Breaking Down Business & Investing with Earn Your Leisure #355

Earn Your Leisure is a podcast hosted by Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings. On their show, they talk with guests who are earning and investing their money in all sorts of different ways- ways that a lot of folks probably don’t even know exist. Rashad and Troy give a behind-the-scenes look into different industries and highlight what makes those industries tick as well as what makes their guests successful. They describe their podcast as a “college business class mixed with pop culture” and that’s what we’re talking about today- a blending of the two together in order as we gleen our own personal finance takeaways.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I and
Matt and today we are breaking down business and investing
with the fellas from Earnier Leisure. Yeah. Earnier Leisure is

(00:28):
a podcast assocted by Rashad Blau and Troy Millings, and
on their show they talk with guests who are earning
and investing their money in all the different ways, ways
that a lot of folks probably don't even know exist.
Rashade and Troy give a behind the scenes look into
different industries and they highlight what makes those industries tick
as well as what makes their guests successful. They like

(00:49):
to say that Earnier Leisure is a college business class
mixed with pop culture, so we're looking forward to a
blending of the two together today as we dive into
personal finance and business. Fell us, thanks for joining us
today on the podcast. Thank you for having Thanks for
having to appreciate it. Dude, It's about time. We've had
some listeners reach out there like you gotta get them on.
We're like, all right, we'll do it. Yes, that sounds great.
So excited to have you guys with us. Base everybody

(01:13):
that suggested it. Yeah, dude, Oh seriously, You guys do
have a passionate fan base, But we gotta say that
the first question we ask anybody that comes on the show.
Matt and I were super into craft beer. We found
out before we started recording. You guys are not into beer. Um,
which is totally fine. We can still be friends, but
but it is the thing that we splurge on in
the here now while we're trying to intentionally save and

(01:33):
invest for the future. What is that for you guys?
Do you have a splurge or a craft beer equivalent?
I would say sneakers For me, I'm a big sneak ahead. Um,
so before, even before when I was teaching, I always
had a sneaker budget. These teachers that, and so I
knew how to have fresh sneakers that the kids wouldn't
respect me. So, how many pairs of sneakers do you have? CHOI? Um,

(01:54):
I cap it out a hundred. If I get to
a hundred, I started I started giving peers away. Okay,
that is a lot of shoes. Yea. I mean you
gotta have a special closet, right, Like, do you have
a I actually have a shoe room. Yeah, I have
a shoe It's it's color coordinated stack nicely. There you go.
You gotta send me, send us a picture of that.

(02:15):
That's amazing. Yeah, for sure. What about you. I don't
really do too much spurs on anything these days. But
I'm traveling. It's probably my something I enjoy most in life.
So um, that's probably like ninety cinema budget. That's splurge
herblest towards traveling. But other than that, I don't really
have any any habits. So anything that I really spurs

(02:38):
on too much. Hey, that's responsible. I means you're I
means you're investing that money, right, poured it back into
the business. Yeah. Well you know, so speaking of the business,
right we're talking about your show or in your leisure
Where did the name of of of your show come from?
You know, basically like what's your what's your origin story?
Like how did you get started? Yeah? So, Uh, was
was doing his own social media age and uh it

(03:00):
was growing pretty fast. He was doing you know, the
behind the scenes stories of business in a very unique way.
And uh, one day we were working out and he
was like, I want to create this little campaign, but
I need a hashtag. And so he told Mike other partner,
you know, we gotta come up with a hashtag. And
I was like, Okay, I spent a day and I thought, oh,
earn your leisure, and um, I just thought it would

(03:22):
be fitting because people think that we we come from
uh well diverse community where there's nothing but wealth, and
we never had to work hard and we were kind
of silver spoon kids. And I'm like, they never saw
us working two jobs, going to school at night, uh,
not having money, you know, having conversations about how we're
going to be successful, you know, really questioning like where
are we going with our lives? And um, to that point,

(03:45):
it was like everything we had gotten we had earned,
and so it was like, yeah, we've earned the luxury
to have the things that we've had. We we were
known in our in our town for having nice parties,
nice cars, uh you know, occasional beautiful women around and
of people just let that that came naturally. But you know,
we had work to out for all those things. And
so it was like, Ernie leisure, that I think that
would be fitting for the hashtag, and so he kind

(04:07):
of used it, and um, he stopped using it for
a little bit because he just kind of felt like
it wasn't that great, And one of our good friends
Banks was like, I really liked that, you should keep
using it. And so one it was time for us
to come up with a podcast, we were thinking of
a name, and uh, we both had different names for it,
and uh, we kind of I'm kind of glad we
didn't use it. We probably would have got sued by
Puff for the name. So we ready, you know, Ernie

(04:31):
Leisure was a hashtag, and so you know, we just
kind of said, all right, let's use that. We own
that we're the only people using it. That's gonna be
our name. Man. I feel like there's so much in
a name, right, Like people people gravitate towards something that
like has a story behind it, and earn your leisure
has a has a story behind it, Like it has
a message right that like work hard so you can
so you can like have fun and play at the

(04:52):
same time. I feel like that that says something, right.
Then there's a lot in that name in those three words. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um,
it started to mean something different to every person that
heard it, and everybody, I mean everybody. The common theme
was like I love the name because you have to
work for freedoms and financial freedom is one of those
things that can change the trajectory of your life and

(05:14):
your family's life. And so it was so fitting and
the definitions people were coming with it was so profound.
I'm like, oh, we got something that's gonna stick because
it means something different to every person that hears it,
but everybody wants it right. Everybody wants to earn their
freedom or their leisure. And so we were like, yeah,
we got one, find something sticky, you stick with it. So,
I mean, so, did you know, did you two start

(05:36):
talking about you know, personal finances, You're you know, you're
talking about money, you talking about business here? Is that
how the show got started? Basically you're looking for a
way to just share that information with with other folks.
How did the actual podcast come about? Yeah, the podcast
came about from just my Instagram page of you know,
growing that my own personal brand as a financial advisor.
I wanted to kind of, you know, be known in

