How This Famous Rapper Hustled to Become a Successful Investor | Chamillionaire on Impact Theory

[Music] I've seen some things that I don't I wouldn't wish on any kid to see so I'm like it just doesn't seem that scary to me and if you fail so what you know you start over you do it again but most people that that fear of failure is the thing that I think prevents them from like really really being successful then also it's like a lot of other things that are just difficult to do you know when you tell people the answer to success it's a lot of hard stuff you got to work hard right nobody wants to hear that everybody wants to shortcut you know some people understand that they like they appreciate the progress you know if you tell people right now hey if you want to lose this many pounds this is what you got to do there's no short solution but every time there's still people out there selling whatever Herbalife treatment or whatever to try to get you the quick short route because people believe that you know what I'm gonna do it the easy way and if there is no easy way [Music] everybody today's episode is brought to you by our very own impact Theory University enjoy the episode hey everybody welcome to impact Theory today's guest is a Grammy award-winning artist known as much for his business savvy as for his musical talent through his music he's traveled the globe sold millions of albums and won countless awards he's graced the covers of some of the most popular magazines on the planet and been featured by virtually every major music outlet that exists but that's about as far from where he started as you can imagine he grew up in the inner city of Houston Texas but after his next door neighbor was shot to death during a home invasion he realized that somehow he had to get out and get out he did through insanely hard work developed talent and a deep understanding of marketing he took himself from selling his mixtapes on the streets to becoming a multi-platinum best selling artist signed to one of the largest labels in the world his smash hit writing dirty not only made him an international celebrity it broke ringtone records and raked in a Grammy Beatty Award and MTV Award and more but even all of that success did not slow him down and since then he's found tremendous success as a serial entrepreneur and tech investor he's launched multiple companies including a tour bus company a high-end custom auto body shop and an app company as well as investing in several mega success enterprises such as lift maker studios and several others cementing himself as a legitimate angel investor with a jaw-dropping a string of wins so please help me in welcoming the CEO of chamilitary entertainment the mixtape Messiah himself chamillionaire's good it's funny that the key is to bring people on who have done amazing stuff and you have done incredibly surprising things you're definitely not somebody who has followed a typical path really at any point in your life and what do you attribute that to how'd you not succumbed to just what everybody was telling you to do man that's a good question I think it was really just watching and observing I felt like I was a very perceptive person and I used to see people in my early years have success and people fail some people took her out where they started selling drugs and then I see the result of that and you know I was one of the people that was trying to avoid those pitfalls like even earlier when I started doing music I saw so many people that got bad deals or talked about the music industry like they wouldn't make money so me watching that so much I was trying to reverse engineer what I saw and I would sit back and I was like kind of quiet you know I feel like I'm a introvert that knows how to act like a extrovert you know but um I was super quiet and I used to just watch and after like observing helped me a lot you know yeah I actually get that a lot so I'm equally maybe am diverted is the right way for me to say it but I consider myself a pretty deep introvert who definitely likes to listen before I speak and I would say that's been a big part of my success as well is sort of drink it in and then pick a path and go that way how do you deal with when people are telling you you said something once in an interview that really hit me and you said you know I'm now in a space where the people that I grew up with look at me like being smart is bad and I've had to learn to play dumb so how do you simultaneously navigate it so you're not oblivious to how people are feeling but not lose who you are yeah a super tough you got to balance it because early I used to be the guy that would always be in everybody's ear telling them everything I thought they should do but I realize that you got a you kind of got to hide the medicine inside of candy you know because people will often like you know repelled from that you know they don't want to be around that it's like oil and water you know it feels like you're you're looking at them and judging them and you know you think you're better than them all these different things so even though it was rooted and one of the see people actually succeed it actually came off wrong to people but it was just in my nature I guess it's from my parents they used to do it you know and I feel like I was helping people but then over time I started to learn better approach the way to like lead people to the water but not forced him to drink it you know and I felt like that was way more effective but when you start to grow and you start to you know see things sometimes you know you lose people I have friends that never left the north side of Houston like they've never seen the other side of the city and you know somebody could laugh at that to meet us like man you you don't you don't have ambition to want to see that side some of them are like nah I'm stuck in my ways and they feel like they're doing it for real reasons they keeping it real and staying so loyal to this thing that raised them but it's like you can still be loyal to your side of town by knowing what the other side is about matter of fact you might know how to help your side even better by understanding what's happening on the other side you know but saying this is somebody sometimes can come off wrong you have to find out how to communicate so I've always had