How Lee Edward Smith & Katherine Aguilar Turned Dance, Culture & Real Estate Into an Empire

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Speaker 2 He's a little sick to meet you.

Speaker 3 What the hell just happened?

Speaker 4 Anyone that's an event producer, you sign on the dotted line and you start negative 600,000. It's the dumbest business ever.

Speaker 3 Instantly, my event's only on Saturday, brother. I mean, I'm just saying.

Speaker 4 And we were like, wait a second.

Speaker 2 You're like, we have access to all these people we have. They're all millionaires.
Yeah. Billionaires.

Speaker 4 So we thought, I got to get to the

Speaker 4 this is like the climax of the story.

Speaker 4 This was my oh, like my ocean moment. And I'm like, let's tell them we have a keynote.
This keynote doesn't exist, by the way. We just put a blurb and a little clip.

Speaker 4 Two days later, they message us back and they're like, how were you like 25 minutes on Sunday on our main stage right after Patrick Ben-David?

Speaker 2 No way.

Speaker 3 Guys, welcome back to LeBlue Podcast. This is Paul Alex.
Guys, we have a very special interview here, okay? I'm going to introduce you to a power couple that are investing. Salsa and bachata dancing.

Speaker 3 Okay, that's actually one of my favorite hobbies to do when I was in my 20s, guys, you know, nightclub, you know, dance, impressive ladies. Babe, I'm kidding, okay?

Speaker 3 With that being said, guys, this is going to be a very interesting interview because we actually met at Paul Hutchinson's, the billionaires charity event here in Miami for the Sound of Freedom movie.

Speaker 3 As you guys know, we interviewed Paul a couple weeks back. But this power couple is actually going to talk about how they met before the success, all that good stuff.

Speaker 3 As you guys know, the interviews here are phenomenal. With that being said, welcome to the show, guys.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Thank you, Paul.

Speaker 1 We're so happy to be here, and it's an honor. We love your work.
And yeah, we just want to share our story, so we're excited. Thank you for having us.

Speaker 3 No, absolutely. Thank you guys for coming.
I know you guys are super, duper busy. You guys just had that remarkable event.

Speaker 4 Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we are.
We're just coming out of the ashes and like a Phoenix. We're here in Miami with 202, just one day in, one day out.

Speaker 4 But when you gave gave us the invite, we're like, for Paul Alex, we'll move mountains.

Speaker 2 We're coming.

Speaker 1 We're going all day long. All day long.

Speaker 3 I appreciate that, guys. So for the people that don't know you,

Speaker 3 who are you guys? Okay.

Speaker 3 And what do you guys,

Speaker 3 tell us a little bit about your background and what you're currently doing right now?

Speaker 4 Sure, sure.

Speaker 1 I'll start.

Speaker 2 Sure, ladies first.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you know, and we come as a duo always. And so we've worked together now, and we've been married for 10 years.
We just celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary.

Speaker 1 Love it.

Speaker 1 And we've been together for 17 years working as entrepreneurs. And so.

Speaker 4 You could actually say, I'm sorry, too, Paul.

Speaker 1 And this is how we always love to keep our relationship fresh. He just makes me laugh all the time.
It's just, we're so, we're always on that vibe.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, we, you know, just both of us really connected on an entrepreneurial level because what happened was, you know, we were both killing it as entrepreneurs and working so hard in our own merits and in our own skills.

Speaker 1 And we just magically met. And Lee could probably elaborate a little bit more on that.

Speaker 1 But what happened was we just converged and it just skyrocketed us. And so now, you know, we did start as Latin, professional Latin dancers.

Speaker 1 We both found each other when we were already both professional and giving lessons and touring and all that stuff.

Speaker 1 But what happened when we actually came together, we were getting out of relationships and we were like, we don't want to like start this long-term relationship thing again.

Speaker 1 We're just going to do business and just chill and just like well that was that was cat's idea

Speaker 1 okay the truth comes out that i mean business and you know a little fun too yeah but but we ended up just um you know really hitting it off uh we we were both working at that point countless hours i had a nine to five um working with lawyers and working with um

Speaker 1 at the very I share a similar story with you that I started at 15 and a half working because I saw like the value of not just just going to school but also like really like getting hands-on.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. And so my journey started with my dad being an entrepreneur and then growing upon that being like, I need to work.
I need to make money. I need to learn.

Speaker 1 And so by the time I met Lee, I was already on a nine-to-five job. I was actually, I actually had opened my own dance studio.
So I was an entrepreneur as well.

Speaker 1 And as soon as I would finish work from five to ten, I would also teach Latin dance lessons. And so it was like a 60-hour work.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and I would say when I met Kat, I was like, because I've been working as an entertainment entrepreneur from the age of 11. I actually was a professional magician.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 Wow. He's a little sick today.

Speaker 3 You got Emilio bugging out right now.

Speaker 2 He's just like, what the hell just happened?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I always tell people sometimes it goes the other way.

Speaker 2 So you're lucky. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 But, you know, so. That would have been awesome.

Speaker 2 That would have been a good reel.

Speaker 4 It's now a PG-13 show.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, seriously.

Speaker 4 But I started with magic, and, you know, really for me, entertainment, you know, entertainment as an entrepreneur has been something I've been doing since 10 or 11.

Speaker 4 So by the time I was 13, I was doing magic shows in the Pokénon's. There was one

Speaker 4 from Brooklyn, but there was one kid in seventh grade who was like also doing chariot tricks. And you're like, dude, you're on my turf.
But we created this two-man comedy magic show.

Speaker 4 And by 16, we were getting hired across the country doing magic conventions. So, which are like geeky white guys doing magic tricks kind of.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but it was fun.

Speaker 4 It was fun back then in the 90s. And we would go do those magic shows.
And then I went to George Mason on a public speaking scholarship. And here we are.
We've been on 600 college campuses.

Speaker 4 We have seven shows still touring the country. So a lot of entertainment, a lot of entrepreneurship.

Speaker 3 So let's go back to,

Speaker 3 you guys are both from New York.

Speaker 2 Or what part,

Speaker 3 where did you guys actually meet?

Speaker 1 So we actually met in Northern Virginia,

Speaker 1 Washington, D.C., metro area.

Speaker 1 I've grown up and lived there my whole life.

Speaker 1 And so let me bring this closer. And so,

Speaker 1 you know, living there, Lee actually transplanted. He, you know, went to George Mason.
We both went to George Mason University. And so I've always been there, but my mom is from El Salvador.

Speaker 1 My dad is from Peru. Yes.
And so they met there in the nation's capital and then, you know, and then grew our family there. But I'm from Northern Virginia.
Lee is from Brooklyn.

Speaker 1 But we're naturally just lovers of traveling. And so honestly, like, we have, you know, that bug in us that even now with having two kids, two babies at that in diapers,

Speaker 1 you know, we still make it really prevalent to take them with us

Speaker 1 and do that. So we've kind of evolved as we have evolved as a couple.
You know, we went from Latin dancing, professional Latin dancing, and really

Speaker 1 being really great business operators and business owners.

Speaker 1 That was really the crux of it, even though we were in the limelight as professional Latin dancers to organizers of festivals and major events.

Speaker 1 And, you know, you mentioned the rhythm find your rhythm investor summit that just happened two weeks ago and

Speaker 1 what's happened is essentially as we've leveled up with our stuff that has been happening in our business we bring everybody for the ride and we've been telling people you need to live in abundance you need to um you know join this we love to share what we learn so other people can lift up and then we you know as soon as we started having kids we ended up going back into like our roots which was commercial real estate.

Speaker 1 My dad is in real estate. And so that kind of led us back into this journey of entrepreneurship.