(05:58):
the world of social media as a fining you an
expert financial advisor on Instagram and I would go on
other people's shows, any show that would invite me, public
access show, radio show, anything, and I would just take
myself and then chop up clips and put it on Instagram.
And then from there people I thought that those clips
was actually from my podcast, so they were asking like,

(06:18):
you know, where can I see this full episode? And
I'm like, well, this isn't actually my show. This to
somebody else's show. So people kept saying like, well, you
need to have your on show, you should have your
own podcast. Um. And then from there, you know, the
momentum just just just kept building and those clips really
started to go like viral online. I thought it would
be a good idea to actually start on show. So Troy,
you know, I speak to him every day. So when

(06:40):
I was coming up with this show, I asked him
if he wanted to be my partner for this show, um,
because I felt like, you know, most podcasts have co
host two people as opposed to just one person. So um,
I thought it would be a good idea to have
him as my co host for the show. So he
said yeah, and uh, that's how it actually got started.
So that's how, actually me how it got started. We

(07:00):
didn't really start the podcast, but the you know, the brand.
It was really meant to just keep growing my own
personal thing that I was doing and attraction that I
was getting on going other people's off of other people's shows. Um,
we thinkured we could just do our own show, and
then uh, two years later we had now there you go. Well,
I love that you guys are best friends too, man
Like I think literally, Matt and I are best friends.

(07:22):
But this is the first best friend combo we've had
as guests on the show, which I don't know how
uh it's it's fitting, though. I love that that you
guys are the first best friends we've had. I want
to say to like man, I was, I was scrolling
through some of your YouTube videos and just uh, a
lot of times when you look at the comments on
YouTube videos, it's like a cesspool of negativity. But man,

(07:43):
like everybody, the responses and stuff from from your viewers
were so positive, And there was one that really caught
my eye. Someone said, seeing so many successful people of
color has changed my outlook. Thanks, uy L. And it
sure seems like you guys are feeling a void in
the financial space. Is that you see yourselves? Is that
what you see yourselves as doing is basically like taking

(08:04):
advice to a group of folks that usually are underserved. Yeah. Absolutely, definitely.
You know, the message of financial literacy and business UH
was kind of I don't want to say it was
left out, but you know, for a long period of time,
it wasn't delivered to our community for sure, in a
way that they can understand it and from messengers that

(08:25):
they that they related to. So a lot of people,
millions of people were left out of business conversations, were
left out of financial literacy conversations because it wasn't delivered
UH in a way that they can understand it, and
it wasn't delivered from people that they can understand. So
us coming UM and I feel like we definitely filled
that gap and bring millions of people and all over

(08:50):
the world that you know, we're left out of that
conversation or just felt uncomfortable taking part in the conversation
because they didn't understand it and they felt like, you know,
it might have been over their head, or they might
have felt that was too boring for them or too
complicated for them. So, you know, we try to make
things as easy to understand as possible. We use a
lot of UM cultural references and try to you know,

(09:10):
as you said at the beginning of the show, we
mix UM it's a business course mixed with pop culture,
so all of that just kind of blends for an
interesting dynamic. And it's not just you know, black people,
not just Spanish people, as for anybody all over the world.
But of course, you know, us being African American, um men,
that's the language that we speak. So it's easy for

(09:32):
us to you know, talk and and relate to the
people because these are the same people that we grew
up with, the same people that went with the high
school with the same people that you know we see
in the barbershop. So you know, these are the conversations
that we're having on Earn Alisia, and we're bringing people
on on Earn Alisia that you know, may have been
looked over, um entrepreneurs that are doing great things that

(09:55):
are killing the game, whether it's real estate, whether it's stocks,
whether it's you know, trucking, un aimen and um there's
are young majority young African American entrepreneurs that have been
looked over by mainstream media that nobody has recognized, and
we give them a platform to not only be celebrated,
but more importantly to educate. So now they're actually educated.
So not only are they getting a message from us,

(10:17):
but they're getting a message from the guests that we
bring on, and the guests that we bring on UM
they can relate to as well. So it's very encouraging
for a lot of people to actually see the diversity
in business and see the diversity in UM in education.
I think that it's something that has lacked for a
long period of time, especially in the business world. I
love it. Yeah, and you know you mentioned this too,

(10:38):
But you're a financial advisor, Troy, you're a teacher. Did
you guys see that as a combo, you know, like
a perfect fit, the two of you coming together like that. Yeah,
it actually started. We started UM in a summer program
that I was running. Uh. You know, obviously when you're
a teacher, you got some resolved, but I always used
the summer to find a way to teach kids in
a different format. I was teaching health and visit during

(10:58):
the school year, and UM I taught like a financial
literacy program in the summer on a summer intership program.
But financial literacy was a component. And so when I
started it, and he was just starting his financial advising career,
and so I told him, you know, one of the
components of the programs, I want you to come talk
to the kids about money at the time, you know,
they would enter for six weeks and at the end
of it, I was going to pay them like five dollars.

(11:18):
And so it was the first fourteen years old, so
it was the first time they were come into contact
with money. I wanted them to have a to understand
the relationship of money, how to use it, I think.
I think one of the first lessons we talked to
him was how to save, how to spend it, how
to share, which is a valuable lesson for adults and children.
But they got the concept and so we turned that
into something very special. Right, So they got the financial literacy,
and then they got to see real world application. They

(11:40):
would come in, we'd interview them, see what they wanted
to be in the future, and then explore it. We
exposed them to careers that they never thought were possible. Right,
a kid comes and tells me he wants to be
a pediatrician, which will take him to a doctor's office
and let them see what that's like. They wanted to
be an architect, We take them to you know, affirm
that has architect and they get to be that person.
For six weeks and it was so valuable that um,

(12:03):
people were like, we need more of this, we need
more of this, and um, it kind of gravitated to
turning it into the podcast. Really, if we look at it,
we were showing kids what careers they can do. When
that was showing adults and kids all the different types
of careers and ways they can make money as entrepreneurs
and businessmen and winning. Dude, that's awesome. And yeah, what
are some of the biggest obstacles maybe when you're trying

