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Running a business is one thing. Building a business that pays you, funds your lifestyle, and creates real wealth? That’s different.
On ZFO Insider, we take you behind the scenes of how high-performing entrepreneurs turn their everyday operations into generational wealth machines; businesses that create real income, lasting freedom, and a legacy that actually matters.
This is your Masterclass in financial vision and business scaling.
Real Numbers. Real Stories. Real Strategies, that turn your cash flow into power.
See you on the inside.
The best business decisions don't always come from data. They come from conviction and action. But most founders hesitate waiting for the perfect conditions. As the founder of VEI, an apparel brand, he raised $40K in 30 days by simply reaching out to every contact in his home. Then he booked a flight to China, not to cut costs, but to build trust with his suppliers. That same drive has nearly doubled his business every year for the past three years. Obviously, the brand is a representation of who you are as a person. So, like, it grows to become something bigger, but at its core, it's directly you.
So, I just really focus on, like, purpose and alignment with my purpose because that's what's guided all of the actions and all of the things that have happened in my life to lead me here today. This episode of the ZFO Insider is a masterclass in moving with clarity. We're breaking down what fearlessness really looks like and how to sharpen your instinct, take decisive action, and lead from within. Let's dive in. What's up, Ike? What's poppin'? What's poppin', man? How you doin', bro? Doin' pretty good. Thank you for having me on the podcast. Nah, thanks for accepting the invitation, honestly.
On a whim. Yeah, hey, you come to my spot, you set up, hey, you can record any time, talk to me about whatever. Yeah, we're actually in the VEI studio. In the dojo. This is where everything happens, all the production, all the inventory, spend sleepless nights, long nights in here, all types of things. Yeah, this is awesome. Thanks for the invitation. No problem. Yeah, so we're just really talking about fearlessness in business and taking action. Honestly, bro, from the outside looking in, you are the best action taker I've literally.
ever seen. I'm not even joking. And maybe it's because of the seemingly randomness of some of the actions, but I think it has really made a mark for your brand. When VEI is doing something, whether he's running a marathon, whether he's in a body building competition, whether he's traveling, it's like, okay, this guy is going to be, is definitely interesting where did that come from yeah i think it's just telling a good story realistically i feel like um everybody has a good story to tell it's just a frame in which that.
you position it in so a big thing for me is like aligning my purposes with my passion and allowing that like synergy to guide me in all the decisions that i make so i never have a decision where i like question it because if it checks the boxes of like okay does this fit within the realm of what i like to do does this fit within the realm of my strengths and like my god-given talents then it's like there's no way that i can really fail i might stumble but if i do it for long enough or if i have enough intensity then a favorable outcome will be the have you have you always been like that whereas like you're not afraid to just leap take the leap.
yeah i think i always have had that kind of like action-based uh personality since i was younger i was just an outlier with everything that i was doing from like being a young young person like making music to make music too yeah i used to be a rapper i used to be real passionate about rapping and stuff like that um and then like i got into music and i got into music and i got that same passion and put into like, sports and just i'm just always like if i have an interest i'm just going to delve into it regardless of what other people think or what other people are doing at the current time so this has always kind of been me and that has definitely translated to the value apparel brand.
yeah for sure um what it what actually one thing i wanted to bring up is that when i walked into this space there's a big sign at the front yeah that basically says like where you are is where you're supposed to be yeah 100 and i was like of course he will be inside of that space yeah i and i didn't notice it until like maybe a couple of months after i moved into this like warehouse studio space and i was just looking at the walls and the decorations and i'm like a lot of this stuff just like really speaks to me in terms of like they where you are is where.
you're supposed to be there's other small inscriptions that they have on the wall that i felt like showed me that i'm where i'm supposed to be for sure and you told me that one of your guiding lights is just it's just that internal voice yeah i remember that really sat with me that means that like inspiration might be something you, like your, engine yeah is that a good description yeah 100 just like really listening to the voice and then taking action on it because ideas are ever flowing like i think michael jackson once said like the reason he would stay up till like 3 a.m making music is because if he didn't like jump on the idea then prince would get it and i really feel like that's the truth like there's a reason why.
like you're like dang that's a good idea i thought about that but i never took action on it somebody else does it so i just really try to like whenever i get inspiration just jump and iterate and like suck it first and just continue to get better and then go from there has that ever led you to some unexpected growth opportunities or benefits yeah 100 even me right now the life that i'm living is a growth opportunity in itself you know like tell us um yeah just like of course running a business is a cool idea jumping into this six years ago and deciding to create a brand with.