Speaker 4 And it's funny, because as much as we've tried to keep those worlds separate, it's interesting because it's actually like our USP. It's what people,

Speaker 4 you know, when we do our keynote, which is called Find Your Rhythm, we open up and I flip cat. And, you know, it's like, come up with a better opener than that.
You know,

Speaker 4 it's a great opener, you know, and this whole conversation.

Speaker 1 And how many speakers can say that they can flip their wife?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 Yeah, back.

Speaker 2 Sorry, babe.

Speaker 4 But, you know, but that's the interesting thing. Like, I mean, we were crazy enough to think about building an investor conference off of a Latin dance festival.

Speaker 4 But the magic to what we do is really bringing people. into our into our room and having them connect.
And we just said, let's just kind of take that energy and bring it to a little bit of

Speaker 4 a different room. But people are people.
They want to experience. They want to have fun.
I mean, we had two billionaires and the co-founder of Priceline on our party buses going across the city.

Speaker 4 So it's a beautiful thing when you realize human connection, I think, is really the main thing. And we are naturally, our gift is bringing people together.
That's what we do.

Speaker 3 Absolutely. You guys are big networkers.
I mean, that's why I guess we all got attracted to each other throughout the charity because naturally, you know, you guys can communicate.

Speaker 3 I could communicate. So it's just meant to be.

Speaker 3 So let's take a deeper dive into actually like the mindset and the psychology of you guys being Latin dancers, you guys making that your niche initially, and then transitioning into real estate.

Speaker 3 So, who had the idea? What was the transition? What was that aha moment?

Speaker 3 Because for most people, there's a lot of people probably gonna be watching this that are like, Well, I'm really good at this specific hobby, but how can I make that into a business?

Speaker 3 Right, people just don't think like that. So, I have the perfect couple here that transition from Landin dancing to real estate, but then now throwing events and now connecting with billionaires.

Speaker 3 Unheard of. So

Speaker 3 what was that pivotal time in your guys' life? What happened? Paint the picture.

Speaker 1 You want me to take it or you take it?

Speaker 4 I mean, I'll start and I'll let you finish it because it was really cats.

Speaker 4 But I think for us,

Speaker 4 you know, when you're going, when you're climbing a mountain, right? You're climbing a mountain and we're all trying to attain that next goal or that next...

Speaker 4 Level, whatever the level we're trying to get to, there comes like the pivotal moment.

Speaker 4 And I think for us, it definitely was our our our kids being born ironically it's it's this is being shot on labor day our son was born on labor day three years ago not to this day but it was it was on labor day

Speaker 4 and yeah

Speaker 4 for us we said you know we were on the road 175 days out of the year touring doing doing shows so it was really like our lifestyle was amazing i think at some points we said

Speaker 4 you know we love our life

Speaker 4 like we're having a fun we're still having fun but when we had our kids it was like that was the pivotal moment where it was our, I don't want to say wake-up call, but it was like, okay, now we really got to put this into gear

Speaker 4 and kind of go back to the roots of, you know, real estate, which is, you know, we're Katz family.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I think there was a lot of soul searching there because also there was a pivotal moment also that COVID happened. And if you know events, events shut down.

Speaker 1 And so at that point, we were just starting to have, to be thinking about having kids.

Speaker 1 And then it's like, oh my God, our world, we we actually were able to pivot because we're just um quick like that and we a tribute to our agents also that helped us out but we pivoted a virtual which not not a lot of people did people were like busking on on social media like entertainers and in fact it was insane we'll give you access to gringos can dance yeah

Speaker 1 and and if you want to have a great date night with your wife it's called flirting on the floor latin dance date night 21 moves so it's like netflix and chill but latin we were we didn't have anything to do during covet i mean the first month it was like oh this is just gonna blow over And like, we were just having the best times of our life, having dinner and just chilling.

Speaker 1 And then afterwards, you're like, oh, no, like we need to make money. You know? So that was a pivotal point.

Speaker 3 So a critical incident had to happen in order for you guys to be like, oh, my God. Yeah.
Was the Latin dancing at that time that you guys were doing?

Speaker 3 You guys were traveling the world, having a great time. You love your life.
But was that your only source of income at the time?

Speaker 1 It was that and then also producing events. Okay.
And then dancing.

Speaker 4 And our shows.

Speaker 2 And our show.

Speaker 4 We have 3,000 silent headphones. We We have a brand called Straight Up Show.

Speaker 1 So basically, everything around like being in person.

Speaker 3 Being in person.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3 It was H2H, human-to-human interaction.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 And everything was shut down.

Speaker 2 It was just like, it was just a shot.

Speaker 4 Well, we had two crazy stepping stones.

Speaker 3 One was, so we're sitting around, we're talking to our agents, and we're like, I've spoken to hundreds of entrepreneurs, and one thing I consistently see them struggle with is their sales process.

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Speaker 2 Look at this ugly home!

Speaker 3 Retta is back for a historically hideous season.

Speaker 1 It's our 100th ugly house.

Speaker 3 This place is mayhem. That is impressive.
And if these walls could talk, do you cry a lot?

Speaker 2 I do.

Speaker 3 They'd have a lot to say.

Speaker 2 What in God's name is this pit? Don't get too close. You know, if you see the show, I'm scared of that.

Speaker 3 Ugliest house in America. Seasoned premiere.
Wednesday, January 7th at 8 on HDTV.

Speaker 4 This whole, our show is called Saw some Magic, which I started in 2002.

Speaker 4 And the whole point of that was at that point in 2000, in like 2000, it was like they would get the magic show and then we would do some Latin dancing.

Speaker 4 And that's the name just stuck for all these years. That's awesome.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 But we were like, what about if we did this lip sync show and called it College Lip Sync Battle? And we just green screened the hell out of our studio.

Speaker 4 And we just, our agents were like, yeah, let's try it out. And that year, it was actually our highest grossing year in 20 years on the market.
We did over 220 universities on this virtual show.

Speaker 4 There was that. We started a hot sauce brand called Gringuito Sauce.
I mean, we had time on our hands, but those were like...

Speaker 1 Our entrepreneurial creativity also blossomed because you're in just one place, you're isolated, and then we could actually brainstorm together. And I mean, and Lee is a marketing genius as well.

Speaker 1 And so it was just such a great vibe, also, even though it was also like, hey, this is also a wake-up call, but it was also like a creative revival at the same time, which is cool.

Speaker 3 Combination of things. What I'm hearing is, you know, you guys had your back against the wall.

Speaker 3 Everything you guys had built, you're like, okay,

Speaker 2 the world is frozen. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Now we have to pivot. Yes.
As a true entrepreneurship

Speaker 2 spirit,

Speaker 3 you do have to pivot. You guys were solution-driven.
So

Speaker 3 what was that day that you were like, all right, we're going to get into wholesale or we're going to get into real estate?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I think we were done basically with the idea of like, okay, this is not going to blow over.

Speaker 1 And I can't remember like a specific day, but I think what the what the one thing was that we were already preparing prior to COVID to start a family.

Speaker 1 And then this happened and we go and we're like, how are we we going to do this and sustain a little kid? And then, you know, we wanted to have more kids.

Speaker 1 And so we're like, how is this going to happen? And so I, as a mommy, you know, I turned into this mommy mode already before I even had my kids.

Speaker 1 And I was just like, oh my god, like, I don't want this to happen the same way that my parents have been struggling.

Speaker 1 I don't want my kids to, and this is something that I proclaimed when I was like in my teens, right? Where it's like, I'm going to do a step up. I'm going to, like, I see my, you know,

Speaker 1 at some points in my journey, as even as a kid, as an adolescence, I was taken out of certain activities because they couldn't pay, right?

