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Foreign.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money Mondays podcast where we cover three core topics. How to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity. Normally I do these podcasts inside of an RV motorhome, traveling around the country, but I'm in New York City. We got the toy, we should still do it. We can do a second episode. We got the toy drives coming up at the American Dream Mall, Miami Heat Arena. We're doing one in Virginia with Allen Iverson. There's so much going on, so I decided why don't I stop by where the guys from Earn your Leisure, Eyl University, Invest Fest going to go by and visit them and knock out back to back podcasts with some of the co founders. So as you guys know, when we do these podcasts they're under 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes. The average commute to work is 45 minutes. This episode will be between 35 and 38 minutes. For your listening pleasure, we have a 93% listen through rate which helps us with the podcast chart rankings and you guys help us with the podcast chart rankings by liking commenting, subscribing, et cetera. When you listen to these episodes, it's not just for you. It could be someone in your friends, family and followers or it could be for someone from your past, present or future. When you hear these things, don't just learn for yourself. There might be other people that are useful to forward this podcast episode too, especially this one. This gentleman that we have today has been deeply immersed into the space of teaching finance, stock market, live events and all those things that are important to me. And he's done it at a grand scale. So Troy Millings, if you can give us the quick 2 minute bio so we get straight to the money.
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I am Troy Millings, co founder of Earn your Leisure, co founder of Invest Fest Eyl University. Anything that encompasses the world of earn your leisure, I've had my fingerprint on it. Started my, my career in education was a teacher in the Bronx. And I tell you, if, if you ever been a teacher in an inner city, you learn a lot of things about yourself, but you learn a lot of things about the world too. And so one of those things I learned was what wasn't being taught to our youth. And at the top of that was financial education. Had an opportunity to teach kids throughout the summer what it meant to have money. Gave core principles of sharing, saving, spending and investing. And kids loved it so much. You know, it was like one of these Things I taught for 10 months in the school district. And in the six weeks that I had kids, it felt so much more fulfilling. And I was like, I gotta turn this into something. So that program I tried to scale, I put it in a few schools and I was like, this is what's needed. At the same time, you know, my partner Rashad was creating his own imprint on social media, but he was my financial advisor. He was my best friend throughout high school, obviously, as you know, when he went to college, but he was a financial advisor. And I was like, perfect, this is great. You can come in and co teach with me, right? Like, you know more about finance than I do. I know more about the educational setting. We can team up and do this thing in a classroom setting. And we did that. And we did that for like 10 summers before any anybody ever heard of us. And it was. It went really good. And like, halfway through that, he had this idea, like, yo, we should record these classroom sessions. And so he would have. Who's our CEO now? Abdullah. He had him record. He would sit there and just record the classrooms, and he would post it on social media. And I'm busy, like, teaching, trying to figure out how to scale this thing. And people like, wait, where's that program? Where is that? How do we get that? I want my kids in that? And he was like, yeah, we got something. And that led to, you know, him doing shows. And then one day he said, look, we should start a podcast. And I was like, okay. And not because I was like, I'm 100% sure that this is going to work, but more so of. I'm a firm believer in our brotherhood and our friendship, and he believes in something. And it's an idea that he, like, truly wants to follow through with. Let's go do it. We've done it before. We've had businesses that didn't work, but that never changed our friendship. And so I was like, all right, let's do it. Never came from an audio background, didn't do any studying of journalism, just had a passion for music, had a passion for sports, and had a passion for the money behind those career paths. And it was like the conversations that we usually have, once we started talking, we were like, wait, people aren't having these conversations. And so we knew we had something early on. And now we have what the world sees as earn your leisure, this huge brand. But it was just an idea that started in the basement of a house with an iPhone and an idea and some guys coming together saying, let's Change the world.
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So we grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money and the whole concept. For me, with the money Mondays, and I'm sure with your messaging and Market Mondays and the way you teach with kids, we know that it's important to talk about money in households, in communities, etc. How can we change the narrative? What can we do or what can people that are listening do to, to start having these conversations so people don't think it's rude to talk about money?