a big vision and picture but like you're gonna have your obstacles you're gonna have to make sacrifices you're gonna have to you know like live a certain way that others might not think are favorable but it's not it just goes back to like what you feel like is your purpose and what drives, and what you want to wake up and achieve every morning and me is like building an amazing business in a community and like just like playing my game and playing to win so that's why i never, and if i'm down i have a rough day i'm never down for too long because i know i'm walking in the right direction yeah for sure honestly like i think that there's certain character traits that.
you need in order to actually run a business yeah for sure and it's very different from being an employee yeah right yeah i remember one time i was talking with one of my aunts and she told me she said this was when i started my business about six years ago she was like look i know i'm not a business owner i am an employee yeah i was like i didn't understand what she really meant i mean i appreciated it at the time but now you know six years later it's like the skill set is different yeah not everybody's meant to like do their own thing some people are best taking.
directions or working within a system and like some people prefer stability over that like uncertainty but like i thrive in that uncertainty yeah we're out here in the waters yeah i love just treading water, and like just continue to pedal until, Maybe one day I'll touch land, but until then, I'm going to just keep swimming, realistically. All right. That's cool. All right. So you told me that you had a campaign. I call it a flash campaign. Yeah. And in 30 days, you raised 40K. Yeah. Tell me about that. Why did you do that? How did you actually execute it? What gave you the unction, the audacity to actually do that?
To keep it a buck, I was running out of money. So I felt like a big part of my life and the way that I live my life has been serendipity. And serendipity is just right place, right time, right opportunity, and taking that jump when it's necessary. And so many things in my life, I just felt like it was just supposed to happen the way that it did. So I think November rolled around last year, and I could tell that my cash flow was getting pretty tight in terms of the money that I had to operate the business. And we were coming up on our sixth year. February 1st is always a big thing for us, where we're celebrating a new year of being.
it. Being in business. And I reach out to a lot of different founders and entrepreneurs. And one of the ones that I reached out to was the Kickstarter CEO. I'd heard him on a podcast. His name is Everett Taylor. And he was talking about his journey from being in Virginia, like being homeless to like now being the CEO of a tech company. And I cold emailed him and I was like, hey, you know, this is where I'm at in my journey right now. I'm running this business. You know, of course, like being a black founder, you might not have the most access to capital. And I'm learning as I go. I've made mistakes, but continue to trudge forward.
And he was like and I asked him if I could send him a hoodie. He was like, you should just launch a Kickstarter equity crowd, like a crowdfunding campaign. And I just took him up on that. And then I started to plan out what it would be. And I kind of wanted to tell a good story. And I was like, hey, we've been in business for five years in order for us to make it to year six. We need the support of every single person that's ever like patronized a brand purchased or even that knows me and me making that decision. Like I really got to see from the ground up who has been rocking with the brand. It was like a trip down memory lane because like, you know, when you're in the business world.
And you're in. entrepreneur operating on a day-to-day basis. It's kind of like you never get to look up and look around at what you've built. But me doing that, reaching out to every single one of my contacts, my whole email list, going on Instagram and posting every day and really making it a challenge that mobilized my community was amazing. And we hit the goal on the last day. We hit that 40K goal, which I was very confident that we would as well. And it just reminded me that I'm on the right path and I'm living within my purpose. And when I really do need people to show up for me, they will. So that was a dope experience. Absolutely. It's even a doper story.
Yeah, 100%. It's just a good story to tell. A couple of things that I picked up from that is that one, you knew your cash. You knew where the cash was going to end up. We consider that cash flow forecasting. A lot of people think that they can just run based off what they see in a bank account, but you're anticipating, oh, all right, the seasons are coming. And so you had to do something about it. And this is what you did. And then the second thing, which you mentioned, it was like all the people who have patronized, brand since the beginning like throughout the existence yeah on one hand um you sell you you.
sell apparel typically and so that's usually like maybe a once in a while transaction with people you're not doing an ongoing service yeah but i one thing i noticed about your brand is that you do a good job of of connecting more than just the apparel yeah 100 like your website really tells the story yeah and the fact that you can even reach out to your your long audience yeah who may not have engaged for a while but because they had they connected with you yeah through your story they we come back yeah i think it's just important to like really build a community everybody talks about community but like i feel like community is.
basically like a family and like a tribe and i i try to prescribe the things that i've learned in my life from other categories into the way that i run this business so like when i'm selling people clothes i'm not just selling them clothes like it's like a welcoming into like a group of people like if you know if you know me or if you patronize the brand then you know everybody that's in the business and i'm not just selling people clothes i'm not just selling, in my circle and everybody that supports me, And I just feel like my purpose in life is to be a connector. So the clothes just are a vehicle that allow me to connect a wider group of people, which is that's actually really amazing because that's aligning the purpose. Yeah. Like you're in your purpose, your passions with a pretty solid business model.