that struggle with how to communicate things that I think are valuable to people and over time I feel like wrapping kind of taught me that you know it taught me how to articulate my thoughts because you're seeing a lot of things and you're going to music to explain it to our audience of people you have so many different types of people that you're talking to you know you got some people that come from the background if you come from you got some people that have no idea what you're talking about everything's foreign to them but how do you articulate these things to people and get everybody to care about it I think people can focus on your passion they could tell when you're authentic all these things you start to hone in on and get really really good at and then people will start to listen you know I used to go to this church on the north side and there was a guy one time that um was a pastor and he used to have braids and he used to come in and he was to talk to us just like he was one of us and everybody used to listen to him and the other guys would come and they'd have the button ups and nobody listened to them and I saw that over and over and I was just like he's a pastor just like he's a pastor but everybody listens to him because he felt like he was just one of us he said play basketball with us he's into all these things and I always had these things resting in my hair because you know you almost feel like you're not you don't belong a lot of times in all these different places you know as an african-american kid in the city you know you're you're in certain areas and people are looking at you like you don't belong you go to church and they're looking at you like what are you doing here because you show up with a hoodie I remember one time they were having an open gym and I wanted to help all these kids in the city coming you know have a place to play basketball so I spent a lot of time putting up the basketball goals doing a lot of stuff and then I went home and get you know washed up so I could come back and play basketball and then I come back and they wouldn't let me in and they're like excuse me sir this is only for the members of the church and I'm like I just spent the whole day putting up the and I was I was so mad I was like arguing with this guy that wouldn't stop me and then that guy with the braids came in was like no no and let you know and it's just that little understanding of welcoming you know I'm saying that I kind of saw sometimes and when I would see example of that I would try to be that and try to be like you know what I'm gonna be more of like not trying to judge people and trying to help them be the best that they can be and it started transitioning to music and then it transitioned entrepreneurship and then it just it just became something that now it's just like my daily life you know mm-hmm do that story about people living their entire life in one half of the city let alone actually even getting outside of the city that kind of stuff freaks me out it it really it's it is akin to the very thing that drives me to do impact Theory which is I really believe that person just has a false belief a limiting belief you know something like you said the he's so prizes loyalty to the city or to the neighborhood or whatever that he thinks it's a betrayal to go outside but if you could just like flip that switch he could have an entirely different life like you said even just going over there to explore to find ways to make his own side of town better would be I think a pretty objectively better life for him and for the people around him if you had to say like what are the beliefs or just worldview that you have that's allowed you to be so successful I think the number one thing that keeps people from being successful is their lack of their fear you know if something looking stupid of fear of what it's it's a whole bunch of different forms you know um sometimes it's about the people around you and how they'll perceive you you know because you know maybe you grew up in a household where you know things weren't accepted or you know maybe your parents sitting accomplish things and then they put that kind of insecurity on you you know I used to have a little bit of that you know I used to write my raps and super sloppy writing on purpose because my dad used to come he's to like look and he's like what is this he's a ball out of a doorway you know so I started like writing sloppy on purpose to make it look like it schoolwork you know these are the things that I feel like sometimes it prevents people from being who they want to be because all it takes is somebody wanting to take a step you know and there are certain things that a lot of people in this world are sitting there thinking in their minds and they're just not gonna do like I used to always try to pull a lot of people and get like you want you can do this you can do this but the people that hear that motivation over and over again sometimes they take that step some people just have it in them early it just starts and they just get in the muscle memory of just doing things there's so many things not like that we were scared about what we're still here we made it past all these things I just I guess during my life I saw so many things that seemed scary and was able to make them through that it's just like now the things that seem so scary to people it's just not as scary to me you know when I think about venture capitalists and tech and entrepreneurship and all these people from MIT and Stanford you know I was a little intimidated before I got into it but I was like if you've seen where I came from what I've been through like I've seen some things that I don't I wouldn't wish on any kid to see so I'm like it just doesn't seem that scary to me and if you fail so what you know you start over you do it again but most people that that fear of failure is the thing that I think prevents them from like really really being successful then also it's like a lot of other things that are just difficult to do you know when you tell people the answer to success it's a lot of hard stuff you got to work hard right nobody wants to hear that everybody wants a shortcut you know some people understand that they like they appreciate the progress you know if you tell people right now hey if you want to lose