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It's a process that I'm learning. You know, I come from a West Indian background, and the only thing that we talked about was money was like, save it, save it. Or in fact, I would ask my mom to borrow money and she was like, if you was money, I would spend you. It was like this running joke we had. And I was like, that's all we're going to talk about when it came to money. And so what I've been doing is I've been leading by example in that space because, like, I am the, the generation of curse breaker, right? And so I've been super intentional about making sure that my kids understand what money is and how it works. Right? So the same things I used to teach to students, I now teach to my, my two children, right? You can do a couple things with it, right? You can spend it. We know how to do that. I don't have to teach them that. Right, right. That is natural, right? They, because they've seen it, they've been around that you can share it, which is something that we've learned. And they were part of church, right? We, I used to take them to church or the times I haven't made it to, to my church as much as we've been traveling. But they saw that, right? We, we were given tithes every Sunday, right? Then the next piece was like, okay, you can invest it, which nobody talks about, right? And I was like, oh, there's something here. And so leading by example and showing them that, I was like, okay, well, I want them to see money. And so I would have money around the house, right? Like, I, I, when we give back in during the Christmas time or when we were giving back to our kids throughout our program, I would put the money on the table and I have my kids counted. I'm like, each envelop getting 200. They're like, dad, there's 30 kids. I'm like, yeah, don't worry about that. Each kids, make sure you put 200 in every envelope. And so now the thousands like Couple thousand dollars is there? It's not big money to them anymore, Right. They've seen it, right? I used to say, all right, I'm gonna put $10,000 in the house for a case of emergencies. Hey, go give that to Grandma so she can put it under the bed. Dad, that's 10,000. I know. I want you to give it to Grandma just in case we need it, right? We've never needed. But they've seen that money when we're having to pay the mortgage. I'm sitting there. He's watching me. My son's watching me very intently. He's watching me write a check. Hey, dad, that's what you're paying every month. Yeah. You live here, right? We got to do this, right? And so now what he's into now is he's watching me invest in the stock market, right? Like, he owns shares of Nvidia. He loves to tell his friends he owns shares of Nvidia. Yeah, yeah.
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I love it for him, too.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he. So he has a thousand shares of Nvidia. His sister has a thousand shares. As part of a pro. Like, I had an option call that I actually exercised and gave them a thousand shares, and they loved talking about it. But when he realized how much it was worth, I watched his reaction. And because we had done all those things about showing him money, right? Like, if you look at Nvidia shares, it's like $181. He's like, wait, I have a thousand shares.
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Wait a minute. Carry the one.
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I'm good at math.
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Wait, there's a comma.
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But it didn't excite him the same way, and it didn't feel foreign to him. And I'm like, that couldn't have been me at 11.
B
Sure.
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That couldn't have been me at 18. The fact that it's a normalcy to him tells me that his ambitions are going to be bigger because of things that we've introduced. People always like, well, how'd you introduce him to the market? I'm like, well, I met him where he was at at the time. He's five, six, seven years old. My daughter is 11 years old. What are they playing over there? Right? Robux? Yep. Oh, perfect. What are they watching? Disney Pl. Okay, perfect. That's a publicly traded company. Roblox is about to ipo. Hey, we can do that. Wait, listen, here's a. Here's a lesson here. You know that game that you're playing that you're asking $4.99 from every three days and $9.99 every month. We could actually own shares in that. What's that? Oh, you can own a piece of the company. So we'll be meeting them with that. The funniest story is that as of teaching them financial education. I'm driving to school one day and it's like, maybe the end of March, and I'm driving and like this ad comes on from like the irs, like it's tax season, right? And he's like, dad, I want to be the irs. I'm like, what? Turn on the. What are you talking about? He's like, I want to be the irs. I'm like, why do you want to be the irs? He's like, because they take everybody's money every year. I'm like, oh, yes, okay, well, we can't be them, but I understand why you will want to be them. But this is now a lesson on how taxes work. So it's about meeting them where they're at, leading by example, not hiding it from them, not making it taboo for them, right? Like, I feel like our parents and our, you know, adults that were older than us, especially in our community, it was taboo to talk about money because they weren't educated about money, right? They almost like, you don't want to talk about it because you don't know. And when you don't know, you don't feel confident talking about it. And so they weren't confident. And that was a lesson learned in itself, right? Like, I know we can't do that because we know the repercussions of it.
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So on the make money side, why do you think people are held back? They get to a certain point, they make 60 grand, 70 grand, 80 grand a year, and they become complacent. What do you think holds them back from either side? Hustles, investing in the real estate, stock market. What holds people back from doing that? Next step?