Yeah. Like once you have a community of people like you build your own ecosystem. Yeah. They kind of become clients for life. Exactly. And you can like you can sell clothes or you can there's there's an abundance of things that you can do once you have that strong community of people. For sure. And you're doing some of those things. You told me that that you have an event that you're hosting. Tell us about that. What's that? So we're having a Juneteenth event on Thursday, June 19th here at like our warehouse space. And I think last year I went to a Juneteenth event and I was like, I feel like I could do something like this and like really highlight some of the black businesses in this area and then just bring people together and then have that be under the brand umbrella.
Because outside of selling clothes, I genuinely just want to like uplift my community and like this area there. Yeah. living in that the brand is located into so i was like all right let's plan an event let's get vendors let's get people yeah and let's just like bring people together and then good things will come from that so nice and so is there like a is it a structured organized like what agenda or is it kind of hey come and pay look at all the different brands in the community and um, and expose them yeah exactly just give them exposure yeah just like taking my audience and my following and the people that um want to come out for vey and then highlighting other.
brands too and then just getting people together that might not i have there's probably a lot of people that i haven't seen in a while that'll come to the event because it's just a good touch point to be like hey how are you doing how's everything going maybe buy some products check out some of these other local businesses and just like come together and it's a good marketing campaign as well absolutely like absolutely i think a couple years ago um i saw that you you had done this campaign with t-shirts related to and i got it into some space with the nfl yeah at one point, i don't know i forget what what it was but.
I knew all I can say is that he got his brand in front on, like it probably was on TV or some famous dude was wearing it. I was like, how did he connect and get there? He obviously is shaking hands in the right places. When you try to break into spaces like that, particularly in your sports, how do you go about that? Do you just, you're a connector, but do you just, hey, cold call everybody? Nah, I would say you like never know when somebody is going to be useful to you. Building strong relationships with folks is so important because someone might not.
be a resource to you at the moment, but it's good to connect with them, stay up to date with them, even provide them with resources or just be useful to them because you'll never know the day where they'll know somebody or they'll be in a space or a place where they can advocate for you. A lot of things is just like, it's not what you know, it's really who you know. The difference between you getting the opportunity and you not is one person in one organization on one team or in one department just saying like, yeah, he saw. Go ahead and thumbs up. Let's go ahead and do this. So like- I just try to make sure that everybody that I come across, I really treat them like they're the person that I'm going to need to get to the next level because we all need each other at the end of the day.
Sweet. So the brand is located in Maryland. Yeah. Right. But a couple of weeks ago, we're actually in a class together. Yeah. Hands on. Yeah. We're in this crash course, MBA course with Goldman Sachs. But on day one, on week one, you were in China. Yeah, literally. Crazy. Crazy to think about it, honestly. So he calls us up and he says, yeah, I'm out in China just meeting with my suppliers. And everybody's like, for real? That's crazy. Yeah. Tell us even how you got there.
You told me it just kind of happened so fast. Yeah. So after that Kickstarter campaign, I was like, bet. We have a little bit of bread now. What's the next step for me in this journey as an entrepreneur? And I just felt like I've been working with my manufacturers for five to six years. Six years on February 1st, I was like, it's time for me to go to China. And serendipity just kind of spoke to me in a way where I understood. I needed to put my. place myself in a place in a space where i could like receive the abundance that i knew that was supposed to come to me so like a lot of things just kind of worked in my favor canton fairs like.
the biggest fair that they host in that part of china where all of the manufacturers meet um and then there were some like people on instagram whose content that i followed that were also doing activations in china like the odds and activation yeah like pretty much bringing people together to show them the different like um warehouses or manufacturers or fabric like just hosting an experience kind of where it's like everybody from these different industries come together and we'll just like uh networking event yeah yeah okay so i just looked at flights and i was like i i have a chinese visa from 10 years ago when i played football in china so like wait.
you play football yeah for like a summer you see that's what i'm saying this guy has done so much football in china he's run marathons but he's bodybuilding has an apparel brand running events like you don't shy away, from doing things yeah, I feel like life is is long, but it's short because at the end of the day, I don't want to have a regret of being like what I didn't do. You know, if there's ever an opportunity where I can do something that interests me, like I'm going to go for it first. And then like if it comes to repercussions, I'll think about them later.
