Clinton Sparks & Eddie Wilson's BILLION Dollar Exit & The Business of Gaming | E66

Worked with everybody from M to Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, TI, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, Akon, Pitbull, Lady Gaga. Sold over 80 million records.
I got into the gaming space. I was like, wow, I can really connect all these cultures into this world.
So I helped bring one of those companies to a billion dollar IPO. Then founded another esports organization and made that the fastest growing, most diverse and inclusive esports org in the world.
So the gaming space is actually eight times bigger than the freaking movie industry it's bigger than the movie and music industries combined it's the fastest growing form of entertainment in the world ladies and gentlemen welcome to a special edition of the money mondays. I am here in RV Motorhome.
We are in downtown Los Angeles. I've just teleported between four cities the last four days from Denver to LA to Orlando, back to LA, just to be in this RV with this gentleman who I've known for many years.
He has built a career over decades in the music industry, and now he's diving into the gaming space space. I'm gonna let him tell you all about it.
I'm gonna make sure that after you listen to this podcast you go follow him on social you check out his big project that he's been working on and for him to get excited it makes all of us excited because he's seen it all over the years working with household name celebrities speaking at events performing all over the planet working with every major artist and everything in between from television, radio, live events and everything in between. You're going to want to enjoy this episode.
You're probably going to listen to it twice because there's a lot of facts you're going to hear today from someone who's lived and breathed this industry and other industries around this industry to try to mix the culture with music, business and everything in between. Without further ado, please give a warm round of applause mr clinton sparks yes thank you is is this in fact a special edition or do you say that to everybody that's here is it is a little more special or all right i guess it is more special all right anything anybody that's in this rv is special yes all right got it so the way this works is as you guys know we keep this podcast under 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes.
The average commute to work is 45 minutes. So as you guys know, I like to make it really clear.
You're in for a less than 40-minute episode, so make sure you listen to the whole thing. It's really important for us because you guys have helped us stay number one for 55 weeks in the entrepreneur category and top three to five in the business category because of our listen-through rate so keep listening sharing commenting liking subscribing all of those things help us keep this podcast up there to spread the message about the fact that money is not the root of all evil and because this is special and because this is special we can't forget that clinton is special as you guys can see all right and so it's important for you guys to understand that concept, share this with your friends and family.
As you notice, we don't have ads here. I really want you guys to listen to this, enjoy it.
Spends a lot of money to make these things happen for you guys, ad free. And so without further ado, can you give us the quick two minute bio so we can get straight to the money? Sure.
I am a Grammy nominated multi-platinum producer, so I a DJ, sold over 80 million records, worked with everybody from M to Rick Ross to 2 Chainz, T.I., Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, Akon, Pitbull, Lady Gaga. Built my first e-commerce website in the early 2000s.
Made $5 million the first year. Built us to be the biggest mixtape site in the world.
Helped conceive the biggest urban website in the world, WorldStar Hip Hop. Built my own syndicated radio show around the world in 22 markets.
I helped Eminem launch the Shade45 channel. I was Diddy's former DJ.
Played a big role in the marketing of Ciroc. I discovered and signed DJ Snake.
I was a host on E! News for five years. Changed the culture of that global network.
Yeah, I don't want to... Keep going.
You got more time. You got a full two minutes.
We got a shot clock. Yeah, so so you know and then I got into the gaming space and you know helped converge all these cultures together from music sports fashion art culture bringing all the companies that I've built over the years I built multiple multi-million dollar brands over the years and when I got into the gaming space around 2016 I realized that this industry was built for what my brain was built for because i've all my brain's always been too big for every industry i've been a part of my ideas were too big people didn't understand when i got into the gaming space i was like wow i can really connect all these cultures into this world so i helped bring one of those companies to a billion dollar ipo then founded another esports organization and made that the fastest growing most diverse and inclusive esports org in the world uh and now here we are today i try to there's a lot more i try to condense as much as possible you really made me big at the beginning so so the gaming space is actually eight times bigger than the freaking movie industry it's bigger than the movie and music industries.
It's the fastest growing form of entertainment in the world. And it's funny how parents still look at it as a waste of time and they don't realize all the viable careers that exist within it, that colleges give scholarships out for it.
In fact, 46% of scholarships go unclaimed because people don't even know that they exist. Studies show that gaming helps with depression, strategy, leadership, critical thinking.
The future engineers are gamers. You know, 48% of gamers are females.
And the average age of gamers are 34-year-olds now. So a lot of people look at it like parents say, ah, it's a waste of time and go out and do something different.
But in the same manner that you'll put your kid in Little League or Pop Warner football, you can do the same thing with gaming. But it doesn't take 15 years of dribbling a basketball or tons of money to get them to be successful.
And you don't have to be a gamer to be in the business of gaming. I have a confession to make.
When I was 13 years old, I became obsessed with video games. And I played in the Blockbuster Video Game Championship.
And I went there and I had to play Sonata Hedgehog and NBA Jam.

And I had four minutes each.

And that's the way they timed it.

You had to get the highest score in four minutes.

And so I played the song by Warren G and Nate Dogg called Regulators.

Because it was an exactly four minute song.

And so that's why I used my mental clock.