Speaker 1 And so I was like, I never want my kids to feel that way ever. So we're going to be set.
We're going to have all the solutions done.

Speaker 1 And then we're here and I'm like, man.

Speaker 3 As a kid, it's so simple.

Speaker 2 It's so simple. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then it's like, and then I was like, oh, I'm going to be a millionaire. I'm going to be, I had aspirations, but at the same time, it was like, now it's like, oh my God, we're in our mid-30s now.

Speaker 3 Life happens fast. Yeah.

Speaker 2 What do we do? Yeah.

Speaker 4 And we both lived a very middle life

Speaker 4 lifestyle, middle-class lifestyle.

Speaker 4 And maybe I'm having a middle-life crisis right now.

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 4 But anyway,

Speaker 4 but at that point, it was like, you know, we wanted to, like Kat said, I think we wanted to find that next level for our kids. And we realized, you know, the entertainment

Speaker 4 side of things is it's a beautiful industry, but it's, there's so many, as I, this is my famous saying, is like, there's no ceiling, but there's no floor.

Speaker 2 Right. Right.
So you can go tie aside.

Speaker 4 When things get bad, they can get pretty bad and and anyone that's an event producer anyone that's thinking of being an event producer out there you know it's a crazy business because you you sign it you sign on the dotted line and you start negative 600 000 it's the dumbest business ever

Speaker 2 the expenses for

Speaker 2 17 years

Speaker 3 my events only on saturday brother i mean i'm just saying

Speaker 4 i mean i i see you know there's you know when you have the drive but after 17 years you think like to, people are like, why don't you do another event in another city?

Speaker 4 I'm like, if, if we are paid to produce it all day long, but, you know, it's just, there's so much. There's a lot of risk.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there's a lot of risk.

Speaker 3 It's capital intensive.

Speaker 3 Yeah. You're leveraging.

Speaker 3 You're leveraging a lot. A lot of logistics.
A lot of risk.

Speaker 4 And it's energy. You know, you're constantly giving energy to the crowd, to the people.
And then, you know, you're like, all right, this energy is going to come back one day. Maybe.

Speaker 4 You know, so it's, it's, it's, it's part of the journey. But I think the kids, we had, we got two dogs like everyone does during the pandemic.
Yep. They lived, and then we said, all right, we're good.

Speaker 3 No, but you're right. You know, everybody became a dog mom or dog diet.

Speaker 2 For sure. Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 1 We started fostering, which he thought was, he was like, you're crazy. And I'm like, well, we need to help and save the planet and like help these dogs in the kettle.

Speaker 2 One up. One up.
They need a home too. We're busy breaking on bad.
We were going to farmers markets.

Speaker 4 There were a couple farmers markets open in Virginia. It wasn't like here in Florida where COVID didn't happen or went on vacation.
But

Speaker 4 in other parts of the country, I guess it existed. And so we were at farmers markets with the dogs, like selling our hot sauce.
It was crazy times, doing this lip sync show.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think the one thing that we always

Speaker 1 are, you know, our strong suit is we lean on each other. And so we always push each other forward.

Speaker 1 If one of us is like, you know, hey, hey, hey, one of us is rolling the other person up the hill, you know?

Speaker 1 And so that's the beautiful part in our relationship and that, in our partnership, too, because

Speaker 1 marriage is a working thing. People think that it's like it's big, oh, you're married, and then all of a sudden it's going to be like happy in flowers all day long.

Speaker 2 It's a compromise all the time.

Speaker 1 And so we understand each other. We're best friends.
And then really when we started thinking about kids,

Speaker 1 you know, naturally we were, you know, I was freaking out. I was like, how are we going to do this? Right.
And I wanted to reach a different level. I wanted to be secure.

Speaker 1 And I, much like everybody, they want their kids to be secure.

Speaker 2 They want stability.

Speaker 1 and so that's what really brought me brought me back personally to real estate now because I come from a real estate family my dad is a broker he has a residential brokerage the first thing that always pops up whenever anything happens or when that whenever there's any any downfall in any business or like you know anything right any problem my dad goes get your real estate license

Speaker 1 become a realtor again and do that and I did that at freaking 18 when he asked me to you know and I was good at it but I hated losing my weekends correct and so I was like no I can't do that job like I did it I made bank you know when I was 18 but at the same time I was like no and so I told my dad I was like I love you but I can't get back into that job I feel some like there's something else and then what happened was you know I started just working on myself and and going on podcasts and seeing what the opportunities was.

Speaker 1 Now, it didn't take me like, you know,

Speaker 1 one month to then figure out that I wanted to do commercial, but it did, it took me probably like a couple years to really figure out.

Speaker 1 And even up until now, we're hitting our stride in exactly working with billionaires, multi-millionaires, family offices, sovereign wealth funds. But that's, it's been a journey.

Speaker 1 You know, it wasn't just like, oh, all of a sudden I tried wholesaling. I tried,

Speaker 1 you know, I thought about fixing and flipping. Then we renovated a part of our house and we were like, no, that's not going to be a thing.

Speaker 1 So you had to kind of try it and fail. Yeah.
But then be like, okay, and not fail, but I mean, like, be like, I don't like that.

Speaker 4 No, no, fail forward. Fail forward, right?

Speaker 1 And then be like, I, I, like, I did it. And we always do things with 110%, but it's not something that was meant for me.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And then it didn't fulfill you.

Speaker 1 It didn't fulfill. And then, so then we ended up getting into, you know, our connections and just relying on conversations with other people.
And that's really what opened it up.

Speaker 1 Because before it was like, oh, we're always in this competition mindset.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, oh, that person isn't going to talk to me about their business because they see me as a competitor and vice versa, right? Might be somebody in that mindset.

Speaker 1 But then when you actually speak to somebody who's in abundance, oh my God, like you have some crazy, and then you start trading notes and then all this stuff, and they could be in the same freaking business as you, but they see eye to eye with you as a, as like a friend that like really just wants to push you along and you help each other.

Speaker 1 And that really was the key.

Speaker 4 And I think kind of the marriage was we were already at these major events, Formula One, Art Basil, Davos, doing production or doing our programs or shows.

Speaker 4 And we were like, wait a second, I didn't drink the Kool-Aid as quickly because I was just like, he was in event mode.

Speaker 4 I was like, yeah, this is great, but we still have seven shows touring the country. Someone's got to run the circus.

Speaker 1 And this was after we got out of COVID, yeah. So everything came back, yeah.

Speaker 3 Your mind wasn't at, hey, let me take this opportunity while I'm at these events and go network for business.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, we just, we weren't.

Speaker 3 You were just focused more at the events.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and it makes sense.

Speaker 4 I think that light bulb moment was we were there and we were like, wait a second.

Speaker 2 You're like, we have access to all these people. These people

Speaker 2 are billionaires.

Speaker 4 And so, you know, it's like I started carrying like my fire wallet and I, because I stopped doing magic, by the way, for probably until Liam was born, his first birthday.

Speaker 4 And she's like, we're going to hire a 40-year-old magician. I'm like, hell no, I'm the effing 40-year-old magician.
I could do it.

Speaker 2 And he's great at magic.

Speaker 4 And we started, like, just, we're like, let's just go into the room. And all of a sudden, we were, we were like, holy crap, we had no idea.

Speaker 4 Like, it's almost like we could have figured this out a decade ago. Yeah.
We just weren't looking.

Speaker 1 And oh my god, I just remembered that one event. Remember, you actually wore, I think, this.

Speaker 4 This is my lucky jacket.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. And I got.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you're going to tell the story.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, first, well, you could tell the second part.
I'll tell the first part.

