The Code To Winning - THE GROWTH ENGINE BEHIND EARN YOUR LEISURE: FROM 4000 TO 30000 || MICHAEL J MACDONALD || EPISODE 085

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

Sitting down with us today is Michael J. MacDonald, visionary entrepreneur, architect of impact, and co founder of Earn Your Leisure (EYL), the movement redefining financial education and culture for an entire generation.Michael doesn't just talk about branding. He builds legacies. As a coach, strategist, and entrepreneur, he has spent his career pushing people to think bigger, act bolder, and build brands that command attention and stand the test of time.In this episode, we go deep into Michael's journey as co founder of both Earn Your Leisure and Invest Fest, the powerhouse financial literacy conference that has become a movement in its own right. We uncover the untold story behind their very first conference, where they took a bold $1.3 million investment with absolutely no sponsors locked in, a high stakes gamble that could have gone either way. We break down exactly how that risk paid off and set the foundation for everything that followed.We also explore the game changing partnership with Steve Harvey, a strategic move that opened doors, elevated credibility, and helped propel Invest Fest into the global phenomenon it is today. From humble beginnings to tens of thousands of attendees, this is the real story of how vision, risk, and relentless execution built one of the most influential platforms in financial education.Chapters00:00 EYL Origin Story03:45 Entrepreneur Journey ️07:17 Freedom Mindset10:21 Community Info Gap14:10 Real Estate Boom17:16 Investfest Profitability20:23 Diddy's Impact24:20 AI Investing Ease27:27 Generational Wealth Gap31:28 Podcast Impact Goal ️34:45 System for Fulfillment ️38:59 Business Relationships41:58 Time is Now ⏰45:49 Dream Big49:56 Community Building ️53:06 Obsession Drives Success56:06 Winning Definition Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Before EYL started, what was the actual conversation that was going across between you and the co-founders that actually led you guys to build us? Well, Ernie Elygia was birth before Ernie Elygia even was birth. When Rashad was wanting to become a celebrity financial advisor, that's when he came to me and that's when we started building his brand. And that brand kind of started to kick up. And he was able to gain 40,000 followers in about 16, 18 months. And between those 16, 18 months, we were using a hashtag called Earnier Legion. Just something that no one else had that you can attie the content with. invest invests profitable. Michael J. McDonald, entrepreneur, brand architect, and the mind behind

some of today's most influential business and financial platforms. As a co-founder of Earn Your Leisure and InvestFest, Michael helped turn financial education into a global movement. Through the business engine, EYL University and ventures like Market Mondays, he continues helping entrepreneurs build, amplify, and scale their businesses. Michael McDonald isn't just creating businesses. He's Building platforms, empowering entrepreneurs, and creating a legacy. The difference between InvestFest, there's four founders to invests fest. Each founder has a responsibility to take on to build this thing, whether it's getting the schedule, whether it's doing the vendor marketplace,

whether it's doing sponsoring. It's a founder that's taking care of all those different things. And obviously your first year is at 4,000 people, right? 4,000, yeah. And the last one was 30,000 people. That is mind-blowing. Walk us through what building that event actually looked like in year one competitive. what it is right now.

There was a lot of things going on in my life. My brother had COVID really bad. He was hospitalized. So it was only six weeks to build something that was going to house 4,000 people. So that was pretty incredible to be able to even pull it off. But we knew when we realized how much it was on the cost, you're like, sure you want to do this? And it was like $1.2 million we had to pay up front to put into it. The code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow.

Today we are with an amazing entrepreneur known as the business engine. I'm going to give you a brief overview of who we have in the studio today. He's the business architect speaker. He's also the co-founder of EYL. Earn Your Leisure. InvestFest, EYL, U, MacPack, and also just a serial entrepreneur year in the state of Georgia, Atlanta. So without further ado, the man, the myth, the very legend himself, Michael J. MacDonald. How you doing, brother?

I'm blessed. I'm blessed. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Great honor. I'm really... Thank you for the intro too. Appreciate it. Am I your emcee now for something's coming up next year by any chance? Am I your MC? At least a consideration? Because of that interview? Maybe I might consider it. You got to start something. So, um, I've, I've lived in Duluth before, like a about seven years ago. I've been in Atlanta,

obviously living in Salt Lake, born and raised South Africa. I have never seen the amount of successful like just black entrepreneurs in my entire life than Atlanta. I feel like it's like the Mecca.

It's like the standard. It is. You don't got to feel like it. It is the Mecca. And so I've obviously attended a recent summit, which had about 2,000 people. Nobody can even come close

to the level of like InvestFest. You know, what you guys have built, it's just revolutionary. Appreciate that. I'm so excited to be part of it, be a booth, just like witness it. I've never, I've always heard about it. People have been saying, do invest fast, do all these stuff. And so I'm excited to just talk about what you guys have built, about business and all that as well. I'm excited as well. Awesome stuff. Can you give us a brief introduction just about you, how you started in the entrepreneurship space? Well, you know, I've been,

I've been entrepreneur probably since I was running around chasing carts. I mean, when you think about it, but, you know, I've always, I never liked the nine to five. I wasn't a job person. You know, I worked a really long time. I started working officially with my working papers at 14 years old. I was working at an arcade and an eyeglass place. And the arcade was actually my longest job I've ever had. It was from like 14 to like 18 years old.

