a year behind when I get to college.
I feel like, I mean, you're I mean, you're behind
everything I love. And there's a clock. You know, by
the time you're in Division two, you could be up.
(14:23):
But I mean, I'm already finishing school, so I can't
play anymore. I'm not gonna play pro. What do I do?
So I'm like, all right, So now I'm in the streets.
I'm in my technically second profession as an adult, and
I'm like, all right, So I want to be a
professional jeweler, and people like you're talking about the don't
know there's you're your jeweler, You're not, you know, And
I'm like, look, bro, I don't want to be a salesman.
I'm already a salesman. You know that I could sell anything.
(14:44):
You know, I'm not worried about that. How do I
take it to the next level and create something. Let's
create some let's let's let's change the game, let's do
let's do something totally different. I want to be like
Cardi and I don't want to buy Cardio anymore. I
want to buy Ben Baller. I don't want to be
the next Tiffany and Co. I want to be the
first If and Co. And there we was just certain
things that I was motioned. I was like, you know,
I have no time limit. You know, I just gotta
(15:04):
do this. And even though I feel like I became
a millionaire late in life and I became a dad
and husband late, you know, I stopped looking at time.
You know, time is so important, and I just started saying, look, man,
I gotta go back in my bag now, and now
I gotta learn how to make jewelry. And then once
I do that, I think because of my influence on
the sneaker world and these things and how it affects
(15:26):
pop culture. And when I left Nike, you know, left
djaying and things, I still left the big impression on
that that world. And I had guys at Nike telling me,
you know, no, look at there's no money in lifestyle.
The money is in basketball, in soccer, blah blah. I'm like, okay,
is that why you guys did eight billion dollars after
I left Hi dunks and Air Force ones and Jordan's
and all the retro shoes. No one cares about your
(15:46):
new technology. I'm sorry to tell you guys this, right, Yes,
I've been up flowing on the Nike Jet and all
this other stuff, but there was like no money there again,
you know, it was like a thing. It was like
a weird and I was like, no man, And people
never understood why I accepted so many gifts like rare
shoes and things like that. I wasn't taxed on that,
you know. Again, sneakers like like, uh, their their currency
(16:08):
for me. So you know, when I was able to
flip everything, it was so much of a greater profit margins.
So with jewelry. Once I understood that gold was the
same price in Alaska, same price in New York, same
price in Brazil, Australia, Korea, Russia, gold is universally the
same price, and I started understanding about the euro and
(16:29):
the dollar and the Canadian dollar was like, god damn,
because I was already been. I've already been in Canada
a few times, and I'm like, okay, this is where
it's at. So, you know, I started investing in gold obviously,
because I own a jewelry store. Why wouldn't I not
I would have to buy, you know, at least a
couple million dollars in gold chains to have an inventory.
A lot of people worked on memo, and I was like,
I don't want to work on memo. I don't want
to work on consignment. I want to have my own
(16:50):
inventory because that would obviously increase our net worth. So
you know, I just started building and flipping and everything.
And then obviously I got into creating jewelry. And then
I remember I never spoke about this ever. It just
popped in my head right now. I made Fat Joe Chain,
I told him, and he was a very very influential
person in hip hop. He had managed to still um
(17:11):
stay relevant when younger kids were keeping would rise up.
This guy had been in the game so long, still
had the best jewelry, had everything else. And I told
him said, look, oh, that jewely you have sucks. They
make something nice for you. And the piece was beautiful,
except it was piece you know, the interstate in New
(17:32):
York to Miami that was like the original, like pipeline
for all the drug dealers going from Miami back to
New York. So I made this piece, and I've never
said this publicly because I wouldn't admitted, but my ego
was too big. I funked up on it. It became
very famous. But people are like, yo, why does it
look like Dr Seuss made it. I had miscalculated the mold,
(17:53):
so the numbers were elongated. They look a little silly.
For some people are like, oh, you know, it's still
a cool piece, because overall it shined it it was.