Speaker 1 So the first part where I was going to mention is like when we went to that event, he had more than one jacket, Paul.

Speaker 1 Yeah, oh, yeah, and many rhinestones. And so what happens was basically, you know, I was doing this commercial real estate thing and I'm going and I'm like, I'm going to be in this.

Speaker 1 And then I realized like I'm only the only woman and usually only the minority in the room in a lot of these conversations.

Speaker 1 And we're talking like at some point, I got into just great mentorship and great friends with people that were doing bigger business.

Speaker 1 And it vibed a lot better with my personality and what I wanted to accomplish. Not on the money side, but because of the connections.
It was a lot of respect there. There was a lot of,

Speaker 1 I'm not going to cut you out. This is about abundance, not competition.
And so it was a good place for

Speaker 1 the love that I had to share, right? Because sometimes you need it to reciprocate. And when you start to feel that from other people, like then it really, you really start to lift up.

Speaker 1 So a lot of times people ask and they're like, well, how do you become friends with a millionaire? No, it's about becoming friends. Forget the money side.

Speaker 1 It's about like, there could be millionaires that are horrible. There could be people that are just amazing, but you have to find your tribe because there's every single type of person.

Speaker 1 So, anyways, but

Speaker 1 yeah, I told him, I was like, I really need you because I was feeling very like not confident in my own skin as well because it's a new thing.

Speaker 1 And that's okay. Young, yeah.

Speaker 2 It happens.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And I was just like, and I was, and I was being vulnerable.
And I told Lee, I was like, I need you there. I need you to be my wing guy.

Speaker 2 Like, I need you to like.

Speaker 2 What are your thoughts?

Speaker 4 Yeah. So I find the,

Speaker 4 I don't have many jackets I can wear to a business meeting, you know, think Latin dancer magician, it's not the sparkles, but I wore this jacket and this jacket, this guy, Paul, came up to us and he said, I love your jacket.

Speaker 4 We started a conversation. And that conversation opened the door to Pavan, which literally it opened for the first year, it literally opened up our entire circle.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 And I mean, more than the jacket, but the point is, is it was just, it was just a lot of magic happening.

Speaker 1 And he was like, when we got out of that event, so we went to this event. It was a lot of ultra high net worth people.

Speaker 1 We were there to, you know, really network and amplify one of the deals that we were working on, which was

Speaker 1 ground up construction for a multifamily, 780-some units. And then we went there and we're like, we're going to find somebody to, you know, help further along this business.

Speaker 1 And then, so I'm like, I need you to be my wingman. You go this way of the room.
Just like we would work a room in a dance setting. Like, you go dance over there on this side of the ballroom.

Speaker 1 I'll go stand on this side and then we'll meet sometime in the middle and converge.

Speaker 2 And we worked it that same way.

Speaker 4 And she cared, and I didn't give two crap.

Speaker 2 I cared too much.

Speaker 1 I cared too much about what I was going to say, how I was going to say it. And he was just like, I'm just going to be lead.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was like, I feel like

Speaker 3 that's the best way to do it.

Speaker 3 Mind you, guys, for the majority of these interviews that we do on this podcast, we literally just go with the flubble.

Speaker 2 You dare not, which is the best way to do it.

Speaker 3 Because some people, they're like, dude, how do you think of like all these questions and ideas to ask your people? Like, they're like, I would be so nervous.

Speaker 3 I was like, nah, dude, you just do it so many times that it just comes out naturally.

Speaker 3 Yeah. But quick question, just to go back to

Speaker 3 actually letting us know that you weren't feeling 100% going to these events by yourself. I think that's powerful.

Speaker 3 I think that's very powerful because a lot of people, they're not even willing to go to their very first business conference because they feel like, well, I'm not prepared.

Speaker 3 I'm not a millionaire. I'm not even an entrepreneur.

Speaker 3 They might be a 95er. They might be working at, we had a guest the other day here that worked at Trader Joe's.

Speaker 3 And he was just like, dude, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I was in such a, you know, a time in my life that I had so much pain that I forced myself to do.

Speaker 3 So it feels like you guys were put back against the wall. Yeah.
You know, and you guys are like, we're going to make this happen. Oh, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 And the thing is, is like, so here's the moment I freaked out.

Speaker 4 Fast forward about eight months from there, we

Speaker 4 were going to go to Clever Summit, which happens right here in

Speaker 4 Miami, outside Miami.

Speaker 3 It's a real estate conference.

Speaker 4 Yeah, real estate conference. And

Speaker 4 we're part of Sub 2, so we ended up getting this free ticket. So this guy, Malachi, calls us and he says, hey, why don't you upgrade to VIP? And I was like, that's amazing.

Speaker 4 I was like, you know, maybe we can add some value to your guys' conference. So I go with the reverse sale.

Speaker 3 I love that. So guys, you see what Lee just did there? He said, let me add some value.
See, most people...

Speaker 3 When they go ahead and just like you guys said earlier, you know, how do you make friends with a millionaire? You had that friend that asked you that, right?

Speaker 3 And the right approach is like, no, you don't want to make friends with millionaires. Yeah.
You just want to make friends.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 Because you never know where that relationship might lead. That one person might not be a millionaire, but guess what? They might know a room full of multi-millionaires.
And that's how it happens.

Speaker 1 And that's exactly what's been our vibe. It's like we've been attracting.
So we think.

Speaker 4 I got to get to the

Speaker 4 this is like the climax of the story.

Speaker 2 This is just the beginning. Go ahead.
We're trying to get it.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 I just want to tell you,

Speaker 2 I know my husband's going to be aware of it.

Speaker 4 This was my, oh, like my oh shit moment. So we go back and forth and I'm like, he's like, all right, he's like, look, I don't, I'm like, we'll buy the VIP.

Speaker 4 So I want to give, I know he's making a commission. But I'm like, get us that email.
So he gets us to the email. And I'm pitching our silent headphones this experience.

Speaker 4 And then I'm like, you know what?

Speaker 4 Let's tell them we have a keynote. This keynote doesn't exist, by the way.
We're going to call it find your rhythm.

Speaker 4 We're going to talk about our journey as Latin dancers and how we moved on the real estate.

Speaker 2 Boom.

Speaker 4 And then we just put a blurb and a little clip.

Speaker 4 And then about two days later, they message us back and they're like, how do you guys, how would you like 25 minutes on Sunday on our main stage right after Patrick Ben-David?

Speaker 2 No way.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And that was our first conference that we ever spoke on a stage.

Speaker 2 I mean, we've been speaking on stages our whole life, right?

Speaker 4 But speaking on a stage to realtor and entrepreneurs, that worried me.

Speaker 4 Now, we were in Miami, right outside of Miami, so we did bring in, we had our world champion friends, so we kind of brought it all together, but I was freaking out because I'm like, holy crap, now

Speaker 4 and I think it's the greatest upsell, like it was just, that's an amazing thing to happen. But if you're not afraid, if you can't be afraid to ask, I am afraid of asking, yeah.

Speaker 4 But sometimes you're going to ask and then you're going to receive and then you have to deliver. And so that was my, oh crap moment.

Speaker 3 That's great advice there, man. I mean, what you took is imperfect action.

Speaker 3 because majority of entrepreneurs you know i i deal with a lot of beginner entrepreneurs that do business with me and my associates and the number one thing that we see is like well i don't think i just i'm not ready yeah i'm not ready but see you you went ahead you're like hey i want to add some value give me the emails on the spot you thought hey let's do a keynote even though we may not be prepared but let's see what they say yeah you execute it and then Boom, you got it.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I love that.