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

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

how much you put in, how much you produce. So I kind of like that. So, but because I understood, I started to understand sales. I took all my skill sets and applied the sales skill to my, my, my skill set. And I started to, you know, grow businesses to, you know, levels where I wouldn't need a job. Because up until my last job, which was selling cars, I still needed to supplement my income with a job. I would have my side hustles, you know.

I call them side hustles. And that was the thing, too, like when you, when a lot of us black people, we, we like, you know, this is my little thing, my little side thing, my little, and, you know, when your mindset says it's a little side thing or this little thing I'm working on, you're automatically going to, you're putting, you're covering it with, with the energy of, it's a small thing. Yeah.

So it'll never be a big, it'll never be a big thing because you don't allow it to. You didn't speak life into it. So I always say, you know, you should be speaking life into whatever you're producing, whatever you're doing. And that was my issue. I wasn't speaking life to, life into it. And then I started to learn sales and I was able to maximize those businesses that I was doing and grow those businesses to a place where I didn't need to have to work for someone.

So I stopped supping my income with a job. And then that was like my full entrepreneurship. And I was about like 28 years old. I've been like a solo, like no job, no nothing since 28. And I mean, going head on in the risk that it takes because it means you fully invested in this. entrepreneurship like journey as well often people take like the easier route where it's a safer

option to try and get a job build your way out the corporate ladder and stuff like that and it gets tempting when things go hard I mean I remember when I did my internship as well just down by New York in Lexington Avenue and also Wall Street sign you like oh my gosh it's an exciting thing

I can't wait to get the full time off I can't do this thing then you've stuck in that pattern and then you start seeing it. That's the best thing about our internship we can actually experience if you want to do something or not. And you're like...

It's a trial. I can't do this. You know, I can't do this. I love the freedom. I love the chase. I love the journey. You were asking me earlier on with what I was doing.

I love learning different stuff because I feel like that is what freedom is in essence. Would you agree with that? 100%. I mean, freedom, like, you know, that's what I'm chasing. And that's what most people should be chasing. And it's like,

Not that I don't love money. I don't cherish. I don't worship money. I worship the fact that I'm able to do what I want to do on my own time. Like that's what I'm going for. That's what I'm fighting for. Being able to take my kids on vacation, my family on vacation whenever they want. You know, going out for a nice dinner whenever I want.

You know, living in a safe environment, providing all the essential things for my family without worrying about if I'm able to cover the bills this month or next month. or things like that, that's freedom. And the obvious thing is money's a tool, and you need a lot of that tool to be able to do those things, but I chase freedom. And I would adjust my life if I have to if I didn't have the money to sustain the freedom at that level.

So if my level's here and I don't have, my money's here, then I just have to come here because that's how much freedom means to me in terms of being able to do what I wanna do. You know, before EYL started, what was the actual conversation that was going across between you and the co-founders that actually led you guys to build us? Well, Ernie Elegia was birthed before Ernie Elegia even was birth.

When Rashad was wanted to become, you know, a celebrity financial advisor, that's when he came to me and that's when we started building his brand. And that brand kind of, you know, started to kick up and he was able to gain 40,000 followers in about 16, 18 months. And but between those 16, 18 months, we were using a hashtag called Earnier Legion. just something that no one else had that you can tie the content with. So now, back then,

hashtags were really big and you can go like, you know, you can go viral using hashtags. So we use that method to, you know, to attach Earn Your Leisure the hashtag to our content. So anytime someone will put Earn Your Leisure

into the search bar, it would bring up all of our content because we were the only ones using it. And then when the idea of the people say, you need to have a podcast, you need to have something more where we can listen to more of this conversation because these conversations is really good. That was when, you know, that was the moment where we was like, let's try to like be more

impactful. Let's do something bigger than what we've been doing. You know, this is bigger than just, you know, Rashad's financial literacy, Rashad's financial advisor page is bigger than that. This could, you know, potentially, you know, be the one thing that we do. you can leave your job. Troy can leave his job and whatever. So,

and that was like the birth, like, you know, about a month before January 19th. That's what, January 19th, 2019 is when the first episode was released. But it was about 30 days of planning

before we released it. I love that. No, I love that. And obviously, it's start off as a podcast, became a movement. And when you,

at what point did you realize that, you know, in your leisure was bigger than content? Yeah. And so, you know, because before we started, we realized the impact that it was causing, we understood that our communities weren't, you know, wasn't prevy to the information that other communities may have had. Like investing. I didn't really know anything about investing. But then, you know, now I live in a predominantly white area.

You know, I listen to, you know, the parents of their kids in school because I'm looking for a school to go into, for my kids. and they're like I asked them what they learn and they're like they're learning investing and learn how to build a business structure they're learning all these different things that we were not learning they're learning all types of like entrepreneurial things like the school

is raising entrepreneurs is not raising workers you know so we didn't have that so when we came out people I think you know were fed up they're starting to people are starting to understand that this American dream that we all dreamed of isn't really the American dream so you know

And I think the best thing for Ernie Elysia was the timing that we did, right? When we came out, that's what people wanted, right? But we were only doing what people were asking for, giving them more information. And that impact was it. That's what it did it, you know. People wanting more of financial literacy, more of how to get out of this nine to five, get out of the rat race, you know, just like in Rich Dad, Poor Dad. You know, it was like a will.