this many pounds this is what you got to do there's no short solution but every time there's still people out there selling whatever Herbalife treatment or whatever to try to get you the quick short route because people believe that you know what I'm gonna do it the easy way and there is no easy way so when I tell people that is very blunt it's very straight to it you have to want to do it but the best way I try to explain it is like you know I think somebody was telling me the story one time I thought it was really great they're like you know when you're chiseling on Iraq you know you could chisel for a long time and you could choose 100 times 200 times 300 times and it won't break and then when you get to five thousand times it finally breaks but all the work that you did is what made it break it's not like you just the last one just broke it you know I mean it takes that but sometimes people don't want start that journey you know they don't want to get on the mission of like you know becoming the best that they can be but I think people like me come from places where we're motivated by things that like we're not trying to go back to sometimes it's a very dark place it's all kind of things that you're just trying to put in the back of your head compartmentalize and just move on but that thing will kind of push people like me to kind of be successful and I think that's why I see so many friends and people that I know that or that made it out entrepreneurial I think about all the successful people you know LeBron James like you go back to the stories you'll see you know single parent and you know so many things that you wouldn't wish on other people but we're propelling them to try to succeed and I feel like everybody needs a little bit of that push you know it's kind of like you know a kid falls and bumps his knee and you know there's one parent that will kind of coddle the kid and the other ones like you know what just you know let them live life a little bit you know I think everybody needs a little bit at and used to bump their knee a little bit and understand that it's not that bad you know yeah I've heard you say that sometimes it's good to have your back against the wall yeah I have a theory about the inner cities so I've worked in the inner cities a lot and one thing I've noticed is that the inner city breaks almost everyone that it touches but there are a few people that manage to be so transformed by it whether it's out of I never want to go back whether it's it just hardened them and they had to be smart to survive whatever it is there's there's a certain set of lessons that some people learn that then propel them so hard so far so fast out of the inner cities that they go on to accomplish just truly extraordinary things needless to say put your name among those people so walk us through like what were some of the key moments that you experienced as a kid and how did you end up interpreting it in a way that pushed you forward even if it was just I have to get the hell away from this yeah I feel like there are a lot of moments where it's just like lightbulb click but I feel like one thing that I had that a lot of people don't have is even though I had a lot of experience seeing the stuff that happens in our communities I also had access to the other side you know I got to see what was possible you know my property that my father and my they divorced and when they divorced my father was living in a separate place of my mother and my mother was the one that was living in her you know my dad was living in a guest middle-class kind of we're still poor but he was still living in a middle-class community and I would go back and forth you know and you know I had friend up the street who had everything yet you know the the almost like the Legos with the big house in the train going through the you know the Christmas tree and like all that stuff nice to look like man I remember one time I went and I was eating at their house and I sat down and then you know after eating I was gonna get up and then his mother's like wait were you going like time for dessert and I was just like what dessert like I never ate dessert with my parents ever you know so I was just like what y'all you desert like cookies and brownies came out I was just looking like man this is crazy I want this you know so going back and then now seeing your mother you know cereal for dinner you're like no we're not doing this you know but then other moments happen where you know the moment you referenced earlier where a neighbor got killed I was actually doing some promoting passing Flyers out of the club or something and you know we pay like $100 and something do that I was coming home and you know we used to live in this efficiency condominium on the third floor and I see the door open somebody sticks his head out he's got a hoodie on and he closes the door and I already know what that means so I like tucking my chain take off my watch for my watch in and I walked through the door real quick and there's three guys with hoodie on and then I like see them I'm like nah my head like what's up and none of them say what's up back to me so that's when I knew I was like all right you know and I ran all the way up the stairs real quick and ran into the into the apartment but I'm like the king of running silently with like I'm the king of that like so I did it really fast I got in there I closed the door and I'm looking at the people I see I'm just sitting there my heart's beating beating really hard and I'm like all right and I just wait wait and I don't hear anything so then I just like all right I just go you know go to sleep and then like in the morning boom boom boom boom police officers knock on a door and they open it up open up halfway sleeping they're like you know did you hear the gunshots and I was just like what well gunshots and I look next door and you know they got like tape all over and on the walls I blood and and you know you're looking like what like was that supposed to be me you know what what happened and at that moment my relationship with the police kind of just was different too because I'm thinking like I saw something and they didn't even care really what I saw they really just going through the motions and asking me just cuz they're supposed to ask they didn't really care you know