That's why I know every word of that song and every tonality of that song because I did it for a year straight. I just listened to regulators to play this game.
I went there and I whooped butt and I won the San Diego Blockbuster Championship, but then I did not go to the finals because my mom did not want me to go to Orlando, Florida. Right.
Well, did you regulate? Not that I'm bitter or anything. Did you regulate your competition? I did.
All right. Well, well done.
So that's all I won. So it all made sense shout out to warren and nate all right so you have all these careers you know you've lived a lot of lives the way i would put it right from fashion music entertainment television etc how did you choose to either not continue on with these main categories to make this big jump into the video game space or you could have taken an easy route right you could go become the president of a label you could go just start you know take over a big brand right you could run one of these alcohol companies you could have done whatever you wanted why do you decide to dive in i'm going to go into gaming um well why i got into gaming in particular with well there's two questions there like what made me decide to jump around and do different things i'll answer that second the first reason I got into gaming is a buddy of mine called me one day when I was vice president of Dash Radio and said uh hey I need you to come to the office in Hollywood we're going to do this new business and I showed up and at the time it wasn't a business they didn't have a business model or any revenue drivers they were just a bunch of popular kids online called FaZe Clan for trick shooting.
So when we got there, we're going to turn this into a business. It's too many details to get into the whole thing.
So that friend of mine at the time called me and said, we want you to be a part of this. And I sat there for like two or three days just to kind of look at the dynamics and understand the landscape.
Because at that time, I didn't and esports either obviously i knew gaming from being a gamer and being a part of a bunch of games coming up but i didn't know the business of it i certainly didn't know esports was a thing and after i sat there for a couple of days i'm like this is everything i can connect everything to this industry because it's so untapped and that was you know six seven years ago and it's still untapped even though it's the fastest form of entertainment in the world and it's projected to make over 500 billion dollars by 2027 it's like it's still not even tapped into when it comes to culture mainstream pop culture fashion meteorites deals like all the things that you know I'm familiar with when it comes to hip-hop or fashion or music or television where you just kind of bring all these worlds together gaming's still not it's really divided you got esports and you got gaming and for those that don't know we're going to give you an illustration of the difference between esports and gaming do we have artwork that we can throw in here okay right right esports is organized closed league games that endemic hardcore gamers grind out like 10 hours a day to be picked on one of these teams that hopefully then get selected to be in one of the teams that are in a closed league like League of Legends, Call of Duty. And you've got to pay millions of dollars to be in that league.
So it's very specific and it's a very niche audience. Gaming is everything else.
From Candy Crush to Donkey Kong or Street Fighter to Fortnite to whatever you're doing casually with your friends that's not in an organized league. Gaming is where all the money is.
Gaming's where all of the people are. Gaming's where all the opportunity is, right? And like nobody's really been focused on that part of the world.
They all want to convert and get people involved. But if somebody like me, I come from the hood, you look at sports and music as a way to get out of the hood.
Gaming is a third vertical that nobody's talking about and nobody recognizes. And I'll tell you, probably almost nobody even knows that e-sports is a thing from the hood or in the streets or even parents.
And they certainly don't know how to get money or how to make money within that space. So some games over the years, basketball games in particular, try to bring music in, right? Of course.
NBA Jam and some of those type of games. Madden started bringing in hip-hop.
Grand Theft Auto started bringing in music. Some games started bringing in music.
Are you going to be bringing the music culture into the gaming culture or are you going to hyper focus on just gaming no all of it every the whole lifestyle around it like some a kid that like say let's say an offset you know he games but he's also into fashion he's also into music he's also into art like there's all of these worlds that can be converged together but there's no authentic way that anybody's been able to figure out how to crack that code and bring it all in It's like usually you got kind of a gaming world and this applies to like business to even the financial world or corporate world Which you and I both know typically you have these people that know this over here and they're good at business Or they're good at the gaming industry, but they don't know shit about culture or community or the hood Or like the psychology or the mentality of the average regular person in pop culture and it's very rare that there's something that connects these two all of my businesses have been built off the understanding of Wall Street and the street in understanding what they don't understand about each other how to communicate and how to translate so every company that I've ever built has been built off the understanding and the knowledge of what people need what they need to feel and how to connect these things authentically and that's what I started doing with FaZe Clan and I did it with Exet and then I'm going to continue to do it with my next company which we won't talk about here but I am building the world's most exciting culturally impacting entertainment Empire in the world. So on the Money Mondays, we're talking about three core topics, how to make money, how to invest money, how to give away to charity.
You've done all three of those topics, so let's go step by step. On the make money side, someone wants to become a DJ, a rapper, producer, etc.
How can they make money in the beginning stages when they're first getting started? Focus on being great. Most people are focused on getting the money.
And I think once they get the money, that that now qualifies them for being great. They define themselves as being great because they got the money and they got all the things that come with money.
What I found early in my career is if you focus on becoming great, the money chases great. So if you focus on that, the fame and the money becomes a byproduct of you just building something great.
So whether it's your own personal brand or whether you're building another brand, if you focus on, and by the way, great isn't just like your talent itself. It's how you communicate, how you network, how you treat people, how you listen.