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Fear. Straight up fear. And I've watched it cripple people in my family. I watch it cripple people in, in my community. But fear is only conquered by education. It goes all. It always goes back to that. You know, there's this, this idea of what if it doesn't work, right? But I always like to live like fearless, right? Like, what if it does work, right? Like we're. We're closer to zero than we think. You know what I mean? Like, the person that I remember making $32,000 a year. I remember making $65,000 a year, right? I remember having a seven figure year, right? That's 65,000 a year. I'm closer to zero than I am at this level, right? And so the idea that we're capped because of our irrational feelings about situations cripples us and that we don't take chances, then we don't get educated about it. And I remember this is a true story. We had just started earning leisure, and at the time, I had just got my, my teaching salary up to $115,000 a year, right? And I know most people are like, oh my gosh, that's a lot of money, right? But I'm like, New York salaries are different, obviously. And I'm like, yo, this is a goal. And, and Rashad was like, look, you got an opportunity here to do something bigger. He was like, don't, don't let making a hundred thousand dollars a year stop you from making $100,000 a month. Like, there's opportunity here. There's no ceiling on what you can do as an entrepreneur. And I was like, yeah, he's got something. Yeah, I think he's right about that. Right? Like there's, there's, there's something here that is can't be replicated because we're doing it, we're originating it, but there's also no ceiling on what we can create. So at that point it was like, there is no boundary on this, right? Like, why fear this? Like, this could work.
B
So on the brand side of investing, as you're building EY University, as people can buy coaching and learning and training, etcetera, you throw live events. You know, something like Invest Fest can cost hundreds of thousands, can also cost millions of dollars to produce. As you guys keep scaling it, why not take the easy route? Just keep doing what's, what I call one to many online versus we're going to have 4,000 people, 10,000 people, 25,000 people show up to the city of Atlanta and spend millions of dollars to produce these live large format events.
A
Yeah, it's bigger than us. I always, you know, have that as my mindset. This is Invest Fest is even about us, right? Like, obviously, you know, when it was branded, it was, it wasn't hey, earn your leisure presents, it was Invest Fest. And it was very intentional about that. And there's no faces to that logo because again, it's not us. It's about what we wanted to create for a community that didn't have this, right? Like, we knew the things that we catered toward, we knew the things that we liked, right? We're from the community, we're from the culture. We know we love entertainment, we know we love music, we know we love sports. But we know we love business, too, right? And so how do we combine all those things? How do we make this edutainment? And it hadn't been done, right? When we looked at the landscape, we saw people do events and we saw. Saw conferences, and it was like, okay, those things are cool, and that piece of the event is nice. But if we added this piece and we got food trucks here and made it a real festival, it hadn't been done. And so, yeah, it started out with 4,000 people. I mean, like, look, how do we get better, right? How do we improve? Never resting, going like, all right, that was a success. Let's just replicate what we did. How do we get better? Because if we get better, then we can impact more people, right? It always goes back to those people. So then it's 12,000 people then. Then it's 20,000. It's 25,000 people, which means now there's more business that's going to happen because more vendors get to come there. More people get to showcase their business. More attendees get to go there. What happens when more attendees come? That means they're just more cross networking. People are finding business deals, they're finding partners, they're finding capital, angel investors, right? They're finding more ideas. All those things are happening because you created something for them to come to. I talk about this speaker this year, Marcus Rozier, and he had this profound thing. He's like, sometimes in life, you have to become who you're going to be so somebody else can become what they're going to be.
B
Wow.
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And he said, you know, he goes into the story of how, you know, he never thought he'd be standing in front of 13,000, 15,000 people giving speeches to help them with their lives. He never thought he'd actually create a career out of that, but he needed earn your leisure to create Invest Fest so he could be on the stage doing exactly that. And I was like, wow, that's it. Like, that's it. We had to create something so that thousands, if not millions of people over the course of the past seven years can become who they're going to be. Whether it was from the information that they heard, whether it's from a person that they met, whether it was from a business opportunity that got presented to them. Just happenstance, encounter with. All those things have happened because of an event that was created.
B
Why should people invest into themselves? Why buy the ticket, get on the airplane, pay for the Hotel, fly to Atlanta to invest fest or other events in their cities if they want to learn about real estate, stocks, et cetera. Why spend the money, time and energy to go to live events?