(12:24):
to talk about money with young folks, with fourteen year
olds like, um, that that can be you know, Matt
and I bemoan the lack of personal finance education in
high schools growing up. I think there's six states maybe
the require a personal finance class and so you know,
you get out there into adulthood and oftentimes most people
learned through a bunch of bad beats. So reaching kids

(12:45):
young at a young age is so important. But what
are some of the biggest challenges when you are trying
to reach young people to teach them about personal finance. Yeah,
I think the biggest challenges is that is not required
during the ten months of school. Yeah, And so knowing
that I wanted to treat the site weeks in the
summer that I had them like the ten months that
they missed, and so we made no secret. We would
tell them like, hey, we make this much money or

(13:07):
we have this much money. And the first thing that
kids respect is when what they can see. And so
if they see it and you show them how they
can do it and what it means to invest in
stocks and how you can make money, they gravitate towards
it because nobody's told them this before, right, like, you
can make money right now. We can show you how
to make money in the stock market, we can show
you what taxes are, like, nobody was talking to them
like this, and so when they started to hear money language,

(13:30):
it was like, oh, this is what I need. They
started thinking like why why am I learning about trigonometry?
No disrespecting they trigonometry teacher, but you know that a
lot of them are like, we am I gonna have
a use this? And it's tough as a teacher to
say you will one day, knowing that you know you
probably won't. Probably not imetry since high school personally, you
know what I mean. And so when we talked to

(13:50):
them about things that related to their everyday life, sales tax,
stay tax, income tax, again, teaching them how stock market works.
It was like, oh, this is this is what I
really needing. And so they would they would eating it up.
They would eating it up, and every year they wanted
to come back. And that was the only thing about
the program after they left, you know, the goal was
to get them a job. By the time they have
a fifteen and a kids always got a job, and

(14:12):
so they still wanted a piece of the program, and
so all things like, how do we scale this, this
need right now, these kids want this, how do we
scale it? And so we found the way through our
your leisure. Obviously, you talk about money all the time,
just like Joel and I. We don't see it as
being weird at all. I mean, we're talking to people
about money, about what they're doing their money. We're talking
to our friends about it, and they're kind of sometimes
we're like, hey, man, back off, you know, But like,

(14:34):
do you see talking about money and finance being perceived
that's a bad thing in social spheres that you guys
are involved with. No, I don't think talking about money
is a bad thing. I think that you know, for
a long time, it's like kind of been taboo even
like a lot of in like working class, of middle class,
of poor households, like it would be like never acts

(14:55):
your parents how much money they make, never asked them
about building anything like that. But it's like, that's to me,
that's the really the wrong way to go about it,
because if you if your kids aren't aware of money,
if you're not teaching kids about money, and they're gonna
be ignorant about money and they're gonna make a lot
of mistakes. So that's kind of a backwards way of
thinking that I think we're moving away from UM. But
for us, it's never been an issue to talk about money.

(15:17):
But yeah, definitely, you know, I think that more so
UM is like an environmental thing growing up families, households,
things of that nature, where money wasn't talked about. All
money was off the limits as far as you know,
never asks parents about any finances at all. That's not
a child's place. But in my opinion, it actually is

(15:39):
a child's place because if the parents are educating them,
who is going to educate them? Yeah? Yeah, And Matt
and I we've got a bunch of youngsters of our own.
Mask got four, I've got three, and um, we're trying
to teach some stuff that we didn't learn about growing up,
because you know, at least in my house, money was
not talked about, and in fact, it was something that
that led to a lot of It was actually more

(16:00):
of a source of difficulty and never a place to
learn from the difficulties that we encountered, and it just
became a topic that we swept under the rug, which
led to a lot more you know, odd ways of
me viewing money and had to correct those over the
years as I became an adult. Um, because we we've
got more to get to with you. With you, we
want to talk specifically about investing in your personal approach

(16:22):
to money. We'll get to some questions on that right
after this break. All right, we're back. We're talking with
Rashod and Troy Fellas. Let's let's kind of dive into
investing here. You know, it sure seems like you guys
have learned a lot about all sorts of different investing strategies. Uh,

(16:45):
you know, just from hosting your podcast or in your
leisure But what are some of the coolest things that
you've learned from the different guests who you have had
on the show. Um, yeah, we learned a lot from
a variety of different guests. Um. One of the things
that you know, really got my attention is we had
an MG the mortgage shout to him and he's a

(17:06):
loan officer and he has an interest in strategy as
far as real estate. Uh with four three to one
strategy where most people, you know, they start off their
real estate journey with a single family home and they
spend all of their money and they really can't afford
their home and they you know, kind of like living
that American dream where you got you overleveraged and dead

(17:28):
and you got a nice house, but you kind of
like underwater and just barely making mortgage payments. And that
really is a trap for the next thirty years. But
what he explained is, you know, never do that. Start
with a multi family ideally or for family unit if
you can, if not three family, um, and work your
way down. So start with a multi family and you know,
a decent neighborhood but not the best neighborhood, and um,

(17:52):
you know, work your way down. Talked about a lot
of different things how you can refinance and you know,
after year f H a refinance, get a new FH
a loan, kind of work your way down from four
family to a three family to a two family. So
by the time you actually do get the one family home,
it's the dream home that you really want and the
one that you really can afford. And now you have
all of those other units that's actually paying for the

(18:15):
mortgage of the new home, so you're not actually paying
for it. You have other homes that you've accumulated throughout
the years that's actually paying for it. So that was
something that you know, it's just a very simple thing.
It's not extremely complicated, but I never heard anybody break
it down like that. And when he explained it to
me and made so much sense because being a financial
advice I see all the time people buy homes and
they can't afford it. They have to cash out their