It was a bad piece. That was what. That was
what I said, look at this exactly what we're not
gonna do. We got an opportunity to work make, you know,
make a piece for for a big celebrity, a big rapper,
and we fucked up. I looked at that as that
(18:14):
was a spark. Then I got the game nas Maria
carry Um, you know, Diddy, all these other people, and
I was like, look, I can't mess these up. And
then two thousand, eighteen seventeen, I put an appointment thing
on the website, and I said, if you want to
get a chain from ben Ball or not just ifan
co and you want the bb logo on the back
of the chain, you need to give me a hunder
grand And with the hundred thousand dollars, we don't take
(18:35):
the pcent deposit. You gotta give us a deposit and
it's non refundable. You know, all these things that would
be like red flags of people. Right, twenty one people
immediately paid for a hundred thousand all of the chains,
and then I realized, damn, that slot work. Now there's
a lot of big chains, right, So how long does
(19:03):
it take you too to make to make one depending
on what it is, you know, but a big chain,
I mean it could take me, you know, six to
eight weeks, you know, on average, and some chains that
kid cutties gigantic to Coshi Murakami chain that took like
almost four months. You know. It's it's to the point
where you know, people look at my fingers like, why
why are you cuticle so messed up? And I'm like,
you know, and during the pandemic, you know, no, there's
(19:23):
no manicures, no pedicures, nothing, And I'm like Damn, I
can't keep my cuticles suitable because you know I'm touching
you know, look, you know um acids and things like
that and metal and stuff. It takes a long time,
but I refunded nineteen people are of the twenty one
their money. Wait until I finished those two pieces and
then changed it to two. I said, if you want
to get a chain from Benballer, it's two grand. And
(19:45):
I'm only making a chain once a month now, making
maybe a chain every three months, because what I'm doing
is I'm partnering with Murakami and doing these global recognized,
huge museum type pieces. So we're not getting museum type quality.
If if my jewelry is not worthy to be in
(20:06):
the MoMA, to be in the Mocha, to even be
in the Louver, you know, I don't want to do
it because at that point it's waste of my time.
I'm gonna make money regardless. I will make money no
matter what I do. So let's do something bigger. And
that's why I still have like three form more collaborations
with more Commune this year, and I worked with Cause
and I'm just trying to do something different. You know that.
Um I want to leave a legacy. You know, the
(20:28):
money's already. I've I've done that already. You know you
should make a chain for though. You should make one
for Elon Musk. Did you made one for him before?
So you don't know the story? You didn't google it? Right? No?
I didn't know. Sorry, all right? So I respect the
man totally, right. I want to Tesla and everything. So
I have a meeting with Ellen Um. One of my
best friends, Paul. He's an entrepreneur. When I met him,
(20:50):
he might have had like tan grant to his name,
which some people like. It's a lot more than other people.
It's not a lot when you think about people that
are investing in playing around with real estate and stocks
and whatever. But when I met him, he was really young.
It's like twenty I think, yeah, I was. I was
friends with them when he was twenty came twenty one
and nice twenty nine. Maybe he's probably worth about maybe
somewhere around twenty million now right now. He had a
(21:12):
ten thousand of net worth when I met him, And um,
he is heavy on old Bill Gates this and you know,
Law Musk and Jeff Bezels and I'm like bro like
all those kuys pan. You know what I I don't
care about like bro focus, you know, like like be
the next you want to be, you know, the first you,
not the next them. I convinced him to buy a Tesla.
He was already obsessed with Elon Musk and uh, so
I decided to make a thirty five thousand dollar Tesla
(21:34):
ring all red rubies bagets is a beautiful ring. You
could google and look at it and was really really
nice ring. And I'm doing something that is completely outside
my character. And Paul goes, look, I'll pay for half
the ring if you just try to reach out to him,
because you have friends that are cool with them, from
you know, Jade and Smith to uh Tire the creator
a certain people that he follows that he likes. They
(21:55):
know Elon. I'm like, all right, dog, I'm sure you know.
Let's let's see to put it out there. So I'm like, hey, man,
I made this ring. Boom TMZ runs a story. Um
it goes you know, all over the internet. Any law
Musk is like oh he literally replied back with one
word thank you. I was like, this fucking dick man,
I like like, you know, like that, That's why I
don't do this type of ship, you know what I mean,
(22:16):
this is like but this ain't me anyways, um, his
executive system gets reached out, reaches out to me, and
she's like, he has an opening on this day. Boom cool.
So I'm like, you know what, let's make like a
little I'm not really a vlogger or like those type
of things. I don't have a podcast at the time either.
I was like, you know what, let's document this though.
Let's try the test law. I had it all murdered out,
Model XP on the top of the line, their flagship car,
(22:37):
all done up. I mean, everything is you know, not
a lot of testas were customized at that time. Everything possible.
I said, yo, bro, we can stop in Santa Barbara,
we can stop here in half one Bay, and then
we'll get to Silicon Valley, will drive there, and um,
I was hoping he meets us at SpaceX because it's
so close. And they're like, no, you need security clearance,
shelah blah blah whatever. So we have this date set
and everything boom ready to go. My boy's anxiety has
(22:59):
a plane ticket from d C. He listened. He lives
in Virginia. It's gonna come to see me. So it's
April one, right, April Fool's Day. How crazy is that? Right?