You always like fighting to pay your bills. and then we started to give an idea, right, of you don't have to do that anymore. There are other ways. Your job should be your first investor. That's what your job should be, not your last, you know? And one of the things I do like as well, it's giving a lot of exposure to black people. And I think it's a very important thing because, like you just mentioned, the schooling system, obviously in a white predominant. place had the structure and tools to be able to like give a lot of information a lot of education

as well and sometimes I would say in more like inner cities and so forth we the privilege is not really there to be able to get the same level of education so I feel like these events and these stuff you know learning about credit about credit score you know I was told and I want to talk about that as well of the stuff you guys end up running and helping people like even like qualify for business funding at InvestFest, all this different stuff, like just helping people understand the level of necessary tools and knowledge that is out there is very, very important. And is that, like, was that the primary focus of that, like, moving forward with what you guys been doing?

As far as credit, that's one of our biggest episodes, our credit episode, you know, and that's another thing. We don't learn about credit. You know, why are we not learning about credit? Why are we giving a credit card with a thousands of dollar limit at 8cans old? and we don't know how to manage $100. You know what I'm saying? So what happens to that person?

That person destroys their credit and now they have to wait five to seven years to get it back again. Why don't they teach his credit? But, you know, obviously it goes down to the parents too because, but the thing is, my mother didn't know anything about these stuff. She didn't have a lot of information on financial literacy.

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

Like a property wouldn't stay like in Atlanta here. You post a property in Atlanta back 2019, 2020. It's sold in a week or two, like literally. So, you know, that was the big thing. Now funding for real mortgages, that's a different type of funding. We spoke a lot about that. We spoke about all the different types of like 201K. I think it's 201, I think it's 201K or something.

All these different types of loans on how to get, how to, how to, you know, take advantage of the loans for your situation. Whether they're getting a new construction, whether you get in a multifamily, you know, whether you're a VA. We spoke highly about that. We spoke highly about how to write off your car if it's over 6,000 pounds. That's one of our biggest videos. So things like that, we try to give you the information that is like, you know, one, 100% legal, right? right but we try to give you the information that is that you need that's tangible that you can use and you could take it and and apply it to whatever you're doing at the moment no i love that so much

and um obviously investfest started as an idea and became one of the biggest financial conferences especially in black culture walk us through what building that event actually looked like in year one compared to what it is right now there was a lot of things going on in my life um you know my brother had uh he was in a coma for um he had COVID really bad. Troy, he wasn't in a coma, but he was hospitalized. So we only had six weeks to build this thing anyway. So it was only six weeks to build something that was going to, you know, house 4,000

people. So that was pretty incredible to be able to even pull it off. But we knew when we realized how much it was on the cost, we were like, sure you want to do this? And it was like $1.2 million we had to pay up front to make it, you know, to put into it. Personal things were going on with, you know, with my, family with Troy and his family. So that that was one less, two less people that were like, we had to deal with other things. But while we were dealing with that, good thing that's, you know,

it was in Atlanta. So, you know, this is my home and I had multiple people like I had my brother, my brothers, you know, I had other people like helping us and taking care of things when I had to go back to New York to, you know, take, you know, go see my brother. Because we was going back and forth to New York like every other day to like, you know, check on my brother while he's in a coma. So it was, it was extremely tough. And, you know, we didn't have the delegation that we had now. Like, we didn't, we weren't, wasn't really, we didn't trust the system. We didn't trust giving, like, delegating things to people, like, as we do now.

Because, but we realized back then that it stopped us from getting even further, going even further, right? It stopped us. So now, 2022, that's when AB, you know, our CEO of Earnier Leisure, that's when he came on board. And he started to, you know, take on a lot of responsibility. and, you know, we had Ashley the first one. She was our event producer. So, you know, it was just, we were also learning the business. We were learning.

And I say this to all the time to people when they talk about how is InvestFest profitable. The difference between like InvestFest, there's four founders to invest fest. Each founder has a responsibility to take on to build this thing, to do this, to operate, of operations, right? Whether it's getting the schedule, whether it's doing the vendor marketplace, whether it's doing sponsoring. it's a founder that's taking care of all those different things. Now, they may have a staff under them, but it's still a founder hands-on. Versus, say, a Coachella.

I bet you the person that invented Coachella is not the person touching and looking at the books and doing this. He hires someone, and they just, it's so much easier to spend someone else's money than your money, right? Where we're watching our budget. We'll understand how much it's spent. Where is it spent? We can take from here, add it to here. So now that's how you keep a festival going for years and years to years because we're still hands on. We didn't just give it to someone and say, make this happen.

So that's one of the big things about investors too. And that's why it's like a family oriented. It's an intimate business. It's still an intimate business, you know? And obviously your first, you guys had 4,000 people, right? 4,000. And the last one was 30,000 people. Correct.

That is mind blowing. I know you and I spoke about it when you walked up. up here when you start looking at just normal big big names that are in the business um i can't think of a single person that even gets over 10 000 and the fact that you three x like what some people's dreams of doing in people that are loyally coming back people that are planning their year out in the month i've heard people i heard a guy talk to me from north carolina back in february about going to invest fest yeah i've had a guy in new york i told you that i was doing like i've had partnership with studios out there talking about yeah they're heading down to invest fest

in august time it's it's become a household name in terms of events that occur on a yearly basis how did you guys take this in like event from 4 000 to 30 000 how did that work partnerships that was one that was one of a that was how we three x um year two because year two was steve harvey and we went from 4 000 to 12 000 That was year two. And, you know, he allowed us to, you know, he had an event. I forgot what it was called, but we took a lot of knowledge from him from that, you know. Because, again, we're still learning on it.