Speaker 1 It was insane. And you know what's crazy? That was a pivotal moment also personally for me because what happened there, it was almost like second nature because I was speaking on a topic that was

Speaker 1 about like leveling up and it was about, you know, basically amplifying, you know, and kind of what we're talking about here, where it was like, get into that mindset.

Speaker 1 And the second that I stepped on that stage, like usually as a dancer, you always have butterflies no matter what.

Speaker 1 When you step on a stage, you're doing a pose and you're doing a three-minute routine. I've always had butterflies or like, you know, some nervousness, right?

Speaker 1 When I stepped on that stage, I felt so confident, you know. We was

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Speaker 1 Lee was a little bit more like, okay, like

Speaker 1 he's a production guy. He's like fixing our slides.
I'm like, cool as a cucumber. I'm like, whatever happens up there happens.
Like, I'm good. I got this.

Speaker 1 And it was like, it was like a pivotal moment that it was like, okay, like, I've been working at this for several years now. Like, I'm supposed to be on this stage.

Speaker 2 I'm ready.

Speaker 1 And I was just like, and then we flipped and it was beautiful.

Speaker 2 And dancers, and you know, the whole, the whole your network is your network.

Speaker 4 So a Kobe

Speaker 3 Sperber, right? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 He owns that event.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 Pace Morby had just spoke at our conference. And we thanked Kobe backstage right after we went on, and he's like, Don't thank me.
He's like, Thank Pace Morby. Wow.

Speaker 4 Because I called him being like, Who the hell are these guys? And Pace

Speaker 4 vouched for us. That's the way it goes, man.

Speaker 3 You know, so Pace is a master networker.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and he was just at our event. Like, he had been on our stage.

Speaker 4 So the point is, is like, if you stay in the game, you may not be on the field, but you just stay in close proximity, good things are going to happen.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and I mean, it's a cliche saying, and I always say this, the most cliche things that we heard growing up, it's always true. You know, your network is really your net worth.
It really is.

Speaker 3 Because if you guys weren't in Sub 2, which is Pace's mastermind group, correct?

Speaker 2 He wouldn't have

Speaker 3 vouched. Yeah.
That's just the way it goes. And that directly ties into investing in self-education.

Speaker 3 Investing in yourselves. Investing in mentorships.

Speaker 3 Because if that connection would have got you that deal, and that's a big keynote, man.

Speaker 3 Usually, guys, for for beginner entrepreneurs, you guys are watching this or listening to this, those big keynote speeches at those conferences, they go for literally tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the size of the audience,

Speaker 3 who the presenter is, who's running the event, you know, easily, right?

Speaker 1 And not even that, the competition is hot. Like, it's like, if you get past the competition, you know, it's like, there's so much.

Speaker 1 But the other thing is, like, you know, with Pace and with these communities and everything,

Speaker 1 the one biggest thing is like, you know, the access also, like, you're talking about paying paying mentorships. And I, and I was always a skeptic.

Speaker 1 I was always, I'm like, I'm not paying a guru that I can get like the same YouTube content for free and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 Like, take that. Like, you go.

Speaker 2 Maybe it's funny. Yeah, you go, girl, you.

Speaker 2 No, no, no. But then I, then I switched modes.

Speaker 1 I was like, I was like, you know, the skeptic. And then I actually paid to play.

Speaker 1 And it unlocked a lot of shortcuts. And that's really what it is.
You can go the long way and try to figure out your own road and dig your own path.

Speaker 1 But then if you actually have somebody like a pace to lift you up if you like all of our billionaire friends like that's the beautiful thing when they came to our conference They actually were there because they wanted to add value to our audience.

Speaker 1 And actually, and what was the most beautiful thing is we picked the people that were the go-givers, you know, the people that vibe with us, the ones that share in love and abundance.

Speaker 1 And what happened was basically they were out in the crowd like a majority of the time. So the audience,

Speaker 1 the raves that were on the reviews were like, I can't believe that I just spoke to seven billionaires at your conference and multiple, multi-millionaires and family offices because they were just in the hallway and they wanted to talk to me.

Speaker 1 Like, how do you get that kind of access? And I'm like, honestly, it's just love and abundance. I show them love, they show love back, it reciprocates, and they're here now.

Speaker 1 You know, it's freaking insane.

Speaker 4 You know, Paul, earlier you were saying, you know, for your fans and people that are watching, how do you take that

Speaker 4 passion project and

Speaker 4 convert it into something? And really,

Speaker 4 I was just thinking about this, but

Speaker 4 whatever

Speaker 4 you're into, you know, whatever that passion project is or whatever that foundation is, once you build the foundation, it's concrete, right?

Speaker 4 It's always there. So that is a piece of who you are.
It's your order. It's your essence.

Speaker 4 And that could be the unique, if Kat and I were just going at Clever Summit because we're like, yeah, we're talking about our journey as entrepreneurs, like there's no hook.

Speaker 4 So fine, you know even if it i mean latin dance into real estate is pretty unique right it doesn't make a lot of sense but then you you know find your rhythm rhythm investor you know the beat to to finding your business you know you can you can play you know chat to

Speaker 1 check even before that's what makes you guys special yeah and the other thing is is is the other thing people get hooked onto like their instagram name or their this like you can evolve like it didn't take me it took i i had to go through the steps so it's like if you don't like like try something and then pivot try just because you change your logo You're not gonna lose all the people people get in they're in love with the person not with the freaking logo or the website or the this and people get hung up on that all the time as starting entrepreneurs personal brand yes yeah personal brand is like poof I mean they it's like a cliche to say that but it's really that's really what it is like it is I always say because I mean you guys have done quite a few things now now you guys are hosting these massive events in business and you guys just did your first one correct um combined with the

Speaker 3 dancing and all that jazz right yeah which is great because i mean that takes me back to i'm like dude i haven't gone land and dancing so long and my website's like after the babies we're going land and dancing i was like babe it's perfect now we're able to go to this conference august could be like your first trip or the baby in december they'll be like eight months yeah dude it's perfect perfect yeah perfect come right back out to dc we will and and the beautiful thing was that convergence so this is actually the third year we're producing it.

Speaker 1 And what happened last year, which we loved, was that there was a convergence of our rhythm investors, which are, you know, part of our Find Your Rhythm Summit, a wealth summit, into our DCBX festival, which we produced for 17 years.

Speaker 1 Now it's going to go on 18 years. And what ended up happening is you see the Latin dancer, you see these high-level performing athletes in salsa, bachata, kizom, bazooka, all these different genres,

Speaker 1 representing their countries, representing their teams, representing

Speaker 1 where they came from, everything, and showing these multi-millionaires like another level of expertise.

Speaker 1 These are experts in business.

Speaker 1 These are ninjas and titans in all these real estate and commodities and private equity and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 And then you see the freaking Titans that use their bodies to freaking kill it on the stage. And so they both valued each other also.
And there was a nice convergence.

Speaker 1 And then they can also work together. So what ended up happening after the aftermath, now we're two weeks out, is that all of our friends are doing deals together.
Wow. And for us,

Speaker 1 it's gratifying, it's beautiful, it's wonderful to see somebody supporting somebody else. But then also as connectors,

Speaker 1 we're building our ecosystem as well. And so when we have, you know, our specialty, our unique edge is like the entertainment side, bridging those gaps.

Speaker 1 We've had a little bit of just in film and other parts. But those kind of connections that we built over the last 17 years are coming back now.

Speaker 1 So like somebody that like, you know, we were touring in Poland, you know, we were touring all over Europe at some points.

Speaker 1 Like those are key people that now we're reconnecting with and rekindling and being like, hey guys, by the way, now we're in real estate, commercial real estate, and we're also doing private equity.