But like there's never been an opportunity that I took or a place that I went where I was like, dang, I regret having gone to this place. Like everything is a learning lesson or an experience in itself. So, yeah. Tell us about one of those learning lessons. I know that being go, it can be great, inspiring and probably look really cool. But I'm sure that there are some slowdown periods. Has there been any time that you've ever that you've had to overcome like self-doubt? Yeah. Or does that is that not in your world? No, 100 percent. I feel like I'm my own biggest critic.
And sometimes like within the business, I'll just realize that like I have like a big picture type of personality when it comes to like the day to day logistics. And like, look. And at the balance sheets and things that we're learning in our class, I'm realizing like. Oh, yeah. Like this is where I'm not the strongest. So like this is where like I've been slacking and I've been able to run the business and like keep it moving forward for the last six years. But I think about how much further my business could have gone if I would have just like taken a step back and like done less with done more with less and just like really focused and honed in.
But whenever I have those periods of like doubt, I just remind myself that like everything does happen for a reason. And like I wasn't supposed to learn those lessons at that time. I was supposed to learn the lessons as they came. And that's why I'm here right now. Bro, that's supposed to be that thing right there is something that you I feel like. I don't know if only entrepreneurs can really speak to this, but people who are going for long journeys who are really working on long term projects who really understand that. Yeah, because the time that you spent, if you look back at that with regret, it will slow down the present and it will actually compromise what you can accomplish.
Exactly. But if you see it as no, these are the building blocks that actually got me to the point today. Well, I'm ready to now take the next. And it's just about, it's just a part of the whole story. Like, even if it was six years to get to this point, you can't skip that. You can't skip it. Everybody got to go through that. Right. And so I really resonate with that for sure. Cause even when I look at my, my own career over the last, I mean, have we been in business the same time, man? We twin business.
Yeah. put my time in that's it yeah you got to you got to honestly business ownership is really about your journey yeah like the growth of yourself the better you become the more mature that you become yeah the better the business actually becomes exactly the business don't grow unless you grow that's number one there you go all right so you invest a lot into having real connections with people yeah like through your community going to china meeting your your suppliers sometimes sometimes that is that goes against the i would say the cost first person yeah they might be.
thinking of cost before the relationships um i would presume that i mean that might be flipped on your how do you handle that when it feels like the thing that you want to do the action you want to take might actually cost more than you you can handle at the moment yeah like do you what is your mentality when the when you're faced with those yeah i think of course the numbers are different but i think it's it's the numbers like one plus one equals two and one minus one equals zero but like, When it comes to, like, a bigger picture of, like, relationships, the most valuable thing is, like, your reputation and, like, the most valuable thing you can give is, like, goodwill because if you have a good reputation and you have plenty of goodwill, there's, like, literally an infinite amount of things that you have access to.
Like, if people know that you are that person with integrity or, like, you are that person that is, like, always looked out or that person that's always been for the people, like, they will always show up for you or they will always, like, patronize whatever services or if you're in a slum, like, they'll always, like, come and support you. So, like, I just think forward whenever I make a decision, I'm like, all right, is this a decision that aligns with my, like, principles and my integrity and who I am as a person and, like, that'll always guide me as opposed to, like, trying to be shrewd and, like, there's times to negotiate, of course, but, like, there's always.
There's also times where it's, like, hey, I'm going to, like, look out for you on this deal or, like, we're building this relationship, like, it's quid pro quo because you have to think about yourself from the other person's perspective if you're always trying to, like, gypsum. or be a penny, nickel, diamond type of person. Folks just won't want to work with you or they'll undercut you or they'll find a way where the quality of your services or goods or something just won't, the equation won't add up. So I just always focus on goodwill and integrity. So your action taking style in your business, honestly, I think that's a superpower that kind.
of goes beyond a cost conscious first owner. I'm a CFO. I do accounting and do all that stuff. So I tend to be more cautious. And in my journey of growth, I've been growing in being more action oriented or just moving forward first because there's opportunities that come in front of you that present themselves that won't wait on your money. And you mentioned access to capital and then all of the other ways on how to get bread or get some cash in the business. But sometimes you.
got to be able to just move before you actually see the dollar. I call that, faith i call that stepping out um and it seems like you that muscle in you has really guided you and helped you along the way for the six years i mean you even told me that you know that the revenue has been growing each year almost doubling yeah pretty much year over year over the last three years how has that served you like that action oriented approach do you find yourself, needing to go the opposite way a bit more or you're like no this is who i am this is what i.
gotta do this is what's going to take me to the next level yeah i think at first i was just like a chinese fire drill where like i was just like just throwing everything at the wall seeing what seeing what was sticking and like just every day had a new idea new concept new viral approach yeah to what i was doing but um it's never there's never like a l it's just a lesson so like i've never been faulted for being action first because like at the end of the day like i'm running a company and i am disadvantaged in a lot of ways but in order to run a successful business i'm running a company and i'm running a company and i'm running a, successful business you have to.