Or it's March on whatever before it goes in the
April Fool's Day. My wife's birthday is on April two.
It was a weekend, so she's having a birthday party.
Her and her brothers share the birthday to their two days.
They are born two days apart. So I get in
(23:20):
the Tesla. I'm driving to my wife's birthday party. Has
stopped at the stop sign and I noticed my door
doesn't open. And I'm like, I no big deal. You
know whatever that knows the window doesn't open. Now I'm like, okay,
am I tripping? Now I'm tripping right then I keep
hearing it do do do do? It's like the Aeroston
from the Tesla's if you ever been in Tesla before.
I can't open the door. So now I pull over
(23:42):
and I'm like, hey, man, I give it maybe se
strength and I pushed the door as hard as I
can't give it. Open the door. Do do do? Do do?
Go to the other side. Nothing. So I'm like, all right, man,
you know, let me just chill the hell, let me
just chill. Out let me turn they see on I
have a good amount of are you not a ton?
But let's just figure this out. I start recording myself
(24:04):
on Snapchat in real time. Forty seven minutes later, I
still can't get out of my car. Forty seven minutes, Um,
banging all the windows. Now I'm kicking out a hundred
trying to smash the window, open all the doors, boom, whatever.
Can't get out. I didn't know. Not a Tesla fan boy,
but I didn't know that there was a button that
you can reach, or like a level you can reach.
(24:24):
You got to remove the speaker in the back seat
and you can get emergency and nothing is I have
three baby seats across my my second row. I can't
really get back there, you know. Finally, obviously, I get
out of the car, and um, I'm not really thinking
too much about whatever. I make a complaint to Tesla.
Tesla picks up the car immediately, like really really fast.
On Monday morning, I get a call or I get
(24:45):
an email from Elaen's executive assistant saying, hey, he's gonna
have to cancel your meeting. You know, blah blah whatever,
which is coming up like in a weekend. I'm like,
are you kidding me? Like, what are you talking about? It?
Goes man, dude, why would you like document that? You know,
there's so many Tesla haters out there blah blah. Elon
is upset, he's just can't meet you and whatever. So
I was like living. I was super livid. So I
(25:05):
did something completely out of character. I took the screenshot
of the email and I posted on my Instagram, you know,
and uh yeah, she ended up getting fired. All these
Tesla employees I never knew that were executive started messaging me, a, bro,
could you please take that post down? You know it's
I was like, no, funk all that man, bro, Like
if anything, this dude should have been cool and been like, look, man,
let's work on something. How to you know what the
(25:26):
situations happen? And all these Tesla hater pages are hitting
me up like hey, man, I know this. I was like, Bro,
I don't want to hear this show. I'm not That's
not what I'm about, you know what I mean? Like, dude,
I'm not trying to get cloud off of this. I'm
just was trying to bring awareness. I got three kids.
What if they were locked in the car, and he
didn't like that. He was really piste off. So that
was the end of that. So I end up giving
the ring to my boy Paul, who still wears it.
He's like, one day then you gotta be cool with
(25:47):
this guy, man, give them the ring. And so it's
the funny story about Elon. I doubt I'll be making
him a chain. Oh man, you've lived to such a
such a storied life. It's uh, it's it's super cool.
And it's all come completely of your own making. You know,
of your own will. Like that's what I think is
so special about it. Like you you willed your success,
(26:08):
like you willed the money you wanted to make. Even
just now you're like, I don't know what's gonna happen
in the future. I know, make money, but figure it out.
I'm gonna figure it out. And you're completely okay, kind
of resting on your own internal confidence that yeah, you know.
And I watched this Korean movie and in the Korean movie,
the guy said, hey, man, those trying to win and
trying to figure out every single way to get successful,
(26:28):
they're the ones they're gonna lose. The skeptics they're gonna
lose those who know how to win will win. And
I was like, well, it's just that simple. Those w
are gonna win to win. And I just feel like
you said, I willed it. I really true. Do do
believe I manifested my destiny? You know, I really do
feel like I've manifested a lot of things, you know.
And maybe because I never had aspirations to become a billionaire,
(26:49):
you know, um, maybe that's you know, I don't know,
should I should I try? I just I gave up
on that. I was like, man, bro, I've tried to
do all the calculations because I gotta do this, this
and this, and you know, you do those numb if
you sell five and ten thousand things, does that become
a billion? And I was like, bro, it's hafflute. You
have to be like a Spanks type of thing where
it's a fluke and this happens, or just you know,
I'm content, man, I'm good. You know, Bitcoin did me? Well?