Speaker 1 Hey, we're helping startups. We're helping businesses fund like all these different things that we're doing here.
Is there anyone you know in your circle?

Speaker 1 And all of a sudden the world just becomes so freaking small.

Speaker 1 But you have to have the conversation. And that's where entrepreneurs sometimes are scared.
They don't want to have the conversations because what's the worst that can happen?

Speaker 1 You can get a no or you feel bad, but then you feel, then you get the vibration of the next person that will lift you up, and then it's like it that you forget about that moment tenfold.

Speaker 4 We have a lot of times because I think we are we are definitely super connectors, we know how, and people are like, Well, how do you meet these? Where do we start?

Speaker 4 That's something where a lot of people say,

Speaker 2 and then, yeah, so this is

Speaker 4 this is a little golden nugget, right? Yeah, I don't care if you're in Peoria, Illinois, and if you are, I'm sorry,

Speaker 4 Having been to almost 650 cities across this country, and you know, George Mason, our arch rival in public, I was there on a public speaking scholarship.

Speaker 4 Our arch rival was Bradley, which is in Furier. But anyway, long story short,

Speaker 4 wherever you think there's going to be a convergence of high net worth people, whether it's the local country club,

Speaker 4 whether it's a private club, a cigar lounge, you know, that's the start. That's where you're going to start to connect with people that

Speaker 4 are doing bigger things. And that's why deals get done on golf courses and at Davos and at Art David.

Speaker 2 I don't even like golf. Like, I don't know.

Speaker 2 But I'll go,

Speaker 1 I'll go and I'll have a drink and have a good time and have a good conversation, you know. And really, it's about the people that are there.

Speaker 2 It's really about the people.

Speaker 4 So get in the room, you know, go to the Ritz, sit at the bar, open, have a conversation. I will give

Speaker 4 this last story because I think this is another important one. We were at one of our number one family offices.
They have a $2.5 billion portfolio. We were at the Formula One.

Speaker 4 We get into the elevator in the Palazzo, walk in these two gentlemen. We were dressed up nice.
They were dressed up nice. They had name tag that said IHG family office something.

Speaker 4 We said, oh, you're here for a family office event. We had

Speaker 4 a family office that was... had 200 million to offshoot into hotels.
Conversation, conversation, conversation. We got off on 47.
They got off on 47. We're like, let's have a drink.

Speaker 4 They're like, no, come to our suite.

Speaker 4 That relationship started in an elevator at the Palazzo. We went and drove Lamborghinis the next day on

Speaker 4 the Vegas Speedway. We karaokeed.

Speaker 4 Six months later, Shud invited us to his daughter's wedding in Montenegro.

Speaker 4 They're some of our best friends.

Speaker 1 We hang out with them all year long. And again, all year long.

Speaker 4 This is the classic elevator pitch. If we don't open our mouths and have that conversation, if we're not at the Formula One, if we're not in that elevator, if we waste that 40 seconds,

Speaker 4 it's a change. So don't be afraid to start the conversation.

Speaker 3 Yeah, absolutely. You never know what door it might lead to.
You know, when I first got in digital marketing in 2020, my first mentor, he was actually from Amsterdam.

Speaker 3 And I actually invested in him because even though he was probably 10 years younger than me, he knew what I didn't know, which was digital marketing. Yeah.
Right.

Speaker 3 And I feel like now people are like, they're starting to learn more about the e-learning space and masterminding. I mean, come on, guys, when we were growing up, who used the word mentor?

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 No one, right?

Speaker 3 But we did have mentors. Our parents, coworkers, supervisors that would be like, hey, this is how you do it properly.
That was a mentor, right? So I had a ton of them.

Speaker 3 But just to go to Chase, that same mentor, the very first one that I invested, three years later, I get to speak at a keynote in Lisbon. because of him in front of European consultants.

Speaker 3 I'm like, this is pretty bad.

Speaker 2 Amazing.

Speaker 3 And then after, we're driving race cars around Lisbon. And I'm like, dude, this is amazing.

Speaker 3 You got, I don't know how much money they had, but you had teams of people flying in their Porsches to go race on this racetrack. I'm like, in awe, like, I can't believe this is my life.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 But it's because I invested into someone. Yeah.
So very similar. Very similar.
You guys are in an elevator. You guys are like, hey, you know what? Let's go ahead and talk to them.

Speaker 3 What's going to be the worst case scenario? Right. Yeah.
Right.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 also on the receiving, they could have just shrugged and said, yay, nay, but they had such a warmth to them. And, you know,

Speaker 2 we knew

Speaker 2 that those were our people. Like that energy, yeah.

Speaker 1 And it reciprocated. And we've hung out with Shud and Sartage so many, and their family is so beautiful.
And it's like, you know, we've been afforded some awesome opportunities and that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 But the other side, you know, because there's a lot of introverts too. And I considered myself an introvert for a long time.
Now I'm starting out.

Speaker 2 She also says

Speaker 2 she's not a public speaker.

Speaker 2 I'm both. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 We have a lot of similarities, actually.

Speaker 2 I'm very introverted.

Speaker 1 So I could be a very introverted. I could be extroverted.

Speaker 1 But on the introvert side, I can see people that are like, you know, even, I can even see family members in my head being like, well, I'm never going to go up to somebody in an elevator and talk to them, right?

Speaker 1 Yes. Then collaborate with somebody.
Because if you vibe with somebody, it could be anybody from your, it could be anybody from your circle, your close friends.

Speaker 1 If that person has a gift of gab and they can like do that, make them your partner. like collaborate with them.

Speaker 1 That's that's really how a lot of these things are happening with our billionaires, our multi-millionaires, because they value that. Because it's not about like, oh, what do you have?

Speaker 1 It's not like anything of that. It's more like, what value can I give you to give me so we can amplify and spread our message even more?

Speaker 1 And so you think that you take that to the granular level to the small business person.

Speaker 1 And what we're not doing there in our communities a lot is not collaborating because we think we're all competition. And so I see that in

Speaker 3 a lot of separation.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. and they and and not talking about things and so we need to get past that so that then we can really amplify each other and help each other out it's

Speaker 4 yeah and we just finished our conference and we took a week off and

Speaker 4 you know we have our you know we have our our our our crew that are are helping move these deals along and and you know we come back like two weeks later and there's so many deals where you know we're the captains of the ship and of course we're creating an incredible experience but we can't be on every floor And so to see that motion happening, you have to,

Speaker 4 you know, I've been a one-man show for a long time.

Speaker 4 And then we were like a two-person duo. And I think we've done a lot.
But at some point, you're going to hit that plateau where you're like, okay, there's only so much you can do.

Speaker 4 And now with AI and ChatGPT and, you know,

Speaker 4 Upworks, I mean, if there's any time in history where you can literally leverage

Speaker 4 bringing people power at a low cost, this is the time. So find your tribe, build the tribe

Speaker 4 and collaborate.

Speaker 3 I want to ask you this guy's question, just hearing your story, it's amazing. Would you guys consider your partnership one person's the visionary and one's the implementer?

Speaker 1 So I don't know.

Speaker 1 You know what's crazy for me is I'm really not a conformist. Like I like to challenge things and I hate labels.

Speaker 1 Even the mentor thing, you know why I don't want to be a speaker? Because I see that label as a speaker and and I'm like, I don't want to be the guru, right?

Speaker 3 I mean, but it just goes to it.

Speaker 2 Like under that umbrella. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, so I'm like, I'm like, every time somebody is like, who's a visionary and who's an integrator with us? I'm like, man, I don't know.

Speaker 1 Because I thought for a long time, like, he was visionary and I'm integrator. And now that we've kind of really dived really deep into like,

Speaker 1 you know, commercial real estate and then also commodities private, all the, all the big deals that we're doing right now, like, it's like, we're both leading different fronts.