It's all around what makes somebody or something great. And once you once you do that you know you're an investor in over 40 40 companies and one of the things you look at right what do you look at the leadership the team the people involved do you believe them are they gonna stick it out are they gonna be able to resolve problems are they gonna be a problem for you are you gonna get your money back right so in this same thing applies if you just use that as the guideline of getting to the money then the money will come to you you won't even have to chase it because you just focus on building great so let's say someone out there right now is listening and they're a DJ mm-hmm and they got a bit of fame now they got their first 20,000 followers yep now the 30,000 other 50,000 followers starting to get their swag boom they place and now they got 100,000 followers.
How do they decide what they should charge? How do they figure out what their rate is? Well, I'm kind of almost the wrong person to do that because I never gauge according to anybody else. But I guess what the average person would do is just look at the market, see what other people kind of in their range, you know, go to a booking agency that's going to be able to negotiate for you but really I've all I've always subscribed to the theory of what is it that I need for what I need to do what is it that I want or what do I feel that I deserve and I didn't care what the market was I don't even care if I got half of what other people got if that's what I determined I need then that's all I aim for I didn't compare to what somebody else was getting I think that hinders a lot of people from moving forward too because they'll look at this and they'll they'll lose opportunities because like well I deserve this because soda because that's what they got but it's like you don't know who they know what they went through you can't compare those two things just decide this goes even goes for happiness whether you're going after money or happiness decide what it is that you need or what will make you happy you not what somebody else says well that should make you happy or what you think will make you happy because we all fall victim to what we think will make us happy more money a better body hotter girl a faster car then we get there and you know you can't fool yourself by thinking that if you make your dreams a reality that you've now escaped your nightmares.
Right. So when you think that these are the things that will make you happy and you get there and you're still not happy, that's because you didn't do it the right way.
You had to decide what truly would make you happy. Right.
So to answer your point just directly about the DJ, just figure out what it is that you need to do what you do for a living. What do you think you deserve? the value of what you do and of course you can gauge a little bit by like what the market says but like that doesn't mean you have to like beat someone or compete with somebody or get what somebody else is getting if you just need what you get what you're needing then that should be the beginning of that's part of being great right just getting what you need so that you can continue to grow and build more great to get even more without even having to chase it why do you think musicians athletes entertainers celebrities why do you think that some percentage of them have gone bankrupt after they end their careers well you and I both been around long enough to see athletes influencers rappers come and go it funny, I can't tell you how many times I sit in a meeting with somebody to whether manage them or work with them or whatever it is.
And I can tell after like five minutes, like they won't even be around next year. And it's just the mentality of even what they're saying to me, the questions they're asking, how they're listening, what they're listening to, what their body language is responding to for what I say is a really good determinant of who they are and what they're going to be.
And most, I mean, the simple answer is because they weren't educated enough, they didn't take the time to care about their own career or their future to understand what they need to know, right? And then when they get that money, who they need to have around them and what they should do with it. Most just here for the bag right you know as they have the bag comes and goes you know I mean and that's that's the biggest thing I see people say I can't tell you how many people I put in positions same with you I know you you need to do this and here's why you'll give them the whole scientific reason why you should do that you'll give them step-by-step plays you'll tell them why if you don't do this Here's what's gonna happen and like they just don't listen for whatever reason and then a year or two later I should have listened to you or they come ask you for the advice you already gave it like bro I moved on man like I gave you a lot of time So it's one of the greatest skills that you possess that most people don't use and we're all born with the ability to do this But not many of us do it is listen just shut the fuck up and listen right and most people don't shut up and listen They think they have the answers or they go when they listen to the wrong places from the wrong people Which are usually the people around them even when it's like, you know What do you think about this music and your boys like yo, this is the shit? Of course your fucking boys are gonna say that right play to some people that don't know you that want to tell you it sucks that's when you know if you're gonna pop off right same with money like I know we always hear this but like you're gonna go ask fucking your boys like you know what do you think I should do they don't know shit about business no disrespect to your boys or money but it's time for you to level up because once you level up guess what you get to do help your boys level up right but otherwise you're all just going to sit there and just like stop blaming other people or making excuses why it didn't work when you just didn't shut the up and listen all right so we talked a bit about the making money side let's talk about investing we also talked about shutting the up it's important and listening it's important all right so i have that's one of my best posts of all time is called shut up and listen because if you're on a date and you shut up she's gonna want to go on another date with you because she's gonna think you're caring you care about the person you want your employees to like you more shut up and listen to them you want your boss to like you more shut up and listen you want your kids to love you more shut up and listen and guess what the byproduct of that is you become smarter stronger better able to lead because now you know what people need to feel right because you listen to you want to know how to treat your girl better listen to what girls hate about men right you want to know how to be a better employee listen to what bosses hate about their employees all the answers are there you keep looking in the wrong places for answers the answers are right in front of your face if you shut up and listen man all right on the investing side how do we inspire this is my reason for speaking at events and reason for doing everything i'm doing with this podcast how do we get more people to finally start making investments even if it's just a little bit at a time educating them making them understand that you know once you know once Robin Hood came around and stuff like that, you had people that never even imagined that investing was something they could do, or they had access to have the possibilities to invest.