and now after they leave we're still there whoever came and did this is like still knows and I was just like you know what this is you know and my mother she's like the one of these people she's like the nicest person in the world like one time I gave my mother my money and she like went and gave it out to like kids and she she she's like that you know she doesn't need it she doesn't want it she like tries to take her money and go to Africa and build wells all kind of stuff like that so she looks at Humanity in a positive way and always sees the bright side of it you know so I was just like now we got to get out of here you know and I just it was just something that just lit that you know the thing I find so interesting about people that change their circumstance well you know whatever form that comes in is inevitably there's a period of head-down where no one believes you're gonna be able to make it but that person they keep putting in the work what did that look like like what does it actually take to become I mean dude for a while you were like the most famous rapper on the planet so what does it take to go from absolute obscurity to you know super stardom is it you have to get good at the actual flow so that's going to be part of it the writing side of it promoting I mean talk to me about pressing the records like what what actually is that path what is this sort of nutshell version of getting good at something I feel like we spend way more time in our own minds than we do talking to other people like you really spend a lot of time trying to figure it out there's all these thoughts that come to you whether it's like you know things around you people talking to you people close to you things you see TV whatever and you're you're bringing in all these different things trying to figure out your path in life you know so I think it starts with having some like real understanding of what your strengths are you know like how do you audit that I feel like it's about being honest you know a lot of people just aren't honest with themselves you're telling yourself this thing but you like there's so many people that say oh I'm gonna be entrepreneur I'm gonna do this and if you really dive down into deep they don't really believe it you know and his that's okay you can unlock that but you have to figure out how to unlock it there's a conscience that's sitting right here telling you this thing and you try to brush it off you have to be very honest with yourself and then if you're not that doesn't mean you can't succeed it means that now you're very honest and knowing you're not as good then you can work on getting it but if you think you're already good at it you don't work on it so I spent a lot of time just reflecting on late man what am I good at like I used to think like I'm watching the NBA you know I was unrealistic about it you know you start to see people that are way bigger way faster you're not telling yourself the truth he's just like no I'm going to the NBA like when did you tell yourself the truth about that I think I never told myself the truth until something else started just knocking on my door you know it was like I was just I used to be at school and people would beat on the table and they would just start rapping and I was just watch them I was too scared to like jump in but I knew when I watched him I was just like man I could do it ten times better than this guy you know and these are freestyle so it'd be like not even writing stuff down just off the head making some rhyme and I knew I was good at that because at home in my own head I used to do that all the time take me back you're seeing this stuff but a lot of people saw it not a lot of people did something with it so how did you learn it well enough to act upon it when we say learn it what do you mean like learn so I'm I'm imagining the kid watching the show right now sees your name on the youtube link he clicks it he probably wants to have a similar kind of success what vein I don't know maybe he wants to be the greatest teacher of all time maybe he wants to be an investor maybe he wants to be a rapper yeah and so what I want to see how much you can sort of recapture from that period is how you went about absorbing this information and then trying it so learning about distribution is not easy dude like I had to learn about distribution from a food perspective it's not easy yeah it's complicated it's full of people that like can say yes and no and you have to figure out how to work with them and like how to you know make friends here and know who to say no to and who to say yes to and who's the right distributor and when you're driving to Cleveland who-who are you taking the the mixtape to who do you sell it to and if you sell it to this guy can you also sell it to that guy how do you set the price like there's so much to figure out how did you begin shipping away at that problem I think you go back to the beginning and you start with doing what you're passionate about right look is there a lot of people that are going through life right now trying to figure it out like me I don't know what I want to be I don't know like I was at that moment and then so you're just like I'm gonna take [ __ ] action yeah I'm gonna figure out what I like to press your own disks yeah so how'd you figure that one out okay first I figured out that I really like remember I played basketball too that I did every day religiously and then when rap started becoming a thing that I actually really liked then I was just like oh this is my passion that I'm actually better at actually so I went down that path right and then now because my curiosity and my passion for it I'm gonna be engulfed and everything it's not work it's like second nature you know so I don't know everything you're reading you asking questions no I'm diving into it I'm doing it um everything that you know the books teach you I think a lot of times I have you sitting back reading so much that you're not actually doing and to me doing is the best teacher you know so basically I don't know everything about selling mixtapes at the time but I see other people selling mixtapes in there right next to me I can talk to him all the time so I'm asking questions my curiosity but this thing I'm passionate about kind of you know got real-world experience from people