(18:36):
four one K, take a loan from their four one K,
deplete their savings, and they're doing every single thing possible
just to get the home. And it's like, Okay, you know,
you have a home now, but you really can't afford
to have that home, so exactly exactly, so to me,
that was one of the most powerful things that I
took away from a guest, Um, yeah I had. It

(18:59):
was two shoutut to our brother Will Street trapping he
and done that. And they we're talking about the power
investment indexes and e t f s and they used
the analogy of a basketball team. I thought it was
really a really profound way to look at it. When
you think of a basketball team, there's always a star player, right,
and so you can invest in the star player like
Lebron James, which would be equivalent to Apple, or you
can invest in the e t F like XLK that

(19:21):
has Apple inside of it at a smaller allocation, but
you're now getting the Western Conference also our teams, and
so that that when he said, Dad, I was like, oh,
that's that's a nice way to put it, right, because
in the XLK you got a bunch of companies and
so now you have Anthony Davis and you've got Steph Curry,
and you got all these guys that if you have
Lebron gets pulls his growing. Hopefully he doesn't this year,

(19:41):
but if you pull that going, you know you still
got you still got a great chance of winning the game.
And so when when they said that investment strategy. I
was like, Oh, I like that. That that's a that's
a nice way to teach people. Yeah, man, I love that.
And I don't want to throw anybody under the bus
or anything. But has there ever been any advice on
the show that like somebody was on I guess was
and you're like, I'm not sure, I'm sure I agree

(20:02):
with that, maybe or maybe that's not my favorite piece
of advice. Did anybody say something that just didn't sit
right with you or that just didn't resonate with you
and you don't have to name their name. Yeah, not.
I want to think the thing that the good thing
about the show is that we bring people on and
everybody has a different point of view and a different perspective.
So not that I actually didn't fully disagree with what

(20:24):
he said, but it was very controversial when Grand Card
Done came on and he said pretty much a lot
of things that nobody else had ever said when they
came on on the Leisure with don't buy a home, um,
debt is good and a bunch of other stuff. And
like I said, I mean, in the context, I don't
think that he was wrong for saying that, but a
lot of people kind of either they loved what he

(20:45):
said or they kind of, you know, it kind of
shocked them and they disagree with what he said. But
I feel like that's that's what platform should be. You know.
It's not us like just dictating exactly what is right
from our personal opinion. We bring different people along with
different points of views, and then it's up to the
people to make educated decisions for themselves. So that was
something that was recent that comes to mind, because, like

(21:07):
I said, that was kind of like a left field
for us for what we usually talk about. He doesn't
invest in stocks. I don't agree with that, but yeah,
he pretty much was like left from most of the
things that we usually talk about. Um, but it was
interesting to make for an interesting conversation for sure. Yeah.
I always preference it by saying, the thoughts and beliefs

(21:27):
of our guests are solely you know, like what says man,
It's a platform and people get to express their thoughts
and their opinions, and so I'm not necessarily here to
agree or disagree. I like to dive deeper into their
thought process. So how did you come up with that? Like,
how what made you get to that point of that
thought process. And so that's always interesting because now you

(21:50):
dive deeper into, like you said, it makes for a
better conversation because you're diving deeper into that thought process
and you get to even if you didn't agree with it,
you got to see somebody else's perspective and why they
came up with it, and so that's enjoyable too. Well.
That's that's one of the most interesting things about personal
finance too, right, is that there's all these different roads
that you can take. There's different ways to generate wealth,
and you guys cover a ton of those ways on

(22:12):
on your show. But that's what's fascinating to I mean,
I feel like real estate people in particular, like somebody
like grand Cardone comes on the show and it's like
he's got a completely different perspective because he's kind of
gone all in on this one facet of wealth building.
And you know, Matt, Matt and I prefer to put
our eggs in a few different baskets and and try
to build wealth in a few different ways, building a business,
investing in stocks, investing in real estate. But man, some

(22:33):
of those real estate people get hardcore. They're all into
that leverage for sure. And leverage can can work for
you brilliantly. It can also work against you. It just
depends on the situation that you are in yourself. And Troy, yeah,
I like what you said to about understanding the thought process.
I mean, that's that's how a teacher thinks, right, Yeah,
it's I'm not sure that that shows too as especially

(22:56):
as you're teaching kids. But guys, let's's talk about your
personal approach to money. You know, um, y'all are all
about growing your money. It can it can be even
harder to spend and enjoy your money. I think while
you're hyper focused on growing your net worth. So how
do you, guys, maintain any type of balance in your life?
Umance financially, Because he doesn't have any balance, that's usually

(23:19):
the answer, that's usually answer when they acts about balance.
He alwaysays, I don't I don't have any better. But
but there's yeah, sometimes there's a balance between being hyper
focused on, you know, just trying to grow your net
worth as much as possible. But then others are out
there living life, spending left and right, and if you
do either one of those, you're probably not gonna end up.
You know, at the end of the day feeling satisfied.

(23:40):
So so how how do you guys personally feel satisfied
at the end of the day between you know, what
it is that you're investing in saving and what it
is that you are kind of living, living life spending
money on. Yeah, I think right now is a good
balance as far as that financially, it's enough income fortunately
coming in right now where we can still, um, you know,
live a pretty comfortable life. Um. You know, we talked

(24:03):
to you before. We're in Miami almost every other week
at this point. We do a lot of traveling and
you know we we live a different, a decent life.
So that's that's good. Um, we don't have to sacrifice.
That is enough money to still save and still invest.
But as far as balance, um, in other areas of
life and then you know, that's that's where you just
gotta work on. Is something that I'm still working on

(24:24):
as far as you know running the business and um,
it's something that's a twenty four hour job. It's not
like a nine of five job. There's no really off time,
so there's always something to do or you always think
about something to do, or there's always you know, different
things that you're you're looking at to improve or so
that can definitely take away from your personal life as
far as that your personal life balance UM. And I

(24:46):
think most entrepreneurs, probably most successful entrepreneurs, don't have a um,
you know, work life balance that most people feel comfortable with.
But that's why most people aren't successful entrepreneurs. So I
feel like, you know, on a certain level, your life
is about sacrifice. So you know, it's something that you
have to sacrifice. If you're gonna really, you know, be

