IAM2224 – CEO and Real Estate Investor Stresses the Importance of Creativity and Multiple Streams of Income

Title: Transcript - Mon, 02 Sep 2024 11:22:19 GMT

Date: Mon, 02 Sep 2024 11:22:19 GMT, Duration: [00:16:59.61]

[00:00:00.24] - Kadeem Leslie

But you see, we didn't have that type of mindset, you know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, to try and understand this debt problem. And so what it is now is that now I get to educate people. Actually, here's how you use it. Here is the break even rule. Right here is the having the emergency fund rule. Right here is how you keep yourself safe.

[00:00:20.10] - Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEO's, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the Imceo podcast.

[00:00:47.42] - Gresham Harkless

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the Imceo podcast, and I have an awesome guest on the show today. I have Kadeem. Leslie, Kadeem, excited to have you on the show.

[00:00:55.92] - Kadeem Leslie

Hey, everyone. I'm looking forward to this conversation. It's going to be great.

[00:00:59.00] - Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. It's going to be great because Kadeem's doing so many great things. So I'm super excited to have you on the show. And, of course, before we jumped into the conversation, I want to read a little bit more about Kadeem so you can hear about some of the awesome things that he's been working on. And Kadeem is an entrepreneur, real estate investor, author of bestseller, full student, and an educator on financial freedom. His companies manage over $7 million assets under management. His philosophy of full challenges people to live their best year every year while maximizing their time, impact, physique, earnings, and happiness in the process. He is also an accomplished cellist, having played for over ten years for many heads of states. And I absolutely love everything that Kadim is doing. I was reading a little bit more, preparing for this, and he grew up in Jamaica. It was a feature cellist and performed for visiting heads of states, also at Seton hall as well, too. So he's doing so many awesome things. He's joining us from Brazil as well, too. We kind of. We briefed a little bit upon, like, how he started off his day, which was super awesome. And he's also under the age of 30, which I think is absolutely phenomenal. So, Kadim, excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the Imco community?

[00:02:04.98] - Kadeem Leslie

I am so ready to speak to the imceo community. So thank you for that wonderful introduction, by the way. That's great.

[00:02:11.12] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Well, like I always say, like, I. You did all the hard work I'm just asking all the questions. So I guess to kick everything off, let's rewind the clock, hear a little bit more on how you got started when I call your SEO story.

[00:02:21.71] - Kadeem Leslie

So it's actually interesting. I got started. I think there are two origin stores that I have. Yeah, I'll call them origin stores because, you know, it depends on which timeline you want to start at. But my first ever business was actually when I was 14, maybe 15 years old. You know, I was coming up on my birthday, and I decided, hey, you know, instead of getting. Or maybe it was Christmas, my birthday is in November, so it's Christmas, birthday, same period of time. But then I decided, hey, you know what? Instead of us doing something for Christmas this year, and I, you know, telling everybody what I want, how about we put together gift bags for people and give them to the homeless? And so then what I did was I got other people in the church at the time on the same team. We got 100 gift bags, we put toys in there for little kids, and then we went on the road, walked the streets on a Saturday morning, right? And then we gave these gift bags away. And that was one of my first time fundraising, you know, managing people, having to communicate, leadership, strategy, marketing. Right. So that was my first business, and I didn't realize that until years after. But then the second time, you know, my second, I suppose, origin story of how, you know, little bit more connected to where I am right now was that I was in college and I did not have any money. And so to afford rent, right, what I decided to do was to move out of my room, sleep on the couch of the single family house that I was living at the time, and then rent my room out. I actually put my room up on Airbnb, vrbo, Craigslist, just to try to make rent. So I figured, you know, if I could stay somewhere that's warm, I'm not sure if you know, anything pretty cold. And so I know if I could stay somewhere that's warm, sleep on the couch, I have no problem because I get to be in college, you know, and I had a full scholarship, so then all I needed to do was figure out rent. And then. So I put that on air. First month, I was able to make my rent. By month three, I was making double my rent. Crazy, right? Sorry. Happening so fast. And then what happened after that is that I got more bedrooms and we got more houses. We started expanding out of state to other countries, blew up really, really quickly. And so then that's what actually got me into real estate, really solidified my entrance into entrepreneurial world, got my first six figures, got to my first seven figures, and then, you know, here we are. So nice.

[00:04:47.26] - Gresham Harkless

I absolutely love that.

[00:04:48.32] - Kadeem Leslie

And.