A
Yeah, you know, there's this idea of being in the right place at the right time. Like, oh, I have to go to that one event. And I like to believe it's like being at the right place all the time, right? And so social media is great and those platforms are great, but there's nothing like the real life, in person encounter, right? Nothing can get lost in translation if we're meeting each other. And so it's important to be in those rooms because again, you don't know who you're going to meet. You don't know who's seeing you for the first time. You don't know what idea can be sparked. You don't know what piece of information that you can now apply to your real life or execute on the next day that can change things for you. And I, I mean, it's kind of like what you've been saying. It's like if you change one person, that change is a household, which then in turn changes a community, which changes pretty much an entire environment. And so if that one person decides, I'm going to take that step, right, that first step, that jump off the porch moment, I'm going to go there. And they come back with something, right? We'll never know what the thing was, maybe, right? Who knows what these companies or these people will create. But the idea that they did was forced to because they actually said, all right, I'm going, here's what I'm coming back with.
B
So oftentimes people want to invest into things, but they just don't know what to invest into. You got the real estate, stock market, cash flowing, businesses angel investing, their friends, new thing that they get pitched on, they are bombarded with pitches, they're bombarded what they see on social media. Should I gamble? Should I? They don't know what to do because there's so many options. How can someone learn or try to decide what they should be investing their discretionary capital into?
A
I mean, it's just because there's so many distractions, right? And there's so many people telling you that this is the way, right? I would say, like, specifically for me, it was like, where do I find the greatest interest, right? Like, and who can I get around that can help me and mentor me or I can listen to to get me through that process? So you're talking to a guy that doesn't come from finance, right? Like you talking to a guy who never worked on Wall street or never worked for a financial institution, but decided that, hey, I see real growth in the stock market, right? And I'm going to become obsessive about it. I have this thing like I, I don't want to be good at something, I want to be great at it. And so like that became the thing, right? Like I'm going to study this, right? I want to become one of the best people that has ever done this. Like, I wanted to be like the person that people can now go to just as the educator in me. Like, if I learn it, I know I can teach it. And like every day I'm trying to learn so I can teach. And so it was that for me in terms of the stock market. But it could have been real estate as well, right? If that was the thing. I've had experiences with real estate that weren't great and it's been documented. If that was a thing, it would have been the same passion, right? Who can I get around? What event can I go to? Who's the person that can mentor me or the, the group of people that can help me and guide through this process that I can now pour myself into and really dedicate to. Like, this is the way. And so it's not either or thing, it's which one do I feel can present the rest growth for me one, but who could present a legacy building situation for my family as well.
B
So you're at Invest Fest, you're walking through the hallway, someone pitches you, they want you to invest into their company. What are the things that make it an automatic no for you when they.
A
Pitch you the automatic no? I think the first thing is when they tell me I need to, I feel like the I need to idea is like one of those turn offs, right? Like, I think, you know, especially when we have relationships with other people and how we've, you know, created our brand, it's always like, how can we help, right? How can we help? How can this idea help? A lot of times people were like, hey, you're in this position, they perceive that you have this capital. I need you to do this, I need you to do that. And if you do this, this is why this will grow. And if we have you on board, this is why I could help. And it's like it becomes like that selfish mindset, right? Like, why do I need to do this? And so leading with the value add of how it can help help a business that we're doing or an idea that we're trying to get off the ground. I think those are the ideas that stick around a little longer and those pass through the door. Right. There's obviously levels to get to that, that, that first phone call or that meeting to discuss further. But the value adds into something that we have going on. How they can add value is always the first barrier. Like, okay, this is something that can actually help us. Now we can have further conversations about things that they're interested in as well.
B
So as you personally start to earn more capital, you get more and more options.
A
Yeah.
B
How do you decide when you know? I'm good at the stock market. I think I know I understand real estate or I'm around good real estate guys. I could invest in my friend's seventh salon or seventh gym or seventh barbershop or seventh restaurant. Like how are you deciding now with all these options?
A
I look at the growth potential and so inside of the market, what are the things that I'm invested in? What do I really know? And so tech is one of those sectors that I'm just like hugely enamored with. Like I'm always reading, trying to figure out the next thing, trying to see where the future is headed in tech. And so when opportunities are presented for them, I'm like, what's the tech component first and foremost, right? And in this space, you know, like, hey, if people are looking at valuations like yo, that business is good, next thing they're looking for is, is there.
B
Some AI in it?