that you know have done it so then I'm watching them do it and then I go right behind them and do the thing that they just did and it actually works right so they just pressed up some CDs and they drove took them and drove them all the way to Cleveland Ohio most people don't want to do that remember you're going there not even knowing if you're gonna sell a lot of them right you get there and you sell them for what seven dollars a piece right if you get there and sell you know a hundred CDs you make seven hundred dollars but you gotta pay for the gas you got to pay for all these things your friends alone with you they want money to it's not that much so we were knowing that in advance and saw the person go and they came back and they went made seven hundred so I'm thinking like man I want to drive I'm gonna do it but I don't want to make seven hundred how can I not make seven hundred so we came up with a plan and it was like all right when we get there we're gonna get a hotel wait we can't get a hotel because that's gonna take from our 709 we get the hotel we're gonna take the phone books as back in days they had two phone books and you'd open it had like the the store section and you would open it out and every store in the city's there and we just call them like hey we're in town we got this mixtape and they'd be like well who are you you're not really that you know no and we get all our friends to call the store and ask for our mixed so then now they're like oh yeah I want that mixtape people can call them asking for that so then we go to the store and we sell 100 CDs and now that's 700 more dollars that's $1400 now you know so it's like doing stuff like that weird growth hacking things you know we were finding a way to get you know people to appreciate what we have but when you can show it which we architected it sometimes you know then it started becoming because we had good music something that they started distributing the people and then people started hearing it and it's just started growing and growing and growing and we did all kind of things but all this came from me watching people like there are other people that did it like people always ask me what is my look up to role models are consumed from everybody like true chameleon like taking from everybody no I can't point to one specific person it was just like alright that part is good this part is bad and then I would try and then I would fail a lot of times but trial and error is gonna be your best teacher like people I can't think of any book I can't think of anything that taught me and now when people ask me is like I could tell you a lot but whatever and if you gotta just do it you got to do it when you get in then you're gonna see that didn't work and you got to quickly move to what what works startup companies work like this what I love they're in the business of like trying things they'll throw ten darts at a table I me had a you know a dartboard and you know two of them a stick and the rest of them fail but when they find it to that stick then they they start to lean in on those you know and I think life is like that you know I feel like the one thing about rap that it taught me is it taught me you know having your finger on the pulse of what's next you know there was this thing where when I was early everybody should talk about a rapper a little kid comes up to you like wow he's a rapper and they're excited about it then you kind of grow a little bit and you get to a phase where it's like he's a rapper you know and then you go to a phase where it's like he's a rapper you know I mean and it's like man when I started getting to the third phase it was like people didn't look at a rapper good and I started to not like that you know when I was young and I hadn't accomplished stuff I hadn't grown and you know made and traveled then people always used to look at me like I was a superhero and then you get to a place where it's kind of like ah I don't know maybe then you get to a place where it's like uh he's a rapper that's all he does he's just a basketball player he shuts and dribble and then you want to talk to people that you're greater than that you can do more so now when I'm explaining that to people that are still back in that first phase a lot of times they don't get it because they haven't seen that that whole trajectory you know right and I struggle with that a lot now you know kind of balance it when you say trying to balance it would mean are you still trying to keep a foot in each world now it seems like you're pretty hard in the investor phase yeah but I care though that's what we care about what every time I'm over here in this world I'm thinking about that little kid over there I'm them you know I'm not doing this to like forget this whole thing and to go over here like that's that's not what it's about like it's hard for me to remove myself in that you know there's other day I was a would a venture capitalist and we're walking down the street in Santa Monica he comes running up the street he's got like undershirt like a Hanes white undershirt and he's got tattoos dreads and I'm looking at him like oh my goodness is he's about to ask me like it's demo and he's like he's breathing he's like you hold man a man Congrats for buying Disney no I what so I'm invested in maker studios was got acquired by Disney confused about it but it was just like so I was like wow and the VC turned to me and he's just like laughs and he was like man you see that and any other time man like this kid woulda came up to you and hand you a demo and now the fact they're thinking about tech like you know you got responsibilities like that's awesome and like he was right there in a moment I was just like man I started thinking about that so I want I really want people to think about your arc I want them to think about how hard it would be for the average person to go from so in one area you're a celebrity for rapping but that that would work against you as you try to step into being VCS not like people are gonna stand up and clap be like yeah the rapper's here they're gonna look you like what are you doing at a tech conference yeah so you you have to overcome more than the average person but you do that and one of the the most interesting parts of your journey for me is when what you were just talking about