(27:11):
How much in dollar amount jewelry do you think you've
sold in your career? That's just a number I wanted
to ask you. Damn people ask me all the time,
like how much real estate have you sold? It's like
the question I get seventeen times a day. Oh yeah, No,
nowhere near what you've done. I mean, if I saw
you sold the Hunter for your million dollar house either
or whatever it was, you know, tell you the truth.
I don't know, man, I swear to God, I really don't.
(27:32):
I mean, what the corporation has done, I don't think
it's that impressive, though, do you know what I mean?
I mean, we did like million dollars a couple of
years in a row you know which is and again
are as over a lot. Oh. I thought you're gonna
say it's I mean, because you know, you when you
sell a hundred million dollar house, and I feel like, well,
you know again, Yeah, but you're you're talking about we're
talking about revenue. I gross sales and real estate is
(27:52):
not comparable to gross gross revenue in jewels. Okay, that's
true too. I'm sorry. Our margins are massive, right, I
think people kind of know that at so yeah, yeah,
you know we we we did um. I mean, we
haven't dipped below eight figures. But at the same time,
you know we're paying employees better, you know, I mean
even you know, people who are doing the general like
(28:13):
repairs and things. Like that they're making at least six
figures in our corporation. You know, it's just certain things.
You know, We've taken care of everyone that's been with us.
My my last question for you is when we asked
you to do this podcast and he saw the title
was was Big Money Energy? What did you think? What's
Big Money Energy mean to you? You know, look and
and don't take this the wrong way. I don't want
you to think like, um, I wasn't exactly sure. Um,
(28:34):
you know, my podcast producers are like a man, just
dude is a big hot shot, you know, dude, he's um,
you know he's And I was like, hot shot, okay,
let me go to his page and I'll tell you.
Let me. Let me just go look at his page
real quick. And I go to the page and I'm like, yo, dude,
this guy right here is way too handsome. Who is
this a Bachelor? And I was like, bro, like what
who is this? And it's like, dude, you don't watch
millionar listening? You know you watch this whatever? Boom And
(28:57):
I said, I said, look, dog, you know who watches
all those shows Bachelor that stuff? My wife, baby, you
know this guy? And she goes oh yeah, I know
that guy from New York. And I was like, okay,
all right, I gotta do this show because it would
be cool with my wife. And I saw the name
and I looked at things like, you know, a big
money energy. So you know when I like that big
money energy, you know what that means, man, That means motivation.
(29:17):
Go out there and don't come out there and be
like yo, manyo Ryan, today, you know what we're gonna do.
You know we're gonna do today. Duck, We're gonna make
seven thousand dollars. Get the funk out of here. We're
not making We're talking about we're gonna make seven thousand million.
That's what we're gonna do. You know what I mean.
You gotta put it out there. You gotta manifest it,
like really truly believe. Like one of my one of
my another slogan I say, is make it a great day.
You have a choice to make it a great day. Right.
(29:38):
You gotta go out there and be like, look, I'm
not gonna let that ship. That flat tire on my car,
that's not don't sweat that. That's nothing. That's just haters
trying to slow me down. That's an obstacle about to
jump off that, you know, boom, jump over it. Look,
big money energy. It was something that was another thing
that was a positive for this interview. I was like, look,
I love that name, and um, you know, energy is important,
(30:00):
iportant thing. You could see someone's energy when they have something,
you know, during that bad mood, and you just see
like that force field around him. You'd be like, yo, dog,
I don't want to be anywhere around that person right
when I'm in a bad mood. It could be the
stupidest thing, like I don't think they gave me enough
boba in my milk tea, and be like, yo, man,
get Ben out of here. Man. He's trips on the
most pettiest things. He lost eight ars today and he
doesn't even care like the small things he cares about.
(30:22):
When I think about big money energy, I think like,
all right, this dude, Ryan, he's got nothing of a
big money energy. He's not trying to sell I mean,
you know a two dollar house or a million dollar
He's trying to sell a three He's trying to break
the record. He's gonna sell a five hundred million dollars state,
you know, and boom and it's like that energy. You
see that, and it's like, all right, don't be scared.
(30:43):
Gravitate towards it. That energy, man, that big money energy.
You know you want to go in there and be
a part of that because that attitude and that you know,
it becomes a part of you, almost like an aura, right,
Like all right, man, you know, today's the day we're
gonna make a billion dollars. That's why I take let's go.
(31:05):
Big Money Energy is hosted by me Ryan Sirhant. It's
produced by Mike Coscarelli and Joe Lorreesca, an executive produced
by Lindsay Hoffman. Find more podcasts like Big Money Energy
on the I Heart Radio app or wherever you get
your podcasts.
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