Speaker 1 So we're almost like multifaceted visionaries and integrators.

Speaker 1 And it's not like like I can't label myself as just an integrator anymore because that's what I used to do for DCBX. I would do all the behind the scenes.

Speaker 1 I would run the volunteer program, 300 volunteers,

Speaker 1 you know, all the back-end stuff and everything.

Speaker 4 Which, by the way, is a 4,000-person event with people from 50 states and 19 countries. Oh, it's four days of 200 classes.
Grammy-nominated bands, world-famous parties that go to 8 a.m.

Speaker 4 I mean, it is a machine. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So Kat definitely had the harder job I am not an integrator by any means so I am I'm the visionary guy and but but Kat is a visionary she's just a visionary that also understands how to put the pieces of the puzzle hybrid which which is great I think yeah I think I'm more of a hybrid yeah and I'm not a hybrid he can't be a hybrid you are straight visionary yeah yeah yeah he doesn't read the instructions and so I'll read them yeah I make the instructions I had a saying I said I don't stand in lines, I make them.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I love that. I love that.
No, me myself. You know, very early on when I left law enforcement, I found out about myself the hard truth that I'm a visionary guy.
I'm not an implementer.

Speaker 3 I'm not, if you were to tell me, like, hey, dude, like, what are the finances on this part? Or what is the process on this? Or what are the SOPs? I'll be like, to be honest, I don't even know.

Speaker 3 Like, you know, I hire somebody that's smarter than me to go ahead and do it. So I think working logistics is a very hard job.

Speaker 3 But visionary, in the very beginning, I like to start the fires.

Speaker 2 You know, go ahead and start these fires, right?

Speaker 3 So I have to have that person that's overseeing basically the ideas and to make sure, like, hey, dude, like, let's just continue to focus on the main source of the business.

Speaker 4 But it's all, you know, at some point,

Speaker 4 it boils down to finance, money.

Speaker 4 Obviously, money buys us time and that's time to focus on the things you're good at.

Speaker 4 But when you're grassrooting an event, you know, I mean, there were years, I feel like we clean bathrooms, set up dance floors.

Speaker 4 Like, I tell our crew, I say, at some point, I know this may suck, but just remember, Lee and Kat,

Speaker 4 the metaphor is like, imagine we are like a two-person football team that nine months out of the year, it's just us playing.

Speaker 4 And then you guys come in, we get a full team the last 90 days. And you're fresh.
And we're tired as hell.

Speaker 4 And, you know, now we're balancing that out. But, you know, revenue is the magic, right?

Speaker 4 Finding that investor, finding someone to believe in you, setting up that SPV, all of those, gosh, I feel like I'm talking to you.

Speaker 2 Oh my god, he's like an audience.

Speaker 4 She finds it so sexy when I'm like, investor.

Speaker 4 But you know, because I've been slow to drink the Kool-Aid, even though I have now. But it's the financial part is so important, right? So how can you level up?

Speaker 4 How can you build more money so you can do exactly what you're good at, not what you have to do? Because you don't have the money. to actually pay someone else to do it.

Speaker 3 No, absolutely. And I think the number one pain point for a lot of beginner entrepreneurs is the money, right? They're like, I don't have any money to go ahead and invest.

Speaker 3 So, I mean, I always say there's two options, right? It's either find people with the money

Speaker 3 or just go with it and just do what I did: 80 to 100 hours a week. Yep.
On what you know you can do, save up, and then invest in your own money. Bootstrap, right?

Speaker 2 Yep.

Speaker 3 Question. So, you guys have built teams.
What is the biggest team you guys have built?

Speaker 1 Oof, I think that would happen with DCBX.

Speaker 1 We've only built a very small team of 20 people.

Speaker 1 Now, 20 people that work very hard and do multiple jobs and multiple, you know, and all of our people that we have, oh my God, they've been with us for years.

Speaker 1 I think the longest has probably been Randy, and Randy's been with us almost the whole ride. 16 years? Yeah, 16 years.

Speaker 2 And so,

Speaker 1 yeah, our senior events manager, Sandra. Shout out to Sandra.
She's freaking amazing.

Speaker 1 She's been with us, I think, like going on nine or ten years.

Speaker 1 I think nine years.

Speaker 1 And so, what we do do is

Speaker 1 well, is we debrief after every event. We make sure that everyone has an understanding of everyone else.
Because also working in events and the events industry, there's all types of people. Of course.

Speaker 1 And so you have to know how to work with people. And so that team is definitely one of our strengths and has taught us a lot.

Speaker 1 But then doing events in general, you know, having 4,000 people in the house, that's also another.

Speaker 4 It's almost like they're a team. They're like a big massive energy that you have to manage.
I will say this: under your care, really.

Speaker 4 What's interesting now is we all of these um collaborators that have come and come to the find your rhythm conference,

Speaker 4 like they're on, they're like, Hey, we want to be on the lean cat team with the cat and lee team.

Speaker 4 Um, and that's beautiful because we're like, wow, you know, all these years of pitching and like having to pull people in, they see the value, they see the magic.

Speaker 4 Um, you know, Lori, like, she literally

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Speaker 4 She came to us

Speaker 4 at DCBX and she was tearing. and she's like, I never get like this, but she's like, there's such a genuineness to what you guys are producing here.

Speaker 1 There's such like, and she just, she started like tearing and she's like, and this is a woman who is so well accomplished doing deals all over the world.

Speaker 1 And for her to say something of that nature and for her to be touched in that nature, I mean, this woman has done... multi-million dollar deals.

Speaker 4 We had the capitalist of the year of India, Dr. Bishna, on our party bus.

Speaker 4 You know, and she's like,

Speaker 4 you know, she's like,

Speaker 4 it's just, it's so beautiful. Like, as much as DCBX, when we started it,

Speaker 4 stands for Duke, Connect Me, and Experience.

Speaker 4 So we had a film festival within the event for seven years called the Global Impact Film Festival that had films that, um, short films that made a global difference.

Speaker 4 We had a one-day entrepreneur conference. So we were trying to build like the South by Southwest model, but a little bit more on the cultural diversity vibe.

Speaker 4 So Doing multiple things at once is something we obviously flourish at.

Speaker 4 But this idea of building an investor conference off a Latin dance festival, it was quite a few cocktails one night before we were like, well, you know what? We already have this event.

Speaker 4 We've already paid for the hotel. Shit, why not bring a bunch of investors in and like, we'll open the show with a Latin dance.
And it's like, how's that going to be?

Speaker 1 Oh, and people thought we were crazy.

Speaker 4 They thought they were crazy.

Speaker 1 Oh, they thought we were crazy. They were like, how are you going to mesh these two? Even to this day, the third, we're only in our third annual, right?

Speaker 1 Even the third annual, some of our associates were just saying, hey, you're gonna put all these entrepreneurs and all these billionaires and multi-millionaires in the same room what like usually like you you should be charging a gajillion dollars you should be i'm like no these entrepreneurs actually need mentors like this that are not only like one step ahead but like 20 steps ahead of them because they also have a lot of knowledge like um shout out to julio gonzalez who he's freaking uh he he's helping businesses with like grants from all over that are untapped billions of dollars that go straight to freaking all these fortune fortune hundred companies just because they know how to write the grants.

Speaker 2 They don't have the grant writers.

Speaker 1 They know that they, and

Speaker 1 these small entrepreneurs, the small businesses like my dad, like our

Speaker 1 families, our friends, like that all need the money, they can't access it because they can't write the grants.