We're learning on a fly. We're still learning today. But it's more rent and repeat at this point. You know, we have a foundation. We have a blueprint. And we take that blueprint and just add the different pieces that need to be added. But that was one of the biggest things is partnerships. And we went from $4,000 and $12,000 in the second year.

And then, you know, when we realized that, you know, the 12, that year was really significant because people didn't believe in us year one. Year two, they started to look at us, like, wait, hold on, what's going on? Year three changed everything. And year three, we had, you know, we had Pete Diddy as the keynote speaker, and that was probably the biggest, you know, that put us on the national platform. for him. That's when Bloomberg comes now. CNN's there. All the major media outlets are there. And, you know, the cool thing, not cool, take that back. But the thing is, when Diddy got into

his trouble, every picture that was being used, and he's getting billions of impressions, every picture that was being used was his last public interview. And you know what that last public interview was? EYL Invest Fest. So that actually got us from 20,000 now. We went to 25,000 something like that the following year year four and then year five you just it's just the momentum stayed you know and i think it's the impact that people are talking about people are getting married from invests people are building businesses from invests people are getting partnerships and it's just and it's you know you you you know something and you tell somebody that they tell somebody it's just it's just a domino effect of impact it's a massive amount of impact

and for somebody out there um that may be watching this Because, I mean, most people I know about the event as well. For those that might not know, what would you say would be the biggest takeaway they would gain from attending their first Invest Fest this coming year? Relationships. That's the biggest thing from InvestFest. You have to make relationships. That is going to be the biggest thing that someone's going to take away.

They're going to meet their next business partner. They might meet the love of their life. They're going to meet someone they can invest. A lot. What I realize as I start meeting people with money, like they have a lot, of money. They don't know where to put their money. They are looking for what, like, funding is not as hard as people think. There are a lot of people that want to invest in businesses and companies, but the people with the money don't know where to put their money at. You know, they want to do,

you know, they want to diverse their portfolio and maybe 10%, 50% of it, they want to put into businesses that people out here have. And, you know, they come to invest fest. We give away hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to, you know, in companies. You know, we have grants and stuff and we have investments to all these companies, but a lot of people don't realize that people want to invest in your company. Now, the

other side of that coin, a lot of people like us, black people, we don't like giving a piece of our company away. But zero percent of nothing is what? A hundred percent of nothing is what? Zero percent of something. 50 percent of something is what?

Yeah, exactly. InvestFest doesn't go to 12,000 in the second year. if we don't partner with Steve Harvey, right? You got to, you have relationships is going to be the best thing. The next thing is going to be, you know, I would say, like this year, let me think about this year. This year, I would say, I would say opportunity in terms of the different industries. Because we have, we have AI panels.

We have extremely like investment panels. And people think, if you're looking at this video right now, you might think that investing is hard. after coming to Invest Fest, you're going to realize how easy it is to invest in the stock market as of today versus like a year, two or three years ago. There are so many tools out there to use to be able to have such a better prediction of what the stock's going to do than it was, say, two or three years ago. Because, you know, the hardest thing is to do the research, right? where you have to research the company, how much money they have on hand,

what's their forecast, what do they make the last three fiscal years, with all these different things, I had to go to 10 different sites to learn that information. Now it's so much easier with AI and stuff. So I think you're going to really get to know how easy it is when it comes to invest in. No, I actually love the knowledge sharing regarding it.

It's just so underrated how accessible all this information is if we actually like invest in the time to go to these things and especially like you know like i said i've been here two events i'm attending another one and new york but in the calendar there's not many events that are as big as that where you realize everything's going to all come together in one like i said i'm excited to have i've always had booths where i've interviewed people i've never had in an environment that big like the biggest i've had i think was like 2000 you know what i'm saying and like 30 plus thousand is going to be like something that you're just you're going to be like something that you never experienced, but again, we came across a lady who does, you probably know what

she does, she's an attorney for trademarking. Rosina. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm interviewing her. Shout to Rosina. She does all my trademark. So about her, she showed me all the booths that she was having. And what's crazy, somebody walked past like, oh, so you had an, like, it's become a thing

where everyone talks about it, like whether I'm in Salt Lake, whether I'm in North Carolina, whether it's New York. It doesn't really matter. Like, what's crazy is the fact that I can attest when you guys say 30,000 because I've come across just five different people in different states that have spoken about this life-changing event. And again, for me personally, yes, it's got a lot of brand building, but it's also trying to get some of the brilliant minds to come and share their knowledge and like what I'm going to be doing as well while still gaining knowledge and increasing our investing. So there's always multiple different tools people can get. but I think sometimes people have this limited mindset of

trying to prevent themselves from gaining like, oh, why should I go pay X amount of money to gain that thing? Why could I do that thing? And I think that's such a limiting belief, you know? It's just, you deprive on yourself of something you can actually gain from people. 100%. So I agree with that.

Obviously, also, you know, you call yourself a legacy architect, which I like that phrase a lot. What does it actually mean to you in real life, not just in that brand statement. Early leisure is a legacy business, right? It's going to be here forever. It's going to, it's not going to impact just me.