Take your disadvantages and turn them into advantages. So like I might not be as big as like the big conglomerates like the Nikes, Adidas, or even a lot of my competitors that are adjacent to me. But like what I can do is I can move fast and I can build relationships. So like just being able to like listen to the beat and the pulse of what's going on in society, what's going on on social media, or even listening to my inner voice of like what's speaking to me right now, what needs to be spoken on has allowed me to just really be authentic in terms of how we speak and appeal to our customer and our demographic. So like that action-based approach has never faulted me.
But I feel like as I progressed on my business journey, I've been able to kind of hone in on like here are the people that respond the best to what we have to offer. Here are the products that respond best to that are like received best by the people that respond best to what we have to offer. And then that way it's like I can move faster but be like a laser. Instead of like being like a bazooka shooting everywhere, like I got a scope and I'm literally just like hammering that. Whenever I need to go, I can just like hone in and just be a missile and shoot directly. Towards my target. So I feel like that's been the progression of my business journey before I was just like a bomb. You take it, throw that joint. Now it's like I'm really a targeted grenade with everything that we're doing.
For sure. You're getting sharper, more precise in everything you do, especially in the marketing and your target audience. Now, when I think about business, I like to think about this. I think about it in a equation. I kind of like doing math a little bit, but I think about it as I call it the offer minus your fulfillment minus management equals profit. Yeah. Each of those elements is a different department in the business or skill set, if you will.
When I think of the offer, the marketer, the salesperson, the connector, the fulfillment is the delivery of the actual thing, the quality of your good, the management is like managing, allocating the resources in the business. Where would you say that your strengths lie? State it out for me again, the offer, the fulfillment. Offer, fulfillment, and management. management management offer for sure because offer is like marketing how you can speak to people and tell them why the why your product or service is valuable so like i feel like i just have.
a really good understanding of like human nature and how people respond to certain stimuli so like i can position the brand to be many things to many different people because like i can understand people in different categories and ways um so like definitely the offer for sure yeah and you told me that you're you have specific target audiences um more so like in sports segmenting about sports yeah where's they what sports are they in yeah so right now our strategy moving forward is to definitely double down on um football of course because we have um just leverage in.
terms of access to like a lot of professional nfl athletes that i have personal relationships with in markets that are favorable for the brand yeah um there's bodybuilding which is a space where people that are into health and wellness and fitness technically uh patronize um there's also running which, is a space that is growing a lot and becoming more popular and a space that i personally have gotten into now so i can learn more yeah more about and then there's also um high rocks which is uh similar to crossfit it's like a crossfit adjacent but um it's more so like just more.
accessible it's a more accessible version of crossfit that's really blowing up and um i thought crossfit was accessible you just need a pull-up bar nah crossfit you have to do a lot of like olympic lifting and like cleaning and squatting and some people and you have to do it for high reps and a lot of weight so like it's just been something where over the years it's become more and more stigmatized because of like the injuries and like the culture um so like high rocks has become just like the things are cyclical so like high rocks is the new trend that everybody's jumping on and it's like right at the beginning of that trend so it's for those that don't know.
what that looks like yeah what can you just yeah so high rocks events would be like you're timed of course you'll have um like walking weighted lunges and then you'll have uh weighted uh weighted ball pulls and then you'll be pushing a sledge, and then you'll do a rower machine type deal so like, these are all things where you don't need a lot of equipment um you don't need to have technical skills of like proper traditional um olympic lifting it's just it's way more accessible and it's like competitive they kind of have marketed it as a cool crossfit and so it's like what we do when we go to the gym as regular folk yeah but competitive yeah competitive and like marketed in.
a cool way where like you're competing against times and regional and stuff and it's like and anytime like there's a sport usually like there's always like a community of people usually black people like where it's like people want to compete they're probably pretty good at it but like there's not enough black people in that space like they or they're not as um condensed to know that there's other people so like i just see that as an opportunity for me to be like all right i'm gonna go on high rocks and i'm gonna find all the black people that's doing high rocks and that are really good and i'm just gonna like be the brand where like if you're in high rocks you wear this brand when you go to the events and you see other black people you give them the head nod and like.
