THE GROWTH ENGINE BEHIND EARN YOUR LEISURE: FROM 4000 TO 30000 || MICHAEL J MACDONALD || EPISODE 085

The Code To Winning

In this episode of 'The Code To Winning,' host speaks with Michael J. MacDonald, co-founder of Earn Your Leisure (EYL) and InvestFest, about the

Key takeaways

The concept of 'Earn Your Leisure' originated from branding efforts before the movement was officially launched.
InvestFest's success stems from founder accountability, with each co-founder responsible for key operational areas.

Main topics

Entrepreneurial mindset and overcoming fear of failure
Scaling a conference from 4,000 to 30,000 attendees

Notable quotes

'You should be speaking life into whatever you're producing... if your mindset says it's a little thing, it'll never be a big thing.'

'Winning is my relationship with God. The next thing is my health and my family's health.'

Conclusion

Michael J. MacDonald's journey with Earn Your Leisure and InvestFest exemplifies how visionary

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) 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 this? Well, Speaker 3 (0:08) Earn Your Leisure was birthed before Earn Your Leisure even was birthed. 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 Earn Your Leisure. Just something that no one else had that you can tie the con... Speaker 2 (0:56) Michael McDonald isn't just creating businesses. He's building platforms, empowering entrepreneurs, and creating a legacy. How is InvestFest profitable? Speaker 3 (1:03) The difference between InvestFest, there's four founders to InvestFest. 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. Speaker 1 (1:16) And obviously your first, you guys had 4,000 people, right? 4,000, yeah. And the last one was 30,000 people. That is mind-blowing. blowing. Walk us through what building that event actually looked like in year one compared to what it is right now. There Speaker 3 (1:30) 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, we were like, you sure you want to do this? And it was like $1.2 million we had to pay up front to put into it. Speaker 1 (1:53) 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, UMACPAC, 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. Speaker 3 (2:31) McDonald. Speaker 1 (2:32) How you doing, brother? Speaker 3 (2:33) I'm blessed. I'm blessed. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Speaker 1 (2:36) Thank you so much. Great honor. Thank you for the Speaker 3 (2:38) intro too. Appreciate it. Speaker 1 (2:40) Am I your MC now for something that's coming up next year by any chance? Am I your MC? At least a consideration? Because Speaker 3 (2:46) of that interview, maybe I might consider it. You got to start something. You got to start something, right? Speaker 1 (2:52) So... Speaker 1 (2:55) I've lived in Duluth before, like about seven years ago. I've been in Atlanta, obviously living in Salt Lake, born and raised in 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. Speaker 3 (3:15) You don't got to feel like it. It is the Mecca. It's definitely the Mecca. Speaker 1 (3:18) 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. And I'm so excited to be part of it, be a booth, just like witness it. I've never, I've always, always heard about it. People have been saying, do Speaker 2 (3:38) InvestFest, do InvestFest, do all this stuff. Speaker 1 (3:40) 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? Speaker 3 (3:51) Well, you know, I've been an entrepreneur probably since I was running around chasing carts, when you think about it. But, you know, I've always, I never liked a 9 to 5. I wasn't a job person. Speaker 1 (4:03) You Speaker 3 (4:04) 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. So you can you can work a lot harder than me and I can work a lot less than you. And we make the same thing. Speaker 2 (4:33) I Speaker 3 (4:33) just didn't like the fact that, you know, the more the more you put in, the more you get out. And it wasn't it wasn't designed like that. And then I found something called sales and sales was was kind of like my introduction to. Speaker 3 (4:47) The more you produce, the more money you make. So your income was based off of how much you put in, how much you produce. So I kind of like that. But because I started to understand sales, I took all my skill sets and applied the sales skill to 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, and that was the thing too. Like when you, when a lot of us black people, we, we like, yo, this is my little thing, my little side thing, my little, and, and you know, when you, when your mindset says it's a little side thing or this little thing I'm working on, you're automatically going to, um, you're, you're putting, you're covering it with the energy of it's a small thing. Speaker 1 (5:41) So Speaker 3 (5:41) 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 into it. And then I started to learn sales, and I was able to maximize those businesses that I was doing and, you know, grow those businesses to a place where I didn't even have to work. 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 20, 28 years old. I've been like a solo, like no job, no nothing since 28. Speaker 1 (6:17) I mean, going head on in the risk that it takes because it means you've fully invested in this entrepreneurship journey as well. Often people take the easier route where it's a safer option to try and get a job, build your way up 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're like, oh my gosh, it's an exciting thing. I can't wait to get the full time offer. I can't do this thing. Then you're stuck in that pattern and then you start seeing it. That's the best thing about an internship. You can actually experience if you want to do something or not. Speaker 3 (7:00) And Speaker 1 (7:00) you're like, Speaker 3 (7:01) it's a trial. I Speaker 1 (7:04) can't do this. I can't do this. I love the freedom. I love... The chase. I love the journey. You asked 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? Speaker 3 (7:17) 100%. I mean, freedom, that's what I'm chasing. And that's what most people should be chasing. 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. 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. Going out for a nice dinner whenever I want. Living in a safe environment. Providing all the essential things for my family without worrying about if I'm going to Speaker 2 (7:52) be Speaker 3 (7:52) able to cover the bills this month or next month or things like that. That's freedom. And the obvious thing is money is a tool, and you need a lot of that tool to be able to do those things. You know, 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 the, 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 want to do. Speaker 1 (8:19) 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 this? Speaker 3 (8:28) Well, Earning Your Leisure was birthed before Earning Your Leisure even was birthed. When Rashad wanted 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. Speaker 3 (8:50) But between those 16, 18 months, we were using a hashtag called Earn Your Leisure. 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 viral using hashtags. So we used that method to attach Earn Your Leisure, the hashtag, to our content. So anytime someone would 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 said 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. It's bigger than that. This could potentially be the one thing that we do. You can leave your job. Troy can leave his job and whatever. And that was like the birth, like about a month before January 19th. January 19th, 2019 is when the first episode was released. Speaker 1 (10:05) But Speaker 3 (10:05) it was about 30 days of planning before we released it. Speaker 1 (10:08) I love that. No, I love that. And obviously, it started off as a podcast, became a movement. And at what point did you realize that? you know, earn your leisure was bigger than content. Speaker 3 (10:21) Yeah. 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 preppy to the information that other communities may have had. Like investing. I didn't really know anything about investing. Speaker 1 (10:38) But Speaker 3 (10:39) then, you know, now that 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 then, like, I asked them what they learned, and they're, like, they're learning to invest 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. It's not raising workers, you know? So we didn't have that. So when we came out, people, I think, you know, we're 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 Elysian 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're always, like, fighting to pay your bills. And, you know, 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. And Speaker 1 (12:05) 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 give. a lot of information, a lot of education as well. And sometimes I would say in more like inner cities and so forth, 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 have been doing? Speaker 3 (13:02) 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 given a credit card with a thousands of dollar limit at 18 years old and we don't know how to manage $100? Speaker 2 (13:17) You Speaker 3 (13:18) 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. Speaker 2 (13:24) Why Speaker 3 (13:25) don't they teach us credit? But, you know, obviously it goes down to the parents too. 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 stock stocks and and have such a different outcome in 10 years versus. struggling still in 10 years. So