104: Doing It For the Community | Jay Jackson

[00:00:00] You know, I put myself on a path and I'm asking myself, why don't more people of color?

[00:00:06] Why don't more black folks?

[00:00:08] Boom!

[00:00:09] I know that there's a lot of people who rent but why don't they own it?

[00:00:12] So I began thinking about that and that's when that entrepreneurial sea that the

[00:00:17] gentleman planted years earlier began to take root.

[00:00:22] And I decided I said man, real estate, you know, I asked them around to several different

[00:00:26] people about this and they said well, you know, a lot of tactile education, right?

[00:00:30] People don't necessarily know how easy it is or the process that you can begin to prepare

[00:00:38] yourself for.

[00:00:38] So I said, you know, this is what I want to do.

[00:00:51] Podcast World, Kevin Studios, welcome to another episode of The Value, the language

[00:00:56] of business for those of you seeking to build or invest in businesses that are scalable

[00:01:02] and highly valuable.

[00:01:05] And your course, Kevin Valley, and today we are talking to a world-winning entrepreneur

[00:01:11] and author with a full-fungal track record in media, marketing and marketing communications

[00:01:17] as a massive effect.

[00:01:19] This gentleman's accomplishments and experience has been in recognition of his 2012 and

[00:01:24] in entrepreneurs the year by the African American Chamber of Commerce, the business

[00:01:29] journals, 2010, 40 under 40 in business.

[00:01:34] The 2010 On ExoWord for Excellence in Business, the 2013 Black Business Become from New

[00:01:41] Black Business Investment Fund on October 1, 2011 years from being the Red Westbrook

[00:01:48] named Brides Magazine Day by the City of Orlando.

[00:01:52] And in 2015, he also had another holiday named after him, 40 Jay Jackson Day.

[00:01:59] So we were welcome Jay Jackson, British in the City of Orlando, currently represents

[00:02:05] an hard fourth-lath of Jay Hoidunse.

[00:02:08] Man, I'm doing well, man, I'm doing well.

[00:02:11] He was reading off those accomplishments, man, it takes me back.

[00:02:16] I got it, I got to accomplish some more stuff, man.

[00:02:18] This is long time ago.

[00:02:20] Hey, man, well, you still have young guys, you still have young guys, you still have

[00:02:23] full life ahead of you, so I'm a little too.

[00:02:26] So I want to read a quote to you and I want you to tell me what it means.

[00:02:31] Okay.

[00:02:31] And a good goes, we all have to power the dream.

[00:02:35] We all have the ability to take action towards our dreams and we all possess the talent

[00:02:40] to decide to successfully achieve all dreams.

[00:02:45] Wow, man.

[00:02:46] You know, while you taking me back there, man, and I'm a big proponent of finding your passion,

[00:02:55] finding something that is your natural God given talent, working hard to develop that talent

[00:03:01] into a skill and then utilizing that skill to accomplish your goals and dreams.

[00:03:07] And so that's what I live by, man.

[00:03:09] One of the things, if there was anything that frustrates me, it is individuals that don't

[00:03:18] take control that are doing something that they're not happy with finding yourself living

[00:03:23] a life that they aren't happy with, right?

[00:03:25] And not taking action to really control their destiny and so I'm a firm believer in that.

[00:03:31] So that's really kind of a model that I live by.

[00:03:36] Yeah, I'm delighted to take into a way that comes from, right?

[00:03:40] Because I see that cool to actually buy Jay Jackson's senior.

[00:03:44] I don't know if that's you or your dad or your grandpa.

[00:03:45] That's me.

[00:03:47] I'm the senior.

[00:03:48] I'm the senior.

[00:03:50] Although I have a lot of lessons that I learned from my father, from my pops.

[00:03:55] It's gone on.

[00:03:57] All right.

[00:03:58] So tell me about what went into the Jay Jackson.

[00:04:02] I'll be speaking to today.

[00:04:03] Of course, you want to spend time talking about what you don't write now in rise,

[00:04:08] creates a village and all of that.

[00:04:09] But I'd like to learn a little bit more about the guests before we get into the

[00:04:14] into the core business, right?

[00:04:16] So I read that you had your own childhood struggles and that is really caused for

[00:04:21] your passion, reaching back up, repairing any next generation of leaders.

[00:04:24] Talk about that a little bit.

[00:04:26] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:04:27] So if there was these pivotal things of pivotal points in our life that are life changing

[00:04:34] and so I thought I could go back to one thing that really kind of changed my trajectory.

[00:04:40] It was a time where I had gotten fired from this job.

[00:04:45] I worked for you all, had worked for their foot number of years, and had gotten this job

[00:04:49] working for a company called Airborne Express.

[00:04:52] And you know, Airborne Express, I don't even know their DHL now, but they're, you know,

[00:04:58] delivery service like fan X man.

[00:05:01] I remember I got this job and typically they give you a route in the area that you live

[00:05:08] in because, you know, they want to kind of make sure that you're familiar with the area

[00:05:12] area that you're delivering to and when I got the job, they put me in the side of town

[00:05:18] which was, you know, real foreign to me.

[00:05:20] So I lived on the west side of town that was kind of the hood, you know, that's where

[00:05:25] the low income, you know, where you live that.

[00:05:27] And so they put me on this east side of town and east side was much more fluent part

[00:05:33] of Orlando and this is all in Orlando.

[00:05:35] It was much more fluent that, you know, you had a lot of major corporations on that side

[00:05:40] of town.

[00:05:41] And so I remember man, when they gave me that route, you know, I had a real bad attitude

[00:05:46] about us at man, you know, if you, you know, if you just put me on the side of town where I'm

[00:05:50] well, I'm familiar with man.

[00:05:52] I could do a much better job.

[00:05:53] I know that area, right?

[00:05:55] That was my comfort zone, right?

[00:05:57] And so they say, well, either you've worked this east side or you find a new job.

[00:06:03] And so for the first two, right, but the first two weeks on the job man, I had a real

[00:06:07] poor attitude, you know, just was not happy.

[00:06:11] I wasn't getting my way.

[00:06:12] And so just had this, you know, this real bad attitude.

[00:06:15] And so two weeks into the job man, I pull up at this house and most of the deliveries

[00:06:20] I was doing were to people home, people's homes and we're talking 20, we're talking,

[00:06:25] this wasn't even 20.

[00:06:26] This was, you know, maybe 19, 90, five or so, 96.

[00:06:33] Right?

[00:06:33] So this is before, you know, delivery and before Amazon became, you know, so big.

[00:06:37] So, you know, all of these people were getting packages that delivered to their houses.

[00:06:42] And that was for it to me and itself.

[00:06:44] And so two weeks on the job man, I pulled up at this house and it's the largest house

[00:06:47] I had ever seen in my life, you know.

[00:06:50] And it wasn't even really a big house, but at the time, you know, I'm coming from, you

[00:06:54] know, shotgun houses and apartment complexes and things like that.

[00:06:57] And so I mean, you know, I looked at this house and I was like, man, this is a beautiful

[00:07:01] house.

[00:07:02] And so I walked up to the door and I, and I, I run into doorbell and then usually we don't

[00:07:07] have to deliver drives to you, you know, you know, run up to the door, throw the package

[00:07:12] at the front door and rain the door better take off running, right?

[00:07:15] And as usually what you do, right, but this particular day man, I don't know.

[00:07:18] I was just, it was just something that was overcoming me, man.

[00:07:21] And so I, I stood there running doorbell, stood there in a gentleman answer to the door

[00:07:26] and it was, you know, maybe like one two o'clock in the afternoon.

[00:07:31] And and I said, he asked that a door and I said, man, my name is Jay.

[00:07:35] And I'm your new delivery driver.

[00:07:37] And I'm just curious, you know, I've never seen a house this beautiful.

[00:07:42] And I was just wondering, what do you, what do you do for a living man?

[00:07:45] Because I was like, you know, how do you, how do you live like this?

[00:07:48] I've never seen this.

[00:07:49] And so he was actually generous.

[00:07:51] He said, you know, when I run a business from my home, and I was like, well, you

[00:07:54] run a business from your home.

[00:07:56] And I said, so you're trying to tell me like, you know, at the time, when it first

[00:08:00] started to come and say, first I'm shaking, you know, and got the package at my hand shaking

[00:08:03] because I don't know what to expect.

[00:08:05] But then I got a little more bold and I'm like, what do you mean you run a business from your

[00:08:09] home?

[00:08:09] And he said, well, you know, you know, you know, you know, run a business from my home.

[00:08:13] And he actually let me and show me a little round into his office.

[00:08:18] And you know, as I think about this kind of crazy now.

[00:08:21] But at the time, man, I was like, so you're trying to tell me, you know, wake up in the morning,

[00:08:25] draining the job that you don't like, you know, fighting traffic to go and work with people.

[00:08:32] You don't like working with doing something you don't like doing.

[00:08:35] And then getting off and, you know, counting down the clock to get off.

[00:08:38] And then go through this rat race all over again every single day, five days a week.

[00:08:44] I'm trying to say, you know, go through that because that's all I had ever seen, right?

[00:08:47] You know, you know, and looking at my parents.

[00:08:49] And he said, no, I love what I do.

[00:08:51] And I'll tell you that was the day that the entrepreneurial seed was planted in my head.

[00:08:58] And it also was the day that my mind was expanded.

[00:09:01] And, and I had to step out of my comfort zone, right?

[00:09:03] I had to be forced out of my comfort zone.

[00:09:05] I didn't step out of it, you know, voluntarily.

[00:09:07] I had to be forced out of it.

[00:09:09] But that exposed me that exposure, you know, really changed my life because from that point on,

[00:09:15] my attitude changed so I could look at things from a different perspective.

[00:09:18] And I began asking the supervisor there, hey, man, you know, I'm open to delivering,

[00:09:24] you know, and working weekends, you know, working on weekends to deliver to other areas that

[00:09:29] I'm not familiar with, right?

[00:09:30] And, you know, I was the first time I ever set foot on a college campus because I was delivering

[00:09:35] packages there.