Speaker 1 They don't, or they can't, they don't want to sacrifice the money to actually pay somebody to do that. You know,

Speaker 1 it's expensive.

Speaker 1 And so, like, all these things, now what we're doing is bridging that gap between all these entrepreneurs and the ultra-high net worth, but the ones that want to share their journey, the ones that have the love and the abundance, the ones that want to be like, okay,

Speaker 1 you know, I'm going to give you time. What do you need?

Speaker 1 Okay, maybe, maybe I'm not the right, you know, this billionaire might not be the right person right now to mentor you personally one-on-one, like the care that you need, but maybe there's somebody along the line that I can introduce you to

Speaker 1 that you can collaborate with. That's also in your same journey that you guys can help each other out, you know?

Speaker 1 But the other side, going back to the receiving, is sometimes entrepreneurs need to be ready to receive also.

Speaker 1 And that's the only thing that I think is a hindrance for for a lot of people that are like, I need to level up, but, you know, I put myself in the way.

Speaker 1 That was me. Like, I was putting myself on the way.
We never, I mean, we thought DCBX was going to be our legacy.

Speaker 2 Well, I think

Speaker 4 it is a piece of our legacy.

Speaker 1 Well, we thought that that was the end of our legacy, I should say. Like, we were going to do that forever.

Speaker 1 The stance conference that gets thousands of people, and we were going to be world renowned for that. And we are, but it wasn't the end.

Speaker 1 Like, our chapter opened up after we started to think about kids and then surrounding ourselves with individuals that were like, guys, you guys have a lot more to give.

Speaker 2 To simplify it. Like imagine that gift that we got.

Speaker 1 Like that's why I'm such on a high still from this event because I'm like, I want other people to feel that gift.

Speaker 4 To simplify it, I think, yeah, we help entrepreneurs, businesses, startups find their rhythm. And it's an open statement, right?

Speaker 4 But it's really, everything has a beat, everything has a frequency, everything has a rhythm.

Speaker 4 And it's interesting because some of these new deals that are coming to us, they happen to do with, we have Davi, which is headphones that are, they're like $27,000 headphones.

Speaker 4 They're like the Bugatti of headphones. But it's like we're finding deals that actually happen to do with music and rhythm.
We're working with

Speaker 4 the World Cup coming up. And so

Speaker 4 that's our journey. That's the rhythm we're rolling.
But everyone has

Speaker 4 a different vibe. And those billionaires, the seven of them that stand on the stage and Lee and Kat, not billionaires, not yet.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 we had a part where we let the audience, it's like, what's going to be your billion-dollar moment?

Speaker 4 It's not always about the number, it's how you can take that step from one to two, two to four, eight to ten, right? The small one. Don't do the math.
It doesn't make sense. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I love that. I love that.
So, guys,

Speaker 3 let's say we have people listening to the show, and they're like, hey, do you guys do any type of mentorships? Do you guys, how can they get in and connect with you guys?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, we're not gurus.

Speaker 1 No, no, no. We love collaboration.
And so

Speaker 1 on that side,

Speaker 1 you guys can follow us on our Instagram. And for sure, we'll be having a lot of high-end events where we're bringing together entrepreneurs with all of our amazing friends that want to give.

Speaker 1 That's upcoming.

Speaker 1 And that's going to be all over the country and also all over the world. And so we have East Coast, West Coast events already in the books.
And then we have also Europe and

Speaker 2 a lot of other things.

Speaker 4 So yeah, it's at RhythmInvestor or rhythminvestor.com.

Speaker 4 And really really our our focus we have our conference in august which is our big one but what we thought was we said wow why not bring people on the journey to these incredible events now we can't bring 500 people but 30 40 50 people that want to really experience these these high level events which by the way if you hang out with us you're going to have fun there's going to be dancing there's going to be you know diversifying there's going to be

Speaker 4 we're going to make sure you have fun but also there's going to be just a wealth of knowledge in the room And how can we as a unit do deals together,

Speaker 4 share everyone eats a little bit, and bringing them along for the journey so we can find that rhythm together? Absolutely. Rhythm investor.
Let's go.

Speaker 3 So Lee and Kat, what are a couple words that you want to tell to the audience that people are going to be downloading this episode

Speaker 2 to level up?

Speaker 3 If they're, let's say, in the beginner stages of trying to find their rhythm, what would you tell them? Yep.

Speaker 1 So if you're trying to find your rhythm, I would definitely lean in on collaboration.

Speaker 1 I would lean in on speaking up and asking the right questions, not even the right questions, any questions, and making sure that you are true to yourself and that you're true to who you want in your vibe and your tribe.

Speaker 1 Because that is also, we have to realize that it's not even about that person, it's about us and what we want to receive.

Speaker 1 And so as starting entrepreneurs, you have to open that door so that you could walk through it and then see what's on the other side.

Speaker 1 But without doing that, you know, we can't find our rhythm, we can't explore, we can't open our minds.

Speaker 1 And so the biggest gift that I can give you guys is as budding entrepreneurs, I've been there where I'm like struggling and I don't know where to start and you don't know where to, you know,

Speaker 1 move forward, this left, right, back, forward. You need to just keep moving forward, keep moving forward and really lean in on the power of connection because I think that's getting lost nowadays.

Speaker 1 And honestly, that's really where a lot of our experience, also in our experience, we've leveled up.

Speaker 4 Thank you, Wifey, for saying everything.

Speaker 2 But I will,

Speaker 4 you know, I think it goes back to my journey. And, you know,

Speaker 4 when you have a gift,

Speaker 4 and I think that's what you have to think about. You know, as an entrepreneur,

Speaker 4 I don't know what the statistic is, Paul probably knows of how many times you're going to change your ideas, but

Speaker 4 I remember back in the day, it was like you were going to change your profession. It's like seven times, right?

Speaker 4 I think as an entrepreneur, that's probably 70, right?

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 4 the wheelhouse is always going. You're always going to change ideas, but the one thing that is consistent is you, right? And so, what is that piece of you? Like, for me, it's magic.

Speaker 4 It's just very sexy hair.

Speaker 4 You know, it's

Speaker 4 wearing these fun jackets. You know, what is the essence of you and how can you take that?

Speaker 4 And if Kat and I wouldn't have had 20 years in entertainment, this whole find your rhythm component, it doesn't exist because you can't start from nothing without being able to have that foundation.

Speaker 4 So, you know, if you are coming from XY industry as a marketing exec and then you're starting your own brand, you're obviously going to have a great opportunity because you understand what it takes.

Speaker 4 You know, Len, who started Davi, he worked for beats, right?

Speaker 4 So at the end of the day, just figure out what your gift is, what your USP is, and ride that, push it, and find people that will support you,

Speaker 4 meditate, and take it to the next level. Find the beat that moves you and move other people with that beat.

Speaker 3 I love that. I love that.
And guys, that is the level up with Kat and Lee.

Speaker 3 Guys, leave a five-star review on Spotify Apple Podcast and on YouTube we have made it to number one in business in all categories actually what was it yesterday or today Amelio

Speaker 3 yesterday yeah that's right guys right before September 1st

Speaker 4 the pressure I hope after this you don't go to number two damn it

Speaker 2 no no

Speaker 3 if anything we'll stay there because of you guys

Speaker 3 I love it amplify it so so guys, make sure to reach out to Lee and Kat on Instagram. Make sure to check out their socials.
We're going to drop it down in the description.

Speaker 3 And with that being said, guys, make sure to share this with somebody that you care about, that you love, that you want them to level up their mindset because that's the first thing that it takes to go into anything that you want to do in life.

Speaker 3 You got to find your rhythm. My name is Paul Alex.
This is the level up. We'll catch you on the next one.
Peace.

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