You know, now people aren't, we're going through the stage now where the people, most people that didn't even know, they thought it was just like rich corporate people to invest. It wasn't even, it was foreign to to them we're going through a stage now where it's now accessible to the people that didn't even realize it was something they could do to now you're gonna go through this this of everyone just using key phrases in words because they're learning a little bit here and there so they're acting like they're entrepreneurs and the seasoned investors and a real investor knows like all right you don't really know what you're talking about, but at least you're trying to learn, right? And then what's going to happen is those people are going to start investing, losing, and then be forced to have to start learning and educating after they start blaming and accusing other people for having the game up against them, right? So I think the way to get people to invest is starting to invest in themselves and if you invest in yourself and you start seeing the results positive results of what you did by investing in yourself then you'll start saying okay well here's something else that I believe in like I believed in myself here's another thing though a lot of people say invest in yourself and we all hear the kind you gotta invest in yourself if you don't invest why would right? But like sometimes you're a fucking bad investment, man.
And you also, but that's going back to being great. Understanding if you're the thing that you should be investing in, right? Maybe it's your boy.
Maybe it's somebody else. Maybe if you and I'm just going to use music since you brought that up.
Maybe like you and your four boys all rap, right? And you selfishly are thinking, well, I got to be the one. Maybe your boy's better than you and has better chances of breaking off than you do.
You should invest in him. And then you guys can start turning around and reinvest in you.
That's just like any business. You get the business going, it's working, you just reinvest in it.
So I think a lot of people don't understand those dynamics. I'll tell you, there's a a really famous a-list rapper i won't say who uh that i got to invest in a company one time and the day after he invested he called me goes okay what happens next right because like he's thinking like okay when do i get a return on this investment right and i had to like go and break it down in you know street terminology to make them understand how they're separate but they line up if you take these and apply it to this you'll start realizing they're kind of this everything in life is the same it's just a couple little different rules different jargon but everything's the same once you understand the concept of one successful thing you can kind of pretty much apply it to any business as you know from all the businesses you've invested in so i think uh having the ability to understand what the smart things is to invest in and the ability to do that is by doing the research and what shutting up and listening when you listen to the people that know what they're talking about then you can start gaining that knowledge filtering and what works for you because what might work for Dan might not work for Clinton so you might give me advice about ah there's some good tips in there but some of that shit wouldn't work for me right and I think that's why a lot of people they just go even people that go to conferences or read books and watch like a you know a thought leader online I got to do it exactly like he said no dude like you got to figure out you got to take the parts of what he said and apply it to what would make sense for you and how you feel you would be able to apply it to how you operate or what where your skill sets are the billionaires and zillionaires that i've met don't zillionaires they don't talk much they just ask questions all the time they just ask me questions all the time you've've met zillionaires.
Absolutely. That's why this show is special.
Yeah. Because that's a big announcement.
Yeah. Dan Fleshman.
No zillionaires, guys. Actual zillionaires.
Is zillionaire a real term? Well. Or does that just mean so much money we can't even count it? It's that they have multiple billions.
And I don't know what that billion number is. And so they have zillions.
And it's the actual number they have a zillion and during those times it's happened a lot all they do is ask questions like i don't i actually don't remember them saying much besides asking me how do you do this why do you do that why do you do this well that's interesting how do you do this right it's because if you're a zillionaire and you learn something that helps you make one little tiny percent better to save one percent or make one percent well what's one percent of a zillion a lot like a lot a lot right that's your math you have to tell us what one percent it's so big i can't even explain how much it is but dan how big is it it's so big so let's say it's a billion okay if? If you make 1% or save 1%, that's $10 million. But not once.
It compounds forever, right? If I can teach you something to save or make 1%, it doesn't matter if you make 100 grand, a million, 10 million, a billion, or a zillion, saving 1% or making 1% compounds forever. Right.
It changes the- Especially with knowledge. Your knowledge compounds.
So if you're someone that makes 100 grand a year and now you make 120 then 160 then 200 etc but you learn something from clinton that saves you one percent a year in taxes that changes your life forever and then every year it makes it more and more and more impactful yeah that's the thing is what people don't realize is you're in a situation where if you shut up and listen and you can learn how to save or make 1% a year, you literally change the whole trajectory of your life. Are we just going to skate right over that magical line of compounding knowledge? That was pretty impacting.
I'll give you another example. Let's say you're on a big humongous cruise ship, a zillion dollar cruise ship.
There's only one guy there. It's that guy you know.
And on this cruise ship is you and the zillion dollar guy. And it's going straight.
If it's off by even one little percent, what happens? Inevitably, you go totally off course. You end up in Antarctica, right? You end up in Mars.
You end up somewhere completely off base. This zillionaire's boat goes to Mars? Come on, Dan.
I got to learn more about this guy, man. I might have just given you a hint of what zillionaire I'm talking about.
If you just have 1% off, it changes the entire trajectory of your life. And so why does that matter? You need to shut up and listen.
You need to ask real questions. You need to research online because every bit of information about how to do anything on the planet now is online.
I can learn how to open a bowling alley, a cemetery, a mortuary, a hair salon, a barbershop, anything in between on YouTube videos right this second. By the time you get home, I can figure out how to open up a freaking aquarium.
Yeah, if you don't know how to do something, it's really just because you're a donkey that doesn't want to take the time to listen to how to do it. You want somebody to do it for you.
And that's where I realize most of the time people are just like, yeah, but I don't know how to do it. No, no.
You can go learn how to do it. You just don't want to do it.
Guess how much Google is? Zero dollars. Guess how much YouTube is? Zero dollars.
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. So much free knowledge, man.