[00:09:36] First time delivering package to the Lockheed Martin, which is, you know, we know as a, you know, big defense

[00:09:42] contractor, so just being on that campus.

[00:09:44] And so, you know, just at that change my life, man.

[00:09:47] And that's when our realized man, we have the power to, to control our destiny.

[00:09:54] There is really so much value in this, and spent trying beyond your comfort zone.

[00:09:59] Absolutely.

[00:10:00] Because you absolutely.

[00:10:01] You know, it's so funny like I didn't, you like you just triggered this memory.

[00:10:06] So back when I was about 20, three years old, right?

[00:10:10] Okay, cool.

[00:10:11] I had to go with a car near the side of the, I just had a real island.

[00:10:14] No, I'm interested in that.

[00:10:16] Oh, yeah, I just had a real island.

[00:10:17] It's 45 minutes away.

[00:10:23] But I mean, I'm in poor the speed.

[00:10:25] I'm in poor the speed.

[00:10:25] I'm in poor the speed.

[00:10:26] I'm in poor the speed.

[00:10:27] And they sent me down by, I'm a split squad member.

[00:10:29] But I was just just, just, you know, it was next to San Fernando, which is so pretty.

[00:10:33] I mean, anyway.

[00:10:35] So I was there for both, I would say about seven months or so.

[00:10:41] And I would get a drop from my friends aunt and the then six year old son would be in the car.

[00:10:47] I mean, we go in down, we go in down, we go in down, we're going down, we're going down, we're going

[00:10:49] down, we're going down, we're talking to this guy.

[00:10:52] And one day, I look at your kid, because he's going far to go in far to go to school as well, right?

[00:10:58] Because it's more close to there, whatever.

[00:11:01] And I see, you're Mark, do you get tired of having to wake up early to come

[00:11:06] and maybe it's all the same every day.

[00:11:08] It's good at school.

[00:11:10] And he said, no, he's over my friends.

[00:11:14] And if further you go, you more, you see, and you more, you see, you more you learn.

[00:11:21] And he was 60 years old at his time.

[00:11:22] Six years old.

[00:11:24] His mother's in her own.

[00:11:25] I look like his mother's in that like I'm you beaming.

[00:11:28] Yeah, no.

[00:11:30] Wisdom wisdom man at that little at that young age man.

[00:11:33] See, again, you know, perspective man, perspective.

[00:11:38] And I tell you man to me success in anything starts with, you know, really broadening and looking at things for a positive perspective.

[00:11:49] Indeed.

[00:11:50] And I'll give you one quote that I just, I got just the day actually from a friend of man.

[00:11:56] Now this is from a fixed page, Julia Caesar.

[00:11:59] He said, the tide in the affairs of men, which taken by the flood leads on to fortune.

[00:12:07] In other words, if you take the rough road, the unknown, the wilderness, if you will.

[00:12:15] At the end of that road, if you can endure that, that's where you get, that's where you get a victory.

[00:12:20] And that, that, me not could apply to entrepreneurship, I could apply sports and the tea and anything.

[00:12:26] That's as well as a lot of discipline and

[00:12:28] like what you said earlier, curiosity.

[00:12:32] That was your first point in the direction of entrepreneurship.

[00:12:36] Somebody essentially tapped you and said, hey, this is what could happen if you,

[00:12:40] if you go down this path.

[00:12:42] Yeah.

[00:12:42] I want to fast forward a little bit to 2003 where you go deeper into, you go deep into real estate.

[00:12:49] Tell me what, what got you into that and how are you?

[00:12:53] We'll talk about that at the senior level.

[00:12:55] No, absolutely so that story I just shared ties into that.

[00:13:00] So, sets moved on from airport express and had gotten a government job.

[00:13:05] And so I worked for the county and I had a job working for the county.

[00:13:13] And so I had gotten myself a good job, you know, benefits and things like that.

[00:13:17] And so I purchased the home.

[00:13:20] Now keep in mind, I still have that entrepreneurial seat planted in my head.

[00:13:23] And I wind up purchasing a home at age of 22.

[00:13:29] So, you know, went through that process man.

[00:13:31] Thank you and went through that process and I didn't know anything about it.

[00:13:35] But it was like, you know, I want to own.

[00:13:38] I don't want to rent.

[00:13:40] And so, and again, thinking back to the days of delivering packages and seeing these beautiful homes.

[00:13:46] And I'm like, you know, I want to own a home like that.

[00:13:49] So again, that you know, even the seeds of that were planted.

[00:13:52] And so, went through the process.

[00:13:54] I had didn't have good credit at the time.

[00:13:57] But had gotten with the mortgage lender who helped me get my credit together.

[00:14:02] Right? We went on.

[00:14:03] We put, you know, she put me on a six month program.

[00:14:06] Right? And I was making money just not making the best choices, you know, prior to that.

[00:14:12] Right? So, she helped me get on a payment program.

[00:14:14] That could help me get my credit together.

[00:14:16] That could help me save money at the same time.

[00:14:19] And still, they enjoyed life. And so as a result, man, six months, you know, six months in the process.

[00:14:24] I bought my first home. And so, you know, my parents, they didn't buy their first home till they were,

[00:14:29] you know, in their mid-40s.

[00:14:31] And so, you know, I'm like, man, why did it take so long?

[00:14:34] Right? For you all to buy your home.

[00:14:36] And I mean, I'm like, I wasn't fully prepared.

[00:14:39] But, you know, I put myself on a path and I'm like, you know, I'm asking myself, why don't

[00:14:45] more people of color? Why don't more black folks?

[00:14:49] Boom. I know that there's a lot of people who rent, why don't they own it? So, I began, you know,

[00:14:55] thinking about that and that's when that entrepreneurial sea, that the gentleman plan it, you know,

[00:15:00] years earlier began to take root. And I decided I said, man, real estate, you know, I'll

[00:15:07] ask the route to several different people, you know, about this and they say, well, you know,

[00:15:11] a lot of, you know, education, right? People don't necessarily know how easy it is or, you know,

[00:15:18] or the process that you can begin to prepare yourself for. So, I said, you know, this is what I want

[00:15:23] to do. I went and got my, you know, got my real estate license and taught, you know, learn,

[00:15:28] got with the mentor in the business and he really taught me a lot about the industry. And

[00:15:33] and I want to share, you know, something as I'm sharing this story, you know, so I got into

[00:15:38] real estate in 2003. I spent the first year trying to figure things out on my own, you know,

[00:15:44] and I struggled really bad, man. And so there was a gentleman I knew that we went to the same

[00:15:50] church, he was much older than me. And he had a very successful career in real estate. And so I asked him,

[00:15:57] you know, could I come work with him and he be my mentor? And he said, yeah, you, you can, you,

[00:16:02] you can come to the company that I'm working for for a banker. And he said, but listen,

[00:16:07] you're going to come underneath me. So, you're going to be an agent underneath me. And this is

[00:16:13] good, the commission split that I'm going to, you know, split with you and you'll be my buyer's

[00:16:18] agent. And so I actually was taking the pay cut or taking the commission cut to work on a

[00:16:23] need him. But it was one of the greatest things that I could have did because, you know, I worked

[00:16:29] on a need him for two years. And I learned so much about business. And so, you know, you can't be a

[00:16:36] free to put yourself in position where you may have to take a pay cut or you may have to make

[00:16:42] less money if you're going to be able to get something in returning, something that benefits,

[00:16:47] you know, and so I wanted to share that because that was also a decision that I made that

[00:16:54] that why not changing my life even when I got into business, right? And so yeah, so I've worked

[00:16:59] on these him for two years after that worked on my own work for, I went to a different smaller

[00:17:05] brokerage because I always knew I wanted to open up my own. But now I've worked gotten a

[00:17:10] mentorship. I've worked for Cold War Baker, which is a large company. I went and worked for a

[00:17:15] smaller company to find out how they work. And then it gave me the insight that I needed to

[00:17:20] start my own company. And so I started my own company in 2005. I started my own company,

[00:17:25] own real estate broker, and I had a team of agents and everything. So that was that that

[00:17:31] entrepreneurial seat that I talked about earlier, taking root, right? And you know, ultimately

[00:17:38] built my own little brokerage. So how did that go? So we had 2005. I know the market crashed

[00:17:46] with it in 2006. In 2007, 2008, yes, year or night, on time. So I started my real estate company

[00:17:53] built my little team of agents. I did farewell, man, because the market was on fire. So this is

[00:18:00] when interest rates were dirt, they were extremely low. Market was booming, so the price in

[00:18:08] the value of houses was climbing significantly. And so it was making money hand over fits.

[00:18:15] And I invested another little small, you know, excuse me, companies. And then 2007 hit,

[00:18:24] oh man, the market crashed, right? 2008 was it was really in the dumps that I remember.

[00:18:31] I remember in my office, I used to have, I had two TVs that I had one on CNBC because I

[00:18:38] watched a stock market. So I just keep it on the kind of see what the stock market was doing

[00:18:43] and another one I had on CNN. And I used to watch, I remember the financial analyst at a time

[00:18:49] was, you know, about an alleyvel sheet who was actually on MSNBC now. But he was the financial

[00:18:57] analyst for CNN. And I remember man how the market's froze. The market's just crashed. The financial

[00:19:05] industry froze. Everybody stopped lending and it changed everything. But prior to that man,

[00:19:11] I had some good years. So I made some good money and then you had to figure something else out.

[00:19:17] And that's when Obama came in office in 2008 changed everything. So okay, yeah, my bad. Yeah,

[00:19:23] so that was the total $2,000 to $2,000. It will financial crisis you're free to. Okay, so

[00:19:28] yeah, I was looking at another interview that you mentioned a market crash in 2006. So I thought

[00:19:33] it was something else. Okay, it started going. It started declining, but it really,

[00:19:38] for these were the last years of Bush, right? And so it was a 2006, 2007. So he started declining

[00:19:44] in 2006, but it really crashed 2007. It's funny because you know, man, that's what made Obama

[00:19:56] even possible as a black man, because the market just, the economy crashed so bad.