(25:09):
at the top of your game, You're gonna have to
be able to sacrifice some level of your personal life.
I think there's just no way around it. And I
guess it's just a matter of just having you know,
a support system, whether that's your family, your friends, your children,
your your wife, your husband, whatever, UM, that you can
understand that and be supportive of that, because I don't

(25:31):
necessarily know if it's possible to have a completely balanced
life as a full time entrepreneur. Yeah. I feel like
sometimes when you're building a business, it's it's like constantly
humming in the back of your head sometimes like the
things that that you want to do, the things you
want to accomplish, or you just get a random light
bulb idea in the shower, and then you got like
you're just like ruminating on it for for hours like um,

(25:54):
even sometimes when you're not actually working, like it is
there in the background, and and sometimes it's just especially
when you're doing something you love, it's because you're excited
about it. So I totally understand that, rashand I don't
want to ask you something else. I want to ask
you about investing. Um, what's your take on like buy
and hold investing versus making short term bets? In your opinion,
is their room for people to take like a both

(26:15):
and approach? Um? I think sometimes you know, Matt and
I were partial to the to the buy hold strategy,
but you know, some people are wanting to get into
investing and they kind of want to see how something
performs for a year or two. Like, Yeah, what's your
take on long term versus short term? Yeah? I mean,
I think a long term is the easiest, the safest,
and I'm probably the most efficient way to do it,

(26:36):
especially if you're not experienced or if you don't have
a lot of time to dedicate. But it's not the
only way for sure you can make money. You know,
short term as far as you know, as short as
day trading or swing trading or you know, leave options.
So I personally I don't day trade, I don't swing trade,
but you know, we do do options, so that's not

(26:58):
really long term. Probably a long is that we'll do
a player option is two years, maybe three years if
if the option changes, really has extended for that period
of time. But once again, I feel like the long
term is definitely something that should be the cornerstone of
your investment portfolio. So if you want to diversify, in
my opinion, if you want to have let's say fifty

(27:21):
of your portfolio and long term twenty five percent options
twenty you know, in short term crypto a bunch of other,
you know, asset classes. I don't think there's anything wrong
with that. But even in crypto, our long term holes
and they're paying off because crypto is going back up again.
So all the coins that we have from two thousand
and seventeen, which you know it was looking very bleak

(27:43):
a couple of years ago, they're all all coming back
up now. So long term is definitely the key to
wealth the easiest way, in the most efficient way, And
I think the beginning point for anybody to start with.
But um, you know, you definitely can can play more

(28:04):
shorter positions, but you just have to be extremely knowledgeable
and not take too much risk and not over levelge
yourself because obviously the shorter the positions, the more about
and the more risk that's evolved. And be careful with
those margins we have doing them short term place right.
I'm sure you guys right about now too, or yeah,

(28:24):
you're you're feeling pretty good about that crypto, but you're
probably feeling pretty good about your Theoryum right now after
a shot shot recently Troit like you said too, We've
heard you say that, uh, how you like to treat
every dollar like a worker, which really stood out. I
just kind of like the philosophy behind that. But can
you just explain that a little bit, kind of talk
about that mindset. Yeah, I mean it goes it comes

(28:46):
down to having a savings account. Right, We've had savings account.
We've been talking for so long, especially for my parents.
Save your money in the bank, Save your money in
the bank, and um, if anybody knows money, you know
that the bank doesn't. You don't really appreciate when it
sits in the bank, right, and so we have to
work hard for our money, so we might as well
have our money work hard for us. And so I
like to just allocate a certain amount of money to
invest every single month, all right. So like if I

(29:09):
made a let's say I made ten thousand dollars, I
might say six that it is going to my investment, right,
goes to goes to savings for my children and a
constudio account, and might go to uh, my wife in
any house expenses. And so we allocate percentages like that
because we can't have money just sitting like it's cool
to have a certain amount of savings, but after a

(29:31):
certain points, like the bank's gonna use that money anyway,
like we had we ran into that situation like last
weekend when we needed capital. We have to give the
the Bank of Advanced notice and it's like, this doesn't
even make sense. They're gonna be they're using it for
their advantage. We have to use it for us. So
every dollar that we make, we have to treat it
like a worker and it has to go out and
make some more. We gotta get more workers there. You go,

(29:52):
get more workers, put them to work, and you know,
just keep them asking right now, like what we're equal
opportunity employers. That's awesome. Are all money is welcome? Yeah, exactly,
all money welcome here. All right, Well, we got just
a few more questions to get to with you guys,
including we want to talk about business you actually talked
about like interviewing someone who had like a successful trucking business.

(30:13):
I'd love to talk more about that, and just other
business ventures. Will get into some of those questions right
after this break. All right, we're back. We're talking with
Rashot and Troy, the fellows behind Earn your Leisure and
uh and guys on your show. Every week you're talking

(30:36):
with an entrepreneur, right who seems to be essentially paving
their own path oftentimes you know, it's in the sports,
it's in the entertainment industries. Are you seeing any career
trends that look to be like consistently working out for
for your guests or or actually even for your listeners
who you might hear from. Well, we've actually been uh

(30:56):
dedicating most of our time the last six months and
so in stocks. So a lot of people have like
it's been a windfall of people that's interested in stocks,
that's something that's something that um, you know, most people
are interested in. But as far as something that has
been working for the business owners, I would say systems.