[00:04:48.72] - Gresham Harkless

But I love how that, I guess, creative problem solving, I'll call it that, kind of came to you as you got older and realized there was a solution to a problem that you have, and you were able to kind of take that and run with it. And, I imagine, help out so many other people in much of the same way.

[00:05:03.22] - Kadeem Leslie

Absolutely. So, you know, on the vein of helping other people right now, you know, what I like to do is, one, I have so many free material that I give away. You know, just free trainings, free courses, free books, free materials. There are free materials on my website. There's free material on my YouTube, on my instagram. I just love giving away free information right now. But, you see, we didn't have that type of mindset, you know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, to try and understand this debt problem. And so what it is now is that now I get to educate people, actually, here's how you use it. Here is the break even rule. Right here is the having the emergency fund rule. Right here is how you keep yourself safe. Here is how you go to the bank and get $100,000. And then here is the kicko, what to do with it after you have it, right? Because that's. That's also important. And so, you know, you know, all this information, you know, just, you know, because I know that having the right information is just so helpful, and it's different to read it in a book, but when you can have somebody that's in front of you and talking to you and you can see their story and you can see, hey, you know, this person is from here, and I'm following.

[00:06:09.37] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I almost wonder if that's, like, part of, like, your secret sauce, your ability to be able to kind of see the. The multifaceted. I'll use ways that you're able to kind of leverage. I think so many times when you take care of me being b and b, you're just thinking, okay, how do I rent my home or, you know, part of my. Whatever it might be, but just understanding, like, there sounds like there's multiple opportunities, maybe multiple streams that could be built if you're able to do that. So do you feel like your ability to be able to kind of understand that and then go deep is really part of, like, what sets you apart and makes you need.

[00:06:39.22] - Kadeem Leslie

Well, here's the thing, you know, it's really about getting creative. Okay, so then let me give you a scenario, right? This is actually something that we did, right? You can take one property, right? Let's say you have an unfinished basement or an unfinished attic. Finish the attic or finish the basement. Well, sorry, I misspoke. Let's say you have a finished basement or a finished attic. So, you know, it just needs, you know, some cleaning. But, you know, it's habitable. People can stay there without, you know, without dying, you know. Right. So you're not going to put someone up there to live. What you're actually going to do is turn it into a podcast studio, right? Because now we have a gold rush with so many people starting podcasts, right? So then you don't need to start a podcast necessarily if you want to get into the podcast space. But you understand that not everybody has the money to invest into podcast equipment, but people still want to start podcasts. So then what we did was understand, hey, if we have this podcast page, which we still have for rent in Atlanta, if you set up this space, make it really nice, make it really presentable, buy all of the microphone equipment, and all you have to do is rent the space per owl. You can have Airbnb in one part of the house, put it on pair space so people can rent it by the Owl for a podcast studio. So you have that running in another part of the house. And if you have the back lawn, you can rent that as a separate event space for small weddings. And you also have extra parking spaces. I forgot what the app is called, but there's a parking space app that you can put. I wish I remembered that right now. But you can also rent the parking spaces, especially if you are in cities where parking is very hard. There's so many ways that you can make money just from one location. If you're thinking that way. You can also rent pools, by the way, in the same way.

[00:08:28.48] - Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hackathen. So this could be like an app, a book, or even a habit that you have, but what is something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:08:41.04] - Kadeem Leslie

You know, I constantly walk, and that may sound, that may sound something that you didn't expect, but constantly walking is one of the things that really. And driving. But what it is is the ability to put my brain just so. It's actually two parts. I read constantly, and so I've been reading a book a week for about a decade. So I've been doing it for a long time. And so you stuff your brain, which is, you know, think of it as a garden. You put all of these seeds on your garden, but it's, it's just seeds on, on the ground. It's not really doing anything yet. But what happens is that the plants, when they are pulling for something, they pull from what you already laid down. And that's what the unconscious brain is doing. And so then my walks allow my unconscious brain to pull from my conscious brain. And so it's a session that I have to go out and I have to not think about anything. And then during that time, so many business ideas, problems, solutions, they come. I will say to someone, you know, hey, give me 1 second, let me go for a walk and I promise you I'll have an answer by the time I come back. I work just like that. And so that's one of the things that constantly clears my mind. Going to the gym might be that for somebody else listening to music on a walk, driving, taking a shower, you know, different people have something that's similar, but really it's just allowing your unconscious brain to, I suppose, release the gears from your unconscious brain. So can it kind of go so that it can go freely and take from your conscious brain in a really, really creative ways that you wouldn't be able to do consciously.