in all of our marketing and our messaging like we're gonna showcase black people doing dope ass shit and dope ass stuff in high rocks so like that's really just my marketing approach yeah, okay yeah, yeah and i i really one thing that i do admire about you is that when you find your audience or what you want to actually target you go and experience it yeah and like personally get the data and figure out what it's about you told me about running you've been bodybuilding you played football yeah like what have you learned by going out and doing that like that tangible.
yeah market research it's kind of just like everything has its own culture and like rules that people abide by and um it's just important you can't just like be at in a boardroom saying like oh we're gonna tap into this market like you really got to be boots on the ground to like understand what people what like will move people in those specific categories of those sports because like a football fan and a high rocks athlete are two different people like they're they have two different motivators in terms of what would make them want to purchase or what would make them want to support a brand or join a culture so it's like you just got to learn to.
speak the language and really like yeah yeah and buy, into whatever they're doing now you i've learned a bit about you know, So I think your connection, your your superpowers connections and you've kind of used that to, you know, get they into rooms that, you know, that aren't always open. Yeah. So you mentioned that you have a unique relationship with Gold's Gym. Tell me about that. Yeah. How'd you get that? And what is what? How's they benefiting from that? Yeah, for sure. So that's I feel like that's another example of like serendipity.
So like covid happened and I was done with school, moved back from New York to to Maryland. I needed like a quick little job just to get some bread and stay fit. Didn't want to pay for a gym membership. So I went to the Gold's Gym in Upper Marlborough, Ritchie Station and was like, hey, can I apply for a job? It was like that. Like we need a lot more people to just do mass duty, like tell people to put on their mask if they don't put on their mask or take it off. Write them up type deal. So I was doing that job for like maybe a month or two months or so or three months. And like I have a video recording this and I was like, this is. Cool, but this is the last job that I will ever work type deal. And while I was doing that.
studio one day, I see a man pull up in like a pickup truck with like gym equipment. And he's like struggling to get the gym equipment off of the, uh, off of the truck. So me just being who I am, like I go downstairs and I help him bring the equipment in and he's like, Hey, like, thank you, man. Like, what's your name? And I was like, Hey, I'm Ike. And he was like, my name is Bruce shook my head, shook my hand and dipped. So he leaves the manager of the gym comes in. They're like, you know who that is? And I'm like, nah, she was like, that's Bruce. Like he owns this gym and all the ghost gyms in this area. So then like, yeah, bro, like me and Bruce, like got real.
cool from that, from that moment. And, um, he just kind of saw my tenacity with what I was doing with my business. So like when I approached him and I was like, Hey, can I just like do some pop-ups here at the gym? And then pop-ups started going well. And then I was like, Hey, can I put some of my merchandise in the gym? I'll give the gym a cut. And then it went well at the one gym. And then I'm like, Hey, you own this other gym. Can I go to this other gym and do it? And then we went from one gym to two gyms to six. And now we're at seven, including the one that he owns in, in Virginia too. So just like relationships and serendipity. and like really jumping on opportunities. That's really cool. Yeah.
So you're going to have one of those. Wait, remind me the name of CrossFit. It's not CrossFit. It's High Rocks. High Rocks. You're going to host a High Rocks event in one of the gyms sponsored by they. That'd be really cool. High Rocks kind of has their own like their how they're operating is they're really trying to like build out their ecosystem. So when CrossFit came out, like people were participating in the events, the events grow bigger and then they started to get CrossFit gyms and franchise. So like the money is in the name. Name CrossFit is a trademark name that's owned by a subsidiary. So you anywhere you hear CrossFit, somebody getting a check like the corporation.
So like High Rocks wouldn't let me have events, but like and they wouldn't even let me sponsor, an event because Puma is their title sponsor. But what I could do is host my own separate activations under the High Rocks umbrella and be like, hey, if you're doing this, like I'm doing, I'm going to compete in High Rocks Dallas in November and in Dallas. So like I'm just going to host like an activation prior to the event, get everybody in like custom merch that we dropped for that event. And then it'll. be an excellent idea yeah I mean it's a win-win for the gyms black people come.
to the gym yeah you're visible you probably the gym into everyone imagine a hundred people wearing vague yeah when I go to the gym now I always see folks wearing a brand and it's like it's cool cuz it's yeah I'm spending less money on marketing because every day that people come in they see a banner with my face on or this they'll see the clothes are wearing it so cool now your brand is big on on purpose and mission yeah right it seems like you really want to inspire maybe not even just the athlete but even the aspiring athlete the fitness.