It's going to impact my kids. It's going to impact my kids' kids. You know, I was in church last week, and he said, the difference between a legacy and what was the other word he did, he said, but he said, a legacy, when you leave legacy, you don't just you don't affect you you affect your kids kids that's that's legacy and i think that's what that's what that's what i believe that i do when i that's what that's what i think about when i build a

business how can i just how can i affect my kids kids and just out on that what is it you feel like is in the black community that's preventing us from building generational wealth what's stopping us I think we are in our own way. I think we allow other voices to stop us from achieving greatness. I think slavery is an example of, you know, why they were able to have slavery so long is because our own people were, you know, whether it was ratting on us or being a house word that they use and all this stuff. So we hit on each other.

I think the biggest thing is stopping us is hating on each other. And the moment when we realize how powerful we are, if we all came together, that would be the moment that or be the time that we will excel on a level that is unimaginable. Why they suppressed us so much and, you know, make us believe that when we're not great, make us believe that we need them, when they continue to do that, and we continue to believe it, it's going to continue to stop us from becoming great, becoming financially free,

becoming to living up to our best ability. And, you know, that, I mean, that's it. I mean, I think that's the only thing. He's the only thing I can say. And just to add on that, one of the things, like I said, despite, I'm not African-American, but I'm an African-American in America, you know, because I like that. I like that.

I'm not African American, but I'm African in America. African American. So to add on that, I want to just try and talk about just the impact, just African American cultures had around the world from a person that has obviously moved here, resident here. But it's not just, it goes beyond like basketball, it goes beyond football, it goes beyond pop culture. if you just look at all the biggest names that culture has just been embraced on four corners of the earth.

So despite the challenges that the communities has faced, it has had a global impact that people just resonate with the culture more than anything as well, whether it be hip-hop, whether it just be like in the industry, whether it be LeBron James or sports, whatever it may be Steve Harvey in the entertainment business. Like it's just there's something very unique that has just been resonating throughout the whole world that people just love the culture so much. And when you say something like limitation, when you believe that it's going to be super unstoppable, I feel like it's already happening at a rapid pace right now because just generation and generation just seems to be getting better and better. Would you agree with that? Somewhat. He's like not Jet Z. See, you got to understand.

You got to understand. This is the unfortunate part about like today. There's never been a time in human history that one person can create so much impact. Right. And they could, you know, if you go viral, you get 10, 15, 20, 100 million views. Depending on what your message is, that can affect a lot of people. And you see people that, there are people in our own culture destroying, you know, bringing down our people. There are people that of our own culture that we've helped millions of people at this point, right?

but the moment we have some somebody that wasn't of caliber right we gave someone a chance and it wasn't of caliber or they wasn't the person they said they were and you know they didn't fulfill different what they said they were going to fulfill that person not only just brings down that person but they also try to bring down us like we're the culprits of it too you know but we try to we vet every single guess and we try to you know give everybody an opportunity to get on a platform to get your message across, right? Because the goal has always been to produce as much as impact that we can amongst as many people as we can.

Whether it's America, Nigeria, Ghana, you know, Egypt, Toronto, Canada, wherever it is. Please say South Africa. South Africa. Jonasburg, right? Yes, sir. Johannesburg. Cake Town.

There we go. There we go. You know what I'm saying? So whatever, whatever, the ultimate goal was never to make money. Because if you understand what podcasting was back then, there was no money in podcasting. Very little. There was only one person and that was Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan, yeah.

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

So, and now that's what the goal was always impact. So whatever we could do to produce the most impact, that's what our mission was. Right. And, you know, how. could someone talk so bad about people or company that's only been trying to help our people? It's just, it's a slap in the face. But it goes to show you, it's the hate. They want to be you.

They want the egos. They're fighting their ego. They're fighting themselves. Right? They hate themselves. They hate their life. Right. They don't like their life.

They wake up every morning. How can I make someone else feel like I feel? You know? And it's mostly only our people, right? Now, I'm not going to say, you know, other communities don't hate on each other, which they do. But the question was why we can't get further. Because the reality is the more people that, you know, comment hatred, the person that they're comment on, they start to believe that. They start to think that maybe they're right.

Maybe they're true. And this person that was here that could have been way up here, they never seen this because they had so much hate here that they were discouraged and they stopped themselves from going further. getting out their own way back to that you know you got to stop stop listening to people because that's if someone has the energy to say things that are you know inappropriate or or violent or just straight out the devil then they don't deserve your air they don't deserve your time they don't deserve your energy so no that's that's well said and well articulated now in terms of like business and and what she do and all that um what would you say is the most important trait or skill as an entrepreneur that people don't know of so let me so i'm like i'm working on this new business right

uh i just i'm about to open up a podcast studio right and this is a new business something has never been done for me you know brand new all things whatever everything that i'm thinking about is fulfillment, right? I think when people start to build a business, they think of the offer and they worry about the fulfillment at the end of it when they get a sale. And now you're playing catch up because now you have to fulfill this sale and you never had a system in place. So I think the number one thing is not just creating the offer, not understanding the profit. The number one thing is the system on how to fulfill the current, the fulfilled product or service. So I'm creating this podcast, studio and all I've the most the more the most time has been going into

fulfillment how can I make this thing run as as efficient as smoothly as possible with the less amount of people so and and that's all I've been doing so I've been going through the systems and seeing how can I break it I built a software that can literally take that can control the whole entire studio like I was looking at this safe I'm like wow I should have got that bigger safe so you know it can house more product and more more equipment. So if you focus on the system of fulfillment,

I think that should be the most important thing in your business before you start anything. Like, all right, the name is cool. But if you, for instance, people used to come on the podcast. Still do, but people come on the podcast. We don't push anybody selling anything anymore. But when they would come on a podcast, and they go from, they make 100 sales a month to

10,000 sales a month, just about being on a podcast. Nine and a 10 business isn't going to be able to fulfill 10,000 orders when you only had 100 before. So they didn't have a system of a fulfillment in place. So now they don't fulfill your orders. What do they looked at? They looked at like they're not a good business person. It's not they aren't good business people.