[00:10:29.02] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I absolutely love that hack. And so I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. You might have already touched on this, but this is a little bit more word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell one of those broke college students or somebody if you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

[00:10:46.04] - Kadeem Leslie

I would encourage my younger self to understand that the sooner that you get more capital and learn how to use it, the faster you can progress. Here's what I mean by that. I think so. You know, in high school, right, when people, you know, you know, mostly boys in high school, they start learning about the stock market, right? They start doing a couple things, oh, this is so cool. But they're trading on like a $100, you know, so it's very small. So then you might get a 20% gain, but that's only $20. But then the faster that you can get, you know, a million dollar credit line or you know, a million dollar cash line, right. Or a million dollar trade account, then you realize that you don't really need to go for 20% because 5% is $50,000. You see what I'm saying? And so. And it's so much easier to hit 5% than it is to hit 20%. And so the faster that you can build up that capital, you'll find that you can go so much faster. Because if you're playing the same 5% game, for example, Amazon doesn't have that half a profit margin, but they're doing so much that it's still billions of dollars. And that's their game. Same thing with Walmart. This is like 1015 percent profit margins, if that. Right. Smaller businesses, they're getting 40% margins, 50% margins, but they're small. So then they don't need to go for these big margins because they're making so much. So again, if you're really thinking about where you're starting from, education, because you're going to need to know what to do with that capital and then try to get capital which doesn't have to be yours. Right. You can partner with other rich people, get them to understand that, hey, you have a plan. You've been reading, you've been growing, you've been talking, you've been testing for this period of time. So you have this plan. You want to try it out, get capital, start, and then constantly educate yourself, because the difference between where you are now and the person that you want to be is a completely different person. And the gap is called education and knowledge. That's it.

[00:13:09.62] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And so I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition, what it means to be a CEO. Our goal is to have different, quote unquote, CEO's on the show. So, Kadeem, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:13:20.95] - Kadeem Leslie

Being a CEO is actually a burden. It's actually a burden. And I don't think many people think about it that way, but I think people glamorize what a CEO is. You know, I get to be in charge of, you know, I get to be the boss, you know, and earn a lot of money. But what actually happens for CEO's that CEO's are on call 24/7 right? They don't have vacations. And even on vacation, you have to call the CEO. There's a problem. You don't not call the CEO. So if anything happens, you have to return. That's one. And every CEO on the planet is on call 24/7 right. Because that's just their job. That's why they get paid. Second, anything that someone else doesn't want to do you have to do it? Because that's what you're paid for. And that's, you know, all of the stuff that gets left behind when the garbage is cleared, that's your job. That's not glamorous at all. Again, that's why you get paid, but that's also your job. And so, you know, I think what most people think about when they think about CEO is actually being an owner, being a business owner, because an owner can hire a CEO. And that's very different, right. Because when you're owning, you're getting the profits and you're giving advice, or your investor, you get profits, you give advice. I think that's what most people think a CEO is. But a CEO is actually a very hard job, but it's a privilege to be able to serve people. And so then that's why, yes, on one hand, I think it's a burden, but it's also because you have such a high burden, which I would argue some of the greatest figures in history had big burdens on their shoulders. Martin Luther King, Jesus, name it. Right? Because it's such a burden. It's also a privilege to be able to live on that type of level. Because sometimes, depending on the CEO that you're talking about, that's delivering on a global scale. And that's actually pretty cool. So nice.

[00:15:24.80] - Gresham Harkless

I absolutely love that. Well, Kadim, truly appreciate that. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people get a hold of you find about all the awesome things that you.

[00:15:39.13] - Kadeem Leslie

Absolutely. Well, you know, right now, I do have so much free material for you. So I'm going to encourage you to go to my YouTube. My YouTube is Kadeem rich journey. My Instagram is iamcade underscore. There are materials in the bio of both of these places. I have free training for you. I will show you how to get your first property for free. Right? I will show you how to think about, rethink about money. I will teach you about financial literacy. I will teach you about credit, how to go to the bank and get your 1st $50,000. I teach you that for free.

[00:16:13.24] - Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you so much, Kadeem. To make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well, too, so that everybody can find out about the Instagram, YouTube, all the awesome things that you're doing. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:24.15] - Kadeem Leslie

Same to you. Take care.

[00:16:25.73] - Intro

Thank you for listening to the imceo podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at Imceo Co. Imceo is not just a phrase, it's a community. Check out the link latest and greatest apps, books and habits to level up your business at Ceohacks co. This has been the Imceo podcast with Gresham Harkness Junior. Thank you for listening.