enthusiast particularly in the black community and to the youth your website is really rich around the mission I had a chance to read it tell me about you know why like where did that come from and ultimately say it in your words what are you trying to accomplish yeah so I want the one of the brand, to be like obviously the brand is a representation of who you are as a person so like it grows to become something bigger but at its core it's it's directly you so i just really focus on like purpose and alignment with my purpose because that's what's guided all of the actions and all.
the things that have happened in my life to lead me here today so like there was a point in my life where i was really trying to figure out like okay what's the next step for me and i took some time and i've stumbled upon this japanese um practice or like um saying called ikigai it's pretty much just like figuring out what your purpose is by figuring out like what you love what you can be paid to do what your strengths are and what the world needs and you make a venn diagram of each of those individual things so i sat down and took some time to fill out each of the categories and it took me some time and then from there you have intersectionality where you figure out what your.
passion is your vocation i literally have every order that we every order that we fulfill i send this out and then i show them my ikigai yeah so like you have your your profession is your strengths and what you can be paid, for, put together. Your vocation is what the world needs and what you can be paid for. Your mission is what you love and what the world needs. And your passion is your strengths and what you love. So by filling out that Ikigai, I just had a clear picture of this is who Ike is. This is what my purpose is in life. And I realized any decision that I make, I can just look at my Ikigai and be.
like, is this decision aligned with Ike? And if it is, I continue to move forward. And if it's not, then I pull away from it or reassess what it is type deal. So a big part of my Ikigai is my strength is just being vulnerable and relating to people and storytelling and inspiring people to want to be the best versions of themselves because that's the pursuit that I have. So those values are instilled in me and then they're echoed into the brand. And that's kind of how I became. Yeah. Show that to the camera so you can see it. Yeah. So this is the blank side of it. You got all of your categories and then you have my specific Ikigai. Yeah. I think that practice.
is a very... Yeah. Good one and effective one, because so because I think that in order to really grow, like in our process of growing, oftentimes the way to grow up tall is to grow down first. Yeah. To start looking into it. Yeah. And really understanding who you are, what's your mission, what's your purpose. I like to look to God to show me those things and to expose what's in your heart, because once you're aligned with that, man, every action that comes from that, it just kind of just has a different energy to it. Yeah, 100 percent. Like you actually are not you're not tired of doing the thing.
Yeah. Like when you talk about work, it's not you're not talking about what you're talking about, you know, your passion, who you are, what gives you energy for sure. Yeah, I find that. And I think that's why I appreciate sometimes talking with other entrepreneurs is because they typically have found that with their work. Yeah. And it's not like an employee where they're drudging, you know, they be begrudgingly. Going to work is a little bit different conversation. Yeah. And like people will always ask like, how do I become this? Or like, how do I like present myself as this? But you like what people don't realize is the cheat code is just like looking internally and like really working on your inner self because that's where the energy and the charisma and the confidence and the passion exudes from. It doesn't like you don't find something outside. You don't just get this motivation that's ever fleeting. It's like if you do that inner work with yourself and really understand who you are, then like the amount of conviction that you have as a human being will like literally like exude from you and bring people closer to you.
Where like people will be like, why is this person like, oh, Ike is just like people always like, oh, Ike is just charismatic or like Ike is just always this way. And it's like, nah, I'm not always this way. It's because I know myself so well internally that I'm able to just like without even saying words, just like put that passion out into the world based on like my actions and the energy that I put out. Yeah. And that word conviction, you know what it produces? It produces that passion that people can notice, can see, but it actually produces consistency. Yeah. Like people are saying, oh, I guess.
That's always charismatic. That's because you're literally consistent in that conviction. And I find that to be true also in my life. When I have that conviction, the things that I grow tired to do, I don't grow tired of doing them. And I'm actually able to be more consistent in what I say to do. When I say something, I follow through with it much more easily. I was talking to you about even the whole content production, how like over the last few years, it's been really hard for me to figure out how to be consistent with it. But once we started to introduce something I'm interested in, something I'm convicted about, which is video production right now, it's like, man, it's flowing much easier. I have a grace for it now. And that's what birthed this podcast.