(31:16):
The business owners that we that we have seen that
are the most successful that have come on our platform,
the one common theme that they have UM in common
is that they all have extremely efficient systems in place
that doesn't inquire require them to actually physically be there.
And um, they all have very strong staff um that

(31:38):
they've incorporated. So you know, I think that's something that
you know, a lot of times as entrepreneurs, we try
to do every single thing ourselves, and you can only
go so far. Um if you are running a one
man show, and um, you know, reinvesting in your business
and you know, taking that money to invest in other
people is probably the best investment that you can actually
make because now that actually allows you to not only

(31:58):
free up time, but to scale the business at a
much quicker rate than you would if you you know,
still trying to do everything with one person. So those
are something that we learned and even from our personal journey.
You know, the more um, the bigger that we get,
the more we bring on. As far as employees, workers,
helpers and it helps a lot. Not like I said,

(32:19):
not only from just a mental standpoint, I haven't do
everything yourself, but as you have more time freed up,
you can focus on things that are most important to
generate revenue, to bring more revenue in, and you don't
have to worry about, you know, the low hanging fruit,
things that can just walk down your attention in your time.
And another thing that that a lot of the guests
who come on who are driving in business, a characteristic

(32:42):
that they have is that they're they're consistent, like they're
always trying to grow, they're always trying to promote themselves,
always trying to get better, and their fearless, right like
they they've they've come through trials and tribulations, they made
mistakes and they kind of look forward to it so
they can get them out the way. And what they
do with the mistis is that they tell everybody that
they made them and that you can learn from these
so you can become better. And that's something that's really encouraging, right,

(33:04):
Like they're making the mistakes so that we don't have
to and we don't see that too often. And it's
a generational shift now that that a lot of people
who have come on our platform are doing it because
it saves a lot of time and money for the
people who are listening and the people are trying to
execute on the information. So those are Those are another
two things that we've seen a lot of the successful
people that have come on ROCHET. One of the things
you said was that you've been talking more about stocks

(33:26):
over the last six months. I saw the stat that
apparently more money has flowed in the stock market in
the past five months than over the prior twelve years.
It's just this like fascinating thing where, Yeah, everyone's kind
of obsessed with the stock market right now. Do you
think there's any downside to that? Like, is is there
maybe UM too much interest when it comes to investing.
Are are some of the people who are kind of,

(33:48):
you know, newly getting into thinking about the stock market.
Do you feel like there's you know, room for some
of them to get taking advantage of UM based on
kind of the way things are right now. Yeah, definitely,
especially you know, going back to our conversation about short
term situations. A lot of times a lot of people
are getting hurt with short term option plays or day
trading or you know, investing in crypto without actually knowing

(34:10):
what they're actually doing. So definitely definitely. I think that,
you know, it's important before you do anything to be
fully educated and understand what you're doing. And uh, you know,
it's not Vegas, it's not just the slot machine, but
investing can be synonymous with gambling if you're coming with
a gambler's mentality. So definitely, definitely. I mean, you know,
there's unfortunate stories, even with Robin Hood, you know, men

(34:30):
like that, you know, committed suicide offer off of that
UM option trade. There was actually a mistake, but he
thought that he was down like seven hundred fifty dollars
and so yeah, there there's been a lot of unfortunate stories.
A lot of people have lost money, and um, I
guess that's just part of it, unfortunately. But definitely it's
encouraging to see so many people that are interested in

(34:53):
it and coming into space. But like all things, there's
always you know, negative size of it, So I guess
that would be the one negative side that you know,
some people are um going a little bit you know
aheaded himself, jumping into things that they aren't fully knowledgeable of,
and um, yet hurting themselves financially. I like that both
of you all focused on things that anybody can implement.

(35:15):
I was kind of hoping that you would say something like,
all right, being an agent, like that's the new thing
as far as a career or an industry. But I
like that y'all focused on things here that regardless of
whether you you know, are a wage earner, you know,
whether you work for somebody else or if you're looking
to start your own thing, these are are things that
you can do. Uh, there's processes that we can set
up in our own lives when it comes to our

(35:36):
personal finances as well, you know, speaking of business, Like,
I consider myself an entrepreneur, right, I feel like that
I'm fairly risk tolerant, but you know, listening to a
few year guests on your show, like it makes me
realize and I'm actually pretty conservative with my ventures. So, like,
what advice do you have for folks who are out
there They've got an idea, uh, they're thinking about starting

(35:57):
their own business, but they kind of need I don't know,
like they've like they need to like a little push
out the door or a little kick in the butt. Like,
what advice would you give us folks when it comes
to setting out on the round, if you can find
a mentor, that's always great because you know, I'm mental,
will stop you from making a bunch of mistakes that, um,
you will make on your own if you if you're
just trying to figure it out. So even if you

(36:17):
have to pay for mentorship, UM, that's something that I
think most people should consider. If not, um, well even
if you do, but definitely if not, research, research, research,
and get as much information as you possibly can. Is
so much information on pretty much anything that you want
to learn now online um, Google, YouTube, books, etcetera. So

(36:38):
you know, really really become an expert in your area,
not just okay, I like foods, I'm gonna open a restaurant,
Like you have to understand what you know food costs.
You have to understand you know hours of operation, the
label laws in your state, and you know electricity and
all of these different peak hours that people come to restaurants,
and what days you should be closed, what data should

(36:59):
be open, all of these things to you know, something
that most people don't think about. And one of the
reasons why our most businesses failed because people just open
the business because they have a passion for something or
they want to do something. But you know, the passion
is only a small part of actually running a business.
The more important part is actually understanding the numbers and
understanding the business model behind it. So these are things
that like I said, I mean, you can educate yourself

(37:20):
or you can get educated by somebody else that has
already made the mistakes. Um. But either way, education is
extremely important and um probably the first step that anybody
should take before going out and starting a business. And
in addition to that, I would say, don't wait for
a perfect time. A lot of times what we get
caught up and saying I have to have this, I

(37:41):
have to have that before I can start. The first
thing is like what he said, getting started, Man, jump
up the porch. Right, You'll learn as you go. The
mistakes are gonna happen, but that's part of the process,
and that's part of the journey. Right, That's the beautiful
part of it, is that you're gonna learn, and as
you learn, your grown. Another thing I would I would
add is the network of us. Right. You may not

(38:02):
have the best uh personnel when you start, but if
you look across and you might find somebody that you know,
that can do some of the skills that you need.
In that way, you don't have to hire somebody and
expensive rate. There's people are around you dead that are great,
and so use those resources while you have them. This conversation,
it kind of makes me think, actually, I heard I
heard one of you guys talk about or both of