So much free.

Zero.

Zero.

It's free.

The biggest commodity is free.

Knowledge.

You're chasing the wrong shit, man.

The knowledge compounds, man.

All right.

So our third and final topic is about giving money away to charity.

Why should musicians and artists incorporate charity into their personal brands well i'll give you i'll give you two reasons i'll give you the the the beautiful reason and then i'll give you the the business reason uh so the beautiful reason is because it's always good like me in particular like my whole goal in life is to make the world a better place how do you make the world a better place it's by making people better even if it's one person at a time so for instance like I had a whole course that I created a 65 video course of how to win big in the music business and I literally give it away for free on on YouTube I don't want your money I want your success because I know that your success breeds happiness I know happiness breeds a better world and that's what I care about the most so if you're gonna um if you want why you should get involved with charities because it's your job and it's our duty as human beings and as people that are in blessed situations or that are able to level up or figure things out that other people have not figured out yet to give back right whether it's given to a cancer research whether it's given to a boys and girls club you know i give to st jude's a lot um and you know there's other things i want to be honest man one of the reasons i care about being successful i want to be so successful that all i do is just give my money away and go help people that's all i care about i just i literally want to be so rich i don't i don't need to have i'm fine how i am i don't need fancy you'll never see me online flexing because flexing to me is being a good dad. Flexing to me is helping other people.

Flexing to me is helping other people. Flexing to me is showing up in a time of need.
Not a watch, not a, you know what I mean? So I think the value in that is, one, it keeps you humble. Two, it helps make the world better.
And it makes people appreciate your success and want to cheer for you. And want to you on because you are successful and they want to keep supporting you because look this guy's giving back and he's doing good so let's keep supporting him so that's on a personal level on a business level uh there's all the fortune 500 companies they all have social good uh departments that need to deploy hundreds of millions of dollars most people don't know that right and they actually don't even spend a lot because there's not enough people that are doing enough good for them to say here's 50 million dollars to put towards that so from a business perspective when you're genuinely out here doing it and I'm not saying do this as a tactic to get money when you are genuinely recognized as someone that cares and does stuff and there's receipts to show that you care the business side of it is it opens up a whole nother door of cash to come into your business to help do the good things that you are able to do now that you're in a good position last question clinton sparks becomes a zillionaire right and hopefully you live to 120 years old 140 years old who knows the modern medicine out there this is the question i ask every single guest and i've never had the same answer and i'm not going to get the same answer today i'll tell you right now you just identified this show is not special because you ask the same question on every show but that's okay i don't need to be special when clinton sparks i've never asked anybody if they'll be a zillionaire that's the first time i've I've never asked anybody if they're going to be a zillionaire.
Dan, you're going to help me become a zillionaire. I am.
All right. When you become a zillionaire, not if, when you become a zillionaire, how much or what percentage do you leave to your kids? I would have to...
It's funny. Me and my wife just had an argument yesterday not an argument but a debate about because she would like if if the company I'm working on now that is you know hopefully be a multi-billion dollar company but see I don't even need that I don't know if I did that I wouldn't even I wouldn't even have enough to give to my kids because I give it away away.
But our debate was, she still feels like, no, our kids need to still grow up normal. They still need to have regular jobs.
They need to do that. I go, why would they go through the whole rigmarole to just hopefully try to get to the end goal that everybody goes through that rigmarole to get to if I've already did that and got them to the end? And she's like, no, because then they'll grow up and be spoiled brats.
It's like you don't know that there's people that grow up that you give them everything and they're assholes and some of the greatest people in the world you've seen that and there's people that grow up broke that are assholes are the greatest people in the world so there's no way to tell it really depends on the parenting and the environment how you teach them um i think that i would i would give them i don't know if there's a number i think i'd i'd first want to try to identify how much zillions really is because let's say i have zillions now i don't know how much this really is i need a cpa or somebody to really break this down for me dan do you know a guy all right and then um and then i i don't know man i don't know what the number is i would just i'd give them enough that they never have to worry again i know that for sure i don't know what number that is is it a zillion no because i only have one zillion that means i give them all my money i know but you're dead oh when i die yeah oh of course i'm leaving all my money all of it to them yeah because Yeah, because while I was alive, I already... Two things.
There you go. I can feel the answers come right here.
I give all... Okay, ready? And edit.
I would give... Not editing nothing, by the way.
All of my money to my kids because I would have already taught them the mentality and the importance of helping and giving to other people.

So I, while I was alive, would have already been doing that.

And by an example, they would have seen what I'm doing.

And there would be a contingency in that trust, that will, of them getting that money that I expect you to carry on the legacy of our family by helping other people.