Yeah, that's how it is. Just walking in your purpose. Everything becomes, it'll always be challenging, but things become... Like just an easier weight for you to carry. Yeah. Let me ask you this question. Is there an amount of money that... somebody can come and pay you to close up shop with they um nah because then i would just go and open something open a different version of a type deal you know what i mean yeah literally like a vay 2.0 because it's like money isn't really what's fueling me at this point because i could.
like do a lot of other things to make a lot more money based on like my skills and my connections but like this is just the game that i want to play and i want to play it to win for right now so like maybe when i feel satisfied with the worth from with my results from the game that i'm playing right now i'll like figure out what the next game is which will probably be even more like impact based but like i just want to build the best business that i can within this world that i am so yeah last week we had an exercise at our class to like order our priorities or the things that is it the priorities um and what driving the business is and surprisingly many.
of us had money like very low down the list what was that the what was like your top three do you remember yeah i think it was like taking the people that i love, like doing life with them that was a big one for me um i think another one was definitely um, think playing like playing my game and playing to win and then the third one was like flexibility and like the ability to have choices like autonomy self-autonomy you you like that one yeah are you sure that's number three yeah no that's probably number one for real for now because i i nah definitely number one because with the autonomy comes the ability to do things that i.
love with the people that i love and then it allows me to like play the game that i'm playing and play it yeah so with speaking to that you've made a lot of sacrifices to to live the life that you have speak to that like like a lot of us aren't willing to make some of those sacrifices yeah that actions you know require yeah how have you overcome that how do you do that um, it's just my view my view of the world they gotta know what the sacrifice yeah for sure yeah i guess it's just my view of the world because like people view things as sacrifices but for me it's not just.
sacrifices it's just more clarity in terms of, my life and what, I focus on. So like even with where I live now, like this warehouse where we're shooting is where I also live. Like I will work for most hours of the day and then I will go to sleep right behind where Zoe is in that pull out bed. And I realize I will sleep there majority of the week unless I'm traveling for business or something like that. But like I think two years ago I was living in a town home. I had like a few cars that I was running out with the business and I like had a closet full of clothes and stuff. And I just started to realize like, I don't know, like a simple life is a good life is.
an easy life. So I just worked on starting to reduce all the things that I had that were taking up mindshare in my life. And it just moved me to make the decision to move into the warehouse full time and work full time on the business and really like prove to myself that I am who I say that I am. So like people would view my life is like crazy because like, how do you have like one box of clothes? How do you have two pairs of shoes or like, how do you like, like live in a warehouse with no windows and stuff? But it's like, it's just what I love to do for like this for this part of my life. Like it's cool. I enjoy it. And it's a story.
So it's just. another good story for me to tell at the end of the day so sure for myself and for others for sure and there are certain things you cannot learn that we all would never be able to learn unless we actually did the yeah exactly yeah and so you're getting some life lessons that only you can learn by doing this thing yeah so the stories you would tell the lessons that you would teach for not will be phenomenal 100 so i want you to speak to other founders who are trying to take action right a lot of us we want to take action but oftentimes we feel overwhelmed with.
that next big step yeah what would you say to somebody as a way to overcome that hurdle and simply just take that next step yeah all right what can i say i'm gonna look in the camera for this one uh for all of the founders that are struggling with um like analysis paralysis or like taking a decision i would say like think about yourself 20 to 30 years from now and think about what the outcome of your decisions today will lead you to, the number one way to guarantee that you will not succeed is to right now, In the present day, not take any action or not do the thing that's innately calling you like there's no way to predict the future.
But the number one way to predict the future at the same time is to not do anything. So you're better. You're better off right now in the present day, taking an action that will lead you into uncertainty, because that way you won't guarantee failure or you won't guarantee that you won't receive the outcomes in the future. So, like, just think about yourself 30 years from now and like think about what the regret minimalization framework is. I think Jeff Bezos said this, like, in 2003 or something like that. He says, when I'm 80 years old sitting on my deathbed, this is how I'll analyze all my decisions in present day.
Will I have regret doing this or will I have regretted not doing this? And honestly, like, there's very few things that I would have regretted right now in my life having done, because everything that I've done in my life has led me to right here where I am today. And the worst thing I want to do is regret not having done things. So, like, just have that bias towards action. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to mess up. Everybody does. But it's just like how fast you can learn from those mistakes. iterate and just like be transparent and honest with the people that are supporting you because like they'll give you feedback and the best way to improve whether it's in your marriage your.
family your business your life and even as a person is just to like how fast can you learn from the past and learn from others too dang how fast can you learn from the past right cool cool yeah all right for those who um are aligned with the vision of they and who want to tap into that community of purpose that you're building where can they connect with you where can they find you yeah for sure yeah so they can go to our website it's they apparel veii apparel.com they can follow us on all social media at veii apparel as well and then um yeah just i guess.
focus on just being a better version of yourself every day every day when you wake up tell yourself that you're gonna have a great day on purpose because just by doing that like taking the next action action and not thinking about some big world outcome that you want to achieve like you'll be closer and you'll represent what the brand is and what it means to me, That's it. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate you having me, man. Yeah. No worries. Thank you.