(38:23):
you maybe in an interview, talk about the Atlanta water Boys,
And that's kind of this thing. You know, Matt and
I we live in Atlanta, and that was kind of
this big, big deal there for a few months and
it's still kind of is in in the news on occasion. Um.
I feel like basically it was these these young fellas
who were were selling water at some of the the
you know places where people would get off the interstate, um,
and they were getting demonized in the press, and I

(38:45):
felt like these guys, these kids actually had some gumption
what really they just needed some direction. But like, in
your opinion, like, how do we reach kids like that
who have this entrepreneurial spirit, who have this desire to
kind of start their own business, but they lacked the
means to really like funnel it properly. Yeah, I think
it's um, you know, on the starts on the ground
level as far as once again, education and you know,

(39:08):
letting them know that you know, it's good that they
have the entrepreneur spirit, um, but they just need a
little bit more you know, season and Um, they just
need a little bit more you know, coaching and different
ways to you know, find tune the the spirit that
they have. As far as entrepreneurship. So mentorship once again,
that goes back to mentorship. So you know, mentorship works

(39:30):
in two ways. UM. You know, it's good to seek
a mentor, but I feel like if you if you
have some level of knowledge, then it's always good to
become a mentor as well, because that's especially for young people,
that's really the best way to learn. I think that's
the best way to learn period. But like I said,
young people, especially in the problem is that most people
don't have mentors. Um, especially you know young men. Um,

(39:53):
they don't have mentors. So these are programs that I
think actually should even be implemented on the school level.
U where you know, you have a successful you know,
business leader in the community and um, maybe that could
even be part of a school budget if they don't
have enough you know, time to do it for free
where they can come in and actually teach entrepreneurship classes
and give people that are interested in going down that

(40:14):
path some guidance. Um. But you know, a lot of
times we complain about what's going on, but you know
the best way to solve a problem is to be
part of the solution. So you know, instead of you know,
just complaining about it, maybe if you're in the area, UM,
maybe you can start an internship program, or maybe you can, um,
you know, encourage the school to change something. And this
is this goes for any any place in America or

(40:36):
any place all over the world, especially like I said,
when you see young people as you know, it's like
we can complain about them being a problem, but if
we're not giving them solutions, then we are really the problem. Yeah.
I think he's one percent, right, I haven't. I mean
the way they've been portrayed, it's kind of puzzling, right,
Like do these young men are trying to get money? Um?

(40:58):
Have they got at the connotation? Yes? But how many
people have stopped their cars, got out their cars and
tell them listen, there's a program that I want you
to come to at this place. Right, have we provide
resources for these young men to actually get the education right, right,
I challenge people to do that before they criticize them,
because if you don't, then they'll be out there for

(41:18):
the next two or three years. We need to come
up with a place where they can go, or they
can learn the education, or somebody can provide them with
the education to use some of those skills that they have. Right,
If you ever stopped and talk to these these young men, man,
they are clever with their speech. They have the gift
to gap, and so we need to use some of
those skills and maybe just fine tune them and put
them in a different medium. Yeah, man, channel those skills.

(41:40):
It feels like, um, you know, I got criticized or
I got bad grades sometimes bad marks for talking a
lot when I was a kid in school and look
at me now and like look at me now podcast
hosts right, like, And I was talking to my mom
about it the other day and she was like, man,
like some of the teachers the way they would talk
about you know, like I understand I was probably a
little bit of a nuisance. But at the same time,
like there's they're they're like those are things that can

(42:02):
be channeled into something good, And I feel like the
same thing is happening with like the Atlanta water Boys,
Like there is an entrepreneurial spirit, there is this desire
to to make money through a way that is um
right now, like it's looked down upon, But I feel
like there's you know, you get that spark exists and
it needs to be you know, someone needs to use

(42:24):
it and harness it. Yeah, and and and help help
these kids grow that entrepreneurial love and spirit and drive
as opposed to like squashing it and telling them to
like stop doing what they're doing. You know. Yeah, yeah,
I mean I've been on both sides of that coin.
It's interesting, Like I was a kid that the teachers
would talk about right, and so I used to remember
arguing with with my teacher, I'm like, how can you

(42:44):
take ten points off my final grade because I talked?
Like I went from a ninety to eight because I
talked too much, But I'm doing good in class. And
then to hear teachers talk about students in the sat
Nanta and what it came down to is that the
reason that they had these issues because they need to
see people that look like them and that they could
resonate with, and they can look up to right and
they can keep them engaged. And so if you have

(43:06):
all those things, they'll be ready and willing to learn.
And I think we can do that. We can do that.
It is not just Atlanta water Boys. Is any young
young man and young woman who who lacks a guy
into last resources. We have to find ways to keep
them engaged. Um and financial literacy is definitely one of
those ways, because everybody, at the end of the day
wants to make money. They just don't know how and
they don't have the tools or the people around them

(43:26):
to teach them how to do it. Troy, I like
that you've done that yourself as a teacher. You know.
You even kind of going back to the beginning of
the episode here we talked about you guys are both
doing that internship as well, and yeah, exactly. I mean,
and that's a huge part of what we love about
what we do as well. I mean, we're talking about money,
We're talking about something that everybody out there needs to hear,
and if we can present it in a way that
is able to point folks in the right direction, I mean,

(43:47):
that's that's good stuff right there. So man, we felas
we appreciate the conversation and y'all taking the time to
talk with us. Where can folks hear the podcast working
folks learn more about you? Yeah, for sure, thank you
for having us. But earn your legion across all platforms YouTube, Apple, Spotify,
I Heart, UM. You can listen to the podcast on

(44:08):
all audio outlets and you can watch you earn your Legion.
You can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok earn
your lesia across all platforms and UM, shout out to
the to the good folks at my Heart for linking
us with you guys, and keep up the great work
on your end. Yeah, we are definitely fans of what
you guys have going on, So it's honor for us