They were just put in a position where they weren't ready for the amount of attention that was given from being on a platform. Yeah. So, and they didn't have the systems in place. So having, having, like, systems in place, really to run your whole entire business, like for everything, like marketing, communication, support, you know, fulfillment, products, and ordering. Like, I just went to where, I went to somewhere, they didn't have something.

I went to a restaurant, and it was like Monday morning. And they didn't have, they didn't have the rest of the, the product I want. They didn't have, like, three different products in the store. I'm like, who's the manager? Like, this is a, this, you've been open for some time now. How you don't have like, the best items? But it was, it goes back to systems. They don't understand one, their clientele.

They don't know, they don't have a system in place doing the ordering. They're just, they're winging it. And when you win, you can, you can make it wing in a business, but you can't, you can't grow exceptionally doing a business. If we were winging in Vest Fest, it would never grow to 30,000. people and I mean just to even add on that one of the things you mentioned earlier on which I liked a lot you stressed on the fact that among the four co-founders everyone has their own role and I think it's just it's an underrated skill or underrated structure because sometimes if people don't know

expectation or role it just can be a bit sometimes conflicting misunderstanding stepping on people those feet and not knowing what it's being fulfilled. But the fact that operationally people know exactly what the role is, it sets a great precedent. It gives a great foundation and it's just easy from the top down to understand how the structure may work as well. Systems are underrated. I mean, that's one of the first things. And you mention that a lot.

Many people, when they start, you want to have everything all to yourself. Like you don't want a single partner. And some of the most successful people I know of have partnered with multiple different people because the more you partner with people, the better it is for people to understand their role. But at the same time, I also understand sometimes people have been burnt. People have just had people that have just mistreated them, have like just stolen from them, have taken from them.

But it's like in relationships. Exactly. You can't let someone, you can't let your old boyfriend, your old girlfriend, you know, dictate your future with their new boyfriend or girlfriend. You can't let the scars that they had or put on you, you know, be scars for you or the future of who you might date. It's not fair to them. It's not fair to you.

It's just like in relationships with business. If I had a bad partner in my previous business relationship, I can't let my new partner, you know, be affected by, from my past. They're not them. What you can be is more, you know, cautious. You can, you know, have more, you know, tape, you know. You can, you know, vet them better. You know, when you see a flag,

don't just let that flag go. Like, say, it's just one time. Understand that there are flags. And how you do everything, how you do everything is how you do anything, right? Or whatever it is. How you do anything is how you do everything. It's the same thing. If they're not organized, do you realize they're not organized in their house or in their car or getting dressed?

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

It's depriving 100%. Because all four of the co-founders of InvestFesture had, you know, partners that, you know, probably weren't the best and things, you know, went didn't go as expected but we didn't allow that to you know deter deter us from bringing new people in

no when you look at young black entrepreneur yesterday what is the one gap in financial education that's still frustrates you say young said that again when you look at young black entrepreneur yesterday like just young black young black entrepreneurs when you say young what's young I'd say probably you know

But 30 and below is young. Okay, so what about young black entrepreneurs? When you look at them today, like, what's the gap in financial literacy or financial education that frustrates you the most? I think they think they have enough, they have more time. I think that's the biggest gap between black entrepreneurs and white entrepreneurs, or Asian entrepreneurs, or Indian entrepreneurs. They're working on their business at 20, at 15, at 10, learning how to be an entrepreneur. where we don't start learning after our 30s. So I think because we always feel like we have enough time,

we have more time, we have more time, we have more time. And, you know, the moment, the time, when it becomes a time where you realize that, no, there is not a lot of time. The time is now. You know, my kids will be, you know, understanding entrepreneurship. You know, even now, though, I give them, like, tasks and stuff, and if you do this task, I'll give you this. If you do this task, I'll give you this.

So chores or whatever, they're understanding that nothing's given to them by those little things, those little clues, you know, of understanding when I do this, I'm going to get this. Now the thing is, as they get older, is you build this and, you know, think of the easiest way to do something once and continue to get paid for it. That is the message I want to put into them and instilling them. I want you to be able to do something one time and get paid over. and over and over for it. If they understand the philosophy and the science behind that, they'll be a right as entrepreneurs. They'll be a right as men and human beings and business people,

and they will gain financial freedom. But they have to understand that just because you go to work for 40 hours a week, that doesn't mean, you know, you make more money or you have freedom. What you have to do is learn something that you could do one time and consistently get paid for it over and over again. and create as much passive income. Like, we didn't know about passive income. What is passive income?

You know, we didn't understand that income that is made, you know, where I don't have to do anything to make it back, to make it. We don't understand that growing up. And those are those gaps in our community that we're not taught. You know, we're taught to work. Got to work. Even our parents. You got to go to get a job.