[00:20:03] There were like, man, we just, we're willing to try anybody right now and he came along

[00:20:07] right at the right time. And he was like, we're even giving a black man a shot, right? And that,

[00:20:13] you know, in the rest of history. Yeah, but it sounds like after that, me, it sounds like you had

[00:20:20] a good run because to talk in a 91D, 2000, 900, yeah, by the African American team of

[00:20:28] comments. So what did you do between 2006 to 2009, to really to shine like that?

[00:20:35] Actually what it was was, you know, when I had done well in real estate, well with my real estate

[00:20:42] brokerage, I wind up buying. It was, it was a salon. It was like a barbershop slash lawn,

[00:20:51] you know, a little small mama pop type venue that again, I was, you know, money was coming in,

[00:20:56] handle a fist and in this lady who I actually, my brother worked at her shop. He was my barber

[00:21:02] and so I went in one day and she was looking to sell. And, you know, what she was selling for,

[00:21:08] I mean, the equipment was working more. So I was like, oh, I don't know anything about

[00:21:12] cutting hair, doing hair, any of that, but buy it and, and because of the mentorship I had

[00:21:18] from the gentleman in real estate, I understood that, man, I want to understand everything about

[00:21:23] the business. Yes, I may not be a barber, I may not be, you know, somebody who does hair performs

[00:21:28] services, but I want to understand the principles of the business because if you understand

[00:21:33] the principles of the business, then you can build something that can scale. And so I wind up going

[00:21:39] to this, they were had this big hair show at Atlanta at the time, the broader brothers hair show.

[00:21:45] And so I wind up, you know, I think I bought it in January, the broader brothers show was in February.

[00:21:49] So I, you know, booked a ticket and went to Atlanta spent the week there at this, at this hair

[00:21:54] show, the, the, the, the weekend, the weekend is like a three or four-day show. And I took a lot of

[00:22:00] the business classes. So they got all kinds of classes that take place at these things and classes

[00:22:04] on how to cut hair, do hair, do all different kind of techniques, but they also have salon management

[00:22:09] classes. And so I took those classes. I wind up buy some software that helps you, you know,

[00:22:16] kind of, you know, build out just a lot and manage it came back and remodeled this place,

[00:22:23] wind up recruiting, you know, people to work in there because I understood marketing. And so I,

[00:22:28] you know, built it out and we all grew that space, man. And I wind up buying a building. Again,

[00:22:34] this is the real estate background. I wind up buying a building that was 4,000 square feet. We wind

[00:22:40] up, you know, building this space out and it, and building it to not now it wasn't just a salon,

[00:22:46] but it was a full day spot. And so we had all the services that you could think of, the hair, the nails,

[00:22:52] the esthetician that deals with the skin, and at private rooms in the outlet. And so I have my

[00:22:57] real estate office in this same building, and this salon in the same building. And really what we did a lot of is

[00:23:05] that cannot, we did a lot of community development, meaning we did a lot of things to give back to the

[00:23:10] community. So, so that's all, that's one thing that I've been passionate about. So I would do real estate

[00:23:16] classes. We would also do events where, you know, during school when the school started up,

[00:23:22] you know, we would do free cuts and things like that for people from underserved communities.

[00:23:27] So it was, the awards came as a result of the get-up back efforts that we were doing. Because

[00:23:32] you know, I always say man, you know, I give not because I have much but because I remember what it means to

[00:23:39] have nothing, you know. I remember what it means to have nothing and so all always been kind of

[00:23:45] that philanthropic side of me. And so that's what sustained us man. And so when the market crashed,

[00:23:52] right, I still had this other business and even though people whose money was funny they still

[00:23:57] want to look at it, right? You know what I mean, I haven't even money but I want to look good,

[00:24:01] right in that cut me, that cut, I don't have to look like I'm broke, right? And so that cut

[00:24:06] us sustain it. I ultimately sold that building in that business and that kind of wrote me,

[00:24:13] through the next couple of years. Oh, nice. Yeah, love about this is this concentrate

[00:24:19] of your curiosity, right? To your asitators asked a guy on the in the rich home on the

[00:24:25] affluent side of him or line do hey, what do you do to afford this house? And then your curiosity

[00:24:30] to be like, very how does a bob? How does a hair salon on a bob shop work? You know that here

[00:24:37] is it's the understanding basis and then it seems like you're really good at executing as well

[00:24:42] because I mean to be able to come in off the street. Not knowing anything about the business.

[00:24:48] It was knowing that okay, I like a good haircut too, like everybody else. So then

[00:24:52] okay, let me expand this to the point where the place is not big enough to suit the demand that we have.

[00:24:58] That takes some special time, so skill. Right? No, I never thought about it. I never thought about

[00:25:04] that. And then it's funny that you said something. Yeah. Yeah, so I want to dissect that a little bit. So

[00:25:10] I know you have a you know, true proven track record in media marketing and marketing communications

[00:25:15] and all of that. But what does mean when has that come from how does that work? What was your formula?

[00:25:21] All right, so it's good that you know you understand the business. Well, what was your formula?

[00:25:24] What did you notice that other folks who have been in the industry for 10, 15 years did not notice?

[00:25:32] So so I'll say this man. The fact that I didn't do hair, the fact that I wasn't, you know,

[00:25:39] somebody who performed the services, I could look at things from a different perspective. Right?

[00:25:45] So always tell people just because you are good at frying chicken doesn't mean you need to open

[00:25:53] up your own restaurant, right? Because there's a different skill set, right?

[00:25:58] You know, just because you're good at the technical side of a task doesn't mean you're good at

[00:26:04] you know, building a business or building a scalable business. And so I think the fact that I

[00:26:10] didn't know how to do hair allowed me or you know, I didn't, I wasn't one of the people that

[00:26:15] was performing a technical services allowed me to look at it as a business opportunity that I could

[00:26:21] essentially scale, right? And it just gave me a different perspective. I didn't look at it from

[00:26:26] how many clients can I get. I looked at it from, you know, how many chairs can we fit into a building

[00:26:32] so that I can fit as many, you know, people that are working and then how can I market and

[00:26:37] advertise that can drive traffic to the business and so that, you know, I can then, you know,

[00:26:42] I'm bringing business to somebody who's actually performing the service and then I'm getting

[00:26:46] a percentage of their service. So in essence, man, it was the same model that you have in

[00:26:52] real estate, man. You have in real estate, you have people who are licensed, right? And so in

[00:26:57] hair industry, you know, this industry, these people are licensed. They go there, professionals

[00:27:01] themselves because they have to go get those professional license and then they have to have

[00:27:06] their license underneath, you know, a larger entity, right? And so these people who are, you know,

[00:27:12] so in real estate, I got to have a broker, right? I got my real estate license of my real estate

[00:27:17] sales professional, but I got to have my license with a real estate broker. In the hair industry,

[00:27:22] right? I have my cosmetology license, right? But I need to work out a shop because, you know,

[00:27:28] I can, I don't want, if I do a pair out of my house, then, you know, those are the purpose

[00:27:33] of getting my license. I don't need a license to do out of my house and if I want to be professional,

[00:27:37] then I need to work out of a shop. And so I actually looked at it the same way I looked at

[00:27:42] the real estate business. And so I said, okay, this is a business, this is not, you know, let's just,

[00:27:47] you know, cutting hair and thinking like that, this is a business that in any business,

[00:27:51] you've got to find a way to be able to scale. Yeah. Okay. So what I, what I, this one was

[00:28:00] often, you would, what I've seen at you also are really good at his, um, picking your right,

[00:28:05] uh, hiring properly, right? Pick it in your right people in the team, uh, bringing in people

[00:28:09] who are strong in areas where you are weak, where they're about to, but that's going to

[00:28:13] try and struggle to do the things with weaker because we don't want to spend any money to

[00:28:18] hire anybody, we don't trust people to do the things as good as you do. We don't trust them to be

[00:28:23] as passionate about it or my, like, whatever they try to steal our clients or the, the

[00:28:27] logic let's go on, right? So with all of this mindset, did you get all of this from your,

[00:28:33] from your mental, from the real estate days or is this just got into? Man, this is, this is,

[00:28:37] you know, from my mentor. This is from reading, you know, studying, um, you know, just reading

[00:28:44] other successful people. Uh, when you talk about, you know, hiring, I'm a firm believer. I do not

[00:28:51] have to be the smartest person in the room, right? I, I don't want to be, right? I want to have

[00:28:57] the bigger broader vision and always share this with my team. I said, man, listen,

[00:29:02] what I'm good at is big vision, big picture. This is the greater bigger broader vision for

[00:29:09] what we're doing. I'm like this is where, where, hey, this is Z, right? Now, I'm not sure of BC,

[00:29:18] D, E, F, right? I need you all to help, you know, help fill in the gaps and help, you know, chart

[00:29:26] path for how we get there. But I want you to understand with the, the greater broader vision is

[00:29:31] and that's what I, and that's what I do and, and, you know, I will, I study. So there's two things

[00:29:37] I'll share with you, man. Um, the first thing is that, you know, I, I learnt, you know, the difference

[00:29:42] between a leader and a manager and I, I, I've, I've accepted that I'm more of a leader, right?

[00:29:48] A leader expires, expires, right? And they share in the cast vision and then a manager is responsible

[00:29:55] for managing the process, the manager needs process, right? And so I'm not a manager and I know

[00:30:02] that's not my strength. That's not my forte. And so I try to surround myself with people who are

[00:30:08] good managers and it's that stuff. Um, and then the second thing, man, is I remember reading a story

[00:30:14] man about Henry Ford. Um, and there was this one me out that, you know, I can't at day, you know,

[00:30:25] had published something about him because he, I don't think he even graduated from high school.

[00:30:30] And so they, you know, called him in letter in and said he wasn't intelligent and they,

[00:30:36] you know, published all these things about him. He wind up suing, um, suing the newspaper.

[00:30:42] And so when they were in court and going through the trial and the process and things like that,

[00:30:47] they were, you know, the attorney, the attorney for the other side was asking him all of these

[00:30:53] technical questions about history and, you know, all of these things, you know, what happened

[00:30:59] on this particular date in history. And he was asking them all these, you know, academic,

[00:31:04] you know, things. And so, you know, Henry Ford said, listen, you know, I could easily try to

[00:31:10] cloud my mind with, you know, these, you know, irrelevant facts and times and things, you know,

[00:31:17] but really, on my desk, I have a row of buttons. You know, I'm saying he's like, you know, I can hit

[00:31:22] button and get somebody in my office that can answer any one of these questions that you're asking.