(44:29):
to be able to be on your platform. And big
shout out to all of our family over at the
Black Effect Podcast Network or the podcast that over there.
Shout out to everybody and know the team over there.
Awesome dude. Yeah, well I'm glad we're on the same network. Um,
it's an to get to chat with you guys and
and hang out for a little bit. So seriously, thanks
for coming on. We really appreciate it. I appreciate you.
Thank you. All Right, dude, what a great conversation we

(44:51):
just had here with Troy and Rashad the fellows behind
Earn Your Leisure. Uh, fantastic conversation just about personal finances.
You know they're upbringing like the their history with money,
but just kind of the things that they're doing now
as well with with money and specifically on the show.
I really enjoyed it. But yeah, man, it's time to
get to our big takeaways from the show. What's something
that stood out to you? Yeah, there was a lot there.
There's a lot that I could pick from, but I

(45:13):
will say I think the thing that stuck out to
me the most was when Troy said the messenger matters,
And man, I think that's so true. I think that
was one of the reasons we started how the money
was there were a ton of personal finance podcasts out there,
but it's not like we were way smarter than everyone else.
We're like, we're going to kill him with knowledge and

(45:33):
be like, by far the best one. It was like, no,
our voices matter in this space. And I think Troy
and Rashad's voices matter so much in in this space too,
And so I think I think they're right. I mean,
I think different people can reach different folks based on
their experiences, based on their personality, based on their approach,
and so yeah, I love that they started our near

(45:56):
leisure and and they've gained quite a following for or
a reason, and it's because their voices, their message. Uh,
the messengers matter. And so I don't know, man, like,
that wasn't necessarily some golden personal finance nugget that I
took away from that conversation, although the worst I'm in there,
but that, to me was was one of the things
that that I walked away from that conversation being like, yeah,

(46:17):
and I'm glad their voices are are a part of
of the broader personal finance conversation. Now that's so true, dude. Yeah,
So the my big takeaway was actually it was kind
of a golden nugget. It was when we're asking about, like,
what are some lessons some investing advice or techniques or
ways of thinking about things that they have learned from
their guests, right, because as you know as hosts, that's

(46:37):
something that we're constantly doing when we do interview folks
were learning from them, and they mentioned that one of
their guests talked about the four three to one method.
And so when it comes to real estate, you know,
try to start with a quad plex, right, try to
start with the four unit house. If you can't do
a four, look to a three, and you know, kind
of work your way down. But essentially the reason that

(46:59):
you know one is kind of at the end of
the list here is that you're reversing the order that
most typical Americans approach real estate. They're typically thinking about
the things that they want for themselves first. Okay, this
is gonna be from my family, my house. Let's look
at that single family home that's the one, and instead,
basically by flipping that and turning it upside down, they're
putting investing first. And so it's a re prioritization of

(47:21):
where your money should go. So focus less on consumption,
because folks will say that, oh, my my house is
an investment, right, it's not quite the investment that investments. Yeah,
that that investing in the stock market or investing in
a rental property. Uh, in particular, you know triplex or
a quadplex that that would be able to bring to you.
And so at the core of that message that at
the core of four three two one is re prioritizing

(47:44):
your money and making sure that you're investing first, and
then after that you will be able to more easily
accomplish some of the more lifestyle goals that you might
have for yourself. Personally, I agreed, man, I was thinking
house hacking when they were talking about that. That's you know,
We've talked about on the show quite a bit, but
I've never heard it put quite like that either, And
I love that as a house packing strategy. The four
three two one. Over time, you'll finally accomplish the goal

(48:06):
of being able to live in a single family home
that you love. She's gonna take a little time, but
by the time you get there easily be able to afford,
which is which is nice. It feels nice as opposed to,
you know, barely being able to pay that mortgage, like
the like the guys talked about. All right, let's talk
about the beer that we had on this episode. This
one was called Changes, and the kind folks at Eighth
State Brewing gave us these pills nurse to partake in.

(48:29):
What were your thoughts on this beer, man, Yeah, thanks
to Eighth State. We're actually looking forward to drinking another
one of theirs on our Wednesday show. But yeah, this
one poured a nice golden, beautiful pills and her like color. Uh.
And you know they're emphasizing a couple of hops here.
I don't like s A A Z. I don't even
know how you say that, says and and nang hops.
Don't ask me. Yeah, I know I butchered it, but

(48:50):
they've got those here on the label. And I would
say this is a hoppier pills and Her. I feel
like it almost has kind of like a clove like
spice like flavor to it, Like it almost kind of
reminds me almost like a Belgian beer to a certain extent.
But it's really tasty, really enjoyable. Sometimes pilsners come across,
it's just really clean and like very minimalists, you know,
like like a picture like what you see on Instagram.

(49:11):
When it comes to minimalism, I feel like that's what
a lot of the newer pilsners are doing. But this
one is like a nice, robust uh pilsner, guests, some
nice flavors going on, really enjoyed. It really is packins
for flavor and a pilsner, which I agree is is
not something that you see super often. You know. We
had one the other day that was a very clean,
sterile kind of pilsner. But I'm really liking that style now.
But but also like, yeah, pilsner with kind of that

(49:31):
hop edge going on at the same time kind of
gives you the best of both worlds. I think between
a pilsner and like a session, I p a more
of that hot flavor, but it's still with that like
pilsner profile that that makes it easy to drink and
Pilsener profile going on. Yeah, pilsner vibe, and especially yeah
during these warmer months, like it's nice drink of pills.
It feels very thirst quenching, even though I'm pretty sure

(49:53):
beer doesn't technically quench your thirst. So it does so
it doesn't know, Yeah, it's wet, that's what works, all right,
We'll go with yeah. So all right, man, this has
been a great episode. Listeners can find our show notes
up on our website at how to Money dot com.
Will make sure to link to Earn your Leisure to
make it a little easier for you guys to find
them if you're interested, no doubt. All right, that's gonna
do it for this episode. Matt until next time. Best

(50:16):
friends out, best friends out,