And supporting the things that I already set up to help other people. And I think that I'm a pretty good dad, I would say.
And I think that my kids would learn and understand that not only is this important to me, it's important to the world, and it's important for you, for your happiness, and being a decent human being to continue to do this as well. So I trust in my fatherhood that they do the right thing.
I told you guys it was going to be a special episode, even though he was joking with me at the beginning. Make sure to follow ClintonSparks across social media.
Check him out, and he's going to announce at some point what is his multi-zillion dollar company in the gaming industry that he's working on. But as always, we have just one favor to ask at the end.
Please talk about with your friends, family, followers about money. Have these discussions.
Talk about loans, credit, finance, rent, borrowing money, all the things that are real life situations around your friends, family, and everyone in between. And talk about the Money Mondays.
Spread it to your friends so we can keep getting this message out there that it's not rude to talk about money. You want to add something? Can I add on to that? Heck yeah.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of people that want to sound smarter than they are, right? So one, they either are afraid to ask people questions or two, don't take the time to learn the things that they need to learn to level up their intelligence. I personally, like if I hear a word, like if I hear you say something and I don't know one I'm not too shy to say hey what did that word mean when you explain that what is that can you explain that to me again going back to listening but also if you are if you do have an ego that makes you feel less than especially like again when you go up in the streets it's hard to let to be vulnerable or to tell somebody I don't know anything and everybody tries to act like they know more because they know one bigger word than the other person right and it's just kind of like how about we also damn like what the fuck does that mean that we just heard them say on Shark Tank or what did they mean when they meant this and like if you want to be a real fucking crew then so one of you guys level up and go get that information come back and tell the rest of your fucking crew hey remember that shit that we were went to that meeting with the record label and they were saying some we didn't know what they were talking about well i went and did some research and i studied on it and i had a call with you know what's that legal number you can call and get answers for lawyers online whatever it's called what is it called legal zoom or something whatever and i got some information here's what it means they were trying to us or here's what it means it's actually in our favor and we were kind of being idiots and looking like we don't know what we're talking about by saying no right and that again goes to your point just fucking listen man stop acting like you know you don't know what you don't know and you'll never know if you don't go try to learn from somebody who does know you know so I already know the title of this episode it's gonna be called shut up and listen to clinton sparks we'll see you guys next monday get familiar ladies and gentlemen welcome to the money mondays podcast we are sitting here in a parking lot in downtown los angeles well right inside this building behind us there's over 600 entrepreneurs inside of the money is master class our guest today has four different levels of masterminds he owns the largest business tour in america he's got over 4 000 apartments he sold the company for around one bill not a million one billion dollars and so i don't want to take up too much time because it'll take me a long time to give him the introduction.
So we're going to do a quick, fast bio so we can get straight to the money. But I want you to give a warm round of applause wherever you are in the world to Mr.
Eddie Wilson. Thanks so much.
All right, Eddie. So normally we do a two minute bio.
Can you give us the one minute bio? Because we're going to do a fast episode for you guys. This is going to be a 20 minute episode.
We've had Eddie on before. you're gonna have eddie on multiple times in the future because we are working on a bunch of different things together we got the aspire tour we got all these fun things so eddie give us the fast bio we'll get straight to the money fast boys is i really exist in three areas um i'm a corporate leader i we run about 27 different companies right now um i'm an investor uh with private equity real estate all the above and then an altruist i like to give it all away once I make it.
I want to investor with private equity, real estate, all of the above, and then an altruist.

I like to give it all away once I make it. So I want to make it and give it all away.

All right. So that leads me to my first question.
How and why, which normally this is my last question. I'm going to ask at the beginning.
How and why should people give money to charity? But the caveat is why should they do it if they have a business or a brand? Why should they be involved in charity as a business or a brand? Well, first of all, you know, we really should be considering the fact that there are a lot of people around the world that can't make impact on their own lives. And we can make a difference if we will get, you know, motivated by it.
And our business should be a tool more than just to create wealth for us or for our family or for legacy. It should be a tool to help other people.
You know, we've got an amazing opportunity as we live in this amazing country to build these businesses and have these opportunities. And really, you know, you get to the end of your life and another car or another house or another boat is not going to give you fulfillment.
But at the end of the day, if you can help somebody else take their next step forward, it's very, very fulfilling. And so there's a lot of other benefits to it.
You know, you get increased opportunities in the marketplace by providing charities and all that type of stuff. I mean, there's a lot of great marketing, you know, things.
But at the end, it's about helping people. You know, like our our business is an amazing tool to help people.
And why wouldn't we do that? So your charity is called Impact Others. Can you explain what is it? How is it? What do you do? And what's the main concept behind Impact Others? Yeah, Impact Others exist in four areas.
Number one, we have feeding centers and education centers for children around the world. So many children, they're malnourished, don't have somebody to help them out.
And we start there. We have orphanages where then children that don't have parents, we actually house them.
We also dig clean water wells all over the world, provide clean water. And then lastly, we build sustainable businesses.
I believe that business should be a tool for the resource of helping others. And so as we build these feeding centers, orphanages, dig wells, then we'll build a small business in that area so that I always have to give capital to that area so that it can sustain itself.
You know, at some point you get to the end of your own resources and you realize you have to create more to help more people. And so it's also very difficult to repatriate money, get money back in the U S.
So I build businesses overseas. They support the ecosystem that I'm building there, feed and educate children, provide clean water.

Aspire Tour.

So I mentioned Aspire Tour a couple of times.

Last year, you and Andrew Cordell started it.

I stepped in the summer around June 2023, and now it has just gone bonkers, right?

It's crazy. 3,000, 4,000 people per month.

Sometimes last time we did in a 10-day period.

Yeah.

And upcoming, we've got May 17th in Miami, June 5 5th in orlando and july 20th at madison square garden yeah which we were just joking like next year we should do massive square garden and then andrew obviously he's like oh let's go away guess what guys he said uh he said we should do madison square garden in july i said why i said it's because my birthday and i was like oh, I should just rent Madison Square Garden because it's your birthday.

It's like.

And so he said, yeah, he said, I mean, you don't think we could fill six or seven thousand seats. And I was like, well, I think we can.

He's like, well, let's try it.

So it's his birthday.

So let's do it.