[00:31:27] Right? And so he really got them to understand and say, oh, yeah, he won the case because they said,

[00:31:33] that's the, the, the mindset of somebody with wisdom, right? So yeah, he might not have add all

[00:31:38] the, the intricate details, but he understood how to build out a team of people that had to

[00:31:44] if that had the, the specific information that he needed. And so I've always loved that philosophy.

[00:31:53] So 2009 to 2010, 2011, those were really good years for you in terms of recognition for

[00:32:00] like your hard work and everything. And so when he got the, he got about a few, he got a few awards

[00:32:04] that time. And all of a sudden, 2010, you actually put out a book.

[00:32:11] Yeah, he put out a book. Yeah, yeah, he'd be called to see you, the blueprint was starting

[00:32:16] on business. The, what was your thought process behind putting together that book?

[00:32:20] Man, I'll tell you, I didn't mean to cut you. You could finish up.

[00:32:23] Oh, you go. I'm sorry. You're good. Well, yeah, that those years, man, because I was

[00:32:27] transitioning from real estate and had sold the business. So those years were really also years

[00:32:35] of me prior to figure out what was next. You know, what is next for me? And now, by this time,

[00:32:46] I've, you know, I've started a real estate company and had grown that and had been successful

[00:32:51] prior to the market crashing. I had gotten into the health and beauty industry with no knowledge

[00:32:57] of the industry prior to getting in whatsoever and had one of the largest dayspos in Orlando.

[00:33:05] You know, so those things were, like you said, people were looking at that. And I didn't

[00:33:09] think anything other than people were like, man, how did you do that, right? And they know I come from

[00:33:13] the west side of Orlando, which I shared with you is really the underserved side of town. And so

[00:33:20] and so because of that, I would get asked to speak to, you know, a lot of youth groups

[00:33:24] and talk about entrepreneurship, talking about overcoming obstacles. You know, I would do a

[00:33:30] lot of, you know, get asked to speak a lot. And as a result, man, you know, people were asked me

[00:33:34] questions and, you know, just ask me questions about, you know, I thought, give my little talk

[00:33:39] and give a little bit of history. You know, they just asked me a lot of questions and I said,

[00:33:43] man, I need to capture, you know, some of these things that, you know, these things that people

[00:33:48] are asking me or what, I'm getting the consistent questions. And so maybe I should capture some

[00:33:53] of these things that put it into a book that I could easily say, hey, here's a blueprint

[00:33:59] dark with this, you know, this is it by all means that the end of the all but at least, you know,

[00:34:05] it was a very young book because I was very young at the time and so, but you know,

[00:34:13] this could be something that I could give to people. And so that was the idea and the concept

[00:34:19] behind cubicle to CEO and that's actually the, this is actually it up here. So

[00:34:26] cubicle to CEO, it's all dated. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, man, the blueprint for starting your own business.

[00:34:31] And because, you know, I started speaking at the youth groups and then, you know,

[00:34:38] you begin speaking at college campuses, right? And then they began speaking to business organizations.

[00:34:43] And I wanted to give them something, right? And what I realized is that, especially when you

[00:34:48] inspire people, they want a little piece of you, right? They're like, man, I was so inspired by

[00:34:53] what you were sharing. And they want a little piece of you to take to take with them. And so

[00:34:59] that's where the book, that's where the book ultimately came from. And I was like, this could be a little,

[00:35:04] a little extension that I wish I had when I was getting started. And so that was the big

[00:35:10] period of beginning. So why do you call it a young book? Because, man, you know, when I wrote it,

[00:35:17] you know, there was so much I didn't know, right? And so somebody who's been in business for a long

[00:35:23] time, I mean, it's basic, right? It's basic in nature. The things I've learnt, you know, to date

[00:35:29] are much more comprehensive. But I think it was certainly great. It was great for his time.

[00:35:36] It's great now for somebody who's getting started. That's why I said it's young, because,

[00:35:41] it's not overly heavy, you know, with things that you ultimately will have to learn. But at

[00:35:48] this time, it's just enough to inspire you and give you the basics to get something going

[00:35:54] or to even get yourself in the mindset, which is where, you know, to me, I believe you should

[00:35:58] start as the getting the mindset together. Yeah. I mean, and it sounds like that book really

[00:36:05] met people where they were, right? Especially, it's what sounds like who do people you

[00:36:11] who ask you no only questions, sounds like the younger folks from Westside Orlando or community,

[00:36:16] that look like Westside Orlando, who wanted to see that is, you know, it's hard to be what you

[00:36:21] can't see, right? Yeah. So, so luckily they got to see you and so now you could show them what

[00:36:28] was the real past or the blueprint, so how you think and how your approach things. And I love to

[00:36:34] hear a little bit about what was inside of that book, like if you have any tips, because in

[00:36:40] order, and so I'm sure there are a lot of young folks or early stage entrepreneurs who are put

[00:36:46] into get it, who are getting ready to put together their business plan, who only want to start a

[00:36:49] business, not show what business they want to start, who feel trapped in the corporate cycle,

[00:36:55] the golden hat cups, or sometimes bronze hat cups, or some sort of hat cups. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:37:01] Absolutely. You know, and really the main thing that I really addressed in this book, man, was

[00:37:11] really getting the mindset together, man. And I addressed technical things of how you

[00:37:18] incorporated things like that, but I really do a lot of addressing the mindset, you know,

[00:37:25] waking the entrepreneurial dream, right? And understanding, man, you do have a lot of

[00:37:31] the power to, you know. And also what I address is that entrepreneurship doesn't necessarily mean

[00:37:40] just starting your own business. You can be, you know, I forgot the term to use, but you

[00:37:45] can have an entrepreneurial mindset in a company, right? Oh, yeah, you know, that's been

[00:37:51] entrepreneur, right? Entrepreneur, absolutely. So I talk about that, but it's really like looking at

[00:37:56] at problems, man, and saying, you know, you'll always say every problem bears with the

[00:38:05] seed of opportunity, right? And so looking at products, if you're working in a company, then

[00:38:13] obviously you can, you see, you know, product that exists. How can I develop a solution to that

[00:38:20] problem? To me, that's what entrepreneurship is about. It's about again, you know, recognizing your

[00:38:26] eye, give a talent and then how do I merge my talents to, you know, my talents that I've

[00:38:32] then developed into a skill to, you know, solve prop that I see that exists. And so that's the

[00:38:39] very at the core of what I, what I talk about. I'm actually working on another book,

[00:38:45] wake up as star dreaming which will be much more comprehensive. Yeah, wake up as star dreaming.

[00:38:56] Yeah, that would be a lot more comprehensive. I remember man, I had another mentor who was, you know,

[00:39:06] very successful. He owned a number of, and this was a little bit later on in my professional career.

[00:39:14] He owned a number of successful hotels. And I was telling him about writing this, this young,

[00:39:23] you know, this book, this first book. And he told me he's like, Jane, well, maybe you need to get

[00:39:28] a little bit more experience out of these, you're belted and, you know, build up, you know,

[00:39:35] millions of dollars and things like that. And I said, what that sounds good, man, but, you know,

[00:39:40] some people just need to help a hand, where they're at right now. Right? They need to help a hand,

[00:39:45] right now, where they're at. I think what I've learned right now, I wish somebody would have shared

[00:39:50] with me earlier, it would have helped me overcome a little, you know, some of my obstacles. So,

[00:39:57] so, you know, I said, I'll write that, that'll be another chapter or that'll be another another book

[00:40:02] when I get to that point that you're talking about, but I don't have to wait.

[00:40:07] Yeah, it's great when you're talking to audiences, a young division of yourself.

[00:40:13] We have to really know what they need to help you wish that somebody would have told you.

[00:40:19] Absolutely. March 15, 2015 was proclaimed as G Jackson Day. Oh.

[00:40:27] That happened at the city of Orlando. I'm talking to the mayor of Orlando right now, what's happening?

[00:40:32] No, no, no, no, no, no. Man, I tell you, you know what? That was that day.

[00:40:39] So, you know, I'm moved to Atlanta in 2015. So, we started a company. So, interestingly,

[00:40:49] I want to back up a little bit because there's a key point that I want to make in this timeline

[00:40:57] that you're, that you are sharing here. So, you talked about 2009, 2010,

[00:41:04] you know, the different awards and things like that. And I talked about the book 2010, I wrote it.

[00:41:10] And so, as a result of me speaking to these different youth groups, man, I wind up,

[00:41:17] you know, not only did I have to, you know, get the, just see planet for the book.

[00:41:21] You know, I was all, I was intrigued by the fact that these young people just gravitate to me.

[00:41:28] And they say, you know, and I would ask them, what is about me? And they said,

[00:41:31] what you're so young, and at the time I had a lot less gray, you know, I had a little less in the middle here,

[00:41:37] you know, to me. So, they could really connect with me. They really related to me because I was a young guy, man.

[00:41:42] And, and, you know, that came from, you know, where a lot of them came from. And they say, well,

[00:41:47] we always see athletes, right? And they see entertainers, right? They see the people,

[00:41:52] the athletes and the entertainers. But they, you know, just like me, they didn't see entrepreneurs,

[00:41:56] much for Norris, right? People who were, you know, owning their own business and trying to

[00:42:01] scale those businesses. And so, um, and so again, you know, I said, man, we need to tell more of

[00:42:07] those stories because I'm like there's a lot of people out there who are not only just entrepreneurs,

[00:42:12] but people who are, you know, building and working in companies that are climbing the corporate

[00:42:17] ladder and becoming successful. And so, um, in 2011, we launched a magazine called Rise,

[00:42:26] RYSE Rise Magazine at the time. Um, and, you know, the magazine was never the business model for

[00:42:32] us. The magazine was really kind of the loss leader, but the magazine was the glorified business

[00:42:37] partner, which I had one, which I've been prepared to have, but one of the issues here.