A
Right? Like what, what's the tech component, right? How, how are we going to do this? Because they know that, you know, tech helps scale business and it makes business a lot more efficient. And so if you, you have that, okay, this is something we can talk about whether it is, you know, from an E commerce platform or I know we, we've looked at E vehicles, right? Like those type of things. Like, oh, I see a need there. I see like the future is heading that way. So definitely a tech component. Something that's future facing and then good leadership too. A lot of times when we, we get the decks from companies, we can see it. Then when we talk to the, you know, the CEO or the founder of the company, it tells us a lot, right? Like how confident are they in this? How long have they been in the space? Have they had some bumps along the road? Have they had failures before? Have they been part of companies before? Have they founded things before? You know, you get to know the person who's actually coming up with the idea to see their history. You combine it with all the other information. It's like, all right, this sounds like a sound idea. How can we be involved?
B
Someone's at one of your events, or they're on one of the big social communities, and they meet someone that wants to partner with them, and they don't know how to structure the deal. They're trying to figure out what to do. How do I do this? I've never navigated this before. What would you say? Should they start reading certain books so they start. Go to EY University? Like, what should they do to learn before they make a partnership deal?
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Before they do a partnership, I would first get counsel. Right. I think that's the most important thing. And a lot of times we just kind of overlook. I know. You know, you know, we've seen it's just a handshake deal. And then you get years down the road and you're like, well, that handshake never turned into paperwork, which could be an ugly situation. So I would first seek counsel from an attorney. Whatever. Whatever field that. That you're in. I would see guidance from people who've been in that field who've actually structured deals before. Because the. The worse you thing you can do is be naive to say, like, I know it. I think the people who go down that route usually will end up having some really harsh ramifications if not so. But it's not easy, right? There's no. There's no school for it. So, you know, in Eylu, our thing is like, how can we look at areas that don't have an education and now find experts who can provide it? And so that's always our goal, right? And if there's. There's a leak, it's like, all right, okay, grants, right? Like, we were talking about grants during our episode, and I'm like, that's crazy. We just did a whole episode on how grant writing and grant funding is an area that we don't look at, but we should. So there's these. I won't even call them pain points, but they're interest points of, like, where we can now meet, but it's. It partnering with anybody. I think there's. There's certain things that you should be looking for, right? Like, I always talked about people's energy, right? Like, is that. Is there an energy shift there? Like, when you guys are talking, do they speak with confidence? Right? Do they have integrity in their thought process? Those are things that before there's any paperwork, we need to check off on the box to see if this is going to be a partnership that's worthwhile.
B
So I'll give you guys a fun theoretical story for you guys to argue about in your households or in your office. It's based on what if you just said is a partnership deal that's just off of a handshake. So let's say that Troy and I start Troy Dan Lemonade Stand. Okay, Troy Dan Lemonade Stand. We open one here in New York City and we crush it. We start doing $900 a day at Troy Dan Lemonade Stand here in New York City. We open up one in New Jersey. Second location. Troy Dan lemonade stand crushing 600 bucks a day. Third location. We're out there in Virginia. Open up location. This one is $1,300 a day in gross revenue. 7 million lemonades. But Troy gets an offer from Netflix to become the president of the entire company. $40 million a year, huge salary deal. He goes off and says, hey, I gotta do it. And he goes and becomes the president of Netflix. I go Open location number 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 19, 26 locations later, two years later, there's 26 locations of Troy Dane Lemonade stands all over the country and two of them in London. Does Troy still own 50% of the other 23 locations after he went to become the president of Netflix? All we had was a handshake.
A
Do we? Technically, I was saying yes, because I'm Troy and I would love to have the other stands, but there's no written agreement to say otherwise. Right? Like if named after you, it's named after. My name is on it. It's been licensed in my name. The idea is something that we created together.
B
I put up the money for the other 23 locations. What happens? You weren't even there. Troy, what happens?
A
Our hands still attached to our body.
B
It's a fun theoretical thing that we could argue either side, right? I could for sure argue Troy's side. It's named after him and he was there for the first locations. Could for sure argue my side because I just spent all my own money, time and energy for the other 23 locations. You weren't even there. You don't even know the addresses of the other locations. Why do you own 50% of them? We could argue both sides. All of that could be fixed by a memorandum of understanding, A scope of work, a contract. A very simple one page agreement would make it very simple for Troy and I to know, does he own 50% of the other 22 locations? If it's Just a handshake. It's going to be up to the lawyers and battling for the next two or three years. You've got to sign contracts even with your mom. I say that in a funny sense. Signing contracts even with your mom means you're never going to sue your mom. But the concept is you and your mom might have different agreements or different concepts of what we promised, what we thought, what Troy and I thought before he went and become the president of Netflix. What did we think was going to happen? You can fix that by simply signing contracts in your space as you're teaching. First you were teaching children, now you're teaching adults all over the world. What is the common theme that starts when they first start to realize and they start to open up their eyes of what's actually possible?