Why not?

So tell us about Aspired Tour.

How is it?

There's lots of business conferences out there in the world.

Why is this becoming the biggest business tour in the country? Why is it working? Why does it feel like a rock concert? Walk us through it. You know, it is very, very unique.
And you've brought a lot of the sizzle to the actual experience. And it has become more of a rock concert experience for people.
But there's a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs that are out there in the country. And they just don't know what the next step is.
And so we try to provide them pathways for the next step. So we provide them ways to find capital.
We find help them grow their business. We bring in real estate opportunities.
But in the end, the people that we bring in are transparent entrepreneurs themselves. The reason we ask people like Mark Cuban or, you know, Marcus Limonis is because they're transparent.
They will show them what they're doing and then they'll tell them the way that they got there. And that's really important.
It's not about the flash of just bringing a celebrity on stage. It's about bringing a celebrity that actually will show them, here are the steps I took, so that the people in the audience can also take similar steps.
What is the goal for Aspire Tour? What would you like to see happen? Is that lead to impact others? Does that lead to other things? A hundred percent. I mean, it really was just to be the world's largest business tour.
So we got there.

So I guess it's time for the next step.

But yeah, we lead off every Aspire Tour with the concept of impact others.

Every morning we start off, we talk about, hey, if we can help you take the next step

in your pathway and your journey, commit that we're going to ultimately give that to someone

else, that it's not just going to be spent on greed or pursuit of our own passions or desires but we're also going to turn around and make an impact

in someone else's life so we start the day with that we present opportunities throughout aspire tour to help you know orphanages in nigeria or free slaves in pakistan um so it very much is the center of it and then you know the aspire tour is really about creating a movement trying to create a community of people that have the same passions, but want to go help others, you know, when they find their success. So you also have masterminds, right? You have multiple levels of masterminds.
The money is mastermind. Uh, we have the a hundred million mastermind, all these things in between that are 15,000, 30,000, 50,000 for chairman's club, a hundred thousand dollars.
Why should people be involved in masterminds? Why should they invest in themselves to be in, you've got what, 1,100 members? Why be in those worlds? Why be in those rooms? Yeah, I think one of the hardest things to find are people with like mind. If you look about your community, where you spend your time, who are the people that speak and talk like you, that want to go change the world, who want to make massive impact and so when masterminds are a great place to find that community um i don't know about you but i i don't enjoy dinner parties because no one speaks about business i don't you know i struggle to fit in at church i struggle to fit in everywhere but then i go to a mastermind it's a bunch of me running around which is incredible you know and it's like and then it's like you just feel like it's your community.
It's your tribe. It's always been said that, you know, if you look back in your life, the greatest, you know, kind of jumps in your life are always tied to something you've learned or somebody you've met.
And I look back on my life, the companies I've sold, the exits I've had, the successes I've had, it's always tied to something I learned or some person I met. And so why not architect that by going to a mastermind and intentionally learning more in the specific area that you're interested in and meet the people that are already doing it.
So you also have something called Empire. Can you walk us through what is Empire? Why are there over 3,000 businesses using it? Yeah.
Empire is an operating system. I'm a business operator myself.

I love running businesses.

I've ran over 125 companies.

I've invested in over 85 of them passively.

I'm excited about business growth and business operations.

But what I realized is there was very little out there

to try to teach me or help me get from a very small startup

all the way to a billion-dollar business. There's a lot of systems out there that will teach you how to get 10 million or 15 million.
But I, at the same time, had 30 companies. And one of the companies was a small little tech firm that was making no money.
And then I had a couple hundred million dollar insurance company. And so I had to find a way to operate them all simultaneously with the same language, the same constructs, the same measurements.
And I built that and then sold 86 or sold 76 of the 86 companies in one year in 2019 for about 1.2 billion. And when I did that, I still had the tool empire.
I was just using it for my business. I wasn't, it wasn't a product that went out to the marketplace.
And so during COVID, we were sitting there and trying to find stuff to do. And one of my operators said, what if we actually, like, he said, what are you going to do in the next two or three years? I said, well, as soon as people start doing stuff again, I'm going to start buying businesses again.
Let's do it again. He said, let's systemize it.
That way, next time we go out, we just get super fast at this. So we built the curriculum during COVID specific to me because I was going to go buy another 100 businesses again.
And then I got involved with a few people like Andrew and others. And they were like, you know, why don't you teach that to other people? And so we did.
Now, 3,200 businesses later, you know, it's just everybody's using Empire. And we've got a global outreach.
and it's become very, very successful because it can take someone through all the phases of business

from startup all the way to I want to sell my business through scale and everything and help them navigate those pathways.

So when someone goes to a live event like Aspire Tour, what should they be doing while they're there?