[00:42:43] But I don't have one in front of me, but um, it was the, it was, you know, this full-color,

[00:42:50] gloss publication that was like a young professional version of a black enterprise magazine. And

[00:42:57] and so we spotlight it, um, up-will-emobile by Nordie Young professionals who were doing phenomenal

[00:43:03] things. And that's what Ryze stood for, recognizing the young, successful and empowered. Um,

[00:43:10] and so every time, you know, really the business model for us, every time we, we were releasing a new

[00:43:18] issue of the publication, which it was ever too much. Um, we would do this big cover and valing

[00:43:23] a bit. And so this is the marketing in me, right? Then you know, I said, man, you know, the magazine

[00:43:29] is just a magazine and, you know, but if we tie it to like this big cover and valing and this

[00:43:36] event, you know, on the mean that who's going to be under to, on the cover of the next issue of Ryze,

[00:43:43] right? Get your tickets. You need to be in the room. And so we would easily move 3, 4, 500, you know,

[00:43:49] 600 young professionals. Um, and pretty soon, you know, companies like Pepsi comes like State Farm,

[00:43:56] comes like BB&T bank, right? They were paying attention because we are moving, you know,

[00:44:03] hundreds of up-relimable young professionals and they number one wants to recruit. Right? You

[00:44:09] know, they want to recruit because everybody wants diverse talent, diversity and inclusion was

[00:44:13] was very big. Number two, they want to market to them, right? And so that was our core

[00:44:19] business model was marketing, working with these companies to do marketing. Uh, but the magazine itself

[00:44:25] was for that was for the people, right? And that was to share these inspiring stories so they could

[00:44:31] learn about other people who were utterly mobile. And so we lost that in 2011 which then

[00:44:37] did in Orlando for a number of years. I knew I wanted to do it on a national scale in Orlando

[00:44:43] as much as I love it because that's home for me. Um, it's, you know, Mickey Mouse town, right? And so

[00:44:48] it's known for tourism and healthcare. Those are the two, you know, central floaters, you know,

[00:44:54] those are the two main industries. And so I said, okay, well, Orlando is great, but if we're going

[00:44:59] to launch on a national scale then we got to go to a market that that we can catapult on a national

[00:45:06] scale, right? And Orlando just says not that kind of market. So in 2015, you know, I moved the company

[00:45:11] to Atlanta, uh, tried New York to New York. It was made way too massive, way too big. Um, I love New York

[00:45:18] because of the progression is. And so what, I, I, I went to New York for about, you know,

[00:45:23] four months, uh, just, you know, testing, you know, seeing the market and I realized it was way too big,

[00:45:30] way too expensive, way too cold, right? I'm from Florida, I'm a Florida boy. That's right. It's

[00:45:34] me too expensive. It's a thought. Yeah. Way too expensive, man. But when I came back to Florida

[00:45:40] at the being in New York, I knew then I was like, I can't stay here. I cannot stay in Orlando

[00:45:47] because, you know, the, the progressiveness, man. And I got around people with the, you know,

[00:45:52] there were hungry and driven and just moving. And so, um, now I'm like, I definitely got to

[00:45:58] leave Florida now. And so we moved the company in 2015 to to Atlanta, which I fell in love with

[00:46:03] it because it was really kind of a happy mix, man. It had, you know, still that Southern, that Southern

[00:46:09] field, Southern House, mentality field, but much more progressive significant, you know,

[00:46:13] a corporate headquarters so we can get to key decision makers. Um, social economic status was

[00:46:19] significantly higher, right? So it was just, it was a much better market. And so when we talk about

[00:46:25] now bringing it back to March 2015, that was the day that we wind up doing our last events.

[00:46:33] So January, we moved the company and as a, as a going away party celebration, we hosted our last

[00:46:41] event. And I brought in a gentleman who, who I looked up to for a number of years and he became

[00:46:48] a friend of mine, less brown, you know, the motivational speaker, man. And, and less less was like,

[00:46:56] hey, Jay, um, I'll do an event for you and I won't charge you. I'll do it for you for free. And he's like,

[00:47:02] I'll just make money on back room sales and things like that, but you can keep the door

[00:47:06] and that'll be my send off because he actually was living in Florida at the time. And he's like,

[00:47:11] that'll be my send off for you. And so we did this, you know, evening with less brown, man,

[00:47:19] which was a motivational evening where we were talking about what it means to rise and what it

[00:47:24] means to as he likes to say, you know, you got to be hungry, right? What does it mean to be hungry?

[00:47:30] And so, you know, that was a phenomenal evening for us. That was the last event,

[00:47:37] then last official rise event that we did in my whole town. You know, this is so amazing that

[00:47:43] all of this started from, oh, my, because the English was a lost leader, right? But it, yeah,

[00:47:48] it's just was a true that with the right message, I think that probably the message is more

[00:47:54] important than the business model, right? With the right message, a lost leader could be a market

[00:48:00] builder. That's absolutely right, but I know on a movement maker, look at me and my little

[00:48:06] thing. Yeah, look at you, man. You know, we need to work together on a marketing side of things,

[00:48:17] you know, so we're not, we're not, we're not, all right? Blackmaker,

[00:48:23] black American mega, I would say, you know, greatly, so I was there, but see, for,

[00:48:30] no, when Sir, 2022, I was there for a little bit, a Binton New York as well, not Binton,

[00:48:37] my wife lives in New York and in New York all the time. Florida, family, and Florida,

[00:48:43] everything, so I know what you're doing. And I like, and what you see where, all right, so New York

[00:48:48] has got that energy and everything, and it feels like your community in Florida, I like a

[00:48:54] not to hope we are in the island's field, right? No, things are little slow, what, not good. Yeah,

[00:49:01] when you go, well, man, when they make you, they're good, weather makes you like, hey,

[00:49:05] I'm not in a rash, man, we'll get to it. You know, no, you are so low, you know, not even

[00:49:09] low, you are so low. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, so, you know, you could easily get

[00:49:17] comfortable, like, complacent over here, you know, but yeah, that big city life, fast pace everybody's

[00:49:23] working, no matter what time it's day to the working, no matter what they're doing, cleaning the streets

[00:49:27] they're working, you know, they're building construction they're working, they're not sitting down,

[00:49:31] sitting down, drinking, with a man at work sign. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you know, so that's the energy

[00:49:39] really becomes contagious, right? And before we go on to the right streets of Venice, because

[00:49:45] I want to spend some time talking about that, would you recommend folks? You know, because we have

[00:49:51] a big, we have an audience, and of course, the islands are what not, all right? Would you recommend folks

[00:49:58] leave their comfortable environment to put you their dream or to expand what and scale what they're

[00:50:05] doing? So I'll say this, man. I'm happy I left home, right? Because while I was doing significant

[00:50:14] things, I feel like I was, I feel like I had hit a, hit a ceiling. Yeah, I knew a lot of people

[00:50:21] had a nice roller decks, but I wanted to, I didn't want to just be a big fish in a small pond.

[00:50:30] And nothing, you know, nothing, you know, nothing against Orlando, because I mean,

[00:50:35] there are people who are doing very, very well there. I need they've done, you know, a number of things,

[00:50:40] but sometimes, you gotta leave home, man, you know, what they say a prophet is never recognizing

[00:50:46] in their own land, right? And so, um, and so that for me, you know, may not be the case for everybody,

[00:50:53] right? But for me, it gave me a new, renewed vigor. And then there's things I'm doing now where

[00:51:02] we're getting to that, I probably would have never been able to execute and pull off

[00:51:06] in Orlando. And so, um, and so, you know, absolutely, I think sometimes, as we mentioned earlier,

[00:51:14] man, sometimes you gotta step out of that comfort zone. It is not easy, right? It's not easy,

[00:51:20] man, because it's comfortable, right? You know, um, but I, you know, I'm here really good too.

[00:51:28] Well, you gotta get it, you gotta get it, you gotta get it shipped in, man.

[00:51:33] But yeah, so I know for me, man, it was, it was something that, um, I'm thankful, man,

[00:51:41] it changed my life. You know, you have a lot of courts that have been written right and long since

[00:51:46] you've been talking here. You say every problem is a seat of opportunity. I wrote down a week up and

[00:51:53] start dreaming. Well, that's a book title, but I wrote that down. The prophet is never recognized in

[00:51:59] their own land. I think that was a hard hit in one. All right, now let's talk about the race

[00:52:06] of the race. 40,000 square feet. You bought the school, the Preston Arc Rags School.

[00:52:17] What that, what that old school building, right? And now your building,

[00:52:21] Rice, Creative Fellowships are dynamic, technical content production studio,

[00:52:27] and development in cubicters specifically, specifically design for creative professionals

[00:52:33] and Georgia's film entertainment, gaming and digital media industry. All right, so again,

[00:52:42] I'm going to repeat 40,000 square feet of property. How did you do this? One, two, I still am trying

[00:52:56] to figure this stuff. Okay, but what I, what I put love and I looked into, you were, you were

[00:53:03] gone who are the six thousand square foot property before me and then you have got the 40,000

[00:53:10] square foot property for like a lot of your price? Yeah, tell us all about that. Oh man, so

[00:53:19] man, I'll tell you this is so we move the company here. One of 15, like I said,

[00:53:24] spent some time trying to figure out the market, right? And so then we started working with companies

[00:53:30] like Georgia Power. And we were doing the marketing side of what we do. Now keep in mind,

[00:53:35] I don't have the same relationships or the same brand that I had in Orlando, right? So I got

[00:53:42] a brand building here as well and it's a much bigger market. But you know, so I let with the magazine

[00:53:50] because I know I'm like, okay, well we have this magazine and with this magazine, we know that

[00:53:56] you know, like folks don't get enough recognition, right? So we can, we can leverage the magazine

[00:54:01] and a power of recognition of a magazine to get our foot in the door and begin to build some

[00:54:06] relationships here, which is what we did and then, you know. So we, we wind up building relationships

[00:54:11] because I tell you man, when, when you publish a magazine and you're able to show it to people

[00:54:16] in this tangible and you can, you know, have it in your hand, you know, people begin to take notice

[00:54:21] of you real quick, right? Because people are like, hey, you know, hey, what do you, you know,

[00:54:25] because they want some recognition. Because I'll tell you man, when you become successful and

[00:54:31] you start making money, man, making money is good. But the one thing is especially black folks lack

[00:54:37] and, and they love is recognition, right? Recognition that what I am doing, I am successful at

[00:54:47] or I'm at the top of my game or I even aspire to be successful. And so recognize me, right? So

[00:54:53] they won't, they want that recognition or lack that. And so, you know, that made me, you know,

[00:55:00] built my allowed me to build a little bit of a network, you know, relatively quick moving into

[00:55:06] city because everybody's like, okay, with this guy publishes a magazine, want to be featured in it.