Got to go to school. You know? That's the things that was taught to us. And I'm grateful you touched on that because I feel like it's important to really instill these principles to the next generation for a parent that may be listening out there that may have kids that are probably still teenagers. What advice would you give them in total of trying? A parent? Yeah, a parent. I think the, I think the worst thing a parent can do is get, is be in the way of their child.

We talked about scars. Their scars they have from growing up, their scars they have from, you know, business or anything. they put it on to their kids. For instance, say if a mother had a business, she had a business and it failed. And, you know, she had to start all over again and she had to get a job. And, you know, all her dreams and aspirations was, you know,

never happened, right? Because her business idea failed. Now her kid, she starts to tell their kids not to have a job, not to have a business, not to grow their business, not to do this, not to do that because of her issues. And I think the biggest thing is for parents, is not to let your kids dream.

If their dream is too big, believe it. Like, pour into it. Because you just never know. It would, like, you got a Zach Zuckerberg is a billionaire. And he had this dream. He dropped out of college at 18, 19 years old. And now it's one of the biggest businesses in the world. Like, if your kid says something, that's what I want to do.

it might happen. But when a parent discourages their kid from dreaming, it's probably the biggest slap in the face to it. Mental illness is probably at the all-time high right now. And if you think about it,

you know, a lot of people don't have dreams. A lot of kids don't have dreams. Do you think it's mainly in the black community or just in general, kids in general? I can't speak for, you know, any other community than my community I'm in because I don't really

I don't really know too many people in other communities but I know a lot of kids don't have dreams and their dreams are so small my thing is dream big but the thing is how can they dream big if they don't have the

they don't have the inspiration to they don't have the insight to they don't have the ability to see that far so that's the parent's job to give them that inspiration. Give them that vision

that is bigger than anything they could imagine. That's a bomb right there. That's absolutely powerful. It's just so much potential. I feel like

kids just know what they're told. And if you tell them you're incapable of, that's the beginning of doubt as well but if you tell them you can do whatever you want to do you end up like becoming an astronaut or becoming whatever you want to try and do and i think entrepreneurship yes is still important but sometimes people can also be very good in certain industries like if you're going to become an astronaut it's still something that you change in the world and adding value if you want to do other

stuff you can still dream big and you know become the president of the united states all these different stuff i think just the nice thing about entrepreneurship is the level of freedom you have in achieving like you say and taking your kids out on a random day or you know going to go do these different stuff, the level of financial freedom, but also the freedom that we have. You know, we spoke about 250 years of America and all that. I don't want to get into that much, but like true freedom comes when you know you can do whatever you want to do. I want to, you spoke as well, obviously you co-founder of multiple different businesses, and we spoke about what you're potentially going into as well.

my question for you and advise that people might want to find out do you think it's better to learn and start a business and perfect it before you jump onto the next one 100% okay can you elaborate on that are you it leaves us the tree once the tree's built you start building branches of it Every business around Earnier Leisure is aligned with Earnier Leisure. It's aligned with the main mission. Right? So EWIWL University is a longer version of the Earnier Leisure Podcasts, right?

EWIWL Network is a network of podcasts that are financial literacy or whatever it is, but it's a podcast. Still aligns with it. InvestFest is a business financial literacy event that goes on. So I think each business should be aligned. with the main mission. Does that make sense? Yeah. So, you know, if we started InvestFest, Earned Eel Leisure, EWI University,

all at the same time, they don't grow. EWI.O.E.O.E.L. University was one of the biggest assets that we had because it had over like 5,000 people in the community at the time. It might have even been more, but we had a massive, a massive community at that time. How much easier is going to be to start in Vest Fest now, because we have a massive community with E.WIL University. So now we have supporters, we have members, paid members at that. That's a strong thing, too.

Yeah, you can have a big community of free members, but you have a big community of paid members that people that already paid you, right, that already trust you, how much easier it is going to say, listen, I'm doing an event, come to this event. We're going to get half of those people. That's how we got 2,000, 3,000 people right away from the EWILA community. So, you know, but they all work hand to hand and they all align with the same mission of Earned Elegia. So I would say build the Earned Elegia branch.

And at first, Earned Elegia branch was a podcast, right? And as that podcast evolved, it became an empire. And Earned Elegia as a podcast became a branch. And now Earned Elegia as the tree is the empire that hosts so many different businesses. Wow. Now, wow. And do you guys have, like, mentorship programs? and teach people how to build what you've built in terms of like community more than anything community

networking i mean i university houses most of it okay um i teach with the business engine i teach you know things like that i try to teach people how to build community how to build you know the different components of earning of earning of leisure you know whether it was a podcast whether it was you know um a traveling company or event company you know whatever it is you know i i tell you i teach you all the frameworks that we use to build these all these different companies because every company that earning allegiance has i i built like the blueprint the foundation of it in terms of the operational the the the the guts of it you know so so yeah so you know we we do that yeah all right you push people to act bolder and think bigger what are you personally still afraid of death that's probably

the only thing. I ain't scared of feeling. I mean... Why you scared of death? I mean, mainly because I don't want to leave my kids and my wife and my family, you know. But, you know, that's probably the only thing I'm scared of. And I don't know if that's something that you get over. But the more, the closer and the more intimate relationship I get with God, the more I start to see that, you know, I start to believe and have faith that heaven exists.