you begin to realize okay I see things that they don't and I can advise them and coming in as an advisor first to get your feet in the door and there's that exchange of information you're starting to meet new people and you say the information relationships are the two magic things one thing I'm always trying to tell young people I mean [ __ ] I try to tell people of any age this the key is most people try to get whatever job they can get that gives them the most money mm-hmm whereas what they should be thinking about is what job gives me the most experience and the most relationships because money only spends once but knowledge monetizes forever correct so the fact that people are always trying to get like that short-term dollar at the expense of the the long-term leverage that you get from knowing something and knowing someone is crazy to me I'm living proof of that right now everything that we're talking about is how it was I was designed to be that way think about it people see my name Chamillionaire they instantly think of money my first song before the ride and dirty before riding dirty was a song called in love with my money me and Paul's big single right and everybody should think I was in love with my money but I wasn't really in love with my money it was really fighting for something bigger you know and one thing I don't really talk about this much but I used to go on the road and do all these interviews with radio stations and he said ask me what my name means what is committing I mean and I ice and whatnot want to explain all this deep stuff because I feel like you know I gotta go into this deep meaning of Rani's people they're not gonna care so I should be like I means rich in style I would always say something like that but what it really means is I used to be chameleon that was my name right and I used to draw comic books like I said I used to draw all these comic books and I said all these superheroes and I was like Batman a Superman and everybody had a big logo and you know they would come and save the you know damsel in distress and there was nothing that represented me so I drew like black superhero and the lizard logo that I have was the logo for the superhero and his name was chameleon but then me and Paul wall used to be in a group and he was really good at relationships I used to see that guy he used to have the gold teeth and he's a smile all the time and everybody still of Paul and would come to the city and I was just like man I'm not built like that I don't have that I was just like anti-social so but one thing I had was I had the information you know so me and him together forced because he had the relationships are the information and that part's you know it's time we started growing apart and then I used to be nervous about him like the minute he's gone like I lose the relationships you so I started working to try to make myself better with the relationships but I understood the value of like having informational relationships cuz success came from that you know so I'm a freestyle I mean we're at a store one time and somebody said hey Paul what's up and he would always turn around the fans like high-five them and I like act like you knew him even though he didn't know him and I'd be like man this dude's good a relationship they don't even know you they used to be awkward to me people use my real names like kings it'll be like how I came and they would you say that would turn and it'll be somebody I don't know and I'm looking at him they're walking up to me they're friends and I'm just like man what is this you're not even trying to build a relationship you're just faking and I used to hate that so on a freestyle I was like my real name is Hakeem but don't call me that you here I'm changing my name from committing to the Chamillionaire and that's when I changed my name to Chamillionaire right so nobody really knew why but it was chameleon it was my name I just added a IR e that's about information and relationships people see the money part right it was never about that I knew that I'm gonna be successful as long as I get that and when I tell mewhat late get the heck out he was thinking like that before remember I used to draw comic books and every time you draw a superhero they had to have a meaning they had to have a reason for being I used to think about that angsty like man what is this about and I created this superhero and I put that logo on the bus everywhere I was going that lizard logo it's on my album cover everywhere I was like I'm creating a superhero and that was the whole thought but it's just like all this special power is knowing how to blend in and get in anywhere and knowing how to consume all the information in the room and use it knowing how to build the relationships and get into another room that's what I've been doing this whole time and that's the whole meaning of it so I feel like the story you're talking about about how we have to give it at to younger people absolutely absolutely when I say it it just sounds crazy information and relationships oh my how am I gonna get relationships when I'm sitting courtside at the games everybody there they have way more information or way more relationships that's why they're there of course a lot of people have had all kind of advantages and stuff like that but that's the thing that separates us if you can find a way to get all of that then you can be just as equal even greater and I'm trying to give that to people but sometimes it's a long path you know now on that one certainly leading by example is pretty extraordinary I know you've started several companies what's your plan there what what kind of enterprise do you want to create to show people just how possible it is it goes back to that thing is just doing you know like I don't know if I'm gonna be successful you know but I'll always believe that the risk is worth it you know there's some people that go through the motions and you know they you know go and figure out what career they're gonna you know have they go to college they go get the job that they want career and they go through those motions 9 to 5 I just feel like you know we only have so much breath on this earth and so much time and I'm trying to use as much of it as possible in the most efficient way as possible and I feel like entrepreneurship is the