[00:55:12] And so that allowed me to then begin, you know, and also lever some of my relationships from

[00:55:17] from Florida, you know, with companies like BBNC bank and things like that. And so as we're now hiring,

[00:55:23] you know, freelancers because we're creating content and doing all of these various different marketing

[00:55:28] things. One of the things that I was really enamored with and really intrigued about when I moved

[00:55:35] to Atlanta was how much money was being generated from the production industry.

[00:55:42] Production industry was, I don't know if you know, but man, this is, you know,

[00:55:48] George's was neck and neck between two and three in terms of the top production markets, right?

[00:55:54] You got LA, you got LA, you got New York and you have George and it's because of those tax incentives

[00:56:00] and things like that. And so, and so everything films here, you know, Marvel, all of those,

[00:56:06] you know, these big huge movies film here, right? And one thing I've learned because, you know,

[00:56:14] in Orlando, I told you tourism and healthcare are the, you know, number one industry in Orlando.

[00:56:21] And so the government, you know, does a lot of things to incentivize those industries. And so

[00:56:28] I've seen the power of a government really, you know, doing things to drive industry.

[00:56:36] And so when I saw in the state of Georgia, tax incentives and things like that, I'm like, man,

[00:56:43] you know, this is the government, the state is really behind this. And so I'm like,

[00:56:48] that's the industry that you want to try to, you know, get a piece of, right? Because it's,

[00:56:52] you know, the government wants it to be successfully, smarter than economic development and job

[00:56:57] and so, you know, I was intrigued by that. And so as I'm hiring these freelancers,

[00:57:01] I'm like, I know you all are getting connected to all of these opportunities that are taking place

[00:57:06] here in Maryland's production. And more and more, I spoke with creative. They said, well,

[00:57:09] we don't even know how to get connected to the opportunities. We don't, you know, there,

[00:57:14] you know, while I've learned what I learned about the creatives is something that also learned about

[00:57:18] the people that were in the, in the hair industry, right? Very talented, right? Yeah, a lot of the

[00:57:24] talents skills, right? But don't always understand the business side, right? The business

[00:57:29] acumen of things, right? And so, you know, it were like, man, we don't even know. And so I realize

[00:57:34] I'm like, they have the talent, but they met, and especially when you talk about creatives with

[00:57:37] color, right? Don't always understand how to articulate their value proposition or how the proper

[00:57:43] network connections to get into opportunities. So I said, man, if we could build out an ecosystem

[00:57:51] and let me back up when I first moved to Atlanta, there was a space I used to go to call

[00:57:57] Atlanta Tech Village. And this is when I was trying to build my network, Atlanta Tech Village

[00:58:03] was this, you know, big facility that co-working space, they had offices, they would have programming,

[00:58:10] they would have networking events, it was like this big ecosystem for people in the tech industry.

[00:58:15] And I would go there because they would have a number of networking events and classes,

[00:58:18] I'm going to tell you, I'm always like, you know, I always like to learn. And they targeted

[00:58:24] the tech industry. So if you were trying to break into the tech industry, whether you want to

[00:58:30] get a job with Google or whether you want to, you know, start your own tech company, you wanted

[00:58:34] to work out of Atlanta Tech Village. And so, and so I said, man, if we could take that model,

[00:58:40] what they've done over there that they've proven concept and apply it to the creative industry,

[00:58:47] which is a multi-billion dollar industry in a state of Georgia, and we could take that same

[00:58:52] model, co-working office, studio spaces, programming, training, you know, all of that and build

[00:59:00] out our own ecosystem, then we got something that could be significantly successful. And so that was

[00:59:07] where the, you know, now the entrepreneurial seat planted, you know, here's a, here's a problem

[00:59:14] that exists and, and, and, and, and, let's create a solution to that problem, right?

[00:59:19] Let's, let's create a solution. And so that is where the whole concept and idea came from.

[00:59:26] All right, so I think concept and the idea, so no, talk to me about actually acquiring

[00:59:31] a building from a elementary school or as we say, the current, my primary school, oh, you able to

[00:59:38] get not building from from a, say, listen, I want to put together creative village, please.

[00:59:44] Man, let me tell you, man, I, I'll say this, man. I had this concept and I have to add that

[00:59:52] a lot of this stuff I'm talking about, man, what I've been leaving out is a measure of faith

[00:59:58] and a measure of grace, man, and a measure of faith that, hey, I may not have all the answers,

[01:00:05] but let me get started and I have faith that God is going to help me figure to rest out.

[01:00:13] But I mean, I have to have faith. I have something that I'm rooted in and so, you know,

[01:00:20] this, I got this concept and so I said, if I can find me, you know, five or six thousand square

[01:00:25] foot to execute this end, this would be significant. Found a building that was six thousand square

[01:00:30] foot, man. I just knew this was the space it was in the, in a part of town that was

[01:00:36] that was going through, you know, redevelopment and so I was like, man, you know, the

[01:00:40] that had been sitting for maybe two or three years. So soon as I go to put it all for another

[01:00:45] offer, comes in at the same time and I'm like, why are all these years is this been sitting here?

[01:00:50] Soon as I want to build and somebody else comes for it. And so, you know, that building

[01:00:55] wind up, we wind up losing that to a, you know, somebody who bought it for cash. And so,

[01:01:02] you know, I'm like, man, where am I going to execute this vision at? And someone said to me,

[01:01:06] man, you might need to look at these former Atlanta public school properties that are sitting

[01:01:12] vacant. They got a ton of properties that are sitting because they were consolidating schools

[01:01:18] at different points in time. Population then change people going to private schools, right?

[01:01:22] And so they were, you know, yeah, they just have the surplus of properties and I had never

[01:01:27] thought about buying a school, man. And so I stumbled across this thing. I got, I wanted to

[01:01:32] be holding a hold of the list and saw this property. I was like, man, this thing would be absolutely

[01:01:37] perfect. And so I said on the path, man, of trying to buy it, it was, you know, it actually

[01:01:42] 30,000 square foot we're going to be adding additional 10,000, but it was 30,000 square foot

[01:01:47] sitting on four acres of land. And so again, much more massive than I even anticipated,

[01:01:56] you know, your vision, your vision may be this big and God is like, you know, I got such a

[01:02:00] much bigger for you know, I need. And, you know, absolutely so I began the process of trying to

[01:02:08] acquire this Atlanta public schools, you know, we're like who to hell with you? But to hell

[01:02:12] you, you know, talking about buying one of our properties and they, you know, drug me through all of

[01:02:17] that mud. But I began going to the community and I began saying to the community, hey,

[01:02:23] this is because this school sat in the middle of a community. So I went to the, I went to the

[01:02:27] community and said, this is my vision for this property. This is what I envision, you know,

[01:02:33] doing and and and and launching in this building that's been sitting vacant for 15 years,

[01:02:39] right? And the community wanted something positive to happen because it's been sitting vacant. So

[01:02:43] you got dumping going on, you got criminal activity, you got, you know, squatters, you got all of

[01:02:49] these things that happened with a vacant property. So imagine you live across the street from a

[01:02:54] building that's boarded up and just, you know, all kind of vandalism and things. And so, um,

[01:03:00] and so, you know, I was telling the community, I'm trying to buy it but Atlanta public schools

[01:03:04] is really dragging this thing out with me and they don't want to move forward with me and the

[01:03:09] community wind up going down to the Board of Education meeting and speaking up on my behalf,

[01:03:14] man, and yeah, yeah. So again, man, I don't have all the answers, but, you know, I just get started,

[01:03:21] man, and you be surprised how, you know, you start moving and you start believing, you start operating

[01:03:29] in faith, um, how things start to happen and man. And so we wind up because the community

[01:03:35] put pressure on them, then we wind up going under contracts, right? And, um, and so now I'm

[01:03:41] under contract to, uh, to purchase a former Atlanta public school property, right? That's crazy. I can't

[01:03:47] even, you know, just even think about it now. Yeah. You ended up getting contractually. You

[01:03:55] had no get to this property, so much lower price than the six toes that the script for

[01:03:59] property is asking for. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was, you know, because it had been sitting so long,

[01:04:05] they hadn't really assessed any of the things and they were actually going through, you know,

[01:04:09] Atlanta public schools and sitting at Atlanta was going through this conflict, you know, and so

[01:04:13] these properties just sat. And so as the values were climbing, right? They were just, you know,

[01:04:20] Atlanta public schools, they didn't pay taxes on the property that they're government entity. So,

[01:04:25] so, you know, they didn't really, only thing they had to pay for with the any of these

[01:04:29] properties that they got a ton of them still is just, you know, keeping up the, the last gaping,

[01:04:34] you know, just keeping the grass cut. And so the property values going up and going up,

[01:04:38] then when I finally go to make an offer, right? You know, it's like we don't even know what the value is,

[01:04:45] right? And so I made an offer and, you know, they accepted. And yes, it was less than half the price of,

[01:04:51] it was less than half the price of what I was trying to buy to other property for it and get this,

[01:04:58] man. You know, we bought it. I got it in the contract and purchased it for a less than $500,000

[01:05:07] for ending, you know, as we mentioned, it's 40,000 square foot sitting on four acres of land.

[01:05:13] The appraisal came in, we were acquiring and the appraisal came in at 1.5 million. Right?