I'm going to be at a good place. And, you know, and God is always going to, you know, put you and your family as long as you stay obedient, that he's going to always make sure you good. And I think that's been the biggest thing. Just staying obedient, you know, being the best human being I can possibly be, praying all the time, you know, pouring into, you know, my faith. and I think maybe, you know, as I get older, that will, you know, strengthen my faith into, you know, death. That's powerful. Yeah, so.

Obviously, I want to respect your time. I'm just probably after like two questions. I want to try and ask and conclude. But this was also very important for those people that are watching this right now who have an idea, who have the drive, but lack the resources, what sort of advice would you give them if they want to try and start some business right now? See, so it's hard to say lack resources

because there's so many resources out there. Like, you don't even, if you don't have $20 to invest in like a chat agent, I mean, and that could be your only resource. You know, Claude, Claude is revolutionary. I mean, people talk about Chad GPT, all these different stuff, Claude, and then getting the utilization of Claude as a personal assistant, getting Claude to teach it.

Oh my gosh, I can get into that as well. But yeah, continue, brother. I mean, that's it. I mean, learning, you got to be obsessed with it. If you can't be obsessed with your business, then don't do it. You got to be obsessed with it. That's what I, that's from all the people I know that are successful, they've been obsessed with it. They can't stop thinking.

They can't stop doing. They dream about it. They live it, they smell it, they breathe it. Don't worry about having the resources. Worry about how obsessed, how much, how big of an obsession you can have with this idea, with this business, with this thing that you want to create. Because that's going to lead you to all the resources you need. Just think about this.

If I'm obsessed with growing the festival I told you about, right? I am a person that do not like to ask people for favors. I'm a person that do not like to reach out. But as I become, once I realize it and put this in my mind that this is what I want to do and I attach my obsession to it, I'm not going to hold back on who I contact. I'm not going to hold back on who I ask for favors. I'm going to be obsessed so obsessed that the resources that I don't think I have right now that are going to become available off of my obsession.

Does that make sense? 100%. And obviously, the last question, I mean, I've traveled 31 states, done multiple different interviews. How many countries? Two so far, just South African. American and South Africa, my two. Oh, man. Listen, we will do a world tour and listen.

I'm glad you mentioned that. I'm glad you mentioned that because I have some friends out there, that have been pushing some ads in the UK, and I'm going to try and, like, recruit them because, like, what the director of a CEO did, Stephen Bartlett, he had a primary audience in the UK, and he realized that the market in America was, like, mind-blowing, but I'm going to try and do different, like,

sort of stuff as all, but for now it's only been two countries. So, man, you just killed my mind, right? I'm out there breaking out by the 31 states, and you said, like, just take that away from me. How could you, man? I mean, America says a small place. It's the capital of capital. You know?

I mean, Africa's, you should, I'm surprised you haven't been to more countries in Africa. We're going to do it. Yeah, we can. Africa's, they're the biggest resource in the world. 100%. You know, they produce the most money, but they don't make the most money. That's a thing as well, exactly. EYL Africa, coming to a screen there you.

Listen, yeah, I'm the first ambassador of South Africa, so let's go down there together. Yeah, we just started, we just started a venture with some people in Africa, and we started EYL Africa. Wow. Yeah. Wow. I love that, love that. So the term winning, because the coach winning, winning means, the term means different things for different people as well.

So for Michael McDonald, what does the term today winning mean for you? The first thing I would say is winning is my relationship with God. The next thing is my health and my family's health. The third thing would be, you know, how free can I be? What can I do? When can I do it? How could I do it? And, you know, the fourth thing I would say would be my relationship with everybody in my life, my circle.

I love that. I think that's one of the best answers. That's what I'm winning. If all that is good, then I won. Awesome stuff. If you could let out of you know where they could get a hold of you, if they want to even attend Invest Fest, which will have the link to, the description section below of InvestFest.

We'll have a link down. Is this coming out before InvestFest? Yes, it is. Okay. Yeah, so InvestFest is August 7th through 9th. Go get your tickets. Pre-sale. I mean, it's like a pre-sale code.

Actually, I can give you a code. What do you want to name the code? Winning. Winning. The code is winning. I'm going to give you a discount. I don't know how much. It's a surprise.

So if you see this video and it's before August 7th, go to investfest.com, put the code winning, and you'll get. a great discount on some tickets. You're going to learn. You're going to be impacted. You're going to network with people that you've never thought existed or imagine. You're going to come out of it with relationships in terms of business.

Maybe you might find your wife for your husband. I found my wife at a EYL networking event. Believe it or not. And then what I want to do too is like, you know, if you do have an idea and you want to build a business, if I can do this, can I just give this? Yeah, I have 100%. Yeah. Use code winning too.

Go to the business. dot com and i'm gonna give you i'm gonna give you a whole entire month for free so just type winning and you get your first month free at at the business engine i have a lot of components there have a lot of you know modules there that you can literally take and and apply it to your idea your skill you all those different things if it's AI if it's marketing if it's youtube i i talk about a a wide range of things. And like I said earlier, I've taken all the frameworks that we use from EYL

and I applied them to the business business. So you can go there as well. But yeah, I want to see our Invest Fest. I want to see. And if you're in Atlanta, I got a lot of things going on, man.

I don't know how I do it. You know, a podcast studio will be open at this time. So you can go check out creative suites. That's my podcast studio. So that's it. You know, that's what we're doing.

All the links will be in the description. By the way, the coat winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. J. McDonald, the man, the myth, the legend. Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate it. Thank you, man. Thank you.