way to do that you know you get it straight to the failure quickly tell me about that efficiency how do you get efficient how do you what are what's the criteria by which you will engage with something I started analyzing it I started being like like there are a lot of people that are textures and they text all the time I don't text like that and people complain all the time too late man camera you texting me takes like he takes you back like two hours later or a day later or whatever and it's because I treat email like people treat text and the reason why is because when people email me they get straight to it they got to tell me everything in the emails like yes or no right but when it's text it's like yo what's up bro what's up back and forth and you're just doing that it's like you know and a pool is like so immediate it can pull you away from something doing right then you know it's like so I started like analyzing and stuff like you know what what's gonna make me be more efficient because what I'm after is so important to me it's not about you it's not about making you feel bad it's just about what I feel is best for me and I started changing my life I started eating better I was just to try to make myself better you know when I wake up in the morning I'm trying to be as efficient as possible and trying to if I can accomplish in a week what somebody can accomplish in a month I feel good so how do you do that what sure do right some routine write stuff down I make a list of things I want to do and I check it off I feel bad at the end of the day if I don't have stuff done you know and I feel like I surround myself with people that are all focused on that and because now I've got that kind of circle what we're all trying to get it then it's like stuff doesn't really make it in I don't say I'm not saying I don't do the extracurricular stuff I do do that stuff but some of the little small things like picking up my phone and like scrolling Twitter like in the morning like I just I don't I don't I avoid stuff like that I still do it but I find the right time like after today and then today I think that's super impressive man you have a really really smart and same way of looking at the world and there's one thing that you talk about that I think really sums up a key insight that you have that I think has driven you through the different phases of your career tell people why you like the letter C ah man man so yeah I had to this presentation where I was like just talking about how C is you know it's just a powerful letter because you know the C itself right it's starts right here and it curves and then it stops before it makes a complete circle and complete and circle both start with C all right but it's a reminder that there's always a little bit more to go right so I just looked at it and again this goes back to my comic book days why she's just draw letters and try to figure out what was what and I just look at the sea and the sea just curved and they just stopped I was like man it's something special but that little bit of space right there right I deliberately was like I'm gonna name myself something with a C alright and then I started thinking about all the things that I like you know from confidence to you know culture to you know creativity to all the words that start with C and I was just like man this word C is like a powerful word and I'm gonna you know make everything I do a lot of things attached to this word so combos is one of the name of my social video app that I launched and I feel like you know the C it reminds me of like what's what what we got to do you know I love that where can people find out more about you find you online about combos or any of your other products you can download combos it's a social video app for connecting people through face-to-face conversations it's available for iOS and Android and you know this is my venture into being an entrepreneur and tech you know we got a lot of great influencers but a community of people that are positive and focus on communicating which is another way that starts with C right I'm in a productive way you know like think about social media and how toxic it is and how much abuse and trolling and we're trying to like not eradicate it cuz that's gonna be impossible but just reduce it and reduce the power of people that use social media for negativity you know I'm not saying everybody has to agree but we're at a time where now people disagree more than ever about all kind of things right and I feel like there's got to be some kind of way to discourse with people in a way that's productive you know so we're trying to create a platform that encourages that type of stuff it's not like you know I open my Twitter feed and some kids like fu Kobe Bryant lover and then everybody's retweeting that person and I'm giving that person power this is a little bit opposite you know you got to put your face on it you got to show yourself and anonymity kind of goes away so that kind of stops people from doing some of the things that they do on social you know and it's like so far I'm loving this this journey and you know talking to developers and figuring out their needs and you know this is really just about communicating and understanding you know because I feel like if you want to have success at scale you're never gonna do it by yourself on the path or whatever you want to do there's people it can be employees and be camera man it could be whoever you got to find a way to communicate with people and incentivize them to one do something that they're passionate about and hopefully it aligns with you and then to stay on a journey with you and a lot of these things that I did in music industry when I was doing with fans it's the same things as applicable to tech now I'm talking to product managers designers and I have to tell them like hey this is what I'm trying to do if that aligns with you let's talk and if not then you probably should go this way and I'll go this way you know and we have to find people that have a common interest and then focus on building something great you know maybe we'll win maybe we won't you know but I'm crazy enough to think that I can and and I regardless I believe something like this needs to exist we're going into a world where I don't believe that anonymity and you know all these