[01:05:19] Yeah, yeah, 1.5 million. So here I am, I'm buying this property with a million dollars worth of equity.

[01:05:25] Of course, we got to put millions into it. But I mean, you know, I could, I could have easily, you know,

[01:05:30] slipped it and sold it to some, some other developer that wasn't, you know, obviously the vision.

[01:05:34] But, um, yeah, man. So, you know, that again, um, having faith in grace, faith in grace,

[01:05:44] absolute love it. I, I hope you agree. So let's talk about the design and part of the creative

[01:05:49] industry and you very well put that, that creates a professionals on necessarily,

[01:05:56] they're necessarily wired to be business savvy, right? And I just thought like not left-brain, right,

[01:06:01] sort of kind of drum going on there. So, how do you see this creative village at your

[01:06:09] building? How do you see how do you see them being able to become more business savvy?

[01:06:14] Or is it that you're going to be connected to them with business professionals like you

[01:06:17] connecting with the head shop? How do you, with the head salon? How do you see this happening?

[01:06:22] So for us, man, it's about number one, always like to say, um,

[01:06:27] curating and cultivating creativity, right? So for us, it's about curating

[01:06:32] creatives, right? And because you got all of these creative talent at Lannas already known for the

[01:06:38] music scene that it had, you know, now we got film that goes along with that. But building a space

[01:06:44] that can curate and bring collectively, bring all of these people together. So, hey, I might be

[01:06:50] a great screenwriter, but how do I, how do I bring my screenplay to life, right? Or I'm a

[01:06:57] college and here, right? And how do I, you know, connect with people who are creating,

[01:07:02] you know, bringing a script to life. How do I connect with them? And, you know, as I share with you,

[01:07:07] I know I'm a big vision person, but you have to be, especially if you're, how for, you know,

[01:07:11] if you've got a big vision that you need a team around, you know, you need to connect with

[01:07:15] other people who understand that vision. And so for us, we knew this could be a hub for curating,

[01:07:23] um, curating all of these different creative, creative professionals. And so, um, you know,

[01:07:29] whether they be in music, whether they be in film, whether they be in gaming, right? And now giving

[01:07:34] them the tools and resources. They have a coworking community that can work out of it. But we're

[01:07:38] under construction now, but they are part of a coworking community. So for us, look at us,

[01:07:42] 50 dollars a month, I got a space I can work out of, I can connect with other people, right?

[01:07:47] There's studio space, so I can work in the studios and really begin to, uh, to just create,

[01:07:54] right? I got access to now, you know, acoustically engineered studios, right? On our part as

[01:08:00] as the organization, we have to curate programming, right? We have to bring in programming constantly

[01:08:07] that is now helping people, you know, develop their skills. Just like I told you when I

[01:08:12] real estate, I went and worked underneath this guy and learned the business side of things, right?

[01:08:19] Now these people can have access to the programming, so it's up to us to pull that programming together.

[01:08:25] And there for us, also our responsibility is to begin to build relationships with the

[01:08:30] Tyler Perry Studios and the Black Hall Studios and the, and the, and the lecture out studios,

[01:08:36] right? So that we can become a pipeline, right? Um, you know, helping people, and, and we still

[01:08:41] got work doing our side. We're in the construction book, you know, we want to build relationships with

[01:08:46] Amazon, we want to build relationships with Netflix, we want to build relationships with the labels,

[01:08:50] record labels, right? Because we want to be that can do it, right? Where you're coming into our

[01:08:56] facility, you're getting, you know, trained and you're access to to to to program and help develop

[01:09:03] your skills, right? You got there as I, as I mentioned at the very beginning of this, you know,

[01:09:08] recognized your guy, given talent. Where cards to develop a talent into a skill, right? And so now we're

[01:09:14] helping, you know, care rating programs for you to help you develop that talent into a skill

[01:09:19] and then utilize your skills to accomplish your goals and dreams. And so it's on us that then

[01:09:24] connect and connect you to, you know, opportunities. How do we, how do, how does a screenwriter

[01:09:31] create something that can be on on, on, stream on Netflix, right? How do I bridge that gap? How do I get

[01:09:36] there? Right? And there's enough stories, there's enough storytellers that exist, right? There's

[01:09:42] there's plenty more, you know, ease of raise and and taught up hair, ease and, you know, people that

[01:09:48] exist and not taking away anything from those talented people. But there's so many more stories

[01:09:53] that haven't been told. And we want to be a can do it too. And so many talented musical artists and

[01:10:01] things like that, that we've never experienced that, you know, we want to be a can do it for that.

[01:10:07] So is that in terms of the educational programming and the curious of programming and stuff?

[01:10:12] Is it that's a lot of that is going to be sort from the community or is it that you guys,

[01:10:19] so you're, you're on your management team are going to actually be creating courses.

[01:10:23] There's a mixture of both, it's a mixture of both. It's, you know, we want to be a can do it,

[01:10:29] right? And so anybody that's out there doing things on a high quality skill,

[01:10:35] we want to partner. I believe in collaboration, you know, we can't, we can't

[01:10:41] develop all of the program, all of the programming that is needed. Right? So we want to carry,

[01:10:46] we want to pull things in. There's, you know, that I got connected to this, um, to this group

[01:10:51] that does this on a, you know, at college they work with, you know, people that want to be

[01:10:56] into in the music industry and they work with, they have this organization, they're on the

[01:11:00] campuses of five or six colleges, right? And they're like, you know, we're on college campuses

[01:11:05] right now and they deal with the business of music. And, um, and, and, and always tell people

[01:11:12] man, if you sit in a movie, you go to the movie, you know, people think, you know, it's all about,

[01:11:17] you know, dinsel or, you know, or how, how, how, like Barry, right? People that sit in front of the

[01:11:23] camera, but if you stay to the end of a movie, man, there's a lot of jobs. There are a lot of jobs,

[01:11:28] right? And when you go, no credits roll, right? They're going to roll through the cash. But, you

[01:11:33] know, there's a whole production crew that have sustainable jobs, right? That have sustainable jobs

[01:11:40] because entertainment, even when that kind of me crashes, man, um, the one thing that we want

[01:11:46] is to be entertained, right? You know, I don't care how, when the financial market crashes,

[01:11:51] we want to get our mind off of the fact that, you know, our money is funny, right? And we want

[01:11:55] escape into into this world. And so, um, and so yeah, nice, it's not just things that we're creating,

[01:12:02] but it's certainly things that we're curating as well and collaborating with people who are doing.

[01:12:07] We want to be a hub. We want to be a resource for all of that program, make to work out of.

[01:12:14] And thanks for touching on the economic impact, um, in terms of the jobs I'll be created

[01:12:18] from all of the creative products, you know, so it was like you said, the credits, like,

[01:12:23] the five minutes to get through and they're like, yes, 10 fonts. Right? So a lot of jobs are

[01:12:28] created by movies and other creative projects. And, you know, I tell my son all the time,

[01:12:34] he's a, he's a creative professional. Um, and, and I'm like, you know, we look at Licky Manage,

[01:12:40] we look at Beyonce and, and they are, you know, certainly large in life, but I'm like, man,

[01:12:46] there's a whole creative team that are behind them, that are creating that persona. Right?

[01:12:53] Yes, they have talent in there, front of people. But like somebody has to come up with the

[01:12:58] concepts for, you know, everything that they're doing and the visuals and the visual effects,

[01:13:04] right? And all of that, right? You know, they're writing the songs, they're producing the music,

[01:13:10] right? Somebody is creating all of that, right? And those are sustainable jobs, right? And so,

[01:13:18] this is a, that's how we look at it. Right? So this is a big project. This is a multi-minute

[01:13:23] dollar project, right? Yes. I know you have a crowdfunding campaign out. I think it's sort of

[01:13:30] to try and erase 50,000 or crowfunding. But I imagine this is a lot more expensive than that.

[01:13:36] So if you've been able to, for nothing, I mean, not asking you to put a snow.

[01:13:40] Yeah, no, no, no, no. No, this is, this is very important, right? Because all of the stuff,

[01:13:46] all of this stuff cost money, right? I'm not just out here. And I want to be clear. I'm not

[01:13:51] somebody that's just sitting on moons and dollars to make this stuff happen, right? And so as I share

[01:13:56] with you, my strength is casting vision. My strength is, hey, listen, this is what we envision,

[01:14:06] this looking like, this is Z, you know, we're at A right now, you know, this is Z, right? And so

[01:14:14] you then begin to, you know, you got to find the resources to get you there. And so after hearing

[01:14:21] a lot of knows because, you know, what we're talking about doing is certainly innovative,

[01:14:27] you know, there's not a lot of examples that you can point to. And so of course when you're

[01:14:31] talking to, you know, investors, you're talking to, you know, lenders, you're talking to people like that.

[01:14:38] They're like, you know, how does this make money, right? How do you make money? How does this,

[01:14:43] lads, lads, lads, lads, lads. And so you got to begin to this and write yourself with the

[01:14:47] people that can help you build up the performance. This is how we generate revenue. This is

[01:14:52] how the business model works. And this is what revenue looks like year one year two year three

[01:14:56] year four year second, right? That you can knit articulate. So, so you have to learn to speak

[01:15:02] a different language, right? And so, and what I mean by that is as I'm talking to your audience

[01:15:07] and I'm talking about the bigger growth, the greater vision. This is not necessarily the same,

[01:15:14] you know, way I'm articulating it to a banker, right? I know you got to find into background,

[01:15:18] but the banker wanted to look at the spreadsheets, right? And then you want to see, okay,

[01:15:22] what, you know, what should net operating income and everything is said and done, how are you

[01:15:25] generating your revenue, right? What should break even point, right? They want to understand the

[01:15:30] financial aspects, right? And so now, you know, I can't sit up in and talk about these lofty,

[01:15:35] you know, visions. I got to talk about, you know, heart facts and what, you know, how many people

[01:15:41] did we need to be working out of this space for us to hit the numbers that we need to hit? How many

[01:15:46] tenants do I need to have in the building, right? And so, and so we went through that process.