A
I think it's the first idea that comes across their mind is disbelief. They can't believe it's happened. It's like, this is unreal. I think the next thing, and I feel like it's the natural thing, is I wish I would have known sooner. And whether that comes with knowledge or whether it comes to money, it's always that I wish I would have known sooner because I would have made better decisions. Which is part of the reason where it was like, okay, we keep seeing that theme over and over. How do you combat that? Well, if we think about it, where do kids, little people start to learn?
B
School. Yep.
A
Which is like, why we were like, super, super intentional, like, all right, we've gotten to this level. Now we got to go back to the beginning. Because every adult says the same thing. Man, I wish I would have learned about that in school. Right. I wish I would have learned about money in school. Nobody ever taught us about money in school or taxes or real estate or. Or the stock nobody took. But what if somebody did? And so that was the. Okay, well, we have to go back and create curriculum to now put in schools. And so we've been like, hyper focused on that as well. It's like, okay, if it was missing that, great. That it was missing. But that leaves somebody to now create. And so the idea was like, great curriculum. First start in New York City, the largest school district in the country, get it here, then get it to other school districts throughout the country.
B
Getting ey in there.
A
Ey. Yeah. Earn as you learn the curriculum. So it's a financial literacy curriculum, but make it something that's mandated. Right. Like, we went to school and homec was we had to have a half a credit of that and we had to have a half a credit of art, and we had to have a half a credit of technology. But nobody ever put financial education as a requirement. Imagine if kids were required to have financial education, what they would do throughout their high school career, but what they would do as college students. Right. How many entrepreneurs would have been created that? How many more people, in terms of young adulthood, would choose professions that they have? And how many would, you know, open up 401ks or 403bs? How much more financially in depth would we be if we had it early? And so that thought of, I can't believe it, number one man, I wish I would have knew before, what am I going to do now as the last piece? And that's the execution, right? So we're big on information, information, education, information. But that can be overwhelming and it can be overload and it can feel like, oh, I'm getting so much, I don't know what to do with any of it. Our thing is like, the information is always going to be on us. The execution has to be on you. Like, I can't push the button to open your bank account. I don't know the password, I don't know what you're starting with. But the information that's being provided can change what's in there now. And people have to see it that way.
B
So we talked about making money, we talked about investing money. Let's go to the charity side. Why do you think it's important for brands or corporations to some have some type of charity component for their customers, clients, staff, investors, partners, etc. To see them doing or working on some type of charity?
A
Yeah, it was always one of our core principles. And when we started with young adults, that sharing pieces, you know, it's always the last category that we talked about because most people don't realize that it's something that should be pivotal. And we've done it in plenty of ways. When, you know, when we didn't have uil, it was, okay, how can we help communities? And I remember taking kids and we would go feed the homeless. And the first summer that we did that, I never forget, I had kids get back on the bus after doing it. And they said, I want to do that every week. And something that clicked inside them, they were like, I want to do that every week. How come we can't do that every week? Like, that felt good. And I was like, oh, this is it. Like, this is it. They're learning the foundation of sharing and how good it feels to give back to people. So the homeless population. We sat down with them and the gentleman said, I'll forget to. We spoke about it the next day in class. They said, no one thinks they're going to be sitting in this seat, right? Like, no one thinks they're going to be here, but we're here, right? The fact that you guys have come out and decided, you know, provided a meal for us, provided your time, right? Most people just walk past, right? You provided your time. That means a lot. Those kids felt so fulfilled. I was like, here's the foundation of it as a business. It's the same thing. It's core principle. The more you give to the world, the more you get back from the world, right? And we never give with saying, like, what's going to be the repercussion on it or what's going to be the benefit? It's like, no pour out into the world because naturally that's what we should do, right? You don't know what's coming back, but you shouldn't care about what's coming back. Can you help people? Can you give impact? Can you encourage? That's always been a core principle. Businesses should do it, but individuals should do it.
B
So there's only one question I ask on every single episode and I've never gotten the same answer before and I'm not going to get the same answer today.
A
All right?