private places of like being somebody that's toxic and a bot that that's you know taking a conversation somewhere I think there's some smart people that are gonna figure out how to solve all this stuff you know and I feel like you know I'd rather be on that journey and if you know I can be in the founder seat trying to drive something like that that's wonderful because if I'm able to be successful then a lot of people of diverse backgrounds and having success in their lives and then it impacts the community a lineage of people that never had capital before it never had ownership before right it means I'm different but then also on the investing side bringing people in and giving them that same opportunity I feel like at the end of the day this is about creating seeds that grow into a tree you know and if I can start planning a bunch of those seeds now right now it's 50 investments but I'm gonna plant so many seeds that eventually grow into the tree those trees will feel a lot of people and that's impact at scale and that's why I like your you know everything we're doing here because I'm that's with the focus of you know everything you do is about and you know normally generally stray away from interviews because it's like you know same questions about you know I don't know stuff that they believe people want to know but it's like gossip stuff and I'm just like nah man I'm here on this moment to where like if I'm not here I got thing about everything I'm saying what I want people to take this information with them you know and I'm like yeah that that's all I spend my time on you know and to really because I think you just basically answered it but if tasks getting one very pointed way what's the impact that you want to have on the world I tell people that you know for a while I was like thinking about what my what my why is like why why am i doing everything why am I here why am i doing all this but I say this like I focus on me me right and what that means is like first figuring out what I care about and what I think my value to the world is was I think everybody should be on a journey to figure out and then doing that to the best of your abilities but to me me M and E stands for motivation and education those are the two things that I do everything that I do right now is about that this interview is all that everything I say yes to motivation education it was outside of that I don't do it and I'm trying to drop as much of that as possible on this planet because when you're gone that's all people have left right and they use those things that riding dirty that can that be it I think there's more I think there's a lot that I can just give out everything that you've learned your experience things you've been through and you drop that off of people you know for your family for their families family for you know other people that might have been inspired by you and then people later who don't even know your existing but somehow stumble upon it at some point Nipsey also had that you know where he passed and there's a lot of people didn't appreciate him while he's here and then they realized the impact of what he was doing while he was here you know and I feel like I see moments like that and it kind of lets me know like yeah you know I'm on the right path like I see there a lot of people that are after this you know and you don't understand why you know there's a lot of you know wolf in sheep's clothing sometimes where the person is like you can't really be out here trying to motor with you're not really trying to help people a lot of people out there but I always say I challenge you find the wolf go back and look at all the things I did and see what where the wolf was like.he and came out yet you know so my whole what I want to be remembered for is really just that you know that's that's all I'm trying to do here you know it's not about money or trying to be a billionaire I one time did his article and they changed the title like Chamillionaire wants to be like a billionaire to try to be catchy and I was just like man I was so upset I didn't want to share the article they're like what like there's a lot of great gems and I was like man but the headline is like I want to be a billionaire like I don't want to put that energy in the air it's not about money I want to make it very clear the money will come if you focus on passion you focus on information and relationship and I'm gonna stand on the top of the mountain and seeing that all day and hopefully it helps a real impact on people's lives and I'm gonna feel good about that I'm not gonna feel good if I go to the grave as being the only person with the information and the money and I just had all this money imma feel good if I'm able to impact a lot of people and that don't have access to this information and a good life or quality of life and they have one that's awesome that makes me feel real good it's wicked man well guys you've seen him he's been around for a very long time he's somebody that actually knows how to transition to move from one thing to another follow the passion learn get educated relationships and information can't say any better than that and speaking of relationships and information if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be legendary take care millionaire my man [ __ ] a dude that was one what's up impact abyss as you guys know my mission in life is to provide the no BS instruction manual for success and to that end we've launched our brand-new learning platform impact theory University our goal with ITU is to provide you with curriculum that will help you take your career business or personal development to the next level so regardless of your end goal ITU is designed to provide you with the universal principles and tactics of success that will propel you forward so whether you want to build a fortune 500 company advance quickly up the ranks at your company become a more effective parent or partner or simply get unstuck there are core principles that apply and that's where impact theory university comes in but to be clear ITU is not another podcast or conversate with an influencer you can get all of that for free right here on our YouTube page instead it is structured education delivered in a compelling format and paired 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