[01:15:51] And so, a little learning experience from me. So, there's time where I start off sharing

[01:15:55] the vision and then I have to take a step back and I have to bring in, you know, the CFO who can

[01:16:00] talk about, you know, what this looks like from a financial perspective and from an investment perspective.

[01:16:07] And so, that's important that you have to understand because it's different language, totally

[01:16:13] different language, right? And so, that being said, I mean we wind up securing funding from a

[01:16:21] minority on banks. So we hear it know from everybody but that didn't stop me. So we've secured

[01:16:25] funding from a minority on bank that gave us the construction money to build out what we're

[01:16:31] looking to build out. And so, I'm thankful for that because we've got millions of dollars that are,

[01:16:36] you know, set aside for us to get the construction done. And so, now we're at the stage and thankfully

[01:16:43] man, I've been creatively financing a lot of this out of pocket just by, you know, just putting

[01:16:52] money in here and there and raising a little bit of money from friends and family and things like that.

[01:16:58] And but now we're at the stage man where we've gotten the project, you know, pretty far along

[01:17:03] we're under construction right now so, you know, that process is happening. And the same way

[01:17:10] the community, the same way the community I talked about helped us get the property on the contract

[01:17:16] and I went to the community and they said, well, you know, we'll go out for the Board of Education

[01:17:20] meeting and speaking up on year 1, we want to offer the greater community an opportunity to invest

[01:17:27] themselves, right? And so, that's what caused us to launch the crowdfunding campaign. We said, you know,

[01:17:33] you know, we know we need to source some additional capital. Why not instead of trying to go to

[01:17:39] individual investors and try to make the pitch? Why not take it to the community and say, hey,

[01:17:45] for as little as $100, you can have a piece of ownership. You can have your name listed in the building

[01:17:51] on the rise, tribe, all that's what we call our audience, our followers we call it, they're part of

[01:17:57] our tribe, T are YBE, like we do the rise, right? And so you could have your name listed in the building

[01:18:05] and you could say, listen, you know, $400 I helped out what they were doing is not a donation

[01:18:10] it's an investment. So, you know, $100, you know, $500 a thousand dollars and, you know,

[01:18:16] and I've invested it and you know, I can expect some type of return on that. I got my name listed

[01:18:21] in the building and I'm supporting a project that's pretty damn dope, right? And so, you know,

[01:18:29] and so that's how we, that's how we looked at it. So, we said, let's open it up to our, you know,

[01:18:38] help us get it across the finish line. And so, we launched the crowdfunding campaign.

[01:18:47] And all that going so far.

[01:18:50] Oh, man, we've just launched it. So, we got us, we, you know, we're about to start ramping up

[01:18:54] and so we thank for the, for you to even give us a platform. So, people can, people can contribute

[01:19:00] at createatlanta.com. And so, you know, if you go to createatlanta.com then you can, you know,

[01:19:09] you can, you know, take it to a platform. So, all of this is SEC regulated. We got to go to the

[01:19:14] process of that because it's not a donation, it's not a contribution, it's an investment.

[01:19:20] So, so we had to work with a platform. We funder that handles all of that process of the legal

[01:19:26] aspects of it. And so, we're getting started and thankful to be getting the word out. So, we're

[01:19:33] thankful for anybody in that difficult process. The difficult process of of of, of, of,

[01:19:41] of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of,

[01:19:42] three, of crowdfunding campaign. I mean, I mean, the file in the file in the form C and all of these things like,

[01:19:48] this is a walk us through what is that process for you put things together. I crowdfunding

[01:19:52] campaign, especially in the US market. So, this that that's the good thing. Companies like we funder,

[01:20:00] they handle everything for you. So, they take a lot of that heavy lifting because we did,

[01:20:06] we re-retain and we have a security's attorney. We have a security's attorney who we were going to

[01:20:13] go ahead and start doing that and and he've recommended. We use one of these platforms like a

[01:20:18] Defender Republic, you know, things like that because it just it just handles everything for you.

[01:20:26] So, so thankfully using one of these platforms they handle, they handle most of that.

[01:20:31] Okay, great. Great. So, I need to look ahead. Well, and I know you're touched on this a little bit earlier,

[01:20:37] but what would you, what would you, what would you map out as your long-term goals, your long-term

[01:20:43] goals for rise, creative, and, I don't know man. This is so really where we where I see this being

[01:20:55] number one, we want to have multiple locations. So, while we're doing this at Lata,

[01:21:00] standing up this at Lata location, we would love to have locations in other markets that are

[01:21:07] ideal strategic markets as well. So, that is part of the long-term vision is to have

[01:21:13] multiple locations throughout the nation. And really, the greater broader vision for what we're doing

[01:21:21] is for us to be this multi-media company, this multi-media company that is, you know,

[01:21:29] become a breeding ground for the next generation of creative talent, right? And so when I say

[01:21:35] this multi-media company, yeah, we've had history producing a magazine, we want to get there

[01:21:41] our own content. We want to begin to, you know, to get into producing, you know,

[01:21:47] content documentaries, short-form content, long-form content that we did ultimately distribute

[01:21:54] all to the various different platforms and leverage the creative communities to do that. And so,

[01:22:00] you know, creating content where we're working with filmmakers to create that content, we're working

[01:22:05] with artists to, you know, musical artists to create the soundtrack for that content, right?

[01:22:11] And we become this multi-media hub that is sourcing that next generation of talent. So,

[01:22:19] that's the greater bigger broader vision for us. Always tell people, Ben, and again, I always

[01:22:27] have this big vision but Lata ties a tie to things that I, you know, that I've seen that have been

[01:22:33] successful. And if, if there's anything, if there was anybody that we would want to replicate

[01:22:41] in my eyes, there's many people know who Red Bull is, right? You know, we know Red Bull is the energy

[01:22:48] strength, right? But what people don't really understand, man, is the energy drink is just a small

[01:22:55] component of what they do. You have Red Bull has Red Bull media house, Red Bull media house, and if

[01:23:03] people look up Red Bull media house, you will see that it is this multi-layered, multi-media company.

[01:23:10] I have magazines, they have, you know, they have record labels, they are operating in the gaming space,

[01:23:18] they're creating content, right? Now, all of their content, everything is sitting at a

[01:23:24] downstream sports, right? So that is their niche is extreme sports. But, you know, everything is

[01:23:31] driven by that, right? And so that's why you'll see them doing sponsoring and even doing

[01:23:38] these daredevil, they'll film these daredevil, deaf-defying, you know, stunts, right? And that's

[01:23:45] content that they're creating, right? And they're distributing it through all of their various

[01:23:49] layers of their multi-media platform. And so what they are to extreme sports, I would love

[01:23:57] for rise, I would love for rise to be to content that is targeted at, you know, niche demographic

[01:24:04] of black and brown, black and brown audiences. I love that, man. I mean, that's going,

[01:24:14] flip that a little bit, right? Go ahead, go ahead. What would you say is what would be like

[01:24:22] your worst nightmare when it comes to what you want to achieve a rise, creative village? What would

[01:24:27] what keeps you up at night to say, I need to make sure this does not happen?

[01:24:35] What would be my worst nightmare, man? Well, what keeps me up? The worst nightmares

[01:24:44] people not getting the vision and therefore I don't obtain the resources to make it happen.

[01:24:52] That that is probably the thing that I get frustrated about the most because while I'm sharing

[01:24:58] all of this, while I'm sharing all of this greater broad of vision, it relies on you getting buy-in

[01:25:06] from people that may not clearly see the vision, but they buy-in to it and you have the resources

[01:25:15] to execute the way you need to execute. And so that's the thing that I fear the most is

[01:25:22] not having the financial resources to execute it the way that I envision executing it.

[01:25:32] And I mean, if we're being honest, man, that's the challenge that people of color have. That's

[01:25:40] the challenge that we often have is that we have these greater broad of vision. We say,

[01:25:45] man, these are ideas aren't colorblind. Our ideas aren't colorblind. They don't black folks

[01:25:52] have great ideas, lofty ideas as well. But the money isn't colorblind, right? Sometimes

[01:26:02] that can be our greatest challenge. So if there's anything that would be the greatest hurdle,

[01:26:09] I think the greatest hurdle throughout this whole process is just, you know,

[01:26:14] forcing the financial resources to continuously do the things on the scale that we want to do.

[01:26:23] I love it, man. All right, Jay, as we get ready to wrap up this episode, I'd like to give you

[01:26:29] one mic, open forum, open platform to get off anything that you think.

[01:26:35] Me, should have gotten to the audience this evening. Go ahead.

[01:26:41] Oh, man, listen, man, you've done such a good job of pulling so much out

[01:26:46] that I don't know. I think we covered, I think we covered a lot, man. I'm a big person, a big believer

[01:26:53] and getting out there and pursuing your dreams, man. I'm a big believer in and you take

[01:26:59] and control of your life, man. And there's one thing I always say, man, when it gets really tough,

[01:27:06] this is a, this is a mantra that I have. When it gets really tough, always,

[01:27:14] when it gets tough for me, man, sometimes I take a step back and I'm like, okay, let me back up,

[01:27:18] let me find somebody else. I can help, right? I'm pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, you know,

[01:27:26] trying to push, push through, I'm hitting roadblock, hitting roadblock, hitting roadblock.

[01:27:31] Let me take a step back and let me find somebody else I can help because I'm a firm believer in

[01:27:37] so-ing seed, you reap what you sow. Right. And so if I want to sow, sow seeds of positivity,

[01:27:44] if I want to sow seeds of success, if I want to reap somebody investing in me, then I need to

[01:27:54] invest my time, energy, talent, and someone else. And someone else is dream. And so

[01:28:02] if there's anything that I've learned in taking control of your destiny, sometimes taking control

[01:28:08] of your destiny needs, you know, showing a seed in somebody else's.

[01:28:11] Podcasts will, there you have it. To it for the community with Jay Jackson. Subscribe to the

[01:28:19] value at the valley. Show slash subscribe. Check us out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,

[01:28:25] cast box, YouTube, wherever you listen to and watch your podcast. I'm with that Jay.

[01:28:33] I love it, man. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I highly enjoyed it.

[01:28:38] Podcasts will, have it studios. We are out.