B
You build, earn your leisure and all the subsidiary companies to multi billion dollar business. But one day, unfortunately, Troy passes away. What percentage of your net worth do you leave to those two children?
A
The two children. What about the wife?
B
Just.
A
All right, what percentage of it? I would say this is tough. 50. 50 doesn't feel right to me because there's certain things that they have to learn on the journey of trying to create for their own and build their own. Let's say 30%. 30% for each kid. We'll have charity in there as well, and I want their families to live on beyond them. So we'll create something in terms of estate plan or trust that will keep the money staying in the family for generations. Because we. The cliche term is generational wealth, but I think it's sustainable wealth, right? Like, how do we keep this going for generations, generation to generation after that? Because if you track the history, it's like first generation, second, third. All right, something got fumbled. How do we put the guardrails up to make sure that it's sustainable? So that would be the plan for that.
B
Where can people find you on social? Where can they find all the companies, events etc.
A
They can find me at earn your leisure across all mediums. Instagram, YouTube, anywhere that you see earn your leisure. You know, we, we have our fingerprints on. And so I'm involved there on my personal page is Troy Millings. But yeah man, earn your leisure, man. That's the brand. That's what we going with. That's what got us here.
B
So make sure to check out. They also have the podcast called the Market Mondays. The they've got the live event called Invest Fest. There's a lot of things to dive in to the whole circle of what they've got. They've been building and I'm sure they'll be building more over the course of time. And as you guys know, this podcast is designed for you to share with your friends, family and followers. I'm not reading a bunch of ads. I'm designing this podcast for a 93% listen through rate so you can listen to it easily under 40 minutes and consume it and share it with your friends. It might not just be your friends currently, it might be someone a year from now that you think about. Wait a minute, what did Troy say? Let me forward him that podcast. Let me forward her that podcast so they can learn from that as well. I appreciate you guys. Make sure to check back with us every Monday here at the money Mondays.com.
“The Power of Financial Literacy: What Every Family Needs to Hear” with Troy Millings
Host: Dan Fleyshman
Guest: Troy Millings (Co-Founder, Earn Your Leisure, Invest Fest, EYL University)
Date: December 22, 2025
In this episode, Dan Fleyshman sits down with Troy Millings, co-founder of Earn Your Leisure, Invest Fest, and EYL University, to discuss the critical role of financial literacy—especially for families and the next generation. The conversation covers why financial discussions are taboo in many households, strategies for teaching kids about money, the impact of fear on wealth-building, the creation and growth of "edutainment" events like Invest Fest, tips for investing and deal-making, the power of charitable giving, and keys to generational wealth.
The episode is designed to inspire listeners to break money taboos, educate themselves and their communities, and take action—whether through learning, investing, or giving back.
“Don’t let making $100,000 a year stop you from making $100,000 a month.”
— Rashad Bilal (as quoted by Troy, [10:40])
“We had to create something so that thousands, if not millions of people... can become who they’re going to be.”
— Troy Millings ([13:55])
“Meeting them where they’re at, leading by example, not hiding it from them, not making it taboo.”
— Troy Millings ([07:25])
“The more you give to the world, the more you get back from the world... but you shouldn’t care about what’s coming back.”
— Troy Millings ([30:12])
“Our thing is like, the information is always going to be on us. The execution has to be on you.”
— Troy Millings ([28:47])
“It’s not just generational wealth—it’s sustainable wealth. How do we keep this going for generations?”
— Troy Millings ([31:42])
| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|------------------------------------------------| | 01:33 | Troy’s Origin Story & EYL Beginnings | | 04:17 | Challenging Money Taboos, Teaching Kids | | 09:27 | Overcoming Fear & Building Wealth | | 12:01 | Invest Fest & Community-building Philosophy | | 14:36 | Why Live Events Matter | | 16:05 | Picking What to Invest In | | 18:05 | Red Flags in Investment Pitches | | 19:47 | Troy’s Investment Philosophy | | 21:18 | Structuring Partnerships, Avoiding Handshakes | | 23:18 | Lemonade Stand Partnership Hypothetical | | 26:25 | First Steps in Transformative Education | | 29:06 | Charity & the Power of Giving | | 31:12 | Generational Wealth, Legacy & Succession | | 32:42 | Where to Follow & Get Involved |
This episode is a rich, relatable blueprint for making financial literacy a family and community priority—one open conversation, event, or act of giving at a time.