Because what I've seen is sometimes people go to events and they're on the phones, you know, or they're up in the corner and they're missing out on the experience of networking and learning and listening, et cetera. What would you recommend to someone that is going to a live event? What should they do in that experience? You know, we get very few days in our lifetime where something massive and impactful is going to happen.
Well, we have created it. We have curated this experience where we know something massive and impactful is going to happen.
We're going to grab their gonna give them knowledge we're gonna give them information we're gonna give them exposure to things they've never thought of before we've created it and it is frustrating to watch someone come into an event and sit there on their phone or try to do business all day long not pay attention to the people around them you know it's like we have created amazing experience and the people around you are desiring to go the same direction you should be networking you should if your phone's out it should be taking notes about what you're learning um it's it should be about making plans for the future it should be about absorbing you know i believe that it's so important to find time in our life to absorb you know it's like uh often us people that lead and we have a bunch of people around us all the time it's we're always giving giving giving we have to find time to you know take in and i think that's time to take in it's time to absorb it's time to let people feed into us and then connect you know i think being able to absorb that information and connecting with others in a like state you know is very very impactful so you get approached a lot about investing companies. A lot.
Like a lot, a lot. How do you determine what you're looking for? Or more importantly, what can someone do? What can entrepreneur do to stand out? Yeah.
You know, if you look at my track record versus, track record versus, you know, everyone else's track record, the average VC firm has got, you know, an eight to 10% success rate. If you look at my track record, I'm over 93% for the companies I've invested in, succeeding at what we intentionally set out to do.
The reason is because how we look at deals. I'm not an emotional investor.
I don't invest in a product because I like it. I invest in a company or a product because it has a track record.
It has a good operator. You know, I always invest in the in the actual jockey, not the horse.
I want to know who's running it, who's on the board, who's on the cap table, who's involved. And then do they have a track record? I rarely get into pre-revenue deals.
I like deals that have capital, have some money behind it, have a little bit of track record, and then I can

actually like jumpstart it or throw some gas on the fire. I like people, I don't mind distressed money businesses.
I don't like distressed product or people businesses. You know, it's like, I think money is the thing that everyone struggles with.
But if I can find somebody that has good people and the product is solid,

we can take it from there.

All right.

All right.

We got six more minutes left because we're keeping this short for you guys. Obviously we'll have Eddie back multiple times.
So, when someone comes to you, and they do stand out, right? They're an entrepreneur, they stood out, they're doing seven million bucks in sales, they got a business, how do you decide even when they stand out, if you're going to make the leap, if you're actually going to get married basically, because you're going to be investing usually for three years, five years, seven years, who knows how long. Right.
You know, one of the greatest attributes of a young entrepreneur who's looking for an investment is pliability. You know, sometimes when you get to six or seven million, you think you know it all.
and they have no clue what it takes to go from seven million to a billion. They've never been there, and most people haven't.
And so usually, even if the product is great, it makes sense, there's a great runway, but if they are not pliable and willing to change, I oftentimes won't take the deal. I need to know that they are willing to actually listen to what we have to say, use systems like the Empire Operating System, allow me to make the right introductions, or you to make the right introductions.
It's like, there's so much that we can provide for them, and if they have a one-dimensional mindset on how they're gonna run this business, I oftentimes won't take the leap because they're not pliable. All right.
This is a question I ask every single time. I may have asked you this before, but I've never gotten the same answer.
So I'm going to ask you this one in a different format. Eddie Wilson, you are going to be a multi-billionaire or more because you're going to be deploying capital as you keep having all these exits and you might go from 4,000 apartments to 8,000 to 10,000 who knows what happens with your real estate portfolio in 50 years 80 years 100 years god willing with modern technology you live to 150 years old eddie wilson with your multiple billions of dollars what percentage do you leave to your children you pass you know i get asked I get asked that a lot.
And for me, I believe it's my responsibility and job to set them up to succeed themselves. And I think one of the greatest detriments that I can do is leave them a bunch of cash.
I need to give them knowledge today to earn it, not cash tomorrow to, you know, to basically use it. And so I spend money on making sure that my kids have the greatest opportunity in education and pathways in front of them.
Not education just like college, but I'll make sure that they are put in front of people that actually can make a difference in their life to absorb. And so I will leave very little to my children, maybe 10 to 20%.
I have such a passion for what I'm doing around the world. My money is going to be deployed into a place that will perpetuate it for generations to come so that it'll continue to, you know, my kids will have the greatest opportunity to succeed.
I wanna make sure that my money goes to help a thousand, 10, thousand, a hundred thousand other children succeed too. We're going into the summer of 2024 leading into an election year.
There's going to be a lot of chaos out there. What would you say to someone to stay focused and stay calm in the midst of all the chaos? Yeah, we have to have the mindset of an investor, not a, you know, not a consumer.
And what happens is in the election cycle, we all get forced into this like consumer mindset we're told to hold on to be careful i've found the greatest investments during the election cycle do you know in the last four election cycles the interest rate has always dropped some i believe the interest rate is going to drop again in this election cycle do you know the gas prices always go down during election cycle you know you can look at it is manipulated to a certain degree. So why not play the game that they're actually serving us up to play instead of being stagnant during this next six to eight month cycle? I think we should be looking for opportunities.
I think the opportunities today are in affordable housing. I think they're in real estate.
I think there's a ton of private equity and opportunities out there. And so I'm poised to go hard at a very specific investor mindset in this cycle and not stay dormant.
I say clear all the noise, make a good choice on who you want to vote for, and then clear it all out. Stop listening to it.
Stop paying attention to it. Make a choice and then go about your business without all this nasty noise that's going to happen over the next six to eight months don't let it affect you you know stay stay in the investor mindset all right guys you're listening to eddie wilson and a helicopter coming over our motorhome as we speak make sure to check out eddie across all social media platforms especially instagram come check us out on the aspire tour we're coming to a city near you and we look forward to talking to you about